| Screenshot Saturday #498 - Top Form Posted: 14 Aug 2020 08:09 PM PDT Share your progress since last time in a form of screenshots, animations and videos. Tell us all about your project and make us interested! The hashtag for Twitter is of course #screenshotsaturday. Note: Using url shorteners is discouraged as it may get you caught by Reddit's spam filter.
Previous Screenshot Saturdays
Bonus question: What would you say is the weakest part of your favorite game of all time? submitted by /u/Sexual_Lettuce [link] [comments] |
| Why Isometric? | Art, Code and Matrix Maths | A Devlog Posted: 14 Aug 2020 11:49 PM PDT |
| Create A Simple Confetti Particle Effect In Unity Using Plane Mesh – Tutorial Link in Comments Posted: 15 Aug 2020 07:35 AM PDT |
| A list of all the steps I took to publish a game on Steam in 1 month Posted: 14 Aug 2020 02:52 PM PDT The game is called Lost Potato. I wanted to see how quickly I could make a polished commercial game and publish it. Do note that I have made another game before with the same engine (GameMaker Studio 2) so I could reuse a lot of code and I had a pretty good grasp on the engine already. Here are the steps I took to make it from start to finish: - Get the game idea: I thought the mechanic of reflecting projectiles into enemies in my other game was fun but underused, so I wanted to make a full game around that.
- Create a new project in GameMaker and import all of the base modules I already developed: menus, input manager, fonts etc.
- Design and code the game loop with placeholder art. For me It meant adding a room with a character, traps and enemies and coding the interactions between them.
- Add in basic art assets to get a feel for the overall art direction of the game.
- Polish the main mechanic of the game. I make sure it feels good to move the character around and hit things before adding in more content. (I'm using sound effects from various bundles I got online over the years)
- Add more content and game mechanics. I test those on the spot and get rid of them if they don't work as well as I had expected.
- Add art for backgrounds and environment.
- Set up a basic HUD layout.
- Design a simple logo. I looked for a font I liked on DaFont, made sure the license is good to use in commercial projects, chose a name and tweaked it a bit in my drawing app (Krita).
- Find some music that's usable in commercial projects on Pond5. Download the track with the trademark and add it to the game. Make sure it fits before buying it.
- Add a progression system. I personally added 14 unlockable hats that change the stats and look of your character. I track and display the highest level the player has reached with each of those hats.
- Test, polish and balance everything.
- Add secondary features: saving, steam API, translations. (using this free localization sheet)
- Write descriptions of different lengths for the different spots of the Steam page. Getting them translated to all the languages supported once they're finalized using Gengo.
- Set up a presskit with screenshots and a trailer. Use this re-implementation of presskit() to create the presskit. For the trailer: record footage with OBS Studio, edit it with Shotcut or Openshot, publish on YouTube.
- Set up the Steam page, designing all the key art necessary for that.
- Run a small beta to fix the balancing and bugs and to get some feedback and early reviews. I have a Discord server with a bunch of players who were happy to help me test the game, it went great.
- Put together a list of influencers and press to contact, write the email template. Send the emails a week or more before launch.
- Prepare some gifs and posts for social media to be sent at launch or during the weeks leading up to launch. Use ezgif.
- Actually launch the game.
Here are the costs: - $100 Steam fee (retrievable if > $1000 in sales)
- $220 for translating the Steam description (80 words) in 23 languages using Gengo.
- $80 for 2 tracks on Pond5
Total: $400 + 1 month of work Feel free to ask me anything and I'll do my best to answer when I get a minute! submitted by /u/thomasgvd [link] [comments] |
| The Making of Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System, Revealed by Monolith Productions' Lead Developers Posted: 14 Aug 2020 10:11 PM PDT |
| Dumb question alert. Is this a 2D game or 3D? Posted: 14 Aug 2020 01:46 PM PDT |
| How a lucky coincidence saved Ruinarch from obscurity - a TinyTeams Festival participation postmortem Posted: 15 Aug 2020 04:32 AM PDT  | This is our wishlist graph for the past year and a half that Ruinarch's Store Page has been up on Steam: around 9/day wishlists for the past year and a half Ruinarch is an evil overlord simulator and dubbed by some as a reverse RimWorld/Dwarf Fortress game. I think it's a very interesting concept for many but as the first game of an unknown indie with a not-so-flashy visuals, we struggled in gaining traction from the beginning. When the store page was first launched, we only had a Teaser Trailer and a handful of early development screenshots. Our descriptions were also haphazardly put together. We did not get many followers from that initial period and that means Steam's algorithm gave us limited visibility moving forward. Our Steam page kept on improving over time, especially once we got a publisher (Squeaky Wheel) that assisted us in marketing efforts. Still, there weren't any significant bump in our daily wishlists count as we have barely any external views. breakdown of visits of a typical week (May 2020) I suppose our biggest event prior to August is our inclusion in this year's Steam Summer Festival. Unfortunately, we did not get any featuring at all so while there was a bump, it wasn't as big as we had hoped. I suspect this was because the demo we first submitted for review wasn't very good. Fortunately, due to a week long delay for the Festival, we managed to fix many issues and the final demo version was appreciated by the few people that did try it out. Squeaky Wheel opened a shared discord channel and we managed to get some Ruinarch players thanks to the event. We got around 400 wishlists during the entire week. I think we had around 300 demo installs back then and I remember having a sinking feeling that this could be indicative of our initial sales launch. If it's free and only 300 people bothered to download it, how much less if it costs money? Steam Summer Festival wishlists (June 16 - 22) By July, we have finally set our launch date to August 25. Our wishlists are around 4k. Not extremely bad, but also not enough to get us to Popular Upcoming, which we heard usually requires at least 6k wishlists. The strange thing about our game is we had around 1k followers at this point, so our Wishlist to Follower ratio is unusually low (4:1). It's typically 5-6:1. Our guess is this implies we have higher quality wishlists - many of them were interested enough to follow the game, which isn't a common player behavior. And developers aren't actively gaming follower count like most do for wishlists. It could be a good sign that they are more likely to buy at launch. At this point, our goal was to reach 6k wishlists to get into Popular Upcoming at least a few days before launch, which they say could give you around 1k wishlists per day. Our publisher started ramping up our reddit ads and that bumped our wishlists a bit to 30/day. Still wouldn't let us reach 6k in time! Just out of sheer luck, we read Yogscast's tweet about their TinyTeams event around the same time this was happening. We submitted the same demo from the Steam Summer Festival and got in. It seems perfectly scheduled just two weeks before our launch. The event has a much smaller pool of participants so we were hopeful that we wouldn't be as drowned out as before. It's our last hope in ever getting to Popular Upcoming. Perhaps with it, we can get 1k more wishlists? Wont let us hit 6k but we read Ancient Enemy got there with over 5k, so there is hope! We prepared two builds for the event. One is the demo, which is an updated version of our Steam Summer Festival demo. And another preview build with an extra scenario for Streamers. Around August 6, we sent out keys to streamers. We didn't get much of a response yet but we did find an ominous tweet from Splattercat. Naturally, we proceeded to overanalyze what the tweet meant and concluded that he already tried the preview build, it doesn't look like he liked it very much and would post something about it soon. Otherwise, he would have said it directly rather than say "it's good on paper". We also knew there are still some major bugs in the game and wondered whether he encountered one. So we thought - if he didn't like it let's just hope he doesn't post anything about the game as it may turn out badly. We worked extra hard each day to submit new builds every night, to quash remaining bugs before more streamers try it out. By Sunday night (August 9), a few hours before the TinyTeams event is about to launch, we were still working hard quashing a few more bugs and implementing tweaks. We did feel we managed to get both builds at a reasonably stable and fun state just as the event started. Around the same time, Splattercat posted a youtube video and it is about Ruinarch. A few hours later, Arch also posted a youtube video about Ruinarch! The next day, a huge French streamer named Dr_Horse also posted a youtube video. At first, I didn't know if they were good or bad because I can't get myself to watch it. I just trusted our publisher when he said it was positive, and also sneaked in some quick views to check likes/dislikes as well as the comments. from 37/day to 1,567/day Simply put, our wishlists (which we gathered in over a year and a half!) doubled in just the first 2 days and it instantly propelled us to Steam's Popular Upcoming and bottom half of Top Wishlists! We now have 15.7k wishlists and 2.4k followers. The ratio has gone down but with these numbers, we'll take it! We owe a lot of our new found visibility to the TinyTeams Festival and the Youtubers that tried out our preview, especially Splattercat. I think it was the combination of the entertaining youtubers bringing the eyeballs to the store page, and then the TinyTeams banner on top of the page gives it some level of prestige and the playable demo confirms the entertainment value 'advertised' by the youtuber. We'll see how the launch goes this August 25 (please buy please buy please buy) but if all goes well, we owe all of it to this very lucky episode!
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| I recently saw a demo of this interesting climbing system, could a smart person explain how they think it was done? Posted: 15 Aug 2020 10:53 AM PDT |
| Is game development really for me? Posted: 15 Aug 2020 01:12 AM PDT I'm in my last year in high school. Game development is my dream job however it's very unlikely that I'll pursue it. I've heard alot of people saying that you need to be good at math. I'm the worst student in math in my whole grade. I'm excellent at other studies such as humanities and biology. ( just wanted to say that I'm not a total dunce. ) Anyway I'm at a point in my life where I can choose what direction to head in with careers. Is it really true that you have to be good at math and numbers to be a game dev? Do I have a completely wrong idea of game development is? submitted by /u/yuni_sao [link] [comments] |
| Natural Traversal System / MoCap Library? Posted: 15 Aug 2020 05:09 AM PDT  | I've always wanted to implement a natural yet responsive traversal system (I use Unity). That means not too arcade-ish and tries to use root motion as much as possible. My goal is to create something like The Last of Us (traversal without the combat mechanics), that includes walk, crouch walk, run, vaulting, and climbing up. Here is the video that I researched on, it is by far the most natural traversal system I've ever seen for indie developing: https://youtu.be/vYwEiYxN5-c The author said he was using Unity, created the system themself, using some MoCap animations bought online. The author also mentioned an old tutorial by John Mac ( https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKFvhfT4QOqlEReJ2lSZJk_APVq5sxZ-x ) and a GDC talk of Horizon: Zero Dawn's traversal system ( https://youtu.be/LrLHsbTK5bM ) in the video description. They are both really informative and looks visually natural. There are many 3rd person traversal systems online, but most of them are just either not responsive or natural, mostly because the animations are not good enough. I intend to create my own traversal system, and I am curious if there is any good MoCap library with traversal animations I can buy? Here is what I found: https://mocaponline.com/collections/unity Also here is what I have accomplished right now, a simple vaulting system using Animator.MatchTarget. It uses 3 raycasts to determine whether the obstacle in front of the player is vaultable. Then it will find a proper point for hand placement during the vaulting animation. https://reddit.com/link/ia685s/video/tztsstbcy5h51/player
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| My progress so far after 1.5 years of game development Posted: 14 Aug 2020 04:39 PM PDT |
| Soundtracks for Game Developers Posted: 15 Aug 2020 09:30 AM PDT Hello developers, i'm a musician/producer and I have been making music for hobby for a while now. Recently I have gotten in need of money to invest further on my carrer, so I thought that it might be a good idea to announce my services here. I'm totally available to make any genre or type of music/soundtrack that you need. If you're interested contact me and thanks for stopping by. Exclaimer: I hope that doesn't break the rule number 3 of "No soliciting employment", because I really have no idea of a better appropriate place to do this. submitted by /u/Hattsu [link] [comments] |
| I put my entire life on hold to produce an indie game, check out my journey below Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:30 AM PDT |
| Introducing ZzFXM - A tiny JavaScript music system Posted: 15 Aug 2020 12:17 AM PDT |
| Is it okay to send an unfinished level design to an employer? Posted: 15 Aug 2020 04:57 AM PDT Hi guys! i just wanted to ask something. I recently sent an application to a famous game development company as a level designer and they are asking for my Playable Level. I already created some parts of the level design mostly the blocking parts but since i am making an open world map, particularly a survival game, I cant finish my level YET and I am also still working as a SQA in my current job (whispher i want to quit my job as a SQA to pursue level designing) My Question is, is it okay to send an unfinished Level design? or should I finish it first before submitting it?
UPDATE Okaaay, a lot of different opinions, i really appreciate everyone's opinion. To have some grasp on how much progress did I make, kindly check this link. Using the pictures, kindly reevaluate if i really need to finish it or if it is okay to send this for now and update it eventually. The Desolate Caverns submitted by /u/ZabardoPH [link] [comments] |
| Published mobile game developers Posted: 15 Aug 2020 06:56 AM PDT Stats and conversations about this topic seem to be hard to find. So I wanted to ask you a number of questions: Did getting your mobile game publish make you enough money to work full time on the games? Did you find that the publishers tried to rip you off? Was your whole experience fun and would you do it again? Would you suggest trying to do it for a career? Thank you for any responses. submitted by /u/Camkyle123 [link] [comments] |
| SSS- My game (Shadow Dreams) is basically "Inside Out" but for psychological illnesses and dealing with grief, I'm very happy with my latest introduction of facial mo-cap and orchestral scoring into the game's cut scenes! Posted: 15 Aug 2020 12:29 PM PDT |
| Publishing first few games Posted: 15 Aug 2020 12:18 PM PDT Hello everyone, This question might've been asked a lot but I couldn't find it. I'm new to game development and I have made 3 games so far with summed up around 3-4h of playtime. Now, I don't feel that confident in spending 100$ per game to publish them on steam (I'm quite broke too). What are your recommendations for a hosting platform and also is it possible to make some money on it (excluding ads), at least that 100$ for a steam publish? Thanks everyone submitted by /u/dearmrgates [link] [comments] |
| Model, Animate & Render A 3D Logo From 2D Image Posted: 15 Aug 2020 12:11 PM PDT |
| I’m new to game development and 3D modeling and have a question about Mixamo Models and Animations Posted: 15 Aug 2020 08:07 AM PDT I understand that mixamo animations are free to use for commercial use and games, but are the models free to use also? Can I use a mixamo model in my game? If the answer is yes then that goes to question 2, Am I allowed to modify the models in my own way to make them more unique, I want to make a SuperHot type game but you play as a character with super powers, I want it to be low poly, so can I take a mixamo model and decimate it to make it low poly and alter it to make it more have more muscle? submitted by /u/LawheaddYT [link] [comments] |
| FREE NO COPYRIGHT VIDEO GAME MUSIC Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:51 AM PDT |
| 10 things I've learned from my first Kickstarter Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:47 AM PDT Quick background check. For the past 6 months I've been developing a new expandable card game called, REDLINE: Tactical Card Combat which we launched on Kickstarter nearly two weeks ago. It's my first "real" Kickstarter and the campaign is currently over 60% funded which isn't bad for a newb, I'll gladly take it. However, Kickstarter is very unforgiving and I've learned a lot already in what it takes to build one from scratch and being knee deep in one at the moment. This is advice I wish I knew starting out and which may help others here looking to launch their own. Email lists really are that important - Everybody says it because it's true. The most effective way to grow your fan base is to develop your email list. It's easy to "like" or "follow" somebody, but submitting an email takes a little more commitment and so prioritizing emails should be your #1 priority. How many do you need? Easy, as many as possible. I know that's a cop out answer, but you can never have too many and a realistic number depends on the size of your funding goal. For reference, REDLINE launched with just under 500 on our list and we hit 50% in less than 48 hours. If we had 1,000 on our list, I believe we could have funded day 1. Lesson learned. 24 hour pressure - There is tremendous pressure to fund in the first 24/48 hours. Right or wrong, that seems to have become the measuring stick that separates the elite KS from the rest. Right or wrong, backers will look at your campaign and judge it based on how quickly you fund. There's nothing wrong in my opinion with taking as long as you need, as long as you get to the finish line, but not everybody will see it that way. Momentum is everything - Speaking of expectations, it's important to keep your campaign going after the initial hype has worn away. You always want to keep things positive, excited, and inevitably moving forward. I've done this with daily updates on the game's design, showcasing new content, fan contests, Q@A's anything you can think of to keep moving forward and keep backers engaged. Some backers will leave if they get cold feet or feel things are going south. The deadzone is real - This ties into #3, but after your first few days, action seemingly hits a wall and pledges slow to a crawl. This is where we're at currently. I still have plenty of engagement but can tell a lot of followers are waiting until the end to commit to backing, which makes sense and is perfectly understandable. Ads that were converting before launch stopped dead in their tracks. Ugh. So make sure you have a plan to keep pumping out content all the way to the end. Ideally that's what stretch goals are for, but they only work once you fund and do nothing if you havent hit your goal. Expect a lot of solicitations - Once you launch, you will get bombarded with offers for ad agencies or similar companies to market your KS to success. I can't speak for everyone, but in general these never seem to work and they prey on campaigns desperate to fund who have no plans in place to get there. Be weary and don't get suckered by their claims. Shipping - Shipping is a bitch no matter what you do about it. A few pieces of advice. Find a good shipping company willing to help, will answer questions and give you quotes ahead of launch so you can clearly share that with your potential backers. They will check. The current trend on KS these days seems to hold off on charging for shipping until after the campaign ends through pledge managers. This gives you time to get everything solid but also keeps KS from taking their 10% fee from it. Shipping is one of the most technical aspects of launching so make sure you take time to get it done right. Trailers and demos - You need both and I only launched with one. I did not have a game play demo when we launched and that probably cost me a few 1,000 in pledges looking back. Because of COVID, rushed time tables and ignorance, I thought my KS was strong enough with its descriptions we could get away without one. However my backers set me straight and kept asking for a demo before commiting. Realizing my mistake I recorded one on Tabletop Sim, which helped, but had it been there day 1, I know I would have nabbed more 1st day pledges. You get one chance to make a first impression. Don't shortchange yourself. Everybody else them and so you need to as well. Look at your competition - There are hundreds of Kickstarters out there just like yours. So study them. Dissect them. Learn from them. How do they word their copy? What kinda backer rewards are being offered? What do their graphics look like? How did they handle shipping? Do not straight up copy them of course, but you would be foolish to ignore what works for them and what doesn't. High priced rewards - I was super surprised when most of our higher tiered limited rewards sold out in the first few days. These high tiered pledges are worth a lot of money and can give your campaign a real boost in funding if backers like what you are offering. Problem is I underestimated the demand for them and since ours are mostly sold out that means a lot of future pledges will be smaller and slow down funding. I would have been smarter to create a few different higher value packages to give more options to backers and the campaign more of boost in money raised. But as I had little idea what the reception would be back then, I can't beat myself up too much over it. Be flexible and listen- Early on my backers were demanding a game play demo and more product as they loved the game and wanted more of it! Unfortunately my initial stretch goals weren't aligned to that demand. I realized my mistakes and quickly made the demo video and stretch goal adjustments to meet their expectations. (you can change your campaign story and stretch goals after launch, even rewards as long as they haven't been bought yet.) Hopefully the adjustments you make are small as campaign with large mistakes to fix are usually the one that have to cancel and restart. Not fun, but sometimes that's the right play as long as you listen to what your backers are saying. Ultimately, its their opinion that matters. I could easily add 10 more tips to that list, but these are the ten that would have helped me the most had I known earlier. Kickstarter gives you a great opportunity to connect and interact with fans. But it's a lot of work, so much work, so get ready. Granted these are just my experiences, from just one campaign. But I'd advice every new or potential campaign to take the words above to heart. Experience is a harsh teacher so cheat off my notes. :) submitted by /u/SavingThrowStudios [link] [comments] |
| Bow Trainer Gameplay - Already feels like good workout! Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:40 AM PDT |
| What courses should I take for a Game Artist? Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:20 AM PDT Ok so I'm an 18 year old who just graduated a few months ago and I already have an idea of what I want to do though I'm not sure how to get there. I want to be a game developer (game artist specifically) and have been looking into my options. I'm taking a year off between high school and college to get some things in order though I still don't know what I'm going for and as I've seen, colleges centered around game development aren't worth it in the long run. So my questions are this: -Which courses should I take for someone who's extremely interested in art and animation along with game development as a whole -Which degree should I go for? -And would I be better off sticking with a college near me or should I go to one more centered around the field? submitted by /u/TigerClaw64 [link] [comments] |
| I'm looking for a reasonable price for translating text in my video game to various languages. Anyone with experience using such services, please share your thoughts on this. Better to use a commercial service, seek community support, or use an individual translator? Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:11 AM PDT Links for services, whether a company or individual and thoughts on going about the community route are much appreciated. Particular looking for: - reasonable pricing
- benefits
- drawbacks
- if you would use such a service again or do something different
- best languages to translate
- language most likely to avoid
I will be first releasing on steam but then looking to add my game to other online stores. submitted by /u/centaurianmudpig [link] [comments] |
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/u9t31e2u51h51.jpg){kind=link}
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