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    Home Unlabelled Interpolating pixelart animation with AI. App that turns low-framerate sprite into smooth animation.

    Interpolating pixelart animation with AI. App that turns low-framerate sprite into smooth animation.

    January 24, 2020

    Interpolating pixelart animation with AI. App that turns low-framerate sprite into smooth animation.

    Interpolating pixelart animation with AI. App that turns low-framerate sprite into smooth animation.

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 01:36 AM PST

    Created this Weapon Design Demo while working on our game

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 07:15 AM PST

    Voxel Spaceship collection (Link in comment)

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 06:34 AM PST

    What is the best way to promote your game?

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 09:50 AM PST

    I've heard about the usage of discord/e-mail list/dev logs and so on. But I was wondering which way of promoting your games worked best for you guys.

    submitted by /u/BloomingBonsai
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    An Exile Squadron Post-mortem

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 08:49 AM PST

    An Exile Squadron Post-mortem

    It's the 24rd of January in 2020, the day I'm writing this post-mortem, and it's been a little more than two months since the release of my second game, called Exile Squadron. Although I was working on the game in December and January, ironing out some bugs and making a Linux version, I considered it finished in November 2019. After the Christmas break, I'm ready to continue my gamedev journey, figuring out a new project. But before I do that I wanted to wrap up Exile Squadron (ES) with a few thoughts.

    Even though it was my second game, creating ES was a daunting task for me. My first project – A Long Road Home – took me one year to make from scratch, while ES took two and a half. The reason for this is that A Long Road Home was made in the RPG Maker VX Ace engine, which is a beginner tool in the sense that you don't have to code anything in it (although you can, to push the engine to its limits). I also used a lot of stock assets in my first game, both for graphics and sound/music. This basically meant that I only had to design the gameplay, write the story and puzzles and of course bring these into the engine. And even with a simpler engine, it was tough to create this adventure game, it being my very first project.

    Cover art

    When it came to Exile Squadron, I wanted to improve myself and step up my game, so I decided that I will design, code, draw and compose the game from zero. I wanted to create everything myself. And although I didn't succeed 100%, I came close. The reason for this was that I really wanted to improve, and I know that if I wanted to create unique and different games in the future, I have to learn and improve some skills of mine.

    New Engine

    For this, I needed a new engine, since RPG Maker didn't do it for me anymore. Don't get me wrong, this is a great engine, and some great games were done with it, but the truth is that if you want to create anything else than a classic JRPG with it, you really have to break down the engine with scripts, to overcome its limitations. And if I have to fiddle around with scripts, I might as well code a game from zero in a more freeform engine. That's how I arrived to Gamemaker Studio. I didn't hear about this engine before, but one day there was a great Humble Bundle sale, where you could buy the whole engine package for a very low price. This is an engine which is used for 2D games first and foremost, some really great games were created with is. Things like Hotline Miami, Hyperlight Drifter and Undertale.

    GameMaker Studio 2

    Although the game's scripting has a Drag and Drop interface (which means you build up code logic with dropping down elements, similarly to Unreal 4), people recommended me to learn the programming language, called GML (GameMaker Language). So I started to do just that, and with the help of some great Youtube tutorials from Shaun Spalding, I managed to be more and more confident with it. Parallelly I started learning some Python, which is one of the most popular programming languages in the world, to understand programming logic a bit more, and get the hang of basic programming structure. This helped me a lot to code in GML, especially since there are some similarities between the languages. While I was learning GameMaker Studio version 1.4, the new version came out, so I switched to GameMaker Studio 2, and I'm using that since that point.

    Design

    When I started to get the hang of this engine, I started to brainstorm some ideas regarding my next games. I had a lot of ideas, which I scribbled down in my notebook, so in the future, I can come back to them. In the end, I decided that I will try to create an old-school shoot 'em up (SHMUP for short). I was playing with Jets 'n Guns and that time, which provided me a lot of inspiration, and made me enthusiastic about this genre. I always liked these games, although I can safely say that I was never a „pro" in them. Unfortunately, this will come back to me, biting me in the ass. More on this later.

    Pages from the design document - with terrible handwriting

    So I started to get some ideas about the game, I was thinking about the style of the game the gameplay etc. I wrote these down, creating some kind of design document. I can highly recommend creating this document if you are doing a serious project. Even though the details you write in them might change during development, in the beginning it provides great reference for you and helps to keep yourself on track. I wrote down the basic story, the style of graphics I want to use, the type of weapons, things like that. Using this document, I created the workflow of the project. I'm a kind of person who likes to plan everything in advance, which is exactly what I have done.

    About graphics... As I've mentioned, I wanted to create every art asset in the game myself. Sigh… How should I put this? I suck at drawing. So you can imagine this was a huge hurdle for me. But just like coding, I started to practice some, drew spaceships, some logos to get the hang of it. After I decided that the game will use pixelart, I started creating pixelart ships. Well, you can see from the game that I didn't actually succeed in creating high-quality art but I succeeded in creating my own art. I knew my limitations and quickly realized that I won't be able to create a very good looking game, but it felt good that it was me who created the assets in Exile Squadron. And actually, I got some compliments about the pixelart, which was really heartwarming.

    Screenshot from the game

    Cutting features

    As for the design of the game, I obviously overscoped in the beginning, like most indie developers. I wanted the player spaceship to be able to transform between a spaceship form and a robot form. Also wanted space battles and land battles, a big story, and lots of weapons.

    What was I thinking?

    I started to create these, and thankfully I quickly realized that I won't be able to achieve these goals. The game would never be finished if I sticked to these original ideas. So I scoped down the game. No transforming spaceship. No land battles. Although I kept the story, it was more static than I originally designed it. From dynamic cutscenes, I went to pre-mission briefings and backstory bits, which you could collect during missions.

    I cut down the number of weapons, but I made them more distinct from eachother. I didn't want to have similarly working weapons, like different types of lasers. My goal was to have equipment which all work differently and requires different tactics. So I made lasers, flak cannons, machine guns, bombs, EMP weapons, shields, attack drones etc. I think I succeeded in creating these weapons unique even though I had a problem with balancing them and making each of them meaningful. I also had to downscope the number of levels in the game. Originally I wanted to have at least 20 levels. From that, I went to 10, and from that, I went to 6. Not to mention that at first I created levels which took at least 10 minutes to finish (that's not bad for a shoot 'em up), before I realized that it was more fun to have shorter (4-5 minutes long), but more adrenaline-pumping levels.

    Early prototype – the game still had the robot feature

    Who am I kidding? The truth is that I started to burn out when I created these long levels. This is why I cut back on some features. I remember that I already worked on the game for a year, and I didn't have too much to show. This is where I started to lose steam, I became less and less enthusiast about my own project. That is the point where many developers just throw their project into the bin and start a new project. This is where my experience from my first game came in handy. As I learned there, you have to push through during these stressful times, you have to be persistent and not fall victim to the shiny object syndrome. So I cut features from the game, cut levels, accepted that this is the best graphics I can do at this moment, and continued to work on the game.

    Because let's be honest, most of us won't be able to make the perfect game, the dream game, especially not as a second project. I just had to teach myself to let things go. I know each project is like one's baby, but this is just a game. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to create the best game you can, but you have to realize which are the points where spending more time on a project is not worth the extra time. Either because the game probably won't be more fun, or you risk not finishing the game at all. After I accepted that I have to cut stuff and won't be able to realize my original vision, it was easier to continue development.

    Another screenshot

    As a result, the game has been finished during September 2019, and I could start looking for game testers. I never had too much luck with these, since I only got a few testers. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, to be honest. I posted on social media, I posted on the game's website, but I could only find a handful of them. Thankfully the testers I managed to contact gave me great feedback regarding the game. I couldn't implement everything they suggested, but I think I managed to improve the game. The biggest problem arose from the fact that although I always liked shoot 'em up games, I was never really, really good at them, which meant that the pacing of the levels, the enemy spawns and movement was far from the perfection of games like Jets 'n Guns, Gradius and similar classics. Of course, I'm just a lone indie developer, but it still bugged me that the flow of the game was not as good as I hoped, and this stemmed from my lack of knowledge of the intricacies of the genre. Lesson learned: it's not enough to like certain types of games, you have to understand the mechanics and their structure. I know this is basic, but I still managed to fall into this trap.

    Final thoughts

    That said, I can say that I'm proud of Exile Squadron. I finished a big project, created the art and coded the game, did marketing for it (which I really hate). In the end, I didn't make the music. Although I tried, I realized that what I make is not good, and since music is one of the most important parts of games, in my opinion, I didn't want to make some half-baked awful song. I commissioned someone for music instead, that's what you can hear in the game. Unfortunately, I didn't have too much money for this project, that's why the music is not as varied as I would have liked. Maybe next time I can create music as well.

    The cockpit – where every mission starts

    All in all, it was a great feeling to release the game, but I want to work on smaller projects in the future. Two and a half year of development all by myself is difficult and can cause burnout. I want to avoid that as much as I can.

    Was Exile Squadron successful? Well, I successfully finished it, learned a lot, I think I managed to improve my skills. Financially? Definitely not, it flopped. Although I will manage to break even, and in the long run turn a small profit if everything goes right. Maybe it was the lack of strong marketing (did I say that I hate doing that), maybe I priced it too high ($9.99), maybe people just don't like it. I will have to think more about this and improve in this area as well. Thankfully I'm doing this as a hobby, so my livelihood is not in danger, but hopefully, in the future, I will be more successful.

    submitted by /u/01BitStudio
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    Sword combo animation for my game - I wanna know why does it look so bad. I appreciate any feedback and examples of games I can look at to find inspiration.

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 10:50 AM PST

    Experienced programmer here, where should I dive in to learn a little animation to expand my skill set?

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 08:19 AM PST

    Hello, I am building games for my portfolio right now,l and my wheelhouse is programming. My favorite games are RPG adventure and action adventure games.

    I want to be valuable to larger projects and teams. I know my advantage is programming. However, if I want to showcase my talents, I feel like I'm limited by my lack of animation experience.

    Is it worth it to dive a little into animation? How do other programmers/artists/designers handle weaknesses in other areas?

    Just to put a bow on this question, I have an educational Maya license. I have enough free time but I want to spend it wisely.

    submitted by /u/patdough
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    A free package of assets for a platform game. Links In the comments

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 10:09 AM PST

    Map design, for my game(still in development)

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 09:42 AM PST

    Is there any company out there that shoots game trailers?

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 10:22 AM PST

    Is there any company out there that shoots game trailers? If not thats a wide open lane with a large demand.

    As a solo dev I'm spending all my time trying to build the coolest mechanics i can build. Things that feel good more than look good.

    I am no video editor, I don't know how to frame things to make them look good and sync them with the perfect audio drops. Is there any teams or individuals who do that kind of service?

    If not do you guys have any resources on shooting a good trailer. Or and advice? I'm definitely open to paying for a quality trailer. Any advice would help thanks.

    submitted by /u/J_be
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    What sort of GPU do you require in your laptop for the games you create?

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 10:19 AM PST

    Hi guys and gals. Just wondering how intensive a gpu one may need for programming in Unity etc at a university level. Other than that, what gpu do you feel you need in your laptop and why?

    submitted by /u/AgariaKey
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    Babylon.js Weekly Video: Mystery Demo Tutorial Part 3

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 11:46 AM PST

    Slowing things down or speeding them up within Unity!

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 11:34 AM PST

    Here's a useful and concise tutorial on how to adjust real time in Unity, within game play, to speed up or slow down the game! Think Bullet Time or Fast Forward!

    Link to Tutorial

    submitted by /u/Gavbok
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    This old man has no customers anymore, so please add him into your game! (Link in the comments)

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 12:05 PM PST

    ECS manager meshes and rendering

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 11:31 AM PST

    Hello I am writing simple 3D game engine using c++ and OpenGL. I have simple ECS implemented, and now i am working on renderer system. Earlier , before implementing ECS I had class Mesh that loaded vertices , indices, normals.... from file, and built VertexArray. The class has function render. Well after implementing ECS i have few problems/questions. I read that components should have almost no functionallity, so i wonder if following idea on renderable component is good.

    struct Vertex { .... }; struct Renderable { std::vector<Vertex> vertices; std::vector<unsigned int>indices; };

    Model loader should fill those data, and Renderer system would build Vertex Array of those data.Does it make sense?

    Or maybe model loader could load data, create Vertex Arrays , move them to Asset Manager. Renderable component would look something like this.

    struct Renderable { VertexArray * VAO; }

    So when i need to fill component it gets pointer to Vertex Array from asset manager.

    submitted by /u/Bodka0907
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    Looking for tips to flesh out early game in my survival/crafting UI based RPG

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 11:13 AM PST

    I'm currently working on a UI based game heavily focused on survival and crafting. The game features a login system, a shared zone/biome-system and an auction house. The basics are already set up and now is the time to add content for early gameplay.

    My idea is that you start pretty much naked with no weapons or clothes. Your first task will be to gather food to stay alive, find basic resources and craft som early primitive tools etc. Think "Primitive Technology/Skills" youtube channels, and then work your way up through a pletora of skill trees, unlocking newer technologies etc.

    I'd be happy if you came with some suggestions on what a new player could do early game (gather, craft, survival elements etc), depending on which biome a player spawns in etc. For example: Make bark sandals, sharpen a stone and use it with a tree branch to make a primitive stone axe. Search for food (berries, mushrooms, kill rats, crabs). I have some restrictions on what type of resources, animals that exists in a specific biome and so on.

    Anything is appreciated!

    submitted by /u/Kosmosaik
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    Part 4 of my low poly modular dungeon tutorial series will cover how to assemble the floor tiles to create a variety of rooms quickly with just a few assets. Full video in comments

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 06:13 AM PST

    Game Engine editor interaction with scene

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 10:57 AM PST

    Hello I am writing simple 3D game engine using C++ and OpenGL for educational purposes. I want keep it really simple, as I am not very experienced programmer yet. So right now my engine has single pieces like the tools for generating/brushing terrain, simple entity component manager, simple GUI system and so on.Now I would like to put those pieces together in editor. But i am not sure how that editor should interact with scene, or even how to design such an editor. My only plan is to put tools for terrain editing , animation and so on in separate editors. Then i would have something like editor manager. That would control which editor is currently in use. Lets say that I would press button create terrain entity, so editor manager would create instance of the terrain editor, in the terrain editor all needed widgets are created. After finishing the entity editing, the entity would be pushed to the scene, and all gui for editing is destroyed. I know it is not great solution, I only wonder if my plan makes any sense.

    submitted by /u/Bodka0907
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    Construct 3 Open Weekend for this years Global Game Jam

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 05:56 AM PST

    What are some good ways to make NPCs feel more “alive” and dynamic?

    Posted: 23 Jan 2020 10:37 PM PST

    So I've been working on a kind of medieval life simulator Dwarf Fortress-like game for a while, and I've hit a bit of a snag. Essentially, as part of the whole simulation thing, I have a bunch of moving NPCs and living game pieces that are always doing stuff and interacting with each other, even when they are off screen and the player isn't there to see it. This actually works great at the moment and gives some really cool effects where the player can wander in on a fight in progress or a dynamic NPC interaction they weren't a part of, Far Cry tiger vs. guard style. It helps the world feel alive and like stuff can happen without you.

    However, I've begun to feel like my NPCs are still too "gamey" and don't feel like actual people who live in the game's world. The goal of my simulation is to make it fun to just watch the world play out and the NPCs interact with each other, but right now my NPCs just aren't interesting! They all have names and different appearances and everything, but the way they talk and act is just kind of... boring and not really interesting for the player to watch. They talk to each other and the player, and kind of mill around and do their own thing, but I feel like their behavior isn't complex or interesting enough to make them fun to watch or interact with. I want to make them feel different from each other and more "alive" rather than stiff conversation objects who hand out quests like in MMOs.

    Hence my question: what ways have you found as game devs to help lend a sense of sentience and personality to your NPCs? What are some tricks or tips to make them feel more alive and interesting to interact with? I have thought about trying something similar to Dwarf Fortress's thoughts, moods and likes/dislikes system, or maybe something like Far Cry and Assassin's Creed where there are different NPC factions that act differently and interact in fun and unexpected ways.

    Any tips and advice is appreciated! :)

    submitted by /u/TopHatDev
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    C# or C++?

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 05:18 AM PST

    From what I've read online C++ is the go to language for game development. What makes it better than C# and will C# ever be the 'go to'. Does it depend on the project you are working on?

    submitted by /u/bolgz
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    I "Finished" Creating A Game Engine Programming In C++ Tutorial Series And Would Like Feedback For The Postmortem And Future Series

    Posted: 23 Jan 2020 02:52 PM PST

    Back in July of 2017 I started posting a series of videos under the premise that "teaching is the best way to learn." The premise what that I would read through the book "Game Programming In C++ Start To Finish" written by Erik Yuzwa and then adapt the information from said book into a video format. I now know that this was a terrible, terrible idea.

    The code in the book was practically unusable., the software was out of date, and the version of OpenGL that it was using was already depreciated by the time I started my videos. I knew this going in. I further knew that attempting to get into game development via learning to program a game engine is the dumbest and hardest possible way to do so.

    But I thought then, and I still think now, that my game ideas don't properly fit in any framework provided by current engines. I now know that I could have simply make a scaled down version of my ideas, refined them, learned how to code, and THEN learned how to make an engine that fit their needs, but at this point I'm 10 years in and I'm not backing down now.

    So here's what I'm here to ask. If you have some spare time, could you give some or all the my tutorial series a watch, and tell me just how badly I messed everything up?

    I'm looking for critiques like "this part was to fast" "this part was to slow" "To little information given here" "Should have mentioned where you got this or that resource" "Should have sited your sources for this" etc.

    All the criticisms will be cataloged along with my own criticisms of myself into a postmortem video. Then. Well. Then I'm going to try again. With a new book this time. One that I think will actually help me this time: Game Engine Architecture 2nd Edition by Jason Gregory. Also, if you have other books that you know to be excellent resources for building a good cross-platform game engine in C++, let me know so I can take a look at them. Also if there are any other series that cover the same topics, let me know about that too. I'll also be looking at the lists of books and series that already exist on this subreddit and others. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

    Link to the series!

    submitted by /u/EarthOtherwise
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    It's safe to reference other art in game that gonna be published in Google Play?

    Posted: 24 Jan 2020 08:23 AM PST

    I have some text names and references to Undertale (no sprites or sounds), and I am worry, will Google ban my app for "copyright violation"?

    submitted by /u/TrashboxBobylev
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