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    Why I Write Games in C (yes, C)

    September 21, 2019

    Why I Write Games in C (yes, C)

    Why I Write Games in C (yes, C)

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 07:38 AM PDT

    Beta statistics and how much money I made from my first mobile puzzle game

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 08:47 AM PDT

    [Reposting because my post got removed, I didn't get a reason on why it got removed and no one would reply to my pm's, so I'm posting it again without any links to my game (maybe this was the reason) hoping for better luck, if it gets removed again I guess there is nothing i can do, sorry for the inconvenience]

    Hello everyone!

    First of all i'd like to thank the people who joined the beta, it fills my heart with joy that over 300 people joined the beta to test my game before release. I spent this last month improving the game by adding more levels, making the game look even nicer, adding different modes, supporting different devices, fixing bugs, etc, and now, it's released!

    So without further delay, lets start with the statistics from the beta.

    Statistics

    (All these statistics are from the beta)

    Aquisition reports:

    https://i.redd.it/4lwo6z0xwyn31.png

    ​

    • On the day of the post here on reddit I got 237 new users.
    • Out of those 237 users, 67 uninstalled the game in the same day (some probably due to the hardware popup issue explained later down this post)
    • Over 50% of the people who visited the store page from the game decided to install it.
    • At the moment Google Console displays my game as being installed on 147 devices even though if my math is correct 325 - 221 = 104 but maybe Google's data is just delayed (or multiple people installed my game on more than one device).

    Achievements:

    https://i.redd.it/vxsf1ooxwyn31.png

    ​

    An obvious issue came to light, the game got too hard too fast, the fix was simple, add more levels and better levels, right now i feel like the difficulty curve is very smooth, the game gets progressively faster and most players should be able to get level 100 in a single day if they try hard enough, level 500 is where things get really complicated, and level 1000+ is only for the very best, the last few puzzles should take over 30 minutes to complete! After completing all the regular 1000 levels the player is put into a limbo mode where the payer gets random very hard puzzles endlessly, those levels are so hard I couldn't complete them myself, i had to use the hint system I made to make sure it was working properly :)

    Play Games Services:

    https://i.redd.it/gkshqknywyn31.png

    ​

    The first big spike is when the game started the open beta, the later spikes were me trying to fix a mess i made in my development version, it took me over 10 uploads to the closed alpha branch to fix the issue, and it turned out the issue wasn't my fault..

    So, after having 300 players playing my game issues i didn't know existed (Thank you to everyone who provided feedback!) came to light:

    Issues found during the beta

    • Some players were getting a hardware issue pop-up when trying to boot the game

      • Hopefully fixed, let me know if you still experience this issue.

    • Lack of a basic tutorial led to players abandoning the game in the early levels

    • Small display issues on level load on bigger devices

    • Endless modes were basically the same

    • Not enough level variety

    Upon finding and hearing about these issues here are the updates I made to the game in order to make it better:

    Updates during the beta

    • Completely rebuilt the tutorial
    • Added over 200 levels
    • Added 3 new unique endless modes
    • Improved the animations
    • Made the menu colors dynamic
    • Increased the number of devices supported
    • Added tablet support
    • Dozens of small fixes and improvements

    So in the end how much money did I get?

    How much money I made

    Advertisements:

    https://i.redd.it/q5xrl3fzwyn31.png

    So in total I made 1.24€ from advertisements which I believe to be a success! Ads were shown when players beat certain levels, or if players wanted more hints, one ad = 10 hints. In the end i made 0.20€ from rewarded ads and 1.04€ from regular ads. I also made 2.50€ from IAP after tax and Google's cut, meaning I made a total of 3.74€ from the game's Beta, a value I'm extremely happy with.

    But even though money was made, money was also spent,

    How much money I spent

    • Developer Console for Google Play - 25€
    • Custom Website domain - 10€

    Result:

    So the result is -33.76€ or -96.46%, which for the amount of experience I gained and the fun I had I'd say it was more than worth it and I would do it all over again if I could!

    Conclusion

    In the end I finally published my first mobile game, something im very proud of. I honestly didn't expect the game to get so much traction especially since I read stories about other indie devs that made games and didn't even get 10 downloads. So I'm very grateful to everyone here on reddit and everyone who tried my game, you people are awesome!

    If you have any questions about the game, how I made something, what software I used, how did I start, etc, ask away, i'll try to answer every single question.

    submitted by /u/Pedromgdo
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    Epic Games is taking down the roadmap for the Epic Online Services

    Posted: 20 Sep 2019 02:14 PM PDT

    What should I be doing at home to prepare myself for game development?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 06:26 AM PDT

    Basically, I'm a Computer Science major. I'm still taking my gen-eds, so I haven't been exposed to any kind of game development. I know the basics of c/c++ and python but that's about it. Oh, and I own game maker studio 2, but I haven't given it much attention to be honest.

    My goal is to one day work as a video game developer... like at Blizzard, FromSoftware, Bethesda, ArenaNet, Sony, Nintendo, etc.

    I understand that I'm going to have to start small and work my way up to developing AAA games. So aside from just learning a million programming languages what can I do to further prepare myself for my career choice?

    I'm primarily looking for projects that I could do at home. Or a specific college class I should try out. Any software that I should start familiarizing myself with?

    Thanks in advance for any useful advice you guys might give me :) I really hope I can jumpstart my game developer skills early on rather than spending my free time just dumping hours into video games lol

    submitted by /u/crestfallenDeus
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    Generate Mazes - in Excel! (model and resources in comments)

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 03:57 AM PDT

    Hey peeps,

    Back with another Excel model for gamedev stuff - and this time its looking at how to generate mazes, using Excel to showcase two different maze generation algorithms as well as simple visualization and solving algorithms.

    As we know, procedural generation is something that - if done properly - can really enhance the feel and replayability of a game. The first time I remember seeing something like this was in Diablo 1, and little-me couldn't figure out how the developers could produce so many different dungeons... if done well, it can add tons of variability to a game that even looks and feels "curated"!

    Everything in this model is done via Excel formulae - so no VBA code-reading required.

    The showcase video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCamjmvP4tw

    And the model can be found here: https://github.com/s0lly/MazesInExcel

    The maze generation techniques used here are those found in the book "Mazes for Programmers" by Jamis Buck. It's an excellent book that teaches you these (and many more) algorithms in a simple way and, most importantly, floods your mind with new ideas.

    Hope this helps!

    submitted by /u/s0lly
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    I made a discord server for aspiring/hobby gamedevs

    Posted: 20 Sep 2019 06:15 PM PDT

    I wanted to create a small tight knit community of game developers so that we could all get to know each other and keep up with everyone's projects. I think it's a lot easier to get together and collaborate if you already know the people you are trying to collaborate with and that's kind of the goal of this discord server.

    Edit: I removed the link because waaay more people than I expected have joined. If you still want in go ahead and pm me.

    Edit 2: I'll be going to bed soon and send invites to anyone who pmed me when I wake up tomorrow. Cheers guys!

    submitted by /u/Zenrix
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    Best online courses to become an indie game developer? (Programming and Game Design)

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 06:07 AM PDT

    What are the best online programming and game design courses for someone who wants to open their own game studio?

    I'm new to game dev and can't afford going to college, so I'm taking the self taught route. I tried Youtube tutorials and some Udemy courses, but I found those a little superficial and incomplete, they just didn't work for me. I'm looking for something more in depth, rather than just following a tutorial step by step. What do you suggest me?

    submitted by /u/GabrielaBenke
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    After two years, my game, which was originally created as a cheating program, is releasing on Steam! 30 days after the publication of the page

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 10:35 AM PDT

    Hi everyone!

    I would like to tell about the story of the creation of my first game called EasyPianoGame, how it, grew into a game in three incomplete years from a small program written during a couple of nights, and share statistics for the first month after the start of the game's page in Steam.

    About the game

    This is a musical game in which you can play any song on the piano by notes, without special knowledge and work.

    In the game you can fully play the piano using only 8 keys of the PC keyboard. Don't be afraid of the appearance of notes in the game. Absolutely anyone can easily understand in a couple of minutes how to play by these notes.

    To play, you just need to observe the rhythm and pace of the song by pressing the required number of any keys, and the computer will make sure that the necessary sounds ring after pressing the keys. This approach allows you to almost immediately start playing at a good level, because:

    • You don't need a piano, just a PC keyboard
    • You don't need to train your fingers for hours to correctly press the keys
    • You don't need to remember which keys to press

    How did the idea appear

    I always wanted to learn to play the piano, but as a child I had no possibility, and when I grew up, there was already little time because of studying at the university. Therefore, I sometimes looked for different piano simulation programs that could be played using the PC keyboard. For all the time, I haven't found the program that I would like, and in which I would spend more than five minutes trying to learn how to play my favorite tunes.

    The main problem and disadvantage of such programs is that the PC keyboard is simply not designed for comfortable and full-fledged playing the piano. The keys in the piano are arranged in a specific, repeating sequence, so that they can be easily found, pressed and their location can be remembered, which is much more convenient than on a PC keyboard.

    Also, in many programs there was no good sound.

    Of all the tested programs, I used the program from virtualpiano.net for some time.

    https://i.redd.it/9avftr2yazn31.png

    On this site, they make special notes from the characters of the keyboard, pressing them you can play.

    Here is an example of such a note:

    e t y y – y u i i – i o u u – y t t y – e t y yy u i i – i o u u – y t y – e t y y – y i o o –o p P P – p o p y – y u i i – o p y – y i u u – i y u

    Rules:

    https://i.redd.it/jxzebatbbzn31.png

    In virtualpiano.net, I couldn't play at a constant speed and without stopping. I constantly stopped to find the right key and it didn't resemble the melody I wanted to play.

    Somehow an idea came to me. What if, I'll just press any key, and the computer will look at the notes and find the right sound?

    I quickly made a program that received a text file with notes from the virtualpiano.net website, and when I pressed any key, it reproduced a terrible synthesized sound, not much like a piano one. I had to only press the necessary number of keys and observe pauses.

    MIDI

    Afterwards, I constantly improved the program. I improved the sound, added the ability to change the notes "on the fly" and visualize them in a more convenient, readable form. Soon, I got bored with notes from virtualpiano.net. With my cheat, they became too easy for me. I came up with my own format for notes, manually translating real notes for the piano into it. It was very tiring, and I immediately gave up this venture when I learned about the MIDI standard.

    What is MIDI? In a nutshell, these are the rules in the world of electronic musical instruments about the transfer and storage of musical data (such as, for example, pressing a piano key with certain force). MIDI files are very common. Today, in this format you can find any song you need. Such files store data about which note and at what time should sound. For example, you can record the performance of a pianist there – not the sounds themselves, but all the information that he made with the instrument during the performance.

    I studied the MIDI standard and added its support to my program. Now, it can open any MIDI file and any musical instrument with a MIDI interface can be connected to it.

    Standard music notation

    I didn't stop at that point, I had to visualize the data stored in a MIDI file, namely the durations that make up the rhythm. I didn't invent a bicycle and turned to musical notation. The one with five lines that musicians use to record music on paper. At first glance, the appearance of the notes is confusing. If you describe everything in a nutshell, a note (sound) is characterized by two parameters: the pitch of the sound and its duration. Durations are shown with different signs.

    https://i.redd.it/uk0gdb5tdzn31.jpg

    There are only five main durations and they are easy to remember. The longest is a whole note, all the following are two times shorter, and they are called, respectively, half, fourth, etc.

    The pitch of notes is a bit more complicated thing. The pitch of a note is determined by its position on five lines.

    https://i.redd.it/s6jem01xdzn31.png

    The piano has 88 keys, and each of them has its own position on the lines. Fortunately, we don't need to continue the lecture about the pitch of the notes, because the computer takes care of this routine by determining the right key.

    As a result, I borrowed five characters from the musical notation and added some details from myself.

    1. I visualized durations to see measures relative to other notes. And, even if the user doesn't know the signs of duration, he can understand how to play them.

    https://i.redd.it/ejzarhj4ezn31.png

    1. I divided the measure into sections showing one beat of the metronome.

    https://reddit.com/link/d7dj9v/video/9nswwg0mszn31/player

    Although the height of the notes is not needed for the program, I left the lines to make them look like real musical notes. In the program, notes can be in seven different positions on four lines, depending on their pitch (do, re, mi, fa, salt, la, si, do).

    Early access

    I was improving the program for two years with interruptions, in the process I learned a lot. Eight months ago, I thought that the idea of the program could be interesting for others, and I decided to finish it to a full game and release it in Steam in early access.

    Why early access? I have no experience in creating games, and I'm not even sure if I correctly call my program a game, because I didn't find anything like it. I want to be in early access to look at the reaction and interest of the players and, if something happens, change, remove or add some things. Also, I have some ideas for other game modes, and ideas for improving sound quality and realism.

    Now the game is stable, it can open any MIDI files, you can play through a MIDI keyboard, output sound to other MIDI instruments, and it has a fairly good sound. There are 10 simple classical pieces (in the future their number will increase). You can also find any song in MIDI at musescore.com.

    Having entered the game, you can easily understand the principle of the game. Even if you don't know how to read music, just by listening, you can repeat what you hear, observing the rhythm. There is a training mode, which takes 30 to 40 minutes, where you can learn how to play by the metronome and find out everything you need for the game.

    Speaking of player interest

    Exactly a month ago, I published a page in Steam and received the following results:

    https://i.redd.it/ed5f8v7xfzn31.png

    Since publication, the page has been visited 6,200 times, and the number of additions to the wish list is only 190. When compared with indicators from posts by other indie developers, it seems like an absolute failure. I must add that I was not involved in marketing at all, in this post I am talking about the game for the first time.

    Is it possible to judge by these indicators the interest of players?

    It seems to me that in vain I made the interface look like musical notes. Now, when potential buyers go to the page after seeing screenshots and musical notes on them, they immediately leave it without looking at the trailer. I wanted the player to be able to play the same piece with different intonations. So that he himself decides what speed to play, when to press and how long to pause, and if you play through a MIDI keyboard, then control the force of pressing. I think the interface had to be done in the style of Guitar Hero. This will be the first thing I add in early access, a game mode with falling notes.

    The increase of visits in late August was due to the fact that I was not serious, setting the release date too early, and didn't have time to prepare the build. Later, a couple of days later, I turned to support and set an exact release date on October 3rd.

    ​

    Thank you for reading all this.

    Finally, some links

    Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1126220/EasyPianoGame/

    Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/lrZsAfIVoRE

    submitted by /u/MaksBayke
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    Question about casual games

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 10:21 AM PDT

    I'm currently developing a casual game for mobile. The art and mechanics are done. The thing is that I have noticed a pattern in the casual games market. Basically there are two types of casual games: Highscore based games like Stack (Ketchapp) and level based games like Ball Blast (Voodoo). Nowadays, every single casual game is level based. It seems that Highscore based games are vanishing. My question are... Why is this happening? Level based games are more profitable and engaging? Is it still possible to publish a succesful highscore based casual game in 2019?

    submitted by /u/naturapp
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    Unity Devs - for the life of me I cannot get Vector2.MoveTowards to work!

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 12:32 PM PDT

    One year has already passed, so here is a summary of my first year as a Game Dev Youtuber. :)

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 10:19 AM PDT

    Me and my friend's journey of over two years developing a dark fantasy RPG in Unreal

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 12:22 PM PDT

    Hello fellow gamedevs!

    I wanted to share with you the journey me and my good friend had in the last two years or so. We are two guys, who after several abandoned projects, decided to stick with something till the end.

    This is how our project changed in over 2 years time.

    That's how our game was born, a tightly scoped project that could be completed in 6 months or so… ;) of course it didn't work out like that at all. The game was originally set to be about dead criminals who got stuck in a limbo like graveyard and who would need to find a way out of this predicament by slaying all sorts of undead creatures. This concept mixed modern elements like machine guns and grenades with fantasy elements such as undead skeletons and magic.

    After some time, we realized that this direction was really difficult to execute well and if we failed it would result in a wishy washy setting. Hence, we decided to drop the modern setting and instead went full on dark fantasy. I believe this was the true turning point for us, because it gave us a clear artistic vision.

    After that it was all about executing our ideas, because we had and still have a lot of them... Along the way we improved a lot and that meant redoing a lot of stuff, just the enemy characters went through 3 or 4 iterations till we arrived at their current state.

    1 year ago we had decent visuals but the combat system that we thought up was nowhere near ready. Iterating the combat and getting everything to feel impactful took us the second year basically. We wanted to make a top-down game similar to Diablo (at least regarding the camera view) but without the click based combat.

    Instead in our game you move around with WASD and you need to hit every character yourself, by either swinging your weapon or hitting them with ranged projectiles. The enemies need to hit you in a similar fashion. This is how our skill based hack 'n' slash combat system was formed. I believe it is a lot of fun and it can be very satisfying to hit 3-4 enemies with one swing. Also your enemies can hit each other and not only you, so if you maneuver well you can make ranged characters hurt their own allies.

    This is where we are right now, you can check out our combat trailer that we put together from the latest build of the game. It was a truly grand milestone to reach and I hope to believe our efforts were not in vain.

    As for the future, we already have the other segments of the development planned out but finishing all of them will take time. Thank you for reading our story and I hope you could find some motivation in it because from time to time I also come here looking for just that!

    submitted by /u/T4rk
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    Steam store page "Visits" to "Wishlist" conversion rates?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 08:56 AM PDT

    Hi all, What would be the average visits to wishlist conversion rate? I am currently seeing about 4%. Is this about right? Thanks!

    submitted by /u/AutoRotate180
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    What is the best strategy to implement a level builder in a game?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 02:58 AM PDT

    Hi, I hope you're having a great time.

    I am wondering, what is the best strategy to implement a level builder in a game?

    I am not asking about the technical side of how to make a level builder, but about where to upload the level's data. I know that Steam Workshop exists but I was thinking about a cross-platform solution.

    So, that a level that was created on Nintendo Switch, for instance, can be played by the players on PC.

    Giving the fact that the level data is basically a text "string" what's the most affordable way to store this data in the cloud? I heard of Game Sparks, and Amazon and Microsoft servers. Is there a simpler solution out there that I am missing?

    submitted by /u/ThePsychiartist
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    Best 3D model format for a custom OpenGL game engine

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 05:07 AM PDT

    Looking for a custom 3D model format that has good documentation, is available in a binary format, and is widely accessible (e.g. can be exported from Blender and other modelling software).

    submitted by /u/ethan101au
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    Can someone explain VAT MOSS in newbie terms?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 04:16 AM PDT

    What is VAT MOSS and how does it work?

    I'm trying to host a Twine story for free on Itch but there's all this stuff about VAT and I am confused.

    submitted by /u/SpicyNoodleStudios
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    Anybody knows what techniques and combinations of software was used to create Ori And The Blind Foret's graphics?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 07:54 AM PDT

    I've very interested in learning to make 2d graphics. And Ori And the blind forest has always been the game which left me speechless, everytime. It's so stunning. Currently I'm studying graphic design, and I was wondering what kind of approach you'd have to making a game like this. Especially which softwares they use, and how they use them - and what they're flow process is.

    submitted by /u/FredSandy
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    I am planning a new game but can't find a unique motive.

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 12:56 PM PDT

    What would be a strong enough motive for the protagonist to go fight demons and abandon parts of his humanity for power. I don't want the motive to be anything family related as it's common and a cliche motive.

    submitted by /u/ironhunter90
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    Would like to develop a game. Best place to start?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 08:46 AM PDT

    Hello guys!

    Firstly about me, I come from a non-computer science background have a good knowledge in C and JAVA.

    I would like to make a game, nothing too big, a card game to be specific, something in the lines on yugioh. So I would like to know how can I get about to make such kind of a game, i.e. which programming language I'd need to know, which application I have to use. Also I'd like to make the game compatible for both android and PC if possible, and what I should be doing to connect players so they can play together etc.

    Any kind of help and suggestions is appreciated. Thank you.

    submitted by /u/LoneRanger999
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    BUSTED! When you realize you're an imposter! - Unity GameDev devlog

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 12:14 PM PDT

    Looking for brainstorm Group!!

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 11:50 AM PDT

    Hello. I am a game developer and am always coming up with new ideas. However i am lacking a team to work on them with! And most importantly a team to brainstorm on a game and talk about wether it should be pursued or not! I am hoping to find a diverse group of people who share the same values as i do to talk about game ideas and share honest opinions about them. If a team that was interested in working on developing together grew out of this that would be great but i am really focused on just finding a team to bounce ideas around with. Would like to have people who take this seriously and are willing to commit to responding to ideas daily when ever a member posts something they are thinking about. - please message me if you are interested, we could start a discord or slack channel.

    submitted by /u/bat000
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    Are people required to re-do tech interviews after their team got disassembled in the industry?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 11:50 AM PDT

    Hi folks. Idk this subreddit is proper for this kind of question, but here I go.

    I recently started to work in the game industry of South Korea as a programmer. Luckily it didn't happen to my team, but a good number of projects got canceled within the last month. (I am not sure but supposedly around 9+ projects)

    As part of relocating people who had been working for these teams, I heard that they had to update their resumes, and do multiple interviews with the team they wanna work with (for programmers, tech interviews) as if they're looking for a job from outside.

    To me, it sounded pretty unnatural. Especially considering the fact that all these 'cancellations' were made by executives of this company. not from worker themselves. But I have no idea cuz I got this job only few months ago,

    So my question is, is this a common thing in the game industry of your country too?

    Thanks :)

    submitted by /u/elitePopcorn
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    What's wrong with this autotiling?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 11:43 AM PDT

    I am trying to implement to 2-corner tile sets from here: http://www.cr31.co.uk/stagecast/wang/2corn.html

    But I can't seem to figure out how to resolve this issue...

    Tile mask 0 is translucent tile.

    ​

    https://i.redd.it/z0dm1qiwqzn31.png

     bool nE = GetTilePriority(map, pos + new Vector3Int(1, 1, 0)) == 1; sb.Append($" nE:{nE}"); bool sE = GetTilePriority(map, pos + new Vector3Int(1, -1, 0)) == 1; sb.Append($" sE:{sE}"); bool sW = GetTilePriority(map, pos + new Vector3Int(-1, -1, 0)) == 1; sb.Append($" sW:{sW}"); bool nW = GetTilePriority(map, pos + new Vector3Int(-1, 1, 0)) == 1; sb.Append($" nW:{nW}"); var mask = (nE ? 1 : 0) + (sE ? 2 : 0) + (nW ? 4 : 0) + (sW ? 8 : 0); Mask = mask; sb.Append($" Mask:{mask}");

    If I cover all the tiles with an autotile instead of just the tiles that are filled.

    ​

    https://i.redd.it/p9xhthrrszn31.png

    submitted by /u/eightvo
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    is unity physics bad? why am getting this?

    Posted: 21 Sep 2019 11:39 AM PDT

    https://imgur.com/QKawoN6

    ​

    ive been struggling with this many days and:

    1. he still has troubles standing
    2. he explodes if i pull any part other than foot
    3. if i pull foot he can explode too
    4. generally very not smooth experience

    helpmy friends

    submitted by /u/codeBetterThanFace
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