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    Youtuber hated my game - and I love it!

    October 23, 2018

    Youtuber hated my game - and I love it!

    Youtuber hated my game - and I love it!

    Posted: 22 Oct 2018 10:57 PM PDT

    There is old developers proverb:

    Don't listen to your users, but watch them closely as they use your software.

    A youtuber recently did a first impressions video on demo of my game that could be summarized as:

    I hate it, it's frustrating, there is nothing to do. Not recommended unless you like pain and suffering.

    Well, he didn't use these exact words, but I can imagine a Steam review just like that. But he didn't write a review, he recorded a video. And such video is pure feedback gold. I love it!

    Players don't understand how a game is designed. And that's fine, players should play the game, it's game developers job to design the game. But that means that when a player is summarizing his feedback, he focuses on different things than you would. That's why a written or described feedback will be misleading, but video - oh boy, I got a ton of data from that 40 minutes.

    Let me give specific examples:

    • Player claims that the game is too empty. But what do I see? I see that every time he is about to figure out some mechanics he encounters a scripted, demo-ending event. Those are too dense, not too rare! The feeling of emptiness comes from having to replay the introductory "fly to the right" section of the game over and over. Just by extending time before the scripted event takes place I could give the player more time to explore and perhaps discover something interesting. He did get quite well that he is supposed to go deeper into the ring for fun stuff, but demo kept interrupting him! I timed it by my own and my testers gameplay, and we have the controls figured out - new player needs more time. Easy fix - extend demo time, add some scripted not-fatal events to spice things up in the early stage.
    • A big oversight on my part - in the demo I completely hidden the strategy company management part of my game. It's not available at all, the company management screen is replaced by "thanks for playing" screen. Bad idea! I just replaced it with an overlay, showing the actual options that will be in-game. Costs me nothing and player is able to see what options will be there, if only by their names.
    • Player also figured out that overheating reactor is the core problem-mechanics in the game, but didn't figure out how to cool it down in the ring, just assumed that you will die every time it gets damaged. That's my oversight, and huge one! Adding automatic heat venting was easy and should hint the relevant mechanics.
    • While the player complained on how actual mining was frustrating, he actually figured all the mechanics out - and even found an efficient way to do it! The demo interrupted again, I imagine with 10 minutes more he could get a hold of the "mining in space" mechanics.
    • The mouse zoom is a huge oversight! While it's available in the version played, it is smoothed too much and player missed it! But it's not players fault, is it? So next version came out with zoom controls far more responsive.

    ...and these are just some examples, I got lot more from this recording.

    I also, with great joy, saw things I did right and actually worked hard to get right. Player did not mention them as he took them for granted, but things like showing where he should go, that he should dig the minerals, that the shiny ones are ones to look for, that ship moves with Newtonian mechanics.

    TL;DR: All video feedback is good feedback. Game developer will get 1000% more data from it that from any written feedback/review. Watch how your players play your game, you will never regret it.

    EDIT: The author of video is here with us!

    EDIT2: The game in question ΔV: Rings of Saturn. There is free demo on Steam.

    submitted by /u/koderski
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    Dissolve Shader Tutorial

    Posted: 22 Oct 2018 01:21 PM PDT

    Blender 2.8 : Rigging Low Poly Model

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 09:45 AM PDT

    Company offering me $1000 “Passion Grant” to learn to make games. Best way to spend it?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 09:36 AM PDT

    My current employer offers $1000 grants for a select few people to follow a non-work-related passion. I was selected and need to show them an itemized budget plan. What's the best "bang for my buck" with $1k? I'd like to ideally do an in-person course or seminar if possible. Live in Metro Washington DC area. I'm brand new to developing games other than jotting down my ideas for games/mechanics/etc... Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

    submitted by /u/souporthallid
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    MMO server architecture using Docker containers - The most basic Abstraction you can think of - A newbie discussion

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 05:29 AM PDT

    Hi, backend developer here. Not a game developer. I was wondering about something regarding MMO game servers development.

    Not login\Front server or even "realm list" server. Just the backend game servers, the ones that keep the logic of an "area" or map, and takes care of messages\events and area\map state.

    While I can look at MOBA and FPS in a simple manner of relaying messages and events between clients, I find it hard to do the same for MMO games, and I'll be glad if someone can give me some information on this.
    When I think of MMO servers, I try to break it down to these these VERY basic entities:

    1. Game state (players and npcs locations, players and npcs hp, npc states, etc)
    2. Event list (current and timed future events)
    3. Voice\chat relay

    Let's take a look at each of these components, as I see it:

    1. The game state is probably the most complex entity here. It should contain any info in the current map or large area. Each client sends the info to that "object" and in parallel, the game server knows to apply NPC logic and specs accordingly(NPC Tom has 5hp, Sara has 30). This keeps the player always in sync with what's going on around him\her.
    2. Event list should contain every event that goes on in the map. fights, quests being completed, world events and conversation steps (even conversations between player and npcs) and any event that should happen soon, according to predefined logic or time.
    3. Relay of voice or text chat is pretty straightforward.

    These led me to think about the implementation of MMO backend servers.

    and my questions are next:

    1. It seems to me that keeping the MMO server as simple as possible is a priority. In fps, for example, a lot of times when 2 players hit each other in the same (local) time (let's say each of them thinks he was the one shooting first because of server lag), the server "breaks even" and decides who got the kill. It's a simple backend logic to implement (something like - the first one in the event queue is the one that made the hit), which makes me believe that keeping a game server for a simple fps game (less than 30 players) should be a fairly "easy" job. And simple backend servers are something I'm trying to do all the time.
      So, my first question is this - are there any Docker fps game servers out there? (With persistent storage of course) I mean, they are very easy to implement simple basic server logic on. Most of the logic should be in the client anyway (Am I wrong here? does the server contain more logic than the client in MMO games?) , and the server just "breaks even" on some cases, and in other cases, it's just a really fast and reliable relay for messages and events.
      Docker containers can be great for scalability and High availability implementation. which leads me to the next question:
    2. Are there any Docker(swarm, kubernetes) depended MMO games servers? The main difference I can see with FPS or MOBA games, and MMO games is the number of players (and number of events and timed events).
      Is it possible to use docker containers (with persistent storage of course) with simple event triggering and relay(of game states and messages) between client and server - as game servers?
    3. Is my analysis of mmo games close to reality? Is most of the logic and content is client side, and the server only relays states and trigger events that are "ready" on the client side? Or does the server contains a lot more information and I totally missed everything? Because, when I think of "world events" in GW2 or FFXIV, I can imagine a simple service that triggers that event on the entire "server", which changes the game state and the user state, but it should be very "light" on the server, and most of the work should be in the client with "approvals" from the server.

    I'm not a game developer, but I am a backend developer. I would appreciate any comments from developers who have worked on MMOs and smaller multiplayer games :)

    Thank you!

    submitted by /u/Saikodan
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    How would you deal with negative reviews that make no sense?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 07:29 AM PDT

    Hello,

    Apologies in advance because this post may not be game related but developer related. I am Manpreet Singh - Creator of the notepad app called Smartynote- A smart notepad for dyslexia. Free version is available on playstore for an year now. As per demand, I released paid version of the app without ads. One of the user gave a negative review saying it auto installs some applovin malware on uninstalling Image of the review

    There are other couple of negative reviews but those i accept them because they talk about what my app lacks in. But this made me really upset and furious because it blames me for a thing that i didn't commit.

    So, What i did?

    I challenged her to prove the allegations. Because there could be several reasons that only her phone is behaving like this. Here the screenshot. I have self respect and dignity that i would never use such cheap tricks. I dont care even if google ban my account for using bad language. Please tell me if i wrong?

    How would you deal with these reviews.

    submitted by /u/Me_you_who
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    Amethyst Engine Update!

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 07:14 AM PDT

    Hey, we just updated the Amethyst engine to 0.9!

    There are a lot of new features, including 2D utilities, spritesheet support, networking, experimental editor and more!

    Read the blog here: https://www.amethyst.rs/blog/release-0-9/

    Join discord here: r/https://discord.gg/GnP5Whs

    submitted by /u/jojoredit
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    Unite LA 2018

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 09:54 AM PDT

    Is anyone else at the Unity conference? If so respond here and maybe we can try to meet up for a bit to pick each other's brains.

    submitted by /u/JerryDruid
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    Physics Engine for a Game Engine?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 09:00 AM PDT

    Hello,

    ​

    Simple question, what Physics Engine is best for use in a Game Engine?(My own Game Engine) Some things I am looking for:

    • Basic physics functionality ofc.(cubes, ravity, etc.)
    • Raytracing/raycasting
    • joints and restraints
    • Maybe support for 2d?
    • Softbody's?
    • Support for vehicles, thus wheels(raycast wheels like unity are good too), but native support for wheels would be best.
    • Free, opensource, good community for noobs like me.
    • Multi-platform, at least I need Linux, Windows and Android support. So I think it needs to be platform independent.

    I might have forgotten some things, but I hope you get the point. Now of course another big thing is reliability and accuracy, I want things to bounce, fall, and roll in a realistic way.(Well, so far that is possible in a simulation).

    I don't want NVIDIA Physx, because AFAIK they don't allow it to be used in Engines without paying them.

    ​

    I'm thinking about Bullet physics, as it seems to be the most popular one, and from the examples I tried it seems physically accurate.

    ​

    Do you guys have any recommendations?

    ​

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/timl132
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    MafiaEmpires V0.5a (mafiaempires.com) - Indie 3D browser crime MMO

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 10:00 AM PDT

    We've released version 0.5a of MafiaEmpires, you can play now for free at mafiaempires.com. It's a completely browser based lightweight 3D MMO that you can play anywhere anytime. We're a small two person indie studio based in London and would love some feedback! #indiegamedev #mmorpg #freemmo

    https://i.redd.it/s7ti0mpzsyt11.jpg

    submitted by /u/wizardsworkshop
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    SDL2 tutorial series

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 12:12 AM PDT

    All, I've started a new series of tutorials based on SDL2. There's not much there right now: the first tutorial only shows you how to open and close a window. But there is a series planned on how to make a basic 2D shoot 'em up. Thought some might find it helpful.

    https://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/tutorials/

    (there are some outdated SDL1 tutorials to be found here too, but these aren't recommended)

    submitted by /u/stephenjsweeney_
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    Best tool for action animation

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 09:30 AM PDT

    Hey guys, what kind of tool are you recommended for action animation ( Idle, Attack, Walk, Dead etc. ) i'm familiar with blender and maya animations system but wondering if there is maybe something else better? or easier to use for simple animations. I hear that Character studio in 3ds max are good and houdini but never tried it.

    submitted by /u/sizzonnz
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    Looking for guidance on transitioning into game development

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 06:54 AM PDT

    I've always been passionate about gaming, and I've done side work on console roguelikes and a bit of messing around in pygame. I think I would enjoy pursuing that passion as my day job, but I am concerned about actually going for it. I'm looking to pursue native PC/mac/linux development. I've never found myself particularly enthralled with mobile gaming. Specifically, I'm looking for guidance on transitioning into game development:

    1. Will I earn enough to maintain quality of life for my family (father of 2, pursuing adoption presently)?
      I have a great salary (120k) partially because I've been doing this for 10 years and I'm pretty adept, but I'm uncertain any employer will see my background of experience and be willing to pay much more than a starting salary.

    2. Do game developers have flexibility for telecommuting? I'm not on the east/west coast, so I figure any chance at finding a gig will require either remote work or relocating.

    3. Do you guys have any advice on things that I can be doing/researching/watching that would help me transition?
      Design patterns, experience with specific engines, algorithms, languages, libraries, etc.

    Edit: some specifics, as my original question was really vague:

    I enjoy software development and as I've done it more and more I think I've begun to dial in on what I enjoy most: the cycle of being able to build something, hear that (some) users love it, and then getting feedback of "oh you know what else would be great...". I've already got this in my current role, but with one big drawback: I've been in multiple types of industry (healthcare, manufacturing, etc.) and users aren't even passionate about their industry, let alone the software they use for it.

    Gaming, on the other hand, is an industry (that seems) full of passion both on the producing side and on the consuming side. I want my work to be driving me, even when I'm at home. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my work for what it is, but over the years I've realized that while I'm passionate about developing, its difficult to maintain a passion for the actual product when literally no one else is.

    I'm a full time engineer working primarily in various web-tech stacks, and I've got a fairly broad base in terms of experience. If its at all helpful for you all to answer the above questions, you'll find a bit more about my background, education & experience in the spoiler below:

    I'm a full stack engineer in every sense of the term. Professionally, I've done server provisioning/admin (windows/unix), database provisioning/admin (postgres, mysql, sqlsrv), backend development (C#, PHP), frontend development (React, Angular, etc). I've developed in command-driven and request-driven architectures alike, and worked mostly on big enterprise sass solutions. I'm pretty pragmatic, and I know how to approach problems from practical vectors; as a reference, I interviewed with Google and did quite well, save for the technical evaluation of python (which I was new to at the time). I've worked in both object-oriented and functional environments without a strong preference between the two. I'm 29 with a B.S. in Computer Science and Math. I've worked - though do not prefer - the management side of things, having spent a couple of years managing a team (hiring, firing, the whole shebang) as well as a year in product management. I definitely prefer the engineering side of things.

    submitted by /u/ContentRead
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    Where do you draw the line for Early Access?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 12:50 AM PDT

    Hey guys, I am working on a multiplayer only game and trying to figure out what users would consider a decent amount of features for Early Access.

    We are a team of 2 developers, with 5-10 years of experience in Animation / Game Dev, but this is our first indie game launch — we've been working on it full time for the past year.

    The game is a hero based top down shooter. In total, I want it to have 12 characters, grouped in 3-ish classes (runners, tankers and assault). I say '-ish' because all heroes can use any of the 12-15 weapons in the game, they just differ in stats (life, armour and stamina) and passive attributes (jump distance, regenerate faster, 2x pistol damage etc.). Maps are mid-size, and all maps will be compatible with 4-5 game modes: 5v5 elimination, CTF (5v5), team deathmatch (4v4), free-for-all (6-8 players), tournament (2v2).

    I know everyone wants to pay for a finished game, but where would you draw the line for selling it in early access — how many maps, how many heroes, how many game modes? (game modes are easier to implement than to build more maps).

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/SandraState
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    How do you actually pay your teammates?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 03:07 AM PDT

    My game is nearly done and we already discussed that I'll pay them a certain percentage each of the net profit.

    • Is there some kind of software or service to automatically calculate their share of the profit every two weeks and send it to them automatically?

    • Are you supposed to actually take some time out of your schedule every two weeks and manually calculate their share of the revenue?

    • Which service will add the least unnecessary fees when sending money? Paypal is popular but it likes to add hidden fees everywhere. I will have to send money across borders. Direct deposits?

    • Assuming I'm selling the game under my own name and the game's revenue goes to its own specific bank account, do I have to declare all of it when doing taxes or only after I pay my teammates? It wouldn't make sense for me to pay taxes on their part of the revenue, yet all the revenue will accumulate under the game's bank account until I pay them.

    Thank you to anyone that responds, even just by referring me to somewhere else. I really appreciate it. I don't have any budget for an accountant by the way. I'm already seeking help for these questions offline. I just want advice from other gamedevs here even if the answers wouldn't be necessarily the best I could have.

    submitted by /u/omurice_
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    Is the indie market flooded with pixel art games?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 11:28 AM PDT

    Hey everyone

    ​

    I'm starting to develop an angled top-down action adventure (much like 2d Zelda titles), but I can't decide the direction for the art.

    I have the impression that my game wouldn't pop-out on Steam, if a choose the pixel-art style (but at the same time, I can't think in anything else).

    ​

    Do you think it still possible to get people attention with a pixel art game like that (with good made pixel art\*)

    ​

    ​

    submitted by /u/vcappa
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    Making Pixel Tilesets

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 03:53 AM PDT

    Maybe this is the wrong sub reddit but I'm not quite sure as its a crossover to do with pixel art.

    I was gonna make some tile sets in Photoshop, whats the best way to go about it?

    Should I just make for example a 32x32 new project and make a dirt tile? Or do I need to make a grid of multiple 32x32 squares?

    I was looking at this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaEEujLtsr8 but it seems pretty confusing to be able to make it all interactive like that. I just want to be able to make seamless tiles really

    I'm interested because I'm gonna make a 2d topdown game and want to create my own sprites/assets for fun.

    Thanks

    submitted by /u/PixelTiles
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    How big is the Indie Arcade at Dreamhack?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 11:20 AM PDT

    Anyone know how big of a deal the Indie Arcade at Dreamhack is? Going to the one in Atlanta, and wondering how much merch to order/flyers to print. Maybe an estimate on the amount of attendees / people that visited your booth?

    submitted by /u/croirefly
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    Is the Work-Life Balance in the Games Industry as Bad as Everyone Says?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 11:19 AM PDT

    With the recent stories about Rockstar's crunch, overworking and generally poor work-life balance, having a job in the games Industry has been a hot topic. It seems like if anyone even mentions game development on Reddit, you'll get 5 people talking about how horrible a game development job is. This leads me to believe some of this is overblown, and people are just repeating what they've heard without any actual experience.

    With that being said, I want to hear from people in the industry. Is the crunch that bad, and is the industry that cruel? Do you like your job? Do you have good work-life balance? Even if you do have a poor work-life balance, is it worth it for you? I want to hear everyone's experiences!

    I ask as someone who has held a traditional software development role and decided coding for something I didn't care about was crushing. I had great work-life balance and felt cared for by the company but the work itself was so uninteresting to me it sent me into a bad place mentally for a period of time. Since then, I have shifted my focus to trying to get a programming job in the games industry. While these stories haven't deterred me, they've made the road seem a little scarier.

    Thanks for any responses!

    submitted by /u/throoownm
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    Suggestions for a marketer for Indie Mobile Game?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 11:18 AM PDT

    ​

    https://i.redd.it/ccty5an78zt11.gif

    Hey guys, my mobile game is almost ready for launch. Problem is, I aint got no audience. I'd like to ask the good people from this subreddit for any suggestions on people who know the in and outs of Android market for indie games? I've been doing some research and all I could find are these big corporate guys who worked with all these big corporate companies. I'm looking for someone to work with on a personal level! If you got someone you know, please hit me up! Thanks guys appreciate ya

    submitted by /u/alonski22
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    Q: Do MMORPG servers use the latest in "reactive stream" non-blocking asynchronous architecture, instead of using threads for each user?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 11:13 AM PDT

    I wonder if there are things that the "enterprise" programming community can learn from the MMORPG programming community, in their experience with reactive streams.

    (The basic idea being, use a dispatcher to give messages to non-blocking workers, instead of having threads manage their own context-switching and synchronization.)

    submitted by /u/Facts_About_Cats
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    How can we get youtubers to hate our games too?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 02:20 AM PDT

    Re: today's great r/gamedev post, Youtuber hated my game - and I love it - what are good ways to get youtubers & video reviewers to play our games, or do we just need to reach out to them individually?

    ​

    Not even for exposure or publicity, just to get lots of video feedback. Don't care if they have 2 subscribers including their budgie.

    submitted by /u/iPhoneShock
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    Is there a need for a plot designer or writers in the indie game market?

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 10:36 AM PDT

    I love two things in life more then all other hobbies, gaming and writing. Now I like the IDEA of make a game but I'm not intrested in that level of work when it comes to code.

    (And yes I know there's much more then that and I applaud you all for that but it's the coding that really scares me.)

    Now what I am both good at and enjoy is writing and planning. Whether its dialogue, plot, lore or even the codex entries people read I can write for it.

    My question is thought, do indie developers need or want someone with only writing/planning talents or is it relatively a small market?

    submitted by /u/Rare_Verosia
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    Working with a wiki for a game production

    Posted: 23 Oct 2018 12:34 AM PDT

    Hi everyone !

    I have just started developing a tactical with a team of game designers, programmers and artists. As a game designer, I am used to working with complete GDDs, rarely sexy but always complete.

    It so happens that we will have very little time to devote to this project (about 2 months) and in this case, the GDD is not always the best solution (especially if we need to quickly pass information to the team). Intrigued for a long time by the use of a wiki, we decided to switch to Taiga for the organization of the project and the creation of the wiki. The problem is that the wiki on Taiga is far from being very pleasant, and after spending a lot of time on those of Into the Breach and Nuclear Throne, I must say that I really like the gamepedia approach. Unfortunately, I didn't find any way to use a private online version of gamepedia.

    Have any of you ever used a private wiki as part of a game development and if so, which one are interesting for a small team of students game developers.

    Thank you in advance!

    submitted by /u/SALUTCESTCOULE
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