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    Home Unlabelled Common Gamedev Mistakes: Part of my job is to review and playtest games and I frequently see people messing up the basics. Here’s a big list of Do’s and Don’ts for when you’re sending your game to someone.

    Common Gamedev Mistakes: Part of my job is to review and playtest games and I frequently see people messing up the basics. Here’s a big list of Do’s and Don’ts for when you’re sending your game to someone.

    March 28, 2019

    Common Gamedev Mistakes: Part of my job is to review and playtest games and I frequently see people messing up the basics. Here’s a big list of Do’s and Don’ts for when you’re sending your game to someone.

    Common Gamedev Mistakes: Part of my job is to review and playtest games and I frequently see people messing up the basics. Here’s a big list of Do’s and Don’ts for when you’re sending your game to someone.

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 02:04 AM PDT

    Context/Experience: I work for AirConsole, which is a web-based platform and its own "storefront". Developers send us games to be launched in our store, and I'm the person who primarily tests and reviews the games before launch. These tips are not exclusive to the platform tough and should be interesting/relevant for many hobby devs.
    Most recently, people sent us game prototypes for a contest where they could win $5000 (I tested almost 50 new games in two days), but I've also seen some of this stuff when people apply for funding for their games or submit them for review to be launched. Next time we ask people to send us games, we'll try to cover more of these issues in our documentation itself, but I figured the tips were general enough to be relevant for many people here.

    Again, many of these may sound super basic, but they keep happening, so there you go.

    Technical

    • Export and test your game early. This applies doubly when you're working with new tech, but it's just a fact that sometimes stuff works in the Unity Editor (or whatever engine, really) and then has issues in a build. Especially if you're working with a new type of tech or a new platform. Test the export as soon as you have something playable, and then test it again several days before the deadline.
    • Test your final build. I can't believe I have to say this, but when you upload your game somewhere and you have to submit a link to the build, test that build. Test if it downloads, opens and plays properly. Submitting a non-functional game (to any sort of review or pitch, but especially to a contest) can get you disqualified instantly.

    Visual & Audio

    We get many games from solo devs who make their own art and don't have the resources to work with artists. There are some basics you should get right even if you don't include grand "artwork" and plan to change the visuals later on.

    • Avoid using too many different fonts. I'd recommend setting a hard limit for two fonts in the whole game, for most cases. One heavier font for titles and one easily digestible font for slightly longer texts. Anything more will most likely be a distraction.
    • Avoid having too much text in one screen. Keep texts (instructions, explanations, set-ups) only as long as they need to be. A screen full of text is usually overwhelming.
    • Use all-caps text very sparingly and only ever for titles, emphasis or single line instructions, never for longer texts.
    • Regardless of whether or not you think of yourself as an artist, strive for consistency in your visuals. Consistency is what separates a mess from an art style, and any minimalism or scribbliness can look fantastic if you keep it consistent.
    • Fewer colors are better than many, especially if your game is already abstracted from realistic representation. Make your colors matter, consider if an element really needs to be a different color or if it might look better if it fits in with other elements.
    • Apply a comparable level of detail to your models and UI elements. Don't have big solid shapes in one corner and minute details in another.
    • Music is incredibly important in setting the mood for your game. Don't just choose a music track that you kind of like, use a soundtrack that evokes the exact feeling/mood you want players to feel when they first start your game. Also consider your game's setting in your selection: don't use electronic music for a fantasy game, don't use an epic orchestra for something mundane. (Unless that exact contrast is representative of your concept and artistic ambition, but then make sure you're really pulling it off and leaning all the way into it.)
    • Align your text. Don't just place it wherever, consciously place your text (and other UI elements) either right in the center, or align them wherever they are most appropriate. But do not just throw things into places at random. Be considerate in your composition.
    • If you want to make your game feel satisfying, polish is King. Give the player visual and audio feedback for every interaction, prominent enough to be satisfying, but subtle enough not to be distracting.
    • Use a color schemer tool. Just trust me, you are bad at picking colors. You may not think you're bad at it, but you probably are. Most people are. Color palette generators are your friend. Use them and stick to them.

    Design & Usability

    Many of these boil down to "make sure your game is understandable", but all of these bear reiterating in my opinion because so many people get this wrong.

    It's more extreme in my case because the games I have to review and launch are intended for a casual audience, but you cannot simply hide bad tutorialization and bad game design behind a "well it's for hardcore gamers". Difficulty is not the same as Frustration, and confusion is usually not fun.

    • Include instructions on how to play your game. Regardless of whether you're sending me an unfinished prototype or a submission for release, I cannot even begin to like your game if I have no clue what to do. If a proper tutorial is out of scope, include a single screen of simple directions/instructions.
    • Avoid having long setup menus and asking the player to make a ton of decisions before they know what those mean (especially for casual games!). Customization is neat, but the player should first be given the time to see what it's even for. A character selection is fine, but five different screens of selecting game mode, score system, control scheme, character class and game length are too much.
    • Ask people to proofread your texts, especially if you're not a native english speaker. Post it online somewhere if necessary, perhaps put together a playtesting group with people who speak different languages.
    • If you can somehow arrange it, organize playtesting sessions. And very important: don't tell your testers what to do. Let your game speak for itself, have testers think out loud and take note of where they struggle. You yourself are not a good judge for how easily understandable your game is.
    • If you want something from someone (publisher, platform etc) take their feedback seriously. If I tell you "your game is not understandable, you need to make sure casual players get it without previous knowledge" and your response is "well it's a really simple game though" or "well, it's just a difficult game", you're completely disqualifying yourself as someone I and my team want to work with.
    • Do not confuse understandability and accessibility with a low difficulty. Games can be super complex, but well explained for a casual user. Games can be incredibly difficult but super simple to understand. When I tell you your game is not accessible, saying "well it's hardcore" is not a valid response.
    • When providing instructions, be aware that "how to play?" and "what to do?" are two different questions that your introduction screen needs to answer. For example, in a platformer you would have to tell the player both "use the arrow keys to move and use space to evade enemies" and "reach the right end of the level before the time runs out." You instruction screen has to cover both aspects, and separately. Give the player a goal AND tell them how to reach it.

    I'm aware there are probably exceptions here and there to these rules, but more likely than not, your game is not as exceptional as you think it is. I hope some of your can draw a bunch of valid conclusions from this. Thanks for reading.

    Edit: I've also posted this as a twitter thread, if anyone prefers that format.

    submitted by /u/AliceTheGamedev
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    Recreated God of War's axe throw using Unity Engine!

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 05:00 AM PDT

    I'm so happy GDC videos are free.

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 09:58 AM PDT

    I've binged so many posts on GDC. I've watched every 2017 video so far, and I'm so glad. Its actually gotten me fired up to develop a game... then I realize I only make music and engineer electronics, haven't animated a thing in my life, know a lil bit of python, don't even know what a shader is let alone how to code it (I would probably just use open source shaders). I would be developing a game, putting my entire life and soul on the line for an excuse to write music for a game. So, for right now, until my Pixel art or my voxel art gets better, and I learn how to code beyond

    x = "Hello world"

    print(x + ", hope you have a nice day")

    end

    And also, thanks for you guys to be open about your stuff and your successes and failure. I can only imagine how hard it can be to bear the naked truth in front of the world, to be judged or praised. Thanks for all you've done, and the experiences you've made.

    submitted by /u/Retkid
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    Why do AAA devs keep adding DRM when they usually get cracked within a few days of release?

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:19 AM PDT

    Surely the DRM efforts cost more than what they gain. At least anything more advanced. I can understand not making people able to share it with friends, but just making a really simple DRM would probably stop the same users who aren't already pirating games.

    submitted by /u/Bmandk
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    Winkeltje: 1 month sales figures & Steam stats

    Posted: 27 Mar 2019 01:09 PM PDT

    (If you'd rather read this on our blog, that's over here: https://sassybot.com/blog/winkeltje-a-month-of-sales/)

    It's been a month since we launched Winkeltje on Steam, and I thought I'd share some of the numbers from that first month.

    Sales Numbers

    In the first week, Winkeltje sold just over 6000 copies on Steam (which is also the only platform we're selling on right now). This comes down to roughly $46,500 in its first week. A month later, that number has gone up to 8956 copies sold, totaling just over $71,000.

    We will end up getting roughly half of that in our bank account (and then get to pay taxes).

    It cost us about $45,000 to get Winkeltje to Early Access, so we're not out of the red just yet but we're definitely getting there.

    Currently Popular

    Zones showing when Winkeltje had the "Currently popular" tag

    When we just launched Winkeltje, we received the "Currently Popular" tag on Steam. While I cannot be 100% sure on how this influences your store placement, it does seem to have somewhat an effect on sales. The Green zones in the image above are (roughly) when our game had the "Currently popular" tag.

    Sale spikes in the first week

    Corresponding with the above zones are the total amount of sales we had per day. Note that our launch day (Feb 19th) was not our biggest sales day (as is usually the case). Instead, Feb 24th was with exactly 1000 sales. The launch day was only our 3rd largest sales day (845) so far with Feb 25th coming in 2nd at 896 sales.

    Wishlist

    The one statistic I kept finding was that 2000 wishlists is the magic number that you want at a very minimum when launching your game. I'm not sure if there's any truth to that, but the conversion rate (which is defined by Steam as 'Wishlist purchases & activations as a percent of all purchases & activations') of wishlists in those first few days was huge for us: 52% in the first day and hovering between 25 - 40% ever since.

    When we launched Winkeltje, we had 1975 wishlists. A week before that we only had 414. Over the last month this number has grown to 19967, which I hope will follow the game along as we go through the Early Access process.

    Steam Tags

    I'm going to highlight this for a very specific reason, tags seem to matter a lot to how people find games. We added our Steam tags on February 5th, at which point we were averaging 5 wishlists per day. On February 6th this jumped to 45 and then averaged out to around 50 until the first YouTube videos just before the launch showed up.

    Wishlist additions. The green line is when we added steam tags.

    When we were looking into what tags we should add to Winkeltje, we simply looked for similar titles and looked at what tags they had assigned. If they were relevant to our game we'd add them as well. Do note that these are the tags that are added through the Steam Store page, not the ones you add in the Store Admin page.

    Numbers by Country & Localization

    When looking at the total sales of the game, there are only a few surprises. We obviously see the USA at the top spot with quite a large margin (which makes a lot of sense, since there's a lot of Americans on Steam).

    Sales by country in the first month

    Let's look at how this chart looked after the first few days, and how it then shifted around as time moved on.

    Sales by country after 3 days

    Comparing the 2 charts, there's a major shift between some of the countries. Notably Germany jumping up from 10 to 15%, which I can only attribute to the German translation being put in after day 3 and some amazing YouTubers making videos in German. Russia also jumped up quickly and France was the one that dropped off fastest.

    German sales, the green line is when the German translation went live

    The green line in the above image is when we uploaded the German translations. At this point most of the other countries saw a drop in sales, while Germany was still going up.

    France being so high up in the initial list is probably attributed to a French YouTuber who made a video back when we were still in closed alpha (which prompted a lot of French players to join our Discord) and who then again made a few videos when the game came out.

    The Simplified Chinese translation has been pushed to the default branch recently, so perhaps I will make another post in a month as an update to see if that increased the sales in that region. All of our translations have been done by the community, who have been amazing in the speed at which they translated the game and how well they keep up with all of our rapid changes (seriously, they've been awesome).

    Going forward

    For us, the Early Access launch was only the start of the journey. We're very happy with how the sales have turned out in the first month, as this will allow us to invest more into the game than we had hoped for. If you're interested in reading about our pipeline and development process, you can read about that in a previous blog post over here.

    And if you have any other questions, feel free to ask em here or via DM. I don't think I have anything to hide.

    submitted by /u/_Aceria
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    The sci-fi archaeology game I’ve been working on for 4 years is finally coming out next month!

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:42 AM PDT

    Creating Genji - Dash & Double Jump - Part 1 - Unity Tutorial

    Posted: 27 Mar 2019 01:57 PM PDT

    SDL Networking

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 07:01 AM PDT

    Hey guys, this is my first post on this subreddit! I've been using SDL 2 for some time and I'm loving it so far. I've been working on my small single player game, but I'm wondering if there is good documentation for the SDL-net library as I plan to create a multiplayer game. I've been looking a lot but as I can see, not a lot of people have covered it. Thanks in advance!

    submitted by /u/skepticalruby
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    Question about Game Networking

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 09:05 AM PDT

    So I've been reading about Game networking from http://www.gabrielgambetta.com/client-server-game-architecture.html and https://gafferongames.com/.

    I had some points of confusion and was hoping someone could clarify. While reading through both suggest that you queue client input on the server, and then 10, 20 or however many times a second process all the input and then send out data to all clients.

    There's also a concept of packet loss / unordered packets. Which is to say that maybe the client input for time 10 comes in before the client input for time 5. The suggestion there was to do a check to see if that time that the input happened before the current game time on the server, and if the time has already passed just ignore it.

    For the actual questions: Why not order the input before processing all the input? Is there a tradeoff in performance?

    If I'm queueing input do I run all the input against the current server "state"? Or do I need to keep multiple server states and then rewind to that state when running the input?

    I'm recording the time of input when sending the input (client side), waiting while queueing input, how would the time of the input ever be after the server game's time?

    For sending input from the client - should I send whenever there is input? Or consistently send at a fixed interval whether there is input or not?

    How do you link running player input from a state and the game's physics loop? You want the game updating all the time even if no input was received, how do you then do client side prediction? Do you rerun the physics loop every time you rerun an input?

    All in all fairly confused about it all, and appreciate any help anyone can provide.

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/angwypanda
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    Blender 2.8 Knife Tool Modeling Tip

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 10:09 AM PDT

    Creating an Engine: Suggestions before I start?

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 09:55 AM PDT

    First off, I'm not going to be making an engine for any other reason than to get better at general programming. I've already made a couple of games at game jams, and one long term project.

    I've been thinking about making one to see what the experience is like, and to get better at understanding games in general. What sort of tips should I take into consideration? Also what would be something you'd like to see implemented into a 2D game engine?

    Thank you, and happy game making!

    submitted by /u/Ninjaboy42099
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    Game Networking Demystified, Part I: State vs. Input

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 03:57 AM PDT

    Are space shooters still worth selling?

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 04:35 AM PDT

    I've been working on a small side project with a buddy, which started out as a joke, but after after I polished the thing a bit more, I think it's actually pretty fun.

    So I'm wondering if it would be worth turning the game into a real product. I'd have to re-theme the game and add some more replayability, so it's not like I could just throw it out there without extra work.

    It's an Asteroids-like shooter with quite a few changes and additions. But do people even play those anymore? Let alone pay for them?

    I'm worried the genre is already overcrowded, since these types of shooters are pretty easy to make.

    What do you think?

    submitted by /u/AlwaysAnotherProblem
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    Just had an interview for a QA tester position in Mt. View, CA...

    Posted: 27 Mar 2019 05:59 PM PDT

    And they are only offering $16/hr. That's $1 more than minimum wage. That's $2560/month before taxes. I know that might seem significant for much of the US but the cost of renting a bedroom in Mt. View is at least $1200-$1500/month. I don't live there so I'd be commuting pretty far.

    I had to pass because I'd be taking a significant paycut and losing benefits from my current job just to "work in the industry". The interview was pretty extensive too.

    I know QA Tester is an entry level position but I just don't see how these studios expect to get experienced testers at that rate (I work in QA in a different industry for context). I knew QA testers don't make much but I didn't know it was THAT low. You could probably make more here working fast food honestly.

    submitted by /u/Mattdehaven
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    How Game Designers Create Fear with Ambiguity | The Design of Little Nightmares, Inside, Dark Souls and BloodBorne

    Posted: 27 Mar 2019 12:38 PM PDT

    Morrowind: An oral history

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 02:21 AM PDT

    I've bitten off more than I can chew, what next?

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:51 AM PDT

    Hey guys,

    I'm relatively new to game developing and my first "real" project is turning out to be way bigger than I can handle. I could arguably finish it but it will be a ton of work and probably held together with string and paper clips. At this point am I better off putting this project on the back burner and work on less complex project to build my skills then pick the original back up? Or is it more important to finish what I started regardless of it not being perfect like I would like?

    submitted by /u/iFoosy
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    How long before release is a AAA game playable from start to finish?

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:48 AM PDT

    Undestanding how games work!

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:37 AM PDT

    Hello!I'm pretty new into programing and i was wondering how the games are programed and what the mechanics.I can't seem to find any good guides on internet .If someone is kind to get me into some of the basic stuff i'd be gradefull.

    submitted by /u/n0escape200
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    what are some good cc0 books or stories to make a stealth game?

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:32 AM PDT

    I am planning to make a game with isometric TPS with some sniper action and having a hard time finding good sci-fi or fantasy public domain book for it. It would be nice to get any kind of suggestion or opinion from you guys.

    submitted by /u/drex_00
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    Is anyone hosting a web based build of yarn?

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:29 AM PDT

    Talking about the dialog editor Yarn: https://github.com/InfiniteAmmoInc/Yarn

    It would be nice to be able to edit dialog on the go (even better, on mobile).

    I was wondering if anyone knows of someone hosting the web based builds of Yarn?

    submitted by /u/Reticulatas
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    Help The Astronaut! (Android game)

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:25 AM PDT

    Hello everyone! It's my first release and first game in my life I did.

    "Help The Astronaut!" is simple game with simple gameplay, but nice graphics, music and features.

    I hope that the opportunity to compete and explore new planets will be exciting. In the future i want to add even more new features and planets.

    https://i.redd.it/w2izdw8njwo21.png

    Now "Help the astronaut!" is available on Google Play. I really need your support, as well as your opinion.

    submitted by /u/FMYury
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    My first IOS game prototype

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:23 AM PDT

    Hey all,

    Just finished my new game called 'avOid's prototype.

    The core mechanic is about your reflexes and carefulness.

    I will share the other things about game and maybe a video here.

    Till then, if anyone wants to test it and gave me some valuable feedbacks, I will be happy to add you to TestFlight.

    Thanks all.

    ​

    https://imgur.com/a/OGddVXA

    submitted by /u/gdakkutlu
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    The Design of Time: Understanding Human Attention and Economies of Engagement

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:18 AM PDT

    Optimizing Shape Keys (Blend Shapes) in Unity?

    Posted: 28 Mar 2019 11:01 AM PDT

    I'm running into moderate performance issues when animating Blend Shapes in Unity (2017.4.15f1 LTS). The Animator is set to simply apply the shape at 100% (static, transform fully applied).

    I would understand a performance hit while the deformation is occurring, but the performance issue continues while the Animator is holding the shape at 100% (no motion). When the Animator stops and the Shape Key is back to 0, performance returns immediately. Even tiny Shape Key transforms cause the same performance hit, the amount of the mesh that is changed doesn't seem to matter.

    Has anyone run into issues like this before?

    submitted by /u/4rr4
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