Made my first £ from selling a game! |
- Made my first £ from selling a game!
- We created a mocap studio directed towards indie teams.
- I officially released my game today. I'm a game developer now!
- How to Start A Community - What I Learned over The Last 6 Years
- ECS (entity-component-system) back and forth, part 2: insights - grouping functionalities
- What Projects Have You Abandoned?
- Unity Megacity Demo (GDC 2019 Release)
- How Danganronpa was Created - A Development History
- Working on what I hope will be my first game. I have some questions. (Level / game design)
- I followed the "Getting Started" guide, and FINISHED my first game!
- How to make the city more lively ?
- This dev shows how much he earned with his game launch on Itch.io
- Return of the Obra Dinn takes Grand Prize at the 21st IGF Awards
- Crypto currency in games?
- Unreal Engine | Epic MegaGrants
- Maya API <--> Arnold shader information
- Blender 2.8 Tutorial : Circlular Arrays
- Have your game dev skills helped you find a job in a different industry of development?
- How To Become a Game Animator - New Frame Plus
- Looking for sources of research/theory behind game design
- New google doodle
- Minecraft on the Game Boy Advance in 2019
- Is this right?
| Made my first £ from selling a game! Posted: 21 Mar 2019 04:53 AM PDT Don't get me wrong, I've made money from gamedev before via ads and contracts - but over the few days I've released a stand alone platformer that people have actually paid for. The game is technically free to play, but as you probably know Itch.io has the option for players to chip in a little if they feel like it. I woke up this morning to £3 sat in my account. It feels pretty great and for a second there, my impostor syndrome didn't kick in. EDIT: Thanks guys Alexa look up yacht prices [link] [comments]  |
| We created a mocap studio directed towards indie teams. Posted: 20 Mar 2019 09:26 PM PDT We are two animators, gamedev dinosaurs, passionate and obsessed with animation. We are opening a mocap studio, that is designed to be indie teams dream. We are providing AAA results, but not looking for AAA rates! https://i.redd.it/uw6nbse1hen21.jpg [link] [comments]  |
| I officially released my game today. I'm a game developer now! Posted: 21 Mar 2019 08:51 AM PDT Today I join the club of people who have successfully finished and published a game! My game, Skirmish Line, just left Steam Early Access today. I've thrown out a few keys at a few influencers and contacted those that previously made videos back on the Early Access release, but I'm not expecting any huge hits. I made a fairly niche game catered towards a very distinct audience. How does it feel? For starters, I'm pretty tired right now, not from crunch but because I haven't slept yet. I spent the last month focusing stability and bug fixes, so I'm not launching with any new features. In a few days time, I will write a proper post mortem. I'm happy to be "done" with the project even though I've already promised 2 DLCs. I'm super excited about starting on a new project despite having 2 DLCs lined up and a day job coming up in the summer. [link] [comments]  |
| How to Start A Community - What I Learned over The Last 6 Years Posted: 21 Mar 2019 08:42 AM PDT Before doing anything, the first thing for a dev to think about is whether there's a need for a community. This has to do with the characteristics of the game. One can certainly write a whole book on this but I'll just take a couple of examples. Let's say an indie dev is making a game about stealthily traversing a small map filled with enemies. Does it need a community? The answer is yes for this one, because stealth mechanics is very difficult to tune, and you need a lot of feedback from playtesters even during the initial prototyping stage. Another example is a point-and-click adventure game. Does it need a community? Not really, there's not much value to be received from feedbacks since gameplay mechanics is mainly looking/walking around and click things, and the key selling point of the game is usually story. Nobody would want to keep replaying such type of games, so after someone playtests it he usually loses the desire to play it again - unless, of course, if the game is like escape rooms that are short and will have many different levels to come. Then the next question is when to start a community. Keep in mind that keeping a community around is like keeping youtube subscriptions around - you gotta keep feeding them interesting, entertaining, or hype-worthy content. People will not stick around if you don't have anything to show. Of course this depends on the game. Examples of sharable content are: eye-candies, funny moments, background stories, or something that would make a kid go "wow, kewl!" Some games just will never have any content that worth sharing early on, until perhaps when the art progress is at a stage that looks pleasing to the eye. And no, nobody will read your dev blog with a bunch of boring technical details. Again, for mechanic-centric games the community should be started early, and for games that focus on visuals and stories, community building should wait until sharable content is available. The third consideration is where to start a community. My rule of thumb for this, is the platform had to be a place where people keep coming back to revisit and be reminded about your game. If you build a stand-alone website, then nobody will come back to revisit. Youtube, facebook page, subreddit, are better platforms because people come here regularly for their news feed. Then, my rule of index finger (lol) is that the platform has to promote (not just allow) mutual discussion. When the community is encouraged to discuss among each other, they become more invested in the game because now they have built some personal relationships. This is why I prefer reddit much better over facebook. And finally, the biggest challenge of all, is how to attract the initial "seed" of the community for it to grow. This is the most unpredictable step and some games just attract hundreds of people with one post and others struggle to get anything. A lot of this based on luck and timing, but remember: you only need to get lucky once. So the marketer has to be very persistent and patient. And of course, one must tread carefully not to get banned for self advertising (I got banned from /r/gaming lol). My strategy was to just first pay attention to discussions among people who might be interested in your game. Discuss with them and stealthily include a link to your project. Once you become more involved in an existing community, you can start announcing your project more openly and get more attention. When your game's quality has reached a tipping point, you can easily ask one of your fans to help you making posts in large gaming subreddits to gain some wide-spread attention. All you need is a good trailer and the fan can just make 1 post with a long title and link to your video, and you might just see it going viral. One last, but most important thing to keep in mind: whatever marketing/community building you do is moot if there's no strong desire for your game. [link] [comments]  |
| ECS (entity-component-system) back and forth, part 2: insights - grouping functionalities Posted: 21 Mar 2019 08:19 AM PDT |
| What Projects Have You Abandoned? Posted: 21 Mar 2019 09:22 AM PDT What was an important project that you abandoned? Why did you abandon it? What did you learn from it, and how did it shape your current project? My first abandoned project was a top-down shooter with time traveling elements. Every action was logged, and the game was supposed to have a replay game loop. I eventually hit a wall, and at the end I spent weeks of work trying to fix the bugs. I realized my idea was too complex and I didn't have the necessary skills to implement my vision, and I decided to move to a different idea. I learned that it is very easy to bite off more than I can chew. Now I'm insane and building a turn-based roguelike. Maybe I didn't actually learn anything, but I am enjoying myself a lot more because I'm actually making progress. [link] [comments]  |
| Unity Megacity Demo (GDC 2019 Release) Posted: 21 Mar 2019 10:46 AM PDT |
| How Danganronpa was Created - A Development History Posted: 21 Mar 2019 07:15 AM PDT |
| Working on what I hope will be my first game. I have some questions. (Level / game design) Posted: 21 Mar 2019 08:52 AM PDT Hi everyone. I'm solo and I'm working on what I hope it will be the first game I finish. I plan for it to be a 2d action adventure that mixes metroidvania with some rpg elements like npcs and sidequests. So I have decided and programmed a number of systems and mechanics I definitely want the game to have, and for some time now I work on one of the game's areas. I wouldn't call it a level as the player will be able to go back and forth. So I have some enemy types working, some traps, and puzzles to place on the area. I play the area a lot, and I have a pal that I let him play to be getting some feedback. I have some questions though. Here they are: 1) How much "empty" space is good enough ? I refer to the space in between elements like a platforming, puzzle, or fight sections, or sections that combine these. Like I'm afraid that if I put too many of everything, and not provide some empty "safe" space for downtime, the player might feel overwhelmed. But if I don't place enough stuff and there are larger sections where the player just walks without something interesting happening, he will be bored. So I'm wondering how much time spent getting from an interesting encounter to the next is just right ? Is there even a correct and definitive answer for that ? Currently I have spaces where it takes 3 seconds for the player to walk from one enemy encounter / jump / puzzle / something to the next. And my impression is that anything more than that will make the world feel empty. Am I like completely off ? Or about right ? 2) So I started working on the first level after I had programmed a bunch of game mechanics, and I planned to slowly introduce them, and progressively raise the challenge level by combining them. The thing is that as you make the level you get a lot of ideas of things that it would be nice to add, like a few new features. I tried to police myself so I won't get lost in feature creep, so I decided to write the ideas that come down, and review them and maybe add them at some point later once I have the basic game working. That will help me stick to the schedule, but I'm worried that later on it might be too late to add them, as to make them meaningful I'll have to rework all the areas to integrate the new feature in level design, as some times just coding the mechanic itself isn't enough. Please share your knowledge and help me, and perhaps other who are in a similar situation. [link] [comments]  |
| I followed the "Getting Started" guide, and FINISHED my first game! Posted: 21 Mar 2019 04:24 AM PDT So here goes: I have an idea for a game that I want a VERY specific studio to take on, but I have read everywhere that that's pretty much impossible, unless you can get a decent GDD and a working prototype to them. So naturally, I decided to give it a shot. My only experience with coding before was basic vb 13 years ago, and basic html/javascript for web 12 years ago. I'd heard of gamemaker though. Back to the present: I made most of the tutorial game in gamemaker before I decided I was too good for that shit, and tried to make a 2D open-world horror exploration game. Had a million problems just trying to set up the map alone, and my housemate suggested I try Unity. Unity seemed pretty good, and I started following along with a tutorial series by Games Plus James on youtube. Awesome tutorials, and still using them now, but I got stuck on creating my first puzzle, and figuring out the specific code I needed. Back to the drawing board. I had been to r/gamedev a number of times, and read a bit of the "Getting Started" guide, but again, figured I was too good for that shit, and just skipped a heap of it. So, once I was stumped in Unity AGAIN, I came back to the guide, and decided to ACTUALLY get started. From the beginning. Make Pong they said. sigh fucking Pong. OK. I found a video which taught me to make pong in 20 mins or so, but I found it a little boring to just play pong, so I wanted a Game-of-Thrones-themed, Pong-esque game instead. Shouldn't be too much harder... It was. But the guide said I needed to FINISH a game. I ABSOLUTELY had to COMPLETE it. Now I was here, and the game was simple enough (respectively), I had to. I went through hundreds of video tutorials, and articles, but I still ran into SHITLOADS of problems. However, the more I got sorted, and working, the more obsessed with completing it I became. The whole game from start to finish took me about 20-30 hrs. I work a part time job during the week though, and run my own business on the weekends, so I could only fit in the game in 2-3 hr segments, which spread it out over a couple of weeks. Anyway, thank you so fucking much whoever wrote that guide. It brought me back to reality when I needed it, and gave me the drive I had to have to finish my first game. Edit1: I know about 2 minor bugs, but please let me know if you find any. Edit2: If I do upgrade this game, I want to put in AI, so you can play against a computer opponent, more characters, more playing fields, and possibly LAN support Edit3: SHIT! Just realised I don't have anything in the Options menu... so... don't click that unless you want to fully close and reopen the application to get back to the main menu... TL;DR: I made my first game, and completed it, just like the guide said to. FUCKING THANK YOU to the author! GAME LINK HERE! unrar, then open application (I think... this is the first time I've done this) [link] [comments]  |
| How to make the city more lively ? Posted: 21 Mar 2019 11:19 AM PDT Hey, My Game mechanics and Idea: I'm making a puzzle story based City driving game. Basic idea is to get the driver from A to B.Player drives around 5 - 15 cars per day one at a time. Each of the previous car driven will exist in the next and is collide-able. Problem : The mechanic is fine and interesting but the city is big and feels empty.I've gone for a 1970s-80s European city. Image here : https://imgur.com/a/cwdyoZp What I've already done : Some extras :Lamp posts, Trees, dumpster, mailbox, fire hydrants, benches. Still didn't feel good enough. Few special buildings and billboards and signs to personalize the city more.Image : https://imgur.com/a/kLjvZf1 I believe the game might feel better but I'm still trying to find ways to make it look better. Further Options :Adding automated AI cars, that isnt a valid option because the game is focused on Player driving all cars. If I add AI, main mechanic may be hindered.I have thought of putting in People calling them Teeple or Sheeple, but i don't want to Tax the Game even more. The game requires a steady frame rate to work. I'm aiming for 60 fps right now for even the basic graphics card. Also the game is consistent, the map loads and stays forever. There are no new maps or different levels. Just change of location within the same city which has loaded. I will be giving the People a try, does anybody have any other suggestions ? [link] [comments]  |
| This dev shows how much he earned with his game launch on Itch.io Posted: 20 Mar 2019 05:05 PM PDT |
| Return of the Obra Dinn takes Grand Prize at the 21st IGF Awards Posted: 20 Mar 2019 10:18 PM PDT |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2019 11:00 AM PDT So I was thinking about games that and inner workings like economy systems based around their currency and such, but I haven't heard of anything that has tried to implement a currency with real life value. It always comes indirectly like in trading hats for money. So what if there was a game whose economy was based on some crypto currency like bit coin? I'm just theory crafting here so I haven't delved into how this would work, but I think it's something that could potentially work as a game-society bridge. [link] [comments]  |
| Unreal Engine | Epic MegaGrants Posted: 21 Mar 2019 10:19 AM PDT |
| Maya API <--> Arnold shader information Posted: 21 Mar 2019 07:36 AM PDT Hi! I've been working on a Maya plug-in that involves parsing materials and shaders. I had no issues parsing shaders and materials using the Maya API, but as soon as Arnold shaders are used, things start to fall apart. Does anyone have any resources on how to retrieve Arnold shader information (color, roughness, etc.) using the Maya API, or do I need to make use of the Arnold API and integrate it somehow? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Blender 2.8 Tutorial : Circlular Arrays Posted: 21 Mar 2019 12:19 PM PDT |
| Have your game dev skills helped you find a job in a different industry of development? Posted: 21 Mar 2019 12:13 PM PDT Hi all, The reason I got into programming so many years ago was game development with Lua. I absolutely loved it and since then its turned into my passion, now my college major, and hopefully eventually my profession. However, I do know I don't have much desire to work in the industry in game development. I just want to create games as personal projects as a place to let my creativity lose. However, I'm aware game programming can be a very specific set of skills in terms of software engineering. I feel like I'm in a time of my life where I need to be focusing specifically on side projects to help me lead myself towards my goal industry. (For me this is Embedded Systems/Robotics) I was wondering if anyone has used games they've made in their portfolio, or skills from building games in the process of finding jobs else where. And what your experience with that was like. [link] [comments]  |
| How To Become a Game Animator - New Frame Plus Posted: 21 Mar 2019 11:58 AM PDT |
| Looking for sources of research/theory behind game design Posted: 21 Mar 2019 05:53 AM PDT Hi guys, I'm interested in how game developers design their games. Not the theory, I'm not a designer myself; but what innovative/unique stuff went into the design philosophy. I'm specifically looking for articles like these: Other articles I can't find the links to included topics like the sound engineering in Forza, how developers implemented mirrors before Ray Tracing, etc. Factorio Friday Facts is another good example of what I'm looking for. Are there any blogs, newsletters, podcasts that I can follow for content like this? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2019 05:43 AM PDT AI algorithm makes random piano compositions with your own choice, what if we make some and record it? Any chance we will get copyright trouble from somewhere? [link] [comments]  |
| Minecraft on the Game Boy Advance in 2019 Posted: 20 Mar 2019 02:25 PM PDT |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2019 11:21 AM PDT If someone hire me (I'm freelancer and no contract) to do a development job, I get all the copyright of that job, that's right? So if I want, I can sue him in the future for using my code? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
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