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    February 24, 2021

    Low Poly Boats - Free Asset

    Low Poly Boats - Free Asset

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 05:39 AM PST

    How My Game Started Trending on Steam

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 08:28 AM PST

    In previous weeks I have made a couple posts here about how my first game sold $128k in one year and what types of marketing I did to achieve that. One of the cornerstones for my success was having a successful launch and I think the biggest contributor to that was getting on the New & Trending tab on the front page of Steam. In this post I will share a few insights related to how that happened.

    Disclaimer: I don't have any inside knowledge of how Steam's algorithm works. This is all based on my own deductions.

    I also made a video about this topic, if you prefer that format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc6FPtgKQkY

    ​

    You Don't Need to Sell a Million Copies

    I didn't get on the New & Trending tab immediately after I pressed the release button. Not even on the first day. But on the second day of release, I must have crossed whatever threshold there was and my game appeared on the front page of Steam - accompanied with a huge boost to impressions. The data doesn't reveal the exact time this happened, but I believe it was ~24 hours after I pressed the release button. At that point I had sold around 400 copies. That doesn't sound too bad, right?

    I don't believe there is any specific sales limit to get on the New & Trending tab - you just need to sell more than the other games that have been released recently. That is why it's good to plan your release date so that there aren't many big titles releasing around the same time. You can use a site like steamdb.info to check which games are set to release on which dates.

    ​

    The Importance of Wishlists

    To maximize your chances of getting on the New & Trending tab, you want to sell as many copies as you can as quickly as you can. This is why wishlists are so important. As soon as you press the release button, Steam will start sending out notifications to everyone who has your game on their wishlist, telling them that the game is now out and available for purchase. Having a large amount of wishlists makes it much easier for you to sell a lot of copies on those first critical days.

    Many sources say that you should aim to have a specific number of wishlists on release, whether that's five thousand, ten thousand or even fifty thousand. But I wouldn't get too hung up on any specific wishlist number. Just try to get as many as you can before release. For what it's worth, I had around 1700 wishlists on release and roughly 15% of them bought the game during the release week. Not enough that I could attribute my success just on the wishlists, but every bit helps. I think I owe my biggest thanks to YouTubers featuring my game, but it's impossible to say what the outcome would have looked like if I didn't also have the collection of wishlists on release.

    Also remember that just having a large amount of wishlists is not enough. They also need to convert into sales. The best way to do this is to have a game that looks fun to play. You also want to make sure that your game doesn't have any major game-breaking bugs that could result in a string of negative reviews early on and scare away potential customers.

    If you don't get on the New & Trending tab, it's not the end of the world. Your game can still sell well and have a bright future. It just means it won't get an explosive start. I mean, at this point everyone knows how Among Us was basically unknown for 2 years and then suddenly became a huge viral success.

    There is always hope!

    submitted by /u/AuroDev
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    Message for all game devs

    Posted: 23 Feb 2021 03:24 PM PST

    Friendly reminder: Balance your work. Go outside and enjoy the weather, take breaks, take walks or keep your body moving, rest your eyes, drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day, and enjoy time with family or friends. I know for myself I become obsessed and encapsulated in my work. If you want to stay sane, stay balanced. Keep up the amazing work y'all!

    submitted by /u/whalics
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    I updated my Unity grass renderer to animate in the vertex shader! A compute shader generates the mesh only once - at edit time. Tutorial in the comments!

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 09:07 AM PST

    CC0 Dicebag: A module of probability functions designed specifically for games, originally created for Defold, and later ported to C# and Godot

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 05:05 AM PST

    Dicebag is a module of probability functions designed specifically for games. Originally made by u/8BitSkullDev for Defold, and later ported to C# by me and to Godot by u/TheYagich. Hope you will find this useful in your games!

    Inspired by this excellent blog post: https://www.redblobgames.com/articles/probability/damage-rolls.html

    Original, Defold/Lua: https://github.com/8bitskull/dicebag
    C# Port: https://github.com/Efmi/dicebag-csharp
    Godot Port: https://github.com/Yagich/dicebag-godot

    submitted by /u/theefmi
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    Detective game mechanics.

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 07:06 AM PST

    I was wondering if anyone had any opinions about important/interesting game mechanics for a detective game. When it comes right down to it I think doing a detective game right is pretty difficult. You have to balance giving the player enough guidance to push the story along but you do not want to eliminate needing to make deductions that are substantial instead of having them select things from a list, etc.

    submitted by /u/bondreal
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    Steamworks - NEW: See Which Controllers Players Are Using In Your Game

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 10:28 AM PST

    Some patterns I've noticed in game programming interviews over the past 2 years that might be helpful to know

    Posted: 23 Feb 2021 03:20 PM PST

    This is from experience with EA, Rockstar, Sony, Blizzard, a handful of medium sized studios (about 50% from the bay area), Google, Amazon, and a small local studio.

    1. You will typically be asked for a short phone call after they review your resume. This is just to confirm some basic information, specifically when the next interview step will be, and for the hiring person to ask a couple questions about you to get a first impression. Make sure you have at least two questions to ask for when they ask at the end, this will generally help you seem more interested/prepared. I've never had a phone call not lead to a follow up, so don't stress too much and just focus on making a good connection with the person on the phone.
    2. If you advance to the technical tests, especially with the first one, you will most likely be tested on problems that are completely unrelated to game development and that you'd never use in practice. This is more meant to clear out people who don't have strong fundamentals, and because of that I think this is the most important part of the process. This is the biggest cull; if you can make it through this part, it'll most likely be you and only a couple more. On every single technical test, I was given at least one question from the following 3 sources, but typically more. One of my technical tests consisted entirely of 4 Euler problems, for example. A lot of companies reuse the same stuff as well; my final test at my current job (game programmer) was a slightly harder version of one of the round 2 amazon questions.
      • Project Euler problems 1 - 50
      • Leet Code
      • Cracking the Coding Interview book
    3. You will most likely be given a much more challenging technical test following the first or second test, that you aren't necessarily expected to answer. It will typically be one hour and one question, with an employee walking you through a prompt. This test will be to watch how you perform with material you haven't encountered before, and how you problem solve. It may seem counter intuitive, but you should ask questions periodically when you are stuck. Game design is a collaborative process, if you do not ask questions then you are missing the point of this type of test.
    4. You may have one final test, which is not about programming at all but instead on puzzle solving. There isn't much to say about this one other than to practice well known brain teasers, not to potentially find the one they'll ask but to get your mindset in the right place. I've had two of these and they were more about interacting with the employees giving the test than anything. At this point they know about your technical abilities and are specifically testing how you abstract things and how you get along with current employees

    Other things that are more obvious but really important:

    • Make sure you have something substantial in your portfolio that you can talk about and provide code samples from. 50% of the time I started talking about a feature in a personal project, my interviewer would ask to see some code from that. Make the code as clean as possible beforehand, WITH COMMENTS. Comments are super important.
    • Have something ready for the question "What's your favorite/the most challenging part of your personal project/portfolio piece?". They may ask for the project specifically if you provided multiple, but I was asked this at least once by every game studio
    • Have questions ready for the ends of interviews. For example, if you cant think of anything, asking about covid policies (returning to work physically, etc) is a freebee
    submitted by /u/Bauns
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    Here's a simple 3rd person player controller script in C# (Unity)

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 10:07 AM PST

    How Do You Name Your Games?

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 04:00 AM PST

    Hello everyone,

    I have read a lot of blogs about the topic of naming, but most of them were related to retail products and businesses but not specifically for games.

    I am currently working on a racing/management game with low-poly visuals and I am a bit lost on giving it a name.

    ​

    How do you start this creative process? How did you come up with your names in the past? Anything specific that gives you a spark?

    ​

    My current name is Roll In Pole, with the following reasoning:

    -it rhymes and goes well with the low-poly, easy-going aesthetics

    -relates to the real sport (Pole position - starting from the front)

    -unique (would be the first thing to pop-up on google)

    Cons: might sound too childish (it has deep management simulation, could use a more serious name), people asked back before - "Rolling Pole? Like an arcade-physics game?" so can be misinterpreted I guess.

    submitted by /u/Calm_Samurai01
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    Text based game engine

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 12:43 PM PST

    I'm looking for a game engine that I could use to make a text based civ Buidler (like homequest). Could you assist.

    submitted by /u/MusaMasilela
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    Using stylised pictures of real places in free game legal?

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 12:32 PM PST

    Hello, I tried to find this question here but it was always in a different context so here is mine.

    Can you use pictures that are heavily stylised (and black and white) from real places in a free game?

    The names are different and any trademarks are removed. Also in the beginning is stated that all events are fictitious. The pictures are from city streets and some monuments (>800 years old) that are all publicly accessible and viewable.

    The concept of the game/visual novel is to walk around the city and reflect on the present past and future of you and mankind. Pictures taken are original (own camera).

    submitted by /u/tzohnys
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    A study of digital card games

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 08:43 AM PST

    Hey folks,

    Over the last few weeks I've published a series on my blog about digital card games. I am looking at the genre from a game designer's perspective, trying to figure out where the next innovation can come from. This is a bit niche, but I'm hoping there might be people around here who could be interested in that content.

    Here are the different parts of the study:

    1. Introduction - http://adrian.gaudebert.fr/blog/post/a-study-of-digital-card-games
    2. It's a kind of Magic - http://adrian.gaudebert.fr/blog/post/it-s-a-kind-of-magic (where I talk about the father of them all, Magic: The Gathering)
    3. History of a genre, part 1: 2002 - 2016 - http://adrian.gaudebert.fr/blog/post/history-of-a-genre-part-1%3A-2002-2016 (from MTGO to Eternal)
    4. History of a genre, part 2: 2017 - 2020 - http://adrian.gaudebert.fr/blog/post/history-of-a-genre-part-2%3A-2017-2020 (from Faeria to Legends of Runeterra)
    5. The design of CCGs - http://adrian.gaudebert.fr/blog/post/the-design-of-ccgs (where I analyze the genre and try to find where the next major innovations can be)
    6. Lessons learned working on my card game - http://adrian.gaudebert.fr/blog/post/lessons-learned-working-on-my-card-game

    The point of this series for me is to write down what I've learned, to clarify it, but also to confront my ideas with other game designers!

    I hope you'll have a good read, and I'm looking forward to all your comments. :)

    submitted by /u/adngdb
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    Deep dive: how Steam followers and wishlists relate

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 11:46 AM PST

    One of my old (dead) games randomly made $600 last week, as a programmer/designer who have no idea how to analyse data, what should i do to revive the game and understand its failure and its current revival ? is there a service for that ? have you tried any of them ?

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 10:35 AM PST

    Hi,

    I've been making mobile games for a while now, my main model is to create lightweight games but with good quality, examples:

    The problem is that none of these games had proper retention numbers, and the main reason is because we never done any real testing, we just develop the game, show it to friends and family, everyone says its fun, and that's it, we launch it.

    All of these games got featured by Apple, but eventually after a week or two the games "dies".

    Today out of nowhere we just found that one of our old games made $600 last week, i know it ain't much, but it was basically a dead product to us, and now we want to revive it, the problem is that i have no idea where to start.

    How do i actually analyses the game ?

    is there someone that can be hired to do this job other than agency that looks a bit like a scamming-ad ? seriously, where should we look to find this set of skills ? you can go to certain places and hire one of the best character artists online, or find a programmer that will solve a super complex problem in your project, but i have no idea where to begin in order to solve the following problem:

    I have a game with a catchy mechanic and lovely graphics and sound design, at first glimpse the game is fun and people love it, but eventually they stop playing it, I know i need to add more content and Meta to it, but how do i begin to tell what's working and what's not ?

    • Should i fix the tutorials ?

    • Is the control scheme not suited for casual players ?

    • Should we use in-app purchase for individual characters or sell them in packs ?

    • Is the game too hard/easy ?

    • what kind of meta content should i add based on the current player base i have ?

    As a solo programmer/designer, where should i go to answer these questions ? I don't know where to look even if i decided to learn these set of skills myself, and i would really rather not to work with agencies simply because they are too expensive and I honestly don't trust them, but the main point of this post is to change my view on that and/or give me better advice on how to move on, because for now, it feels to me that marketing for Indie developers is harder than a buggy Dark Souls boss...

     

    thank you!

    Edit:

    The answer that I am hoping for is something along this line:

    " you can go to Upwork(dot)com and type [job name] find the right freelancer, and work with them to improve your game"

    I dont actually know the job title name, is it "game marketer" ? or "game growth".

    I am really hoping to hear some real life experience by some of you here.

    submitted by /u/alaslipknot
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    Creating a Snake Clone in Rust, with Bevy

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 07:36 AM PST

    State Machines In 60 seconds, Feedback would be awesome

    Posted: 23 Feb 2021 03:31 PM PST

    Create free tool for adding effects on sounds (e.g. robotic, radio, etc.)

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 12:57 PM PST

    We made a tutorial on how to squeeze sprites with variable direction and strength in Godot. I hope you enjoy it!

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 12:56 PM PST

    Question about game loop and moving based on fps

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 12:47 PM PST

    I have a problem that maybe someone here could help me with because I think I've made something wrong in how I do my loop and handle movement.

    My loop is pretty simple.(Java Android)

    ​

    while(playing){

    long startFrameTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

    update(fps);

    draw();

    thisTimeFrame = System.currentTimeMillis() - startFrameTime;

    fps = 1000 / timeThisFrame

    }

    So say that my update and draw would take 18ms would give me a fps of 55

    ​

    Then when I want to move something I do like this:

    x += movespeed.x * ( 60 / fps);

    Say that I want to move 100 each frame and my baseline is 60fps
    so in the above fps would be 55. (60/55=1,09) 100*1.09= move 109 pixels this frame.

    If fps was high like 80 it would be 100*0,75 move 75 pixels this frame instead.

    I'm not sure, it runs fine around 60fps and lower but for my device that can go to 80 dps it is still not the same, according to what I know the above should work but I'm probably missing something obvious so any suggestions on how I can improve this?
    Thanks

    submitted by /u/verdurakh
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    More natural pathfinding

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 12:29 PM PST

    Hi, I am working on a game and was wondering if anyone can suggest some good pathfinding tutorials. I am able to implement a simple A* or the like. But I am looking to work on making my NPCs move in a more natural way. The game is top-down Zelda-like.

    submitted by /u/ajgjhsgjkhaegjhw
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    Exit high salary job to make games or become financially independent first

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 12:07 PM PST

    What would you choose?

    For a context, it seems to be possible for me to become financially independent in a matter of 10 years, if properly executed (keeping a high salary job, living frugally, investing into passive ETFs, etc.)

    However, by the time I might execute this, I should be in mid-30s. Given the time is another precious resource, I have concerns that by delaying my game development pursue by a decade, I might run out of my creative energy and never ever realize the dreams I have.

    In the meantime, I realize that only a tiny percentage of games make more revenue that I do today, so being realistic, I have low expectations of becoming financially independent this way as profits would only cover my basic expenses. Also I am afraid that having a dependency on my games financial success will bias me towards being more business-oriented creator rather than making games of my dreams.

    Thanks a lot for your replies in advance!

    submitted by /u/lebrokholic
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    Where to find free sound effects?

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 04:22 AM PST

    Hello, I am a starting out solo indie dev. I was wondering (since I don't know how to make them myself, or have the money to buy) where could I find some royalty free sound effects for videogames (anything like basic footsteps, explosions etc.)? I searched through the whole web and I couldn't find any sites, pack files etc. Anything would be helpful thanks!

    submitted by /u/juh222233
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    Physical Inventory with randomly generated items

    Posted: 24 Feb 2021 08:07 AM PST

    I've been working on an inventory system for a little while in Unity,

    At the moment it works by using a prefab that is made with whatever scripts they need for functionality. These prefabs are then stored in a scriptable 'Item' Object that has a name, description, and space for the prefab. These are used so that I can display the items in shops and for use in a database for saving and loading.

    I've been wanting to add weapons into the game that have random stats and eventually models made up from different parts. I don't know how I would be able to save objects like this. One idea I had was by having item generators for different objects and I could pass a seed in and then just save the seed on the generator but this doesn't fix the issue of it not working with my current system.

    I thought I'd add that in this game I am building the system so I can physically display all Items and easily interact with them as I am trying to build my game with no UI.

    I'm still open to the idea of completely reworking the inventory systems if I can think of a better system but atm I can't think of another solution.

    If you have any ideas, suggestions, or questions I'd love to hear them.

    Thank you for your help,
    Null

    also, If you want some reference to the current inventory system you can kinda see it here but It's no the best footage.
    https://youtu.be/l5wI94ilEjQ?t=49

    submitted by /u/NullSomnus
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