Hi Everyone! I released a new royalty-free foley sound library with over 300 clicks, buttons, levers & switch sound effects recorded in different hotels & apartments! I hope you can use it! Marcel |
- Hi Everyone! I released a new royalty-free foley sound library with over 300 clicks, buttons, levers & switch sound effects recorded in different hotels & apartments! I hope you can use it! Marcel
- After 5 years of working on the same game - These are the mistakes I made that are too late to fix
- Interesting insight/reality check: Only 17% of all games on Steam have over 100 user reviews. Only 44% of all games have enough user reviews for the game to be assigned a positive/negative sentiment.
- Complete Tutorial - How to Make a Game in C++ for Beginners
- How do I grow an audience?
- Why do job ads require you to know both C++ and C# for unity?
- Fig CEO: "The Kickstarter model sets game developers up to fail"
- Do you have Separate Builds for PC/Mobile/Etc
- new version of my home made game
- ECS back and forth, part 5: sparse sets and sorting
- I have an Game Design position interview at a AAA studio. Need advice
- Fidelity and Aesthetics - Understanding Game Art
- 2D Structural Integrity models and/or examples?
- Client/Server/Database architecture for a MMORPG
- i need some ideas for making a mobile game
- Java question about BufferedStrategy.show() method performance.
- Improbable has bought online service firm Multiplayer Guys
- How I can start?
- What should i know to become game designer?
- How legal is it to use real, historic figures in a game?
- Need some help with a character movement script.
- Bounce Back Postmortem: A Zelda Style Boomerang Game for #JS13k
- RPG Maker or GameMaker for a one-off passion project RPG?
| Posted: 25 Sep 2019 10:23 PM PDT |
| After 5 years of working on the same game - These are the mistakes I made that are too late to fix Posted: 26 Sep 2019 12:59 AM PDT First I'll start off with with a quick intro of myself. Then I'll list off what I did wrong in point form, then I'll go through each one and elaborate on why I made the mistake and how it affected me negatively. My name is Matt and I'm a solo developer working on a game that merges creature collecting similar to Digimon World 1 and farming similar to Stardrew Valley and a spirit system similar to Golden Sun. I started the project with a teammate, who has since left the project and I'm now working alone. The project is massive, and though it's not my first game, it's my first commercial game. It successfully received funding years ago and got through steam greenlight back in the day so it's had its share of success stories, but I've made a lot of mistakes from both a business and development perspective that are easy to avoid if you know they exist. These are not small mistakes either. They can be the difference between you giving up or not. -Making your game is the easy part -Waited too long to promote and network -I chose the wrong engine -I asked for funding too early -I took on way too many features -Went about finding work the wrong way -Let my routine and habits slip -Making the game is the easy part -How this happened: It's so easy to make all of your estimates and calculations based on how long it takes to complete a task, but we rarely ever account for everything in real life that gets in the way outside of the game. Programing is binary. It works or it doesn't. Art is progressive, keep working and it gets better. But life. Life will throw you curve balls for all eternity. There is no rule book for how to develop a game while dealing with a break-up or the death of a loved one. No macro for finding a place to live when your landlord sells the house. Life doesn't care about you or your game and 9 times out of 10, your biggest challenges while developing a game do NOT come from the game itself. -How does this affect me negatively now: 5 years deep. Not done game. No, you're crying. -Waited too long to promote and network -How this happened: I had this mentality that was like... man it's going to be so long before my game is done. Everyone in my family and all of my friends asked me every time I saw them, "so how's the game going" it's all anyone talked about and it was hard, cus my only answer was like... " uh well, it's fine, I worked on it today...and yesterday, and every day. It's coming along." And I had all these people who funded it, waiting on it. I thought to myself "I don't want more people waiting for this. I don't want to stress about more sets of eyes than I have to." Boy was this the wrong mentality. First of all. If people start complaining that you are taking to long, oh well. Keep working. There's nothing you can do but move forward. I've been lucky. Everyones has been cheering me on and I've had a very supportive audience. -How does this affect me negatively now: Not building an audience has got to be one of the biggest things in my way today, because now that I need an audience, I'm having trouble building one. I want to go into early access and I want to raise more funds but no one knows my game exists. YOU WILL FACE THIS WALL. If you chip away a little every day at social media, even if you only gain 5 followers a week. That adds up. It becomes exponential, and eventually, you never have to beg news articles to feature you. You never have to get auto-deleted by bots for self-promotion. You never need to feel sleazy about showing off your work, you can just talk about it to your ALREADY fans, and over time it spreads like a virus, outward and slowly, but this virus is your biggest ally, and you need it to survive in the indie world. I'm still learning so much about marketing and promotion, and you have to keep up. The marketing landscape changes DRAMATICALLY every 5 years or so. 5 years ago, Kickstarter was new and novel and people were so excited to get involved with games. Rock paper shotgun and Kotaku featured tons of Kickstarter projects and there was so much hype over anything that looked neat. Now... Kickstarter is kind of a trigger word. It can feel like being a door to door salesman and most news articles won't touch an unheard-of studio with even the back of their glove. You can email 100 places and hear back from 2. Everyone and their dog wants to be an indie dev these days and there is sooo much noise to shout over top of. So get started before you need the attention -I chose the wrong engine- -How this happened: I never planned to make games professionally. I was making games for fun. I was contributing to small communities that turned into big communities, doing art for people and just doing my own thing. It was completely recreational and I was going to university for other things. Eventually, my work quickly became the top viewed on the forums I was using and I thought to myself...maybe there is something here. Then all of a sudden, a new person appeared on the forums and they out of nowhere surpassed my view count to be the new number 1 viewed topic. I reached out to him about how fantastic his work was and over time we started collaborating. We were using the famed and ever so criticized RPG Maker software. --try not to roll your eyes, read on to find out why we thought this was okay.--okay you can roll your eyes. We decided we were going to make a commercial title together once we wrapped up our personal projects, and of course, we used the software we already were strong with. We were wizards with RPG maker and we broke all of the stereotypes. Our work was unrecognizable to the engine, we used 100% original assets and we completely hollowed out the engine and built our own, we were basically just using their editor at this point, not even really the engine. We were doing so well that the company who owns RPGMAKER even backed us with some money and offered us some other things - I won't go into detail on that because I'm not sure if it's supposed to be confidential or not. -How does this affect me negatively now: The engine has a hard-baked resolution limit of 640 by 480. This didn't bother us at first, because after all, we were making a pixel painted retro-style game, but 5 years later, indie standards are going through the roof. One man projects have the potential to look like full teams made them. They are polished and clean and our game, not supporting full 1080p resolution minimum is, today, making me look foolish, and I'm positive that it will provoke refunds. I CAN and HAVE found ways to break that hard lock on the resolution, but it causes it performance issues, and I would have to redesign every single menu, map, and the animated cut scene in the game to accommodate the wider field of view. We are also seeing a high demand for Nintendo switch ports, even for indie games, and had we started in unity, that would be possible for us, but it's not without a complete rebuild. -I asked for funding too early -How this happened: We had learned a lot from our practice projects, we were excited to put everything we knew now into this NEW amazing project we imagined. What we didn't realize was that even though we were far more efficient at what we did now, we were trying new things and taking on a beast larger than we ever had, and there was NO way for us to gauge how long this was going to take. We should have worked on it part-time for longer. Much longer, before ever trying to get it funded. -How does this affect me negatively now: There was suddenly a lot of pressure and stress involved with development. We watched our funds dry up quickly, and we now had a large audience watching and waiting and the development process stopped being something that was light-hearted and fun and started being something we needed desperately to finish. With no end of development in sight after the first year and massive real-life obstacles that were thrown in our way constantly...our development relationship eventually crumbled. If we had waited a long time before asking for funding, we would have:
-I took on way too many features -How this happened: The features weren't even the problem, it was that the game is open world. The feature was introduced because the game is about exploration. How can you explore, if you can't go where you want? I may never make an open-world game again though. It is the single greatest overrated feature in my entire game and I regret it tremendously. I think it makes my game worse not better and what it's done is made it so that I can't show off part of my game as demos because all of the game needs to be done at the same time in case they choose to go another direction that I haven't finished. And simply blocking areas off defeats the purpose of the demo in a lot of ways because they lose the benefits and feeling that the open-world IS supposed to provide. -How does this affect me negatively now: More features are not better and some features can clash. It's hard to tell a good cohesive story and make all of your features relevant when the game is open world. For example, you could probably finish the game and never even use the farming or fishing system. So you have to decide when a feature is bulk, or if it's essential to the game. Add bulk features AFTER your game is complete. Boil your game down to the essentials. Don't allow your players to be overwhelmed by choice and a lack of direction. -Went about finding work the wrong way -How this happened: I realized I could make good money by taking commissions to work on other peoples games. I quickly faced massive burn out because after spending 40 hours a week working on other peoples games, the LAST thing I wanted to do was sit in front of the computer some more and work on mine. Then I experimented working full time in a sales position that had me on my feet all the time. This was so much better for a while. I was interacting with people, I was up and away from the computer, so sitting at the computer to work on my game seemed great after standing all day. I didn't want to pick up a real career where people relied on me for really important things, because I didn't plan to stay long. Eventually, the hours started to get REALLY long. I left for work at 9 am and got home at 8 pm. I stopped having the energy to work on my game, and it left no time for anything else. I faced burn out once again. -How does this affect me negatively now: I am constantly battling for funds to keep working on the project. A never-ending juggling act between time, energy and money. I highly recommend SAVING UP a large pool of money before you start a project that will take you a long time so that if funding ever dries up, you have that pool to reinforce your development. Stressing over money really hurts your creativity. It preoccupies you in ways that will DESTROY your project and often force you into depression and even surrender. Each person is probably a little different but for me, I found its best to have a job that's away from the computer if I'm going to work long hours on my game. -Let my routine and habits slip -How this happened: It starts really slowly. I became self-employed and I knew I didn't have anywhere to be the next day, I could do my work at any time as long as the work got done. I stayed up an hour or two later than normal and woke up an hour or two later to match. Slowly over time, my sleep schedule shifted hour by hour until I was literally nocturnal. I woke up at night time. I started to horde dishes, cans didn't tidy or cook enough, it was fast food for me cus it was fast and easy and I was getting so lethargic. It's insane how useless and slug-like you can become, and then what seems like depression comes shortly after, where you just feel like hot garbage. You wonder how you got there and It's HARD to climb back out. -How does this affect me negatively now: You start finding that you spend less and less time each day working on your project and more time just trying to stabilize your mood. Everything is done in the name of staying emotionally afloat. I'm currently self-employed again and I fight this fight still. You have to hold yourself accountable. There will always be parts of your game you don't feel like working on and you would rather play red dead redemption, and there's no-one to tell you you can't or hold you accountable. Eat healthy, go to the gym or exercise and keep your bedtime in check. I can't stress how important these can be. (edit): I do want to make it clear that this post is in no way a story about how I'm feeling defeated or giving up. It's quite the opposite. I've failed in so many ways but succeeded in many others and I'm every bit as motivated today as I've ever been. That doesn't mean I don't ever have to stop and lick my wounds. I'm definitely still seeing this project through to completion and I'm going to continue to work at it long after it's done to keep bringing it closer to everything I've wanted it to be. -edited for spelling and grammar - moved links from comments into the post -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope you found this information helpful. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Below are links to the project in question if anyone is curious: -Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tobysisland/tobys-island-0 -Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MVisioning/ -Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tobys_island_official/ -twitter: https://twitter.com/Mvisioning Steam: [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Sep 2019 06:07 AM PDT |
| Complete Tutorial - How to Make a Game in C++ for Beginners Posted: 26 Sep 2019 09:59 AM PDT Hello everyone! I'm super happy to have finished the game in my "How to program a game in C++ from Scratch" tutorial series! You can now learn EVERYTHING it takes to make a game in C++ from scratch, all the way to the finished game. It's small, to the point and beginner-friendly! I hope you like it and it helps you become a better game developer. Here is the first tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luuyjjOxnUI Here is the last development tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiuFhNYSYyw Here is the playlist on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Ej6SUky135IAAR3PFCFyiVwanauRqj3 Let me know if you like it! :) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Sep 2019 11:25 AM PDT I'm developing my game from scratch, which I started september 2018. I believe marketing can start whenever you have something to show, so I've begun posting development progress somewhere mid/end september 2018. At first I posted on Gamejolt and Twitter, but later on expanded onto other platforms to extend my range to different communities. Currently I post regularly on a fixed set of platforms: Gamejolt, Itch.io, TIGSource, IndieDB, Twitter and Reddit. Now here's the issue. I see growth in followers, but this is incredibly slow. I've been posting about my game for a year now and these are the follower numbers: Twitter: started at ~40, now at 74 Gamejolt: now 4 followers Itch: now 6 followers IndieDB: now 1 follower TIGsource: Have gotten a couple of replies. Maybe 4 or 5 total I'm posting very early stuff, since I'm not yet in the content creation part of the development. I'm hoping things will go into next gear when I start posting more gameplay related stuff and people actually see lots of gameplay. Still, I hear people saying gaining 5 followers a week is very slow, while I only seemed to have gained them in a year... So I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing or if I'm just worrying too much and should wait until my content becomes more interesting for players. [link] [comments]  |
| Why do job ads require you to know both C++ and C# for unity? Posted: 26 Sep 2019 09:09 AM PDT I was looking at some job postings for game developers and quite a few state C++ and C# as requirements for unity. What does C++ do for unity? I thought C# and unity is enough? [link] [comments]  |
| Fig CEO: "The Kickstarter model sets game developers up to fail" Posted: 26 Sep 2019 09:47 AM PDT |
| Do you have Separate Builds for PC/Mobile/Etc Posted: 26 Sep 2019 10:39 AM PDT I never worried about it before because my games were small enough never had any restraints that a mobile device could not run...until my current project. I complied my 1st game for iOS(a Math Trivia game for kids) and when I loaded the game the main menu loaded, the practice area loaded but the when I launched the actual "Story Mode" and the intro cut scene(very basic sprite layout) it crashed on a iPhone X device. I am a hobbyist game "developer" who use Construct2 and Construct3 to make games so the size restraints normal developers think about were never front and center for me at all...until now :) So instead of dumbing down the PC version I just saved off a 2nd copy of my game and started fine tuning for mobile devices. Is this common place or do most of you have one version that is just optimized for as many formats/devices as possible? [link] [comments]  |
| new version of my home made game Posted: 26 Sep 2019 11:19 AM PDT |
| ECS back and forth, part 5: sparse sets and sorting Posted: 26 Sep 2019 06:55 AM PDT I wrote another post on the entity-component-system (ECS) topic. This time I wanted to tell how the function used to sort a sparse set has changed over time in EnTT, a header-only library in modern C++ that offers the necessary to start working with components. The sorting function has in fact changed a lot, going from a trivial form to one that required to allocate extra memory, up to the current version that calculates and applies in-place permutations to the different vectors of the pools of components. The argument may seem trivial (actually sorting the basic version of a sparse set is pretty easy), but it's not when it comes to using this data structure as the basis for more complex types. With this post, on the one hand I try to tell my experience and on the other hand I hope someone comes out saying - hey, you've got it all wrong, if you do this you get indecently better performance. :) In any case, if you're also using a sparse set in your software, you might find the reading interesting. I hope so at least. [link] [comments]  |
| I have an Game Design position interview at a AAA studio. Need advice Posted: 26 Sep 2019 06:13 AM PDT Hi everyone, So I have 4 years of experience in the industry, more than 3 of which are as a Game Designer. I've applied to a AAA studio for a Game Designer position and I'm just looking for advice. Anything I should be prepared for, things they might ask, what I should prepare myself (notebooks, favorite games etc). Any help would be amazing! Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Fidelity and Aesthetics - Understanding Game Art Posted: 26 Sep 2019 06:12 AM PDT |
| 2D Structural Integrity models and/or examples? Posted: 26 Sep 2019 11:47 AM PDT I'm prototyping a 2D grid based city building game, and one of the mechanics I'm looking to explore is structural integrity system that will seem at least semi-plausible, even if not entirely realistic. The game is played from a side view. The idea is that there's floating islands which the player can build off of, as well as placeable "lifting gas" cells which provide support. In theory, the player would be able to build off a support up to a certain height before the structure collapses (say 12 tiles) and a lesser amount horizontally (say, 6) before it breaks. Are there any existing mathematical models or existing examples I could look at to try to figure out ways to approach this? I have a vague, probably super stupid way sort of worked out in my head that I don't even want to try to describe here because it's likely got some major flaws I haven't thought of. That's why I'm hoping to get a chance to see how some other systems work before I take a stab at it. Thanks for any thoughts! [link] [comments]  |
| Client/Server/Database architecture for a MMORPG Posted: 26 Sep 2019 10:44 AM PDT I'm currently working on setting up the framework for a mobile mmorpg. I understand this is quite ambitious, but I've already toned it down quite a bit (There are absolutely no sandbox aspects so worlds do not need to be synced between players and it's 2D pixel art). I have a node.js server set up on aws lightsail and I'm currently trying to set up a database to store persistent data. The general architecture I'm thinking about is having the database just store balances, stats, inventories, and player storages. Upon login, the server would query the database, load in all the player info, then periodically update the database with new values. Would this be a good solution? If so, what type of database should I set up? Thanks in advance fo any advice. [link] [comments]  |
| i need some ideas for making a mobile game Posted: 26 Sep 2019 09:40 AM PDT Hello, I need some ideas of making a mobile game...not too hard and fun...3D or 2D whatever..for 2D, games like flappy bird, pong, and such would be wonderful but im not sure if it will have lots of players as there are many other games such as that..for 3D, i was thinking which base-designed would be fun....either freedom game like gta, battle royale games like pubg, fortnite, apex...or close-fight game like call of duty,csgo...please help me by giving some ideas and which are better for mobile [link] [comments]  |
| Java question about BufferedStrategy.show() method performance. Posted: 26 Sep 2019 09:36 AM PDT I have a 2D pixelated java game that renders around 170 objects per second, all this taking around 0.2 MS However in the main render method, I have a BufferedStrategy object, and I use it's .show method, which takes up around 5 MS on avarage. Here is the main render method: The output of this on avarage is "time: 5" Is it normal for bs.show() to take up that much time considering that all the other parts of the software hardly even uses 1 MS? [link] [comments]  |
| Improbable has bought online service firm Multiplayer Guys Posted: 26 Sep 2019 09:23 AM PDT |
| Posted: 26 Sep 2019 09:04 AM PDT Hello! I know the basics of programming and Unity and I want to start serious in game developement serious. Which programming languages should I learn first and which path should I follow? Thx! [link] [comments]  |
| What should i know to become game designer? Posted: 26 Sep 2019 08:55 AM PDT |
| How legal is it to use real, historic figures in a game? Posted: 26 Sep 2019 02:57 AM PDT Similar to how Nintendo had a game recently that used a fictional, steam-punk Lincoln. What legal hurdles would that present for a small indie studio? [link] [comments]  |
| Need some help with a character movement script. Posted: 26 Sep 2019 08:53 AM PDT Hey, so im trying to make a game but im trying to find a good movement script becuase if i make one it will probably be bad as i dont really know how to code yet. Is anyone able to help me find one and tell me how to use it or help me make one myself? Also i need to be able to use animations with a skeleton rig and i would like some help with that. [link] [comments]  |
| Bounce Back Postmortem: A Zelda Style Boomerang Game for #JS13k Posted: 25 Sep 2019 02:31 PM PDT |
| RPG Maker or GameMaker for a one-off passion project RPG? Posted: 26 Sep 2019 07:42 AM PDT Before I say anything, let me explain - I have a great budding career as an RN that I have no intention to leave for game development. Rather, I have every intention to keep moving my education on and see where I can go. But I also have had a story brewing in my head that I've wanted to tell for years and being a lifelong fan of RPGs, that's how I want to tell it. I have very little coding experience and while I certainly plan to make a few tiny games as tests before digging into my main project, I have no plans for anything beyond it. So here's the rub: I know RPG Maker would seem to be the obvious choice, but back when I originally messed around with it when VX Ace was the newest one, it felt so stale. Like you could just look at a game and instantly know where it was from. I know there's a whole new engine out now that I may as well use, but is it a bit easier to break from that obvious RPG Maker mold? Then I would imagine that GameMaker has a lot more freedom - but also a lot more investment needed, from both money and time. Seems like something that would be worth it if I wanted to make a career out of this, but I don't. So I was just wondering if you all might have any opinions on which is the better place to start. Especially now that I'm between school years and have so much free time on my hands - if I don't start doing something I'll lose my mind! [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from gamedev - game development, programming, design, writing, math, art, jams, postmortems, marketing. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment