Just published my first game, and learned some VERY important lessons. |
- Just published my first game, and learned some VERY important lessons.
- How can I get started with game/graphics programming using C++ and no engine?
- Made my first asset pack - 37 low poly weapons. Pay what you want (or free). Hope it helps!
- Diligent Engine 2.5 is out: async compute, inline ray tracing, wave operations, explicit resource layouts, ray tracing on Metal and more
- Thorn EMI job posting, UK 1983
- Tried to Use deepmotion, it's awful.
- Where do you get royalty free sound effects?
- How to make money while making your first game.
- What do you think about - Empathy - in gamedev?
- How many "player vital statistics" can games reasonably juggle without impacting performance.
- Learning how to actually code games
- Can Anyone Identify this Commonly Used 90s / 00s Sound Effect
- Scripting Languages?
- Question about instantiating player, scenes, etc.
- Thoughts on Going Back to School for Game Design?
- Haxeflixel V.S OpenFL
- Hey Intelligent GameDevs, I'm Offering free custom music for under a minute! more details in the post.
- Elina Arponen, CEO of Social Games company QuickSave Interactive | Zero to Play Podcast
- 3D level creation with three dimensional array?
- What summer job for an 18 years old game dev do you recommend?
- How would I start making textures?
- My Android D1 retention is baaaaad (16%)... why?
- what game maker should I use?
- Job Shadowing?
| Just published my first game, and learned some VERY important lessons. Posted: 07 Jun 2021 01:46 PM PDT I just released my first "real" game to itch. I'm happy with how it turned out, and I learned a couple of really important lessons. The game is available here. The lessons I learned are as follows: 1. Understand your scope. Just starting out with a bunch of amazing ideas is fun and all, but it can result in you either making complex systems for problems that won't exist OR under-designing key features. Designing under a set scope alleviates these issues. 2. Bs code isn't always bad. Knowing I had an extremely small scope allowed me to hack together simple solutions for the problems at hand. As a programmer, it's easy to feel you NEED to make a modular solution, but if there's only one boss... why not just make it simple? This meant that I was able to simplify the design process for features that were new to me. It gave me some experience so that I can add further complexity and elegance to my implementation of these features down the line. 3. Know what you need. This is similar to scope, but here I'm talking about more flashy features, like parallax backgrounds. It's easy to get into a mindset of "I NEED this" or "I DON'T need this," but getting feedback and challenging your perceptions of these ideas is huge. I thought that making parallax backgrounds would take too long and add too little to the experience, but after testing among my friends I came to the conclusion that it was a simple enough feature that would enhance the game's enjoyability ten-fold. Being strategic with what you add vs. what you don't will allow you to maximize the amount of enjoyability from the player without having to spend too much of your precious time. It's probably the most important lesson I learned throughout all of this. 4. Design a clear hook. Keeping the game so simple meant that I needed to have a clear draw that separated it from all other platformers. The suction cups were the answer. Similar enough to a wall jump that they're easy to explain but different enough that they stand out. 5. Maximize your hook. Just having the hook wasn't enough. I needed it to be WHAT MY GAME WAS ABOUT. It's in the name, in the cutscenes, in all of the challenges you face. It's so prevalent in the game's identity that it shines a spotlight on what makes it unique. I'm hoping this will help it get noticed, or even (fingers crossed) make it enticing for content creators to take a crack at in a sea of independent developers. 6. Question your hook. At one point, the mechanic was sound design-wise, but difficult to explain in practice. I knew I couldn't be there to help everyone who played figure it out, so I had to go back to the drawing board. This meant redesigning everything, but it was worth it. 7. Admit your weaknesses. I'm not a musician or an artist. Having my good friend @aa_weatherford do the music and pulling some larger art assets from various resources made releasing this game possible in the first place. It's cool to make everything, but it's better to not. I think sometimes we as developers get it in our heads that taking the easy road makes you a lesser creator. Not only will the bulk of players NOT recognize where these assets came from, they just won't care even if they do. Conceding my inability in these areas resulted in a better product that was released in a faster timeframe. It's a no-brainer. 8. Allow it to be "good enough." There are a few glitches I'm aware of that I never fixed. They don't break the game, and they're rare enough that you might not even notice them. If I wanted this to be perfect, I'd never finish it, much less in the time span I'd allotted myself. Suction-Cup Climber was ALWAYS meant to be a short side-project to help me get better at the later stages of the development process as well as my time-management skills. Attempting to iron out every minute kink in it would defeat that purpose. Not only that, but letting myself be imperfect and being comfortable with showing that to the world will allow me to better take criticism in the future. I've eliminated any deluded ideas or aspirations of "perfection" I may have had of myself, so taking in feedback for my knowingly imperfect product will be that much easier. I'd love for everyone to play the game if interested, or add their own experiences and lessons from their released games below. This is a huge moment for me, and it's super nerve-wracking haha. Also, if anyone is interested, I have a youtube channel where I do devlogs for my other game, Island Story. There's lots more to be learned before that project will see the light of day, no doubt, and I'm looking forward to discovering and sharing those experiences as I move forward with it. [link] [comments]  | ||
| How can I get started with game/graphics programming using C++ and no engine? Posted: 07 Jun 2021 01:43 AM PDT I've learned C++ from the book C++ Primer, and I would like to start learning about game/graphics programming but I'm not sure where to start. I know many people say "make games, not engines" but I really just want to spend most of my time writing C++ code and not learning how to use an engine. I specified game/graphics programming because to be honest I'm not quite sure if I want to be learning about how to program games or how to create fancy graphics that can be used in games. I've heard that graphics programming has a lot of maths involved, and I love maths, so that is one reason why I'm edging more towards learning that. But I don't know if regular game programming also has a lot of maths. Basically I just really want to use game development as an avenue for getting good at C++, since I've always loved playing games and reading/watching videos about how they work under the hood. Now that I have C++ foundations, I can finally learn about all of that in depth. So can anyone give me some guidance on where to start? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Made my first asset pack - 37 low poly weapons. Pay what you want (or free). Hope it helps! Posted: 07 Jun 2021 08:19 AM PDT
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| Thorn EMI job posting, UK 1983 Posted: 07 Jun 2021 10:42 AM PDT
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| Tried to Use deepmotion, it's awful. Posted: 07 Jun 2021 08:09 AM PDT So I've been using Ipi-soft for a while and I can tell you is way better than Rokoko and Perception Neuron Motion, cause I tried em all, but it's time to go professional, so before buying a really expensive Xsens suit I found a post about Deepmotion, when I watched the videos I thought "Yeah, future is here." but it was too beautiful to be real. I made a free account ( you can do it too) and uploaded a video of someone walking, the footage was almost exactly as their promotion videos, the animation was a mess. I said "well, maybe it needs a better background" so I recorded myself, again, the outcome was worse than an animation made by me, a programmer with little to no experience animating. Finally I used a youtube video of a model walking, clean background, clean floor, nothing else but she walking, a perfect video... and a bad animation produced. The amount of effort required to clean that animation would be greater than animating it from zero. Look, I'm not trying to give em bad publicity or anything like that, I'm just telling you my experience. I was willing to pay the 180 dlls per month for the most expensive plan where they give you more seconds, 4k and 60 fps support, it would still be less expensive than a XSens complete suit and software, but no matter how much you pay, the animation is made in the same way, you don't get extra tools like noise clean up(Ipi-soft) or an animation curve editor(Maya). If you don't believe me go and try it, you can make a free account and you have up to 60 seconds of animation. [link] [comments]  | ||
| Where do you get royalty free sound effects? Posted: 07 Jun 2021 01:44 AM PDT Hi! I'm searching for a good place to get royalty free sound effects. Do you know a good place to subscribe? Would need the sound for a game which will be sold on steam. Thanks for the help! [link] [comments]  | ||
| How to make money while making your first game. Posted: 07 Jun 2021 10:43 AM PDT I've been very interested in the idea of being a game dev for a long time now but I've been intimidated by the money part, mainly how to make money. What would be the best way for a game dev to make money while working on their first game? [link] [comments]  | ||
| What do you think about - Empathy - in gamedev? Posted: 07 Jun 2021 12:58 PM PDT So I was wondering what your guys thoughts are on empathy, specifically empathy for the player in gamedev, especially in the areas of "teaching the game" and "the feel of the game". Let me give you an example. You as a gamedev are playing your game all the time, you know every little detail about it, you know where that secret room is. The player doesn't obviously. If you want the player to find the secret room however you have to convey to him somehow where what how. Since the player is another human being, they might function fundamentally different to you. They might (not) know certain things about games you (don't) know, they might be more/less clever/skilled than you etc. So do you use empathy to imagine how it would be for a general player to play your game or how do you go about these kind of problems? Do you care about this kinda stuff? or why not? (This example was a "teaching the player" problem, how do you go about making the player feel a certain way?) [link] [comments]  | ||
| How many "player vital statistics" can games reasonably juggle without impacting performance. Posted: 07 Jun 2021 05:21 AM PDT Ive read the FAQ/rules and I think this is compliant. To be clear I don't know how to programme or what engines are good for what, and I am categorically not asking for anyone to provide that kind of info. If/when I were interested in taking this further, though, the fantastic faq here would be where I would start! I have a bit of a background in physiology and medicine, and am a gamer. I have also written a couple of lite tabletop games for my friends. At the start of the pandemic I began jotting down long held "shower thoughts" about how to best simulate critical and chronic physiology for computer sim games (my personal favourite being dayz). No code, but various equations and diagrams that describe how sets of variables could simulate a player's clinical status and the logic of how in game events could change those variables. Having now filled that notebook im starting to think about taking the idea seriously. My first pass required a huge number of variables, so I have been working on reducing the number of variables while maximizing retained simulation depth. Ive got it "down" to 17 variables now, plus a number of statuses that can emerge from those variables (e.g. unconscious, dead..), or be applied over top of them (e.g. standing, sitting, running, resting...). This is way less than I first had, but the thing is I have no idea how such variables might be expected to impact game performance. On the one hand they are just numbers in fairly simple arithmetic relationships, and my fairly normal gaming PC can crunch a lot of numbers pretty quickly in R. On the other hand... when a PC, or even a server, is already doing everything else that is required to run a game id assume it is already running at or near capacity. Before I start learning all the good stuff resourced in the faq, id like something of a sanity check that this number of tracked player variables isnt complete insanity (yes, it is very niche, I know). Appreciate this question may be impeded by my ignorance of the right terms and such; so thanks for reading right through! [link] [comments]  | ||
| Learning how to actually code games Posted: 07 Jun 2021 05:03 AM PDT Greetings people, Im stuck in this limbo of seeking tutorials to fix a problem or to make a feature I want and never actually learning anything or doing anything myself. Im not sure if other people have gone through this but if you have could you please spare me some advice as I dont want to rely on tutorials my whole life. [link] [comments]  | ||
| Can Anyone Identify this Commonly Used 90s / 00s Sound Effect Posted: 07 Jun 2021 03:28 PM PDT For years I've been trying to pinpoint the sound library that contains this exact sound effect found in the two linked examples below. The most I know about it is that it was commonly heard in video games made in Japan in the late 90s and early 00s. The words of use to describe it are: sparkly, ethereal, magical. Final Fantasy VIII: Used for the sound of Balamb Garden when it is in flight and can be best heard in this FMV video. I believe this the sound effect is supposed to represent the sound the ring makes as it spins around the Garden. Space Channel 5: Used in the opening FMV of the game where the Morolians are watching the TV and being placed into a trance. The sound effect is what is coming from the TV. If anyone has any ideas then please let me know! [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 07 Jun 2021 08:55 AM PDT This topic has been worrying me since forever, I'm thinking about using a scripting language in my engine, but I can't seem to settle on one, I'm fine with using either C++ or Go (I didn't start the project yet but both are fine targets for being used compiled lang), I've tried Lua's Sol binding, it was fine but I couldn't create an autocompletion for it in my ide, I'm thinking I might not be the only one who would use the engine so this feature is needed, what options do I have here? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Question about instantiating player, scenes, etc. Posted: 07 Jun 2021 02:43 PM PDT I'm making a game in C++ using the SDL libraries. I'm a bit confused as to how I should be instantiating the Player class into my scenes, as well as how I should be managing my scenes. Should I be instantiating a new scene (let's call it sceneOne) with a dependency on a player, and when I switch scenes, delete sceneOne (and this deleting the player), instantiating a new scene (sceneTwo) with its own player dependency? Or should I be instantiating the player outside the scenes and just passing the player into the scenes? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Thoughts on Going Back to School for Game Design? Posted: 06 Jun 2021 09:20 PM PDT Hey there, so a little background about myself. I (27M) graduated college in 2016 and have been working "safe" jobs (currently in financial services) ever since. Recently, I've been feeling more and more depressed and have come to the conclusion that this industry is not for me. I have always been passionate about games and art, but have no background in programming, though I have some experience in 3d animation from picking up Blender as a hobby. What are your thoughts on quitting my day job this late into the game, to pursue education with the intent to get into an industry I am actually passionate about? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 07 Jun 2021 02:22 PM PDT i really like haxe its a good language, so i was wondering the pros and cons of both and your personal favorite. try to make your reply as long and detail oriented as you can. Thanks! [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 07 Jun 2021 08:02 AM PDT Hey GameDevs, I'm a music producer and a composer for visual media! you can find some of my works here. for the time being, I have set aside my freelance works which composing music for games/ADs/Films to focus on releasing my own Single/Album. But now I'm stuck in an Artist block and it has become a vicious feedback loop, so I'm offering this free custom music for your games in order to help me get out of it! You can send me any visual samples of the game you are building like short videos, GIFs, or even super early storyboards and I will make music for that, it will be a custom-catered piece that I will make based on your request! and yeah you can use the music for your games! I'm Soley doing this to build momentum in my work and having external commitments gets me going most of the time, but if you like the music well you can book me as well! Currently, I'm looking for something in a style like this! But all genres are welcome too, tho my strong suit is sci-fi/horror I wanted this to be a way for me to break my comfort zone, so fuck it! So what are you waiting for EXPLOIT ME! [link] [comments]  | ||
| Elina Arponen, CEO of Social Games company QuickSave Interactive | Zero to Play Podcast Posted: 07 Jun 2021 01:19 PM PDT
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| 3D level creation with three dimensional array? Posted: 07 Jun 2021 12:29 PM PDT I want to create levels for a platformer using array commands. Python is my preferred language. TIA! [link] [comments]  | ||
| What summer job for an 18 years old game dev do you recommend? Posted: 07 Jun 2021 12:27 PM PDT TL:DR I'm 18 and been an indie game dev for some years now and I'm looking for a summer job in this field I'm 18, I've got a few years total of game dev experience, totalled over many years, the problem is I've been making games independently/with one partner, but haven't worked for any official "big" studio. What summer job do you recommend me to look for in this area? My skills and experience gathered over these years would be this: Game design: little Game art/UI: little to decent 3d modelling: little ( I'm decent with modelling simple/low poly models for a specific situations, but wouldn't want that role in the team ) Game programming: decent ( good efficiency, especially for decent and working game mechanics prototypes in a short timeframe, I still have to improve on the architecture of my code to make it easier for others to use/change it) Game testing: a lot ( I ve done a lot of game testing and bug finding for my games over these years, I would test my game after every change made in any of the areas I specified above ) P.s: I ve become at least decent at both 2D and 3D games, I have more experience with working on pc games, but have no problem working on mobile games So, from someone already in the industry, what position would you recommend me for a summer job? I personally was thinking about a QA/ game tester position. Despite it being known as a very boring and repetitive job, the truth is, that's the area I have the most experience with, and the fact that my experience with game programming would help me better cooperate with the developer and explain & reproduce the bugs, using the appropriate terms, would probably help. So what do you recommend me? [link] [comments]  | ||
| How would I start making textures? Posted: 07 Jun 2021 12:23 PM PDT I've done quite a bit of looking for free and paid textures, although none really seem to fit the style of my project. So I need to create my own textures, without most of the materials, nor a good camera. How would I get around this roadblock? [link] [comments]  | ||
| My Android D1 retention is baaaaad (16%)... why? Posted: 07 Jun 2021 12:08 PM PDT I'm looking for any feedback to improve retention of my game. I would love some fresh opinions and would really appreciate the help. I lose the most players after the following levels: 1 (14%), 6 (13%), 2 (9%), and 10 (8%). Sample size if 1750 players. I give you permission to talk mad trash. Ready, set, go. Coaster Builder: Roller Coaster Connect Puzzle - Apps on Google Play [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 07 Jun 2021 12:06 PM PDT I've been trying to find a free solution to get started on a top-down RPG kind of like Zelda. the only one I've singled out is unity as I want to use a simpler engine. I have some experience in a game maker called flowlab, however it has very many limitations. I've tried Godot, which was also a bit too complicated for my taste. I have tried Gdevelop, which was also too complicated. I would prefer something that does not require an expensive pc as well. the kind of engine I'm looking for is similar to RPG Maker MV, but I don't have any sort of budget for one. are there any good game makers like that? thanks! [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 07 Jun 2021 02:21 AM PDT I live in Scotland and I am hoping to get into university to do game design. Because of this, members of my family keep telling me to do shadowing to get an idea about what happens in this sort of job but I have no idea how to go about finding somewhere to shadow, so I was wondering if anyone has had experience doing this and how I would go about it? [link] [comments]  |
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