Tencent to limit some mobile gamers to an hour of play time per day |
- Tencent to limit some mobile gamers to an hour of play time per day
- One month of full time indie development - what did I learn?
- 6502 source code for BBC Micro game Crazee Rider from 1987 is released
- Mining systems in games explored. What makes them fun (for me) and when to bother dedicating development resources to it.
- How To Get A Job In The Game Development Industry
- Itch.io now has a Postmortem tag you can search through
- Unity Roadmap
- Does anybody have experience with setting up devkitPro in a linux environment?
- A 'year in retrospect' post on my dev blog
- Looking for info on hiring a programmer with a small budget.
- Need some pointers on how to approach Enemy AI for top down game.
- What other YouTube channels are there that explains the tech behind games? Much like how Digital Foundry is for graphics, I'd love to hear about animations (RDR2 was a prodigious feat) and other aspects of game development.
- What's your workflow for task tracking?
- Godot 3.1 Thirdperson Shooter
- Sprite animation issues - Unity
- Unity 2018 - SpriteShape or Ferr2D?
- School recomendations
- Monitor setup (number, size, orientation, monitor arm/stand etc.) for gamedev?
- How time consuming is learning coding?
- First experience with a mobile game studio - how to approach.
- How easy is it to modify a completed 3d character????
| Tencent to limit some mobile gamers to an hour of play time per day Posted: 06 Nov 2018 12:25 AM PST |
| One month of full time indie development - what did I learn? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 02:34 AM PST This post consists:
Hi I'm a solo full time developer since October. Previously I had worked almost 3 years part time for multiple smaller project and one bigger RPG game. I also have background as a full time web developer but making a web game wasn't really my way. To the point. I wanted to share my thoughts about full time indie development on a mobile puzzle game called Sole Light. The post might be a bit long, so sorry for that. How did my typical day look like before going full time?Basically, at least 8 hours of software development for financial sector - web technologies. You know, weird stuff and a lot of financial nomenclature. But quite fine experience for a young thug like me. After that, getting back home, dabbing with Unity and learning C#, as I knew only javascript, something about 3 or 4 hours. And it lasted like that almost 2.5 years. How does it look like now?Now after a whole month of full time development I'd say I'm happy. I get to work, have a cup of coffee, read gamasutra or reddit for a while, then search for some inspiration in other games, movies, design videos. Set up goals for a day and push forward my large milestones. Right now it's finishing a first short demo. About more details ask me in comments or private message if you'd like to know. Now, time for stats.I managed to finish 26 tasks some of them being more like stories and consisted more subtasks. Which gives me 1,13 task per day. And they mostly were programming features, designing levels and puzzles, tweaking art style and fixing bugs. Last week was preparing a demo which was a huge story that consists 3 subtasks and one is not finished yet. I didn't count the time for updating social media or posting on reddit or facebook. But it took me some time also. Some examples
What about Social Media? Right before going full time my accounts had:
Now they have:
That is 175 more Twitter followers, 60 facebook page likes and 37 Instagram follows. My conclusion is that Twitter is the easiest tool to involve people but not a best way to get likes for posts but it depends if it goes viral. Facebook is necessary as people often ask for it but I don't see the potential yet, I believe it's helpful after a game release and Instagram is kinda difficult to stop followers as they quickly come and go away, but with proper hashtags you can achieve a lot of likes and be featured by other accounts that post indie games which happened to me. All of that during one month. What went right?I had a plan. I sticked to it and it went really well. After one month I'm working on a short demo and I'm planning to release it for interested testers.I managed to add almost 10 features and fixes that people suggested me after posting my first videos on Facebook groups and here on reddit. Which is nice. I'm better at posting in social media and my posts get more audience almost every time. With any other post I there were less critique and more positive feedback. I learned to do an evaluation process and I answered myself such questions:
What went wrong?There were difficult moments during self organising. I had problems with deciding which stuff to do first. I have to update my global plans as there are more possibilities now, I couldn't find any time to do so. I'm still not sure about art style and graphics, I like it a lot, it's aesthetic and clean but it lacks something... There are days I can't do much.. I get angry too easy. Further plansI have a plan to finish a demo this week and give it to testers play it. Growing up audience and interesting more people.Make a proper website and brand.Improve current mechanics and add new levels. I guess that's all folks. I hope you find it useful. Let me know in comments if you have any questions or just for discussion. Have a great day! TLDR; I went full time one month ago and describe how was it before and now, stats and what went right and wrong past month. [link] [comments]  |
| 6502 source code for BBC Micro game Crazee Rider from 1987 is released Posted: 06 Nov 2018 01:27 AM PST |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 09:00 AM PST I was watching a Star Citizen video that talked about mining being added to the game. It looked like the mining mechanics are essentially the same as World of Warcraft. Poke at a clearly labeled bit of rock with a magic laser until it either disappears or your inventory is full. I'd be happy to be corrected and hear there's more to it, or more coming. Is there space based mining or planetary only? How do you find what you want to mine? In X3 you'd poke at an asteroid with a magic laser and get some goodies, it'll split and you poke at the remainders and repeat until its gone. Finding the asteroids was pretty simple, go to a clearly labelled spot on the map and start poking. You get pure elements in your ship's cargo. You could also install AI in ships you own to automate this process if I remember correctly. Elite didnt have mining when I played it just after launch. It was added at some point and I believe it's going through changes. Anyway the reason I bring it up is that I'm interested in mining and refining as game processes but basically every game I've played oversimplifies it and makes it a sucky boring time sync that's far less profitable and entertaining than anything else in the game you could be spending your time on. My thesis is that games should simulate more of the process if they want to represent it in the game at all. Though it might seem boring to many, having more of the process invites opportunities for a different kind of fun than shooting faces or space ships. Optimizing a process can be deeply satisfying. Seeing a product come out of a process you spent time on is deeply satisfying. Sitting back and watching it work once you've set it all up is deeply satisfying. Then of course you notice something that could work better! (Factorio found this 'button' and presses it hard. Actual mining in the game is abstracted but the game clearly understands the fun behind developing and optimizing and process.) A few games have done it pretty well. I'll look at 2 very different ones. [i]Star Wars Galaxies[/i] (near launch, I dont know if they changed the systems significantly): By mining here I mean most resource collection including gasses and energy. First you need to find it. You pull out your handy dandy scanner, tune it to what you're interested in and start moving. You're looking for hot spots that get the percentage up as high as possible. Found a hot spot that got up to 30%? Maybe pass and keep looking, go deeper into the wilds, hope you have a speeder or beast to make this faster! Found a spot you like? Cool, take some samples directly to have something to show for it, now set up an appropriate harvester. If I remember these give you pure elements over time. Add more harvesters for more output but understand you're getting farther from the ideal spot, so the output isnt as good. The harvesters also need energy, so ideally you've got a small network of spaces you own and you're shuttling energy around and making pickup collections. The main player input is exploration and construction and time spent relaying items. The output is pure elements for crafting, so its basically input to another crafting discipline. [i]Dwarf Fortress[/i]: To make many things you need metal. You can trade for it or you can dig it up and process it. To dig it up you need to find it first. So there's a speculation step. You dig long lines under the ground hoping to hit a twisting vein of something like Galena or Tetrahedrite or Hematite. These are minerals created by planetary processes. They're impure elements that bind up molecules of Silver, Copper, Tin, Iron in various ratios. The dwarves will mine out a vein and bring back the rocks which need processing in a Smelter. Command the dwarves to Smelt Galena and they'll output bars of pure silver after a time. Don't forget fuel for the forges like charcoal or maybe you got lucky enough to strike a vein of coal. It's a pretty good system. Finding ore veins is exciting because it's hard to find and it's valuable. You can make swords, armor, traps, coins, jewelry and so much more with them. You can also make alloys like Bronze. There's not much to automate though and they make the steps pretty simple. The main player input is the exploration to find the veins. The output is high value (monetarily or functionally) pure metal bars. The bottom line for me: Mining and crafting in game is a different kind of fun to the action based gameplay of the rest of a game. Putting in rock poking for rock poking's sake and just letting you sell the output or use it in a simple recipe is taking it so un-seriously that it's not even worth doing. Spend the development resources elsewhere if that's as deep as it's going to go. Any other well done mining/crafting systems in games? [link] [comments]  |
| How To Get A Job In The Game Development Industry Posted: 06 Nov 2018 02:12 AM PST I just wrote an article about How To Get A Job In The Game Development Industry. I talk about what you need to do and have in order to apply for jobs and some tips and tricks on how to do it. And also I added a case study with one of my students where he talks about what he did that got him a job in a game studio. Click on the link below to read about it: https://medium.com/@fahirmehovic90/how-to-get-a-job-in-the-game-development-industry-4ceeef60a13c [link] [comments]  |
| Itch.io now has a Postmortem tag you can search through Posted: 05 Nov 2018 12:41 PM PST |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 07:02 AM PST |
| Does anybody have experience with setting up devkitPro in a linux environment? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 11:40 AM PST I want to develop a gba game and was told that the devkitARM toolchain is one of the better libraries since its all C and a dash of assembly (which can make for a nice embedded systems project). But I am on a gentoo machine and I feel uncomfortable using their installation methods (install another package manager and then install the libraries using that one instead) because I am afraid it will mess with my system. Any advice or suggestions? What other libraries may be good candidates? [link] [comments]  |
| A 'year in retrospect' post on my dev blog Posted: 06 Nov 2018 06:12 AM PST |
| Looking for info on hiring a programmer with a small budget. Posted: 05 Nov 2018 10:40 PM PST Hey guys so I've been working on this game for about 5 months https://twitter.com/HeroEXEGame. Overall the development is going well, we're working with some cool voice actors, the art team is killing it, but the programming team is falling beyond. I have two programmers ones a full time student in senior year and one works full time as a software developer and theyre both my friends. I totally understand they can't work as often as we can, but I also have to consider the game. So basically Im looking for info on how to hire a programmer within my budget. I 100% self finance the game on my 14$ an hour job so my budget is tight. Can I pay per system coded or feature implemented or do I have to pay per hour? I dont mind doing Rev share, but Im not sure how much money the game will make and I prefer to just pay people. Any info would be super helpful. The game is being developed in Unity. I also dont mind saving up for a few months to hire a programmer for a couple weeks. [link] [comments]  |
| Need some pointers on how to approach Enemy AI for top down game. Posted: 06 Nov 2018 05:27 AM PST I'm making a 2d top down game similar to hyper light drifter/dark souls. I have a bunch of components for various stuff such as heath, move etc which the player script uses. I'd like to reuse them for the enemies as well. But I don't know how to structure a class that'll be able to handle various enemy behaviours. What's the recommended approach for this? Creating a separate class for every type of enemy doesn't seem like a good idea. Pathfinding is also another problem. Since the game's 2d I can't use navmesh to take the easy way out. Would a* be performing enough if there are only 20 enemies on screen at any time? Also, bosses in my game need to behave differently from regular mobs. For example, some bosses might jump around the battle area. How do I handle all of these different behaviours? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 05 Nov 2018 05:46 PM PST I've found several channels dedicated to simply "game design" such as Mark Brown's, but I'd love a developer's perspective on the technical innovations that certain games have begot. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| What's your workflow for task tracking? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 02:12 AM PST I just have a big word document with a list of tasks I need to do for a particular game (maybe like 50 or so at one time) and then before a coding session I'll write like 10 of them that interest me in a physical notebook. Then I'll usually do them based on the quickest or easiest first and cross them off in the notebook as I go. Using pen and paper just feels better and more satisfying to me for some reason. I'll also write down more notes as the session goes and I think of other things I have to do. At the end of the session any new ideas or things I have to do that I've written in the notebook, I'll then write in the big word document. What is your workflow like? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 10:55 AM PST |
| Sprite animation issues - Unity Posted: 06 Nov 2018 10:39 AM PST Hi guys, I'm new to unity and I've been following a tutorial to animate my sprites. (2D) I've managed to get my character to move around the screen when receiving input from WASD. I then set up a blend tree with animations for a downward walk animation and another blend tree with idle animations. (And connected them with transitions) So the sprite starts in Idle and begins to play the walking animation when moving either down or up but upon key release it won't go back to it's idle state. How do I fix this? I want the sprite to run downwards if S is pressed and on key release go into the standing idle animation (facing downwards) until the S key is pressed again [link] [comments]  |
| Unity 2018 - SpriteShape or Ferr2D? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 10:23 AM PST Hello, I have been wondering if it would be better to use Unity's new SpriteShape or Ferr2D. SpriteShape is still new but is made by Unity so you could submit a bug report or get more support. Ferr2D has been around since 2013 so it will much more advanced than Unity's tool (at least for a while). Excluding the price (Ferr costs $30), Do you think it is better to use Unity's tool as it improves or Ferr's externally created tool? I believe use cases of both tools is about the same. I appreciate any opinions on the matter. SpriteShape https://forum.unity.com/threads/spriteshape-preview-package.522575/ Ferr2D https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/level-design/ferr2d-terrain-tool-11653 [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Nov 2018 10:20 AM PST Hey guys, So I was looking for advice. I'm looking to go back to school and get a degree. I was set on Full Sail, but the more i looked into it the less appealing it was. I was originally going to go in for a BA in Game Design, but alot of people make it clear that its ok, not great. A more prospective candidate will have a degree in Computer Sciences etc. Due to current circumstance, Im looking to attend an Online school What are your guys thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Monitor setup (number, size, orientation, monitor arm/stand etc.) for gamedev? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 02:18 AM PST How many monitors, what size and what orientation (landscape/portrait) do you use? Also do you use a monitor arm or regular laptop stand? Any specific monitors you would recommend? Any other accessories you'd recommend that make gamedev more comfortable? [link] [comments]  |
| How time consuming is learning coding? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 05:36 AM PST I've wanted to dip my toes into coding for a while, purely as a hobby and possibly create something in Unity using C# over C++. However I keep putting it off because I feel like I would have to sink in a lot of time before I anywhere. Something I feel I have little of as I work as a compositor for films, which involves fair bits of overtime. I've just turned 26, so I am not too old to start learning, I hope... I guess the goal of this is to create something in my spare time over 5 years for fun, just want to make sure it's possible? [link] [comments]  |
| First experience with a mobile game studio - how to approach. Posted: 06 Nov 2018 05:15 AM PST Hello all, So long story short we made a small browser based game that we want to port into mobile. We have amazing tracking up until now, 30% referral rate, 0.20 cents CAC, people keep asking us for the delivery date etc. However I have never talked with a game studio or any other "3rd party/outsource" development team, so I am in the black in regards to well.. everything! do studios have each their own style? can we define the style? what is the cost? do they work on equity? on revenue %? can they tell us more about our metrics/target customer/market analysis? How do I approach them? It would be great if anyone has experience with outsourcing the development to a game studio or if someone works in one that could give us any information or tips! Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| How easy is it to modify a completed 3d character???? Posted: 06 Nov 2018 08:54 AM PST Lets say I have a fully completed character, all rigged, all unwrapped, and fully textured with the PBR set of materials. I haven't jumped in to try yet, but would it be difficult say to make the boobs bigger, or do small changes to the face geometry to get a different face, or slim the form. I assume this would result in having to also modify the UVs, bone skinning, and textures for all like 5 different maps... Is there a simple way? [link] [comments]  |
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