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    I will finish my game

    April 27, 2021

    I will finish my game

    I will finish my game

    Posted: 26 Apr 2021 10:37 PM PDT

    We started this project back in 2013. I was studying at the university, had a wife, a small house, a dog. I was way too excited about the game, and figured that we would finish it in a year or so. Unity wasn't really a big thing back then, so we decided to build our own engine. With Java. And we really wanted to make an RPG with lots of choices and consequences. I'm sure many of you know how these first projects tend to grow.

    Then life happened. I was working on the game every now and then, but the breaks got longer. Old fans of the game have disappeared, and most fellow game developers have moved to other things. A divorce, moving around, graduating, work, meeting a new partner. And a baby. The dog grew older by my side, and every time I look at him I realize how quickly time has passed. I'm stealing little moments here and there to work on the game, still. Always deprived of sleep and free time, we try to work whenever we can.

    Progress is slow, but one thing is certain - this game will be finished. I just don't know when.

    submitted by /u/pellemaailma
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    How to make games when life is busy and complicated.

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 08:36 AM PDT

    Hey everyone!

    I've wanted to type this up for a while, with hopes that it would be helpful to someone. For years I've been figuring out how to get work done without sacrificing the rest of my life. I'll do a quick outline of what I've been able to accomplish in the past five years, and the obstacles that have made it tough - this is so you know that I don't have a charmed life, and I'm also not living with my parents working all the time. I've earned these lessons through tough times.

    What I've done: I've self-published three tabletop games and a load of connected products, ran 7 Kickstarter campaigns, and raised/earned a decent part-time income. I've also programmed and constructed one commercial video game and a load of small video game projects, and have made a bit of money on video game sales. I haven't gotten rich, but I've really added to my family's bottom line doing work that I care about.

    Life that has happened: Birth of two children, my wife's cancer treatment (she's fine now), one cross-country move, sudden job loss, and serious uncertainty.

    This is also not a template for everyone - there are people who have more difficult lives than I, but I hope these guidelines will help you out if you've got a family, a busy life, and feel like you can't get anything done.

    Get your spouse on your side

    If you're married, this is the most important step - you can't work at cross-purposes with your spouse and hope to get things done. This is tough to do, but definitely worth it - when my wife is encouraging me to work on the game, that's a really good place to be. How do you convince a reluctant spouse to hop on board? It's tough, but here are some general guidelines:

    1. Don't talk about what you're going to do (Hey, I really need to get time to work on Zombie Blastr 2030) talk about why (I think if I can make this game good enough we could start saving for a house with the proceeds). Incorporate your dream into the shared dream of the family.
    2. Don't ask too much, especially at the start. Don't expect your spouse to sign up for never seeing you because you're always working.
    3. Emphasize the ongoing benefits of creative work. See "Creative work makes you a better person" below.
    4. Make sure that you make room for your spouse's dreams. If you're the future-oriented "dreamer" in your marriage, be sure that you don't just turn your family into a machine for fulfilling your dreams. If your spouse is more practical/isn't naturally drawn to thinking about what they want, make sure that you bring it up. Try to talk about what your spouse wants, what dreams she might have.

    Remember: Creative work makes you a better person

    It's long been recognized that people who are creative don't do well when they're not creating. Creative work leads to better health outcomes, it reduces anxiety and depression, and improves metal and physical health generally. It's also been proven to be protective against death anxiety. So, if you're having a bad day mentally or physically, avoiding creative work is the opposite of helpful and healing. It's better to stumble to your computer and type out the worst paragraph of your life, or to doodle aimlessly than it is to avoid creative work.

    It will also make you a better husband/wife, a better parent - remember, a parent's regret and unfulfilled dreams can be terrible for their children. It's obviously not good to abandon your children to go chase your dream, but if you sacrifice your dream for your children it won't be good for them, or for you. You might have to adjust your dream, but having an aim/a creative pursuit makes you better for them. It's your responsibility to avoid falling into the pit of resentment and unfulfilled dreams. You don't want to be the parent who gets all meaning from their children, nor do you want to be the bitter parent who believes they "gave up everything" for their children. Sometimes the kids will have to leave you alone for an hour or two while you work. That's ok.

    Gradually wean yourself (and your family) off of most passive entertainment

    My wife and I watch TV one night a week, generally. It took me about four years to get to this point - we used to sit down nightly and watch Netflix a little bit later than we wanted to. But I realized that watching TV late at night left me feeling awful. Binge watching doesn't tend to make people happier, it just makes them depressed and anxious. It's not easy to just quit, though - I tried to talk with my wife about quitting TV except on special occasions, but it never really took. But as we started putting other things in our lives (I work a couple evenings a week, play games socially one evening, my wife has started playing piano again) then TV became less and less important and just faded out of our lives. Now movie night is exciting, because it's not just our nightly habit to sit down and watch something.

    Work with someone

    It's great to work with someone, you keep each other motivated and it's much more efficient and fun. But it can be tough to find someone who has complimentary skills, and is willing and able to work with you on a project.

    My best advice for finding a work partner: be patient, and do game jams. I've worked with several different friends who had the interest in making video games, but doing consistent work is hard, and other people have complicated lives, too - I've had several projects that I've just had to abandon because my teammate had to drop out. My current collaborator has been interested in making games forever, and we've done a bunch of game jams together. It took years before he really got to the point where he felt like he could work on a big project with me. Doing small projects first is a good plan, and sometimes leads to bigger things.

    Do something daily

    Your job as a creator, first and foremost, is to face the fear of creation. If you've got creative ambition, then you're facing fear and self-sabotage. If you sit down and face that fear every day, even for a few minutes, then you'll be much less likely to blow up and self-sabotage when you've got a few hours to work. Practice doing the work, even if you don't have time to do much work.

    Restrict distractions

    Social media sucks up more time and attention than you think. Set a timer if you're going to check email, social media, etc. I check my email and messages for 5 minutes in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Set a schedule, and then you won't get sucked into the dopamine cycle and waste time.

    Get out of debt, reduce expenses

    If you can live a good life on less, then you're much more likely to be able to take risks and seize opportunities when they come.

    Get your life in order (as much as possible)

    When your life is in chaos, a whole bunch of random, stupid things will take all of your time away. If you won't maintain your car, you'll waste time sitting on the side of the road. If you don't get a spare key for your wallet, you'll waste time and money on a locksmith. Try to look at the random bad events that waste your time, and try to get ahead of some of them. It take a little time now, but saves a lot of time and money later. Eventually you'll get the snowball rolling in your direction, and it will get easier to maintain life.

    Talk to people about your project

    People love helping, and love passion. Talk about your project and you'll find people who love it, you'll find people who want to help, and you'll find people who will change your life. Don't fear idea thieves, and you'll find all sorts of opportunities.

    Make a minimum viable game

    Not new advice, but very valuable. Be efficient. Know what edge you want to push with your game, and sacrifice features that don't contribute to that. If your game is about socializing, maybe it doesn't need an in-depth crafting system. If it's about solid mechanics, maybe it doesn't need 200 NPCs. Cut stuff that doesn't contribute to your core experience, and you'll actually finish it.

    Take care of the machine.

    I'm a game making machine. This is how I think about taking care of myself without cringing. :P If I take care of the machine that makes games, it will make better games. Getting good sleep and some physical activity helps make better games. Taking time to research easy healthful meals helps make better games. Learning and exploration helps make better games. Having good relationships helps make better games. Showing up and facing the fear helps make better games. Getting dressed and being clean helps make better games. Take care of the machine, and it will make better games.

    - - -

    Hopefully this helps someone out! Ask questions if you have 'em, or share your advice if you've figured out how to work better when life is complicated.

    *If you're curious, we're currently working on an undead opossum Zelda, we're Hermit Gamesmiths: https://twitter.com/HermitGamesmith

    submitted by /u/andhegames
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    How & When (Not) To Use the Built-in Pooling in Unity 2021+

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 09:50 AM PDT

    Free Girl Sprites for Visual Novel Game Development

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 02:46 AM PDT

    Hey guys, I made a set of sprites with changeable parts (like hairstyles and clothes). You can get the free version and details here:

    https://cucurbitapepo.itch.io/girl-sprites-for-visual-novel

    submitted by /u/CucurbitaPepoSama
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    I made a video on why speedrunners make the best game testers! It has been really helpful for me so I hope you can benefit from this resource too.

    Posted: 26 Apr 2021 03:11 PM PDT

    After developing games for the last 20 years I've got an alternative to avoid feature scope

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 11:45 AM PDT

    Throughout the years one of the biggest problems I've ran into that prevents me from completing a project is the dreaded "Feature Scope". That is, as I'm sure you all know when you keep having all of these great ideas that would totally make your game so much better.

    The problem is that all of these new ideas & features you want to implement start to inflate the scope of a project that was once possibly on track to be completed.

    I've started to reframe the way I look at new ideas - Instead of adding them directly to my "Features to add" list they go to a "Nice to have" list. These two lists have very separate purposes.

    "Features to add" are core features originally thougth of while prototyping the game, and must exist before releasing. This would include things like the ability to save/load a game - a must have feature.

    "Nice to haves" are features that would certainly improve the game, but are not absolutely needed to launch. This would include that shiny new laser sighted weapon upgrade, etc.

    Still with me? Whenever you get a new idea for a feature you have to determine which of these lists it truly fits into, this takes some practice and experience. For example - adding in volume sliders to your games background music and sound effects. Technically not needed to launch, although is a very highly standard feature - You have to make the call on where it goes.

    The awesome thing is that, the features to add list is your first and highest priority to complete - but when you need a break from it, you can pick one item from the nice to have list (I sort items up by the level of effort/time needed to implement) and knock it out.

    Maybe this isn't the right approach for you - but I've really adapted it into my workflow while developing my upcoming game Survive Into Night and it has helped me out a lot. Many of the nice to have features are things I hope to add after the game launches, but don't have to be there on day one.

    TLDR: Whenever you have a new idea for your game place it into either a "Features to add" must have for release list, or into a "Nice to have" list which can be added before/after release.

    submitted by /u/Genetix_307
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    Free (CC0) Stylized Low Poly Plants pack to use in your projects

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 09:44 AM PDT

    Minimalism game jam hosted by r/SoloDevelopment starts this Friday!

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 06:59 AM PDT

    Hi r/gamedev!

    we're a small community of developers and we're hosting our very own jam with 100+ participants. The jam starts on April 30th and lasts 72 hours.

    You can incorporate this theme any way you'd like (e.g. simple graphics, basic mechanics, one button, etc.)

    you can find all of the jam's info here

    here's our discord if you're interested in learning more

    submitted by /u/PracticalNPC
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    I made a free 8-bit 'art' generator, where you define a template and receive 256 variants on a sprite sheet. Great for fast DIY pixel art.

    Posted: 26 Apr 2021 03:09 PM PDT

    Is this enough to get on the oculus quest store?

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 11:26 AM PDT

    We would like to get our game on the oculus quest store. It would be great to have some advice from someone who has already published a game on the quest store if this kind of graph is enough to get accepted. It mostly plays at 72 fps but it has some rare deeps at 62 fps. The store guideline says that the game must stay at 72fps most of the time. Do you guys know if a game can be rejected with this type of metrics? Do you have any expereance with the oculus store at all?

    https://imgur.com/q3jpBHa

    submitted by /u/CASTELLOInc
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    Making a story-driven game without text or voiceover?

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 08:23 AM PDT

    Hey, game design community. I entered into a game jam starting on Friday focused on the theme of spring (A more precise theme to be announced on Friday). I really want to make a deep story-driven game (no ideas for the story yet), but I feel that if I use text or voiceover, it will drag the player out of the experience. How can one create a story-driven game without text or voiceover? What do you think? It's 100% possible, so do you have any tips?

    submitted by /u/Novel-Neat
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    Need Help With Unity2D: Tilemap is Tearing ONLY in Scene View

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 10:00 AM PDT

    Facing an annoying problem with unity, googled to no avail. Basically I was having tilemap tearing so I created a sprite default material with pixel snap on. This fixed the tearing when running the game, but caused massive tearing in just my scene view. This does not affect gameplay but is very annoying when trying to create backgrounds and stuff.

    ​

    Pic of scene view: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/810052982220652577/836562483883016192/tilemaptearing.PNG

    ​

    My problem is identical to the one asked in this thread here but the solution this person came up with was to not use pixel snapping, but I need that to prevent tearing in the actual game. Anyone know what could be causing this and how could I fix?

    submitted by /u/MAfiaMAn24
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    Creating a Unity Game Design Course for High Schoolers

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 09:59 AM PDT

    My high school has decided to introduce a game design course and has tasked me to build it from the ground up. I have no experience with game design in general. I have a little bit of background in coding but not much, I'm a former math and engineering teacher.

    I am basing the course on Unity utilizing visual scripting to start and to eventually mostly C# coding.
    Assume these kids have no foundation in coding or logic at all.
    This is a year long class that will ultimately cultivate in making a game.

    I have been allotted $1200 to purchase materials for the class, this can be physical items or digital products including assets. We have decently spec'd computers already.

    Based on the above parameters, how would you spend the $1200?

    Edit: Added parameters

    submitted by /u/the_carney_asada
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    A short video on creating multiple windows with FreeGLUT

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 12:15 PM PDT

    Want to make a typing game, not sure where to start

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 12:13 PM PDT

    Should I just pick up Unity and go from there? Is there an engine or set of tools/plugins that are good for typing games?

    If I were making a platformer or shooter I'd know where to start, but typing games seem a bit more niche and I don't want to pick the wrong tool for the job.

    submitted by /u/ohgodspidersno
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    The Minimum Marketing Efforts Every Indie Game Developer Should Do!

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 06:11 AM PDT

    I feel my efforts marketing my game are worth sharing to other developers. I am considering creating this in video form later, let me know if that would be better. This will be a long one, so go grab a snack and drink!

    Disclaimer: I am not a marketing expert. I have read and watched plenty of materials and combined this knowledge into what I am sharing here. This is specifically the lowest effort for highest value.

    Minimum Efforts to Market and Promote Your Game

    • Market research (target audience, market fit, budget)
    • Funnel to collect emails for interested players
    • Research press and influencers within your genre / theme
    • Store page content
    • Setup a Press-Kit
    • Content for social media (screenshots/videos)

    My approach was to brainstorm all the actions I could think of from the various videos and articles I consumed. There was no filter here, so on this list I put any ideas that came to me, including "hire a plane to fly a banner". It might be obvious, but I didn't do that as value was probably not worth the cost. The point is this list should contain anything you can think of and let the filtering happen after.

    I then started placing the higher value, lower effort tasks on a schedule that started a few weeks before the launch of my game. Some of the actions had timing elements to them, like notifying press about launch, and that required them to be stuck on certain weeks. Other tasks were more free to move around a bit.

    1. Market Research

    When coming up with an idea you need to have a gut instinct on whether or not there is a target audience that would be interested in it. This requires researching the market, finding other games somewhat similar to yours and estimating what type of sales you might be able to get. Figure out how hard it is to reach that audience; platformers are easy to create, but there are so many that it is very difficult to reach the audience.

    This also allows you to find a target budget to aim for, and you should use that to see if your game is viable. As you go through the process of definite your audience, create a persona for a single player. Give this persona a name, face, age, job and understand who they are and what they want. Every decision you make should be from the eyes of this persona, they are the person you making the game for; also when marking talk to this person!

    2. Setup a marketing funnel.

    Immediately. You need a place to send players to. Find a good carrot to give them and collect their emails. This gives YOU direct communication that YOU have complete control over. In the process also make a drip of emails that go out slowly while you are in development to keep communicating. You don't want people on this list to forget they signed up, and then a year or more later request money from them - treat them like a friend, give them value.

    If you skip the email list you must at least setup a storepage on Steam or somewhere that you can use to have the players follow or wishlist. Keep in mind you don't exactly have control how algorithms will notify the players though! Also I believe that wishlists are important but not quite as important as other developers have been saying, we've seen a few posts recently with high wishlist counts and low sales. I think the number can help the algorithm, but is not everything so don't lose hope or pin all on that number! My game had 340 wishlists.

    3. Research Press and Influencers.

    Make a list of games that are similar to yours, that came out somewhat recently and search google. You can filter by date to catch the month of release, a couple weeks before and after the actual release date. Look at the articles and videos, dig deeper and find the emails. It isn't hard work but it is tedious, be patient. I would aim for at least 100 emails, but more is better so keep collecting it overtime.

    Prepare 2 emails to send, one about 2 weeks before release and one for a week later or even on release day. Spend time on these emails, (and your store-page content). Tune the words and make sure to remove ALL the fluff and only keep stuff that is hooky and informative. Juicy. This does take time but you want to be concise and catchy!

    4. Create a Juicy Store Page

    This starts with tagging, and extends to screenshots. It is quite difficult to find good screenshots that show the uninformed player what is happening, but you don't want them guessing. Fine tune the language, over multiple days. Make a rough copy, then come back and make edits. Read it aloud - several times. If you are tripping on words, work on that area as it is probably unnatural. Like the press emails, remove all fluff, keep information concise and performant; hooky and juicy.

    Display features in a manner the player will care about. Before buying and trying a game the player usually doesn't care about the story world, though story heavy games may need to hook the player into it - immediately. They don't care about your factions and world or how many or few levels you have. Look at those games similar to yours and find tidbits that describe your game honestly and then make them more juicy.

    5. Contact Influencers

    If your game is one that provokes reactions and has high-replayability then this is a very high item to do. Some story heavy or slower paced games may not place influencers as high on the list. KeyMailer and Woovit worked pretty well in my experiences, though it does take a fair bit of tedious manual effort and there is plenty of accounts just trying to get keys for nothing.

    With Woovit I had mediocre results with at best. I would recommend spending $60 because, what the heck do you have to lose. Your time developing the game costs SIGNIFICANTLY more than that and it wouldn't take many sales to recoup the expense. It allows you to find influencers to approach, but, I didn't get along with Woovit very well - it was a bit more confusing and unclear. The results were mostly missing a lot of oomph. The content met my expectations I guess, but saw many 1000s of follower channels with <10 views. - Followers and subs are not a good metric for views.

    I think the best money I spent marketing wise was on KeyMailer. Hard to really point at one thing but I tracked what I could and my gut instincts tell me this had the most impact. The premium tools (idk about free) showed health of channel, expected views etc and helped at least a little with junk requests. Both / all services like this will have loads of free loaders just wanting a free game and it might be hard to decide where you draw your lines. Both services still took a LOT of my own time to search for and send keys, but I wound up putting more into KeyMailer because it was more usable.

    Mind you, KeyMailer was not anywhere in the $60 ballpark, and while I'm not under contract I don't know if I should share those details as they were made somewhat behind closed doors of email vs upfront pricing.

    6. Other Various Tasks & Advice

    Keep a list of the marketing efforts you are doing and also carefully track when things need to go out. Remember content should be created and finished before it is sent, but also schedule to send it! I accidentally missed a couple emails to my player lists that I wrote and slipped on the dates - there is a lot of things going on.

    There were a few other things you want to do like hyping your existing community of followers, giving them content to post about the game release, and pushing all the buttons. If there is plenty of time before your push then read/watch what worked for various developers and consider each action on effort level vs potential return. I spent a month and almost 150 hours marketing my game.

    Finally,

    Marketing may not be the most enjoyable part of making games as a business but it wasn't as bad as I expected and nobody can buy or enjoy the game if they don't know about it. Don't go spamming around in places that would have little interest, nor post low effort things. Find where your target audience is and let them know about something they might enjoy. Good luck.

    submitted by /u/timbeaudet
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    What is the best IDE for a tabletop companion app?

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 12:05 PM PDT

    Hello there,

    I am a programmer who is most comfortable with languages such as C# and Python. Most of my previous projects have been developed in Visual Studio as a Windows Form.

    I'm looking into making a companion app for a tabletop game that I play. I want to be able to design this for android mobile and tablets. The app will consist mostly of images and text with transparency effects, some basic 2D graphics with basic animations, and that's about it.

    What's the best IDE for this type of project? I don't mind using an unfamiliar programming language as I've practiced with a few difficult ones in University.

    Thanks in advance for your help.

    submitted by /u/VeryVeryBadJonny
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    World Map Location Pin System in UE4

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 11:51 AM PDT

    Recreating and Expanding upon the LOZ for the NES in JavaScript - Tutorial Series

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 11:49 AM PDT

    This series is on-going with 10+ tutorials built out (and much more planned) and I just need to record them. Last night I uploaded my first tutorial in the series. I will upload new videos every day or two.

    The goal is to recreate the LOZ as closely as possible, then expand upon the original world with new quests and maps. This will be a long journey and would be happy if you joined me.

    https://youtu.be/cldhNky727A

    submitted by /u/dgatewood2
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    My mobile game is almost finished, but I feel like I'm depressed.

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 12:17 AM PDT

    Started into gamedev last April, and since then, I've been working on a hyper casual like mobile game. However, every feedback I get from friends and relatives is that the game is too hard.

    But the problem is that the game is inherently hard because of its unique mechanic. The game mechanic makes the game one of a kind, but it also makes the game hard.

    I even submitted my game to a publisher and they rejected my game saying it's out of the scope of hyper casual games that they published.

    I feel like I've been working for more than a year for nothing and I've lost all motivation.

    I don't know what to do. The game is complete, only thing left is to add sound effects or music, but I feel like just launching the game without sound and be done with it.

    I'm even sure why I'm posting this. Maybe I need to share this with someone who can relate.

    submitted by /u/Ango_Wick
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    How to use 2d art between in screen sizes?

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 03:49 AM PDT

    I am making a 2d game that will target many devices, I don't know how big should my sprites be.

    How can I make my sprites look good in any device?

    Should I have about 3-4 copies of each sprite of different sizes and then use the proper one for the player screen?

    submitted by /u/Piratie
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    How do I go about creating an indie game company?

    Posted: 26 Apr 2021 06:57 PM PDT

    I know there might be a lot of legal advice involved in this question.

    But I am wondering what other developers did in order to create a steam page to publish your games, and to create a brand around your games on social media platforms?

    I would love to hear any advice!

    Thanks

    Edit: I am Canadian :)

    submitted by /u/Ershany
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    Using Nvidia Flex as procedural animation in agent prototyping

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 10:08 AM PDT

    So ive been trying something interesting recently in Unity, ive been interfacing nvidia particle physics with character animation (using shape matching and updating particles every frame based on reference animation) in a virtual agent prototyping testbed, im using the Nvidia Flex unity plug in from the asset and the underlying C++ solver with associated params is not available for public use I think. Anyways, I have now completely physics based data oriented animation that is overlaid on top of canned animations of the virtual agent testbed. I have high level control of various effects like a shocking processor, melting, forces on specific particles, locking particles and deforming said character that can be controlled as a layer in the virtual agent architecture.However when I introduce many characters there are a few issues, firstly I require an individual container for each flex based character, this is because every particle in memory from the container is affected by the same params struct. So more characters I have the more chugging the CPU does. Even though there are buffer reads and writes from the GPU for each flex character.Im wondering if I can take avail of the ECS system in Unity, perhaps considering every flex character as an entity and underlying particles associated with it as one of its components. The systems would be the high level controllers like shock processors, deformers from the virtual agent testbed.I guess my question is has anyone worked with Nvidia Flex and ECS? There was wind of an engine being built for physics in Flex and ECS but in C++, not sure in Unity.

    https://reddit.com/link/mzt9lj/video/hjopi46q0rv61/player

    submitted by /u/skore1107
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    The music SHOULD match to the art? I mean, a chiptune, which reminds classic games should be used only to pixel art?

    Posted: 27 Apr 2021 10:05 AM PDT

    The title says everything. I listened to some cute chiptunes, but in that moment I thought that it would fit better if I used pixel art and not vectors.

    submitted by /u/fagnerln
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