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    Unity Low Poly Water in Shader Graph With Foam

    June 09, 2021

    Unity Low Poly Water in Shader Graph With Foam

    Unity Low Poly Water in Shader Graph With Foam

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 04:10 AM PDT

    We got 2k Upvotes on r/gamedev, here's how many wishlists it got us (number sharing inside!)

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 11:22 AM PDT

    We recently did a marketing campaign across a number of different subreddits (r/virtualreality, r/oculus, r/gamedev + more), twitter and discord. Almost all the links we used were UTM links and so we can use them to work out which subreddits/platforms were the most successful in getting us wishlists for our game

    Our marketing campaign

    This marketing push focused on a timelapse showing the progress we've made on the game (you can view the video here). This behind the scenes look of how much work has gone into the game can be an effective marketing hook. It was a lot of work to make this video (which I described in my previous post), but I think it was overall worth it.

    Steam UTM links

    Steam recently released a new feature allowing you to track visits and wishlists from specific links. A UTM link that we might use would look like this:
    https://store.steampowered.com/app/1501820/?utm_source=r_gamedev&utm_campaign=marketing_analysis_may
    (yes, our example link is the actual UTM link for this post :) )

    You construct these specific links with tags to distinguish them from other marketing pushes. In this marketing push our utm_campaign was evolution_april . We would then set our utm_source based upon where we were posting the links. For exampe all Reddit links would be tagged by r_{subreddit_name}.

    Limits of UTM links

    There are some limitations of using UTM links which means that we can't track everything.

    • People don't have to use the UTM links. There are many ways for people to find your store page without them clicking on the links. During our marketing push we got significantly more visits from people searching for our game on Google & Steam, which we can't track through UTM links. Additionally, on r/gaming another user posted a link to our store page. This was a regular link and so can't give us the UTM analytics.

    • People don't have to be logged in when they click UTM links. This is a similar issue to the previous issue. People could be clicking the link on their phone/browser where they may not be logged in (even if they have the Steam app the link will open Steam in their browser). These people may still wishlist by switching device or app, however, we will not get that data.

    Comparing Subreddits

    Graph of data

    Subreddit Upvotes Total Visits Tracked Visits Wishlists Upvotes to Visit Upvotes to tracked wishlists Visit to wishlist rate Tracked Visit to Tracked Wishlist
    r_gamedev 2164 563 118 37 26.02% 1.71% 6.57% 31.36%
    r_oculus 1992 857 208 109 43.02% 5.47% 12.72% 52.40%
    r_virtualreality 1700 868 209 112 51.06% 6.59% 12.90% 53.59%
    r_unrealengine 442 79 10 1 17.87% 0.23% 1.27% 10.00%
    r_indiegaming 91 48 8 2 52.75% 2.20% 4.17% 25.00%
    r_indiegames 55 28 2 1 50.91% 1.82% 3.57% 50.00%
    r_indiedev 12 23 2 1 191.67% 8.33% 4.35% 50.00%
    Grand Total 6456 2584 572 267 40.02% 4.14% 10.33% 46.68%

    As you can see from the data while the number of upvotes were similar across r/gamedev, r/virtualreality and r/oculus, the overall performance of these subreddits was very different. This makes a lot of sense. The virtual reality subs (r/virtualreality & r/oculus) are far more likely to be on the market for a new game, and especially a new VR game. You should be spending most of your advertising effort towards where your target market is. That should be an obvious statement but it's an important thing to consider.

    Our performance on other subreddits (such as r/unrealengine) further corroborates this point

    In this analysis I am using upvotes as a rough estimate of how many people have viewed the post, which isn't perfect. For example, at low number of upvotes you will get a lot of your views from the new queue, which won't be affected by how many upvotes you get. This can be seen in the r/indiedev subreddit where our upvotes to visit is far higher than any other subreddit post.

    On average 10% of visits onto our Steam page lead to a wishlist. I'm not entirely sure how this compares to other pages but doesn't seem too bad

    r/gaming

    Getting a post that blows up on r/gaming is something that many an indiedev dreams of. We ended up getting 425 upvotes, which isn't bad, but we were definitely hoping to do a lot better. If people have r/gaming success do share any tips

    Other sources

    We also posted the video on Twitter. We don't have the greatest following (250) and this post didn't do the best. Overall, while Twitter does have other benefits, it has not been the most valuable platform for us for driving wishlists.

    We also posted the video to a number of discord servers. This includes servers such as r/gamedev discord server and gamedevleague. This again isn't the most useful in terms of direct numbers but there are other benefits to doing this rather than the numbers.

    We hosted some of our GIFs on Gfycat, which ended up getting 42k views. As you can't include a link on Gfycat it's hard to determine the impact of this it was a nice surprise to get that many views.

    We also posted the GIFs on TikTok that got ~100k views, but we weren't using any UTM links for that.

    Overall numbers

    Over the week of our marketing campaign we gained 1.1k wishlists, which was an almost 5x increase compared to our previous week. Only 267 of these wishlists were tracked through our UTM links. Over 98% of these tracked wishlists were from Reddit.

    Should you post to r/gamedev?

    If you're wanting wishlists, then I don't think you should be using r/gamedev as your primary source. However, that isn't the only reason to post to this subreddit. This sort of information sharing is exactly the type of post I would want to see on this subreddit and so this is why I am sharing this with the community. We hope that this post can be useful and generate some interesting discussion.

    Thanks for reading, and I can answer any questions in the comments

    submitted by /u/Stardust_Collective
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    How to create Portal in Godot Engine || EASY TUTORIAL ||

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 02:42 AM PDT

    Do yourself a favour and join a game jam

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 04:42 AM PDT

    Game jams are an incredible learning experience, and you should definitely join one. Especially if you feel like you are in a slump.

    I started learning game development about a year ago, and I had been working on a little project that I was passionate about - I was hoping to eventually release a full version. After like 8 months of work, the game felt empty, like it had no core. It felt like a string of disconnected tech demos. It wasn't playable in the least.

    I joined a game jam last week and it taught me so many things about game development and prototyping. I built a game I was proud of (and found genuinely fun) in only a week - just by restricting myself. I was forced to cut out the bloat and focus on getting something playable as quickly as possible.

    The key lesson I learned was this: prototype quickly. You can figure out if your idea is fun by making a quick little one-week demo using free assets and basic animations.

    submitted by /u/dsteyl
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    (PART 8) Creating Orc Village in Blender 3d & Unity HDRP | Blender Speed Modeling

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 03:15 AM PDT

    Why you shouldn't undersell your game

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 04:54 AM PDT

    Whenever I talk to or read about small indie games, there is one thing I hear A LOT and that is "I reduced the price of my game to only 1 or 2 Dollars, because it doesn't live up to my expectations." or "I made my game free, because I couldn't include the full scope of what I originally had in mind."

    The general consensus here is that we dev's don't feel justified to ask the price we had originally imagined, mainly because we feel like our game doesn't live up to similar games. After all, selling your game cheaper means more people will buy it, right?

    After looking at a lot of data trying to determine the price point for my game I actually noticed a particular trend on Steam, cheaper (or even free games) don't particularly sell better. Often they even seem to do worse than similar games with a higher price point, which was something that I wasn't particularly expecting.

    Here's an example for 2D platformers:
    Estimated profits between $2,100 - $1,700: https://games-stats.com/steam/?tag=2d-platformer&page=14

    Notice how most of the prices are just below $10 with an average around $7.60 :

    • Below $2: 2
    • $2-5: 11
    • $5-10: 12
    • Above $10: 5

    Now here's games around $700: https://games-stats.com/steam/?tag=2d-platformer&page=20

    Notice how most of the prices are just below $5 with an average around $5.70 :

    • Below $2: 5
    • $2-5: 16
    • $5-10: 6
    • Above $10: 3

    This is a trend I found throughout all genres that I tested. Of course there are a lot of anomalies (games with a low price and good revenue, and games with a high price and low revenue), since games are more than just a price point.

    And for the sake of simplicity I'm ignoring the quality, marketing and sales tactics of all games, which obviously have a big impact on how good a game sells. I do try to match up games within the same genre, since some genres do sell better then others, and games with similar quality (No AAA or hit indies).

    So what is causing this?

    I believe there are two main reasons why games on Steam that are priced higher sell better. Number 1, time is more important than money. We are talking about the difference between a regular coffee and a fancy Starbucks coffee. Of course we do notice the price difference, but most of us would prefer a decent game for a higher price, because the time we have to invest into playing a game is more important to us than a couple of Dollars.

    Reason number 2, there's a lot of crap on Steam. Whenever most people see a game on Steam with a price under two Dollars, you automatically assume it's either low quality, buggy or terribly short. Though when there's a game with a price tag of $10 discounted to $2, most people would agree it's a good deal. Even though the price is the same, I can almost guarantee most would go for the discounted option since the value seems a lot better on first glance.

    Just slapping a higher price on your game is likely not going to make it drastically better, but I hope that this at least gave you some material to think about. We game dev's tend to discredit our own games, because we know about the bugs and missing features. But sometimes we just need to see our work in a different light, and dare to ask the price we want to ask.

    What are your thoughts about this? Have you noticed games selling better or worse depending on the price point, or do you have some data or graphs with more in depth data on this? Or maybe you have a better reason why this might be happening? I love to have a discussion with other game dev's and hear more personal experiences about this.

    submitted by /u/Thelastreturn
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    Hi! I've just published my first project. Here is my small gamedev journey)

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 06:43 AM PDT

    Hey guys! I've just posted a project that I can call a game and I am very excited about it)

    In this post I just want to share my dev journey story with you and my thoughts on being an indie game dev from the perspective of a complete beginner.

    First of all, I love games and being 33 y/o I still play games every day. Like a lot of people last year, I found myself stuck at home and I was able to partake in activities I usually don't have time for or energy to concentrate on. One of those things was doing something with my gaming hobby but just playing games. The problem was that I have zero experience in programming/art/game design etc. Just a lot of experience playing all sorts of games.

    So, I decided to purchase Game Maker Studio 2 and give it a try. The reason I chose GMS2 was simple – Yahtzee mentioned it in one of his YouTube Videos and recommended it. After that I spent several months trying to get my head around programming principles, learning gml, that thankfully is pretty easy to understand, and following just every tutorial I could find. And, honestly, I found that programming is a thing I greatly enjoy – it is like a puzzle game itself and I spent hours trying to solve problems and fixing bugs. The whole experience motivated me to try and learn other programming languages and see what I can do with that. By far the hardest thing about programming the game was AI. I understood that programming an AI that is even a bit smarter than "run to player, hit player" is a very complex task. I wanted to have an enemy that would chase you throughout a level, jumping from platform to platform analysing where you are and path finding its way to you. But the task is beyond my abilities and it was added to one more thing to learn)

    The harder thing to get a grasp on was art. Like with programming, I started practicing, following tutorials and ended up with a bunch of hours in Aseprite. I went with low-def pixel art since it is the stuff I like – I love old NES, SNES games and modern stuff like Shovel Knight, so the choice was simple. And since there are not many pixels to work with, I found that it can be manageable for a newbie to work with 32*32 sprite resolution. And here I have an advantage because my wife is an actual artist and she helped me greatly with understanding colours, composition and shading. It was very easy for her to point out my numerous mistakes)

    After getting some experience with programming and art I started experimenting and mostly adding or changing stuff in tutorials I was following, but at some point, I realised that it leads nowhere. So, in the end of December 2020 I decided to create something finished. I wanted to make a game that has a menu, some options, several levels, a boss, save/load system etc. It is always fun to create a concept, but I wanted to come up with a thing that I can call a game. So here is the result: https://glassleafgames.itch.io/knightlydream

    It took me about 6 months of on and off work and if we count learning I have 405 hours in GMS2 and 181 hours in Aseprite right now. While working on this small project I actually became more and more respectful of indie game devs and discovered a whole new world of itch.io. What still kinda shocks me is that a solo dev needs to be everything in one. And I am not even talking about programming and art, I was surprised to find game design and level design is actually not easy at all. Despite playing a lot of platformers (I beat every 2d Metroid and Castlevania game for example) it was still not easy to come up with even the tiny levels that I have and make them all a little bit different from each other. If I start thinking about designing a metroidvania game I can't even imagine the amount of work that you need to put into that kind of a map. Some things that I took for granted in a lot of games are actually a result of an incredible amount of work and it was a revelation.

    Another thing that took me completely off guard is sound design and music. This is something I pay a lot of attention to when I am playing games, but how to make it or even find proper licensed music made by someone else was a challenge. There is also sound mixing, volume levels and other things that I know nothing about. When I started working on adding sound to the game, I found myself in a whole new sphere of confusing information and software that honestly, I had no passion to explore. Thankfully, I managed to find a person, Benjamin Burnes, whose music I could use for my game and thank gods for Bfxr that is a simple way to create 8-bit sound effects. Here I am actually very interested in how people solve this gigantic problem of making good sound for their games, because I would imagine that many indie devs don't do it themselves and the only other way to do it properly as I see it is just spending a lot of money on it. But what if you are on a tight budget? I am still very much confused about that.

    And finally, after the project is done there comes marketing, which is another thing a solo dev has to do. And this post is essentially a part of it for my game, because a project isn't whole if it is not shown to people). Honestly, social media and internet marketing nowadays is a pit that I've never really jumped in. But I would be happy if some people play my game and tell me their opinion (also test it since no one but me played it). I totally realise that it is just another small game on itch, but it would be nice to hear opinions, including suggestions and criticism. I wanted the game to be simple and dynamic so while making it I cut a lot of features and ideas and I personally enjoy the result. But there is a thing that when you play a game too much you get used to it and stop noticing problems, so I would very much appreciate any response even if it is negative)

    If we talk about plans for the future – I am not planning to stop developing the game. Since it is so modular, I want to add more worlds, more bosses and more enemies. When I was planning for the game I came up with a bunch of monsters and boss concepts that didn't make it into this build, but I am still interested in making them something more than a concept and maybe someday I will be even good enough to add procedural generation and have limitless levels, but as with AI it is something for the future.

    If you made it this far reading this – Thank you! I hope you download the game and play it)

    Cheers!

    Tl;dr I made the first game, please, play it) https://glassleafgames.itch.io/knightlydream

    submitted by /u/glassleafgames
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    A short video about drawing lines using signed distance fields in shaders. Works in Unity's Shader Graph too! Tutorial in the comments!

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 09:18 AM PDT

    Hey guys! I upload my tutorial video about How to Smooth Anime Face Shadow in Unity URP Without Editing Face Normal. I hope this video could give you some help if you are making anime character :)

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 02:51 AM PDT

    I started doing analyses for the Intentions, Principles and Elements that go into each game dev job to better identify methods and processes. Here are the first 4 for 'Mission Design', 'Narrative Design', 'Level Design' & 'System Design'

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 05:06 AM PDT

    I am a junior game designer and this is the start of an analysis on each game dev job which aims to identify a complete method and individual processes for good development. The current analysis does not aim to be final but instead a draft to be iterated upon through time. I publish it here to share and receive early feedback. I would also like to say: "feel free to get inspired by it and make it your own". The best works are always collaborative.

    Here are my first 4 analyses which cover the following:

    Mission design (the first and bigger one, which includes a template database for designing quests)

    Narrative design

    Level design

    System design

    submitted by /u/Morken
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    Baking Procedural Masks into One Texture inside Unreal Engine

    Posted: 08 Jun 2021 10:33 PM PDT

    what is the best platform for inde game developer to make audience for your game

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 02:43 AM PDT

    almost every youtube video talk about "how to market your game"
    they always give you the same tip of "making audience for your game" or even for you as inde game developerso now i want to make my audiencebut I don't know what is the best platformis it twitter or facebook or instagram or youtubeyoutube is a real problem cuz it take so long time to make good video with a good contentI thought about twitter, however I don't know if it good platform for this type of content or notany idea?

    submitted by /u/Mohammed_Anwer
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    How to make a 3D Action Rpg in Godot Engine || Player movement, Camera, Collision

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 11:24 AM PDT

    So, my project mate left me because he said the project was too long, what now?

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 09:15 AM PDT

    Basically i was doing a project with 1 of my mates, he was a pixel artist and i was the programmer, problem is that he left because he said the project was taking to long for finishing. Since I'm not a pixel artist but i really liked the idea behind that project, what could i do now?

    submitted by /u/JizosKasa
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    Question Gdevelop Scripting Language

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 01:29 AM PDT

    When I program without code in Gdevelop with Events what is the technical name of the programming language? JavaScript?

    submitted by /u/OrangeDeveloper
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    A Group Project that me and 2 other uni students are working on!!!

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 12:02 PM PDT

    My colleague and I are currently implementing this AI paper to help mix and create unique 3D models.

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 11:41 AM PDT

    is it possible to pull a 3d mesh from a website?

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 11:30 AM PDT

    I'm asking because I want to get a certain 3d mesh from a game that is on a website, so any idea how to do that?

    ​

    the reason im asking is because I can't find blue prints for that mesh which is a boat and I can't model without a blueprint so instead I wanted to see if I can pull the 3d mesh also I have no intention of publishing a game because other than that could get me in legal trouble I don't even have the skills to create a video game

    I just want the 3d model to print it and to look at whats inside it tbh (the game is about a new championship that will come to life in 2022 but I just want to see the tech inside it )

    (I'm stating this so I don't get attacked like what happened in stack overflow )

    submitted by /u/Striking_Grass420
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    Create a spline 3D sidescroller - Unreal Engine 4 + Unreal Engine 5

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 11:23 AM PDT

    Currently Working on the Water reaction; Mesh deformation + Ripple

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 05:10 AM PDT

    Hello GameDevs,

    I'm currently working on the water reaction here is my progress, Only the distortion is missing so that the waves are blurred in the deformation, and for a more realistic effect, any advice?

    ​

    ​

    https://reddit.com/link/nvucc5/video/607gg90oc8471/player

    submitted by /u/Binnacloud
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    Hand Built 2D Game vs Game Engine (Performance)

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 11:04 AM PDT

    Im learning c# in order to create games/environments for AI training, as the performance of the game is something important as it heavily impact the process of training an algorithm, is making a hand built 2d game in c# much more optimal in terms of performance than using a game engine like unity?

    submitted by /u/ElReyki86
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    Without Jump Through Platforms, You're Platformer Isn't Going To Be Complete!

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 10:51 AM PDT

    Mobile 2D games

    Posted: 09 Jun 2021 10:42 AM PDT

    I am a new to developing and I was wondering what art are most 2D mobile games made in. What art is the game "Will hero" made in?

    submitted by /u/Other_Neighborhood74
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