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Could I make a living being an Indie Game Dev?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by MrSanfrinsisco, Sep 28, 2018.

  1. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    Well that is true. It's all kind of related though. It is a way for an Indie to specialize and stand out. Maybe they make even very tiny simplistic looking games but the AI is noticeably far above average.

    Really all of this stuff we have discussed plays a big part in being a successful Indie. Focusing on simplifying things. Getting things done. Not getting lost in one of the many black holes. Doing something unique to set yourself apart. Etc.
     
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  2. neoshaman

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    Well that's why you use tool like unity, it makes it easy and annotation aren't even that hard either, it's just a point in space most of the time, and basic pathfinding is handle by the engine so character don't get stuck into a wall.

    So what's the process of creating basic but with average competance?
    1. open unity
    2. create your scene, using prefab and place the annotation as point with tags
    3. bake the navigation in editor
    4. add a component to the character
    5. have simple if statement that set the goto target on line of sight check, pass the player's coordinate, the character will figure out how to avoid obstacle on his own.
    6. have a simple if statemenet that listen a random variable, set the new position target, and look the character moving there, and doing extra stuff like sliding under arch because navlink you put in the editor for free.

    So you have a midly competant ai due:
    - engine supported raycast, so you don't have to implement los yourself, just invoke it and handle the result
    - engine supported navigation, you just a target position and it move on its own
    - engine supported tagging, it's basically point with data, you can just los, or query them in a data structure, you can use the scene system to query all point on load, or have event adding more of them

    So the complexity is kind of not there



    Also personal observation AI is level design, if you have strong placement, it can be as fun as good ai with simpler behavior (see mario). It all depend on the game experience you want to create.
     
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  3. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    Agree on both. If you have a system that handles or at least makes the implementation of the outcomes of the AI much easier then yes there should be no technical reason why people aren't making games with "better" AI. That is the challenging part where the issues come in.

    I'd guess that no game engine really makes it as easy to execute as you are thinking though and this is why so few games stand out for their AI. Or people just don't have an interest in it. Or maybe they do and are way overcomplicating the AI side and never get out of that piece of work. Or like you said I fully agree AI is not the end all be all and level design game design period is more important so maybe people are focusing there.
     
  4. zenGarden

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    Throw a bunch of characters and set destination to some position, all will get stuck behind others or slide around.
    It's not real avoidance, but cheap one LOL
    You need to code a system to get characters able to position around a position in a clever optimal way, letting space enough for their attacks, and have all others able to stay around waiting or move to some better protected place meanwhile.
    Even on many triple A games, characters avoidance looks very un natural.

    Anyway it's sufficient for most indie games as they don't make super realistic behaviours and animations.
     
  5. neoshaman

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    Fair enough:
     
  6. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    As you can see there is multiple spwaners , most characters runs forward and move a bit right or left because they don't have enough space, it's like simple physics pushing forward, that's really bad example LOL

    Make agents go in opposite direction to see they collide without real space and clever avoidance


    Even using specific crowd systems, you can see lot of static characters jittering and quick rotations before they move. There is still some physics capsule pushing other capsule physics like.


    Even triple A games can have avoidance problems ;)
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2018
  7. neoshaman

    neoshaman

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    Fair enough mean you are right, but now we are there and we like arguing :p I would say it doesn't detract from gameplay, we have the excuse of being indie, so that's nitpicky at best that it doesn't look natural, when it just work and some more code can probably handle that, but then it's also an animation issue, because you would need the 10 + animation to make it natural on top of a animation blender AI. And character don't get stuck on each other unless you give them the exact same point to target ... which can be solve by handling the target assignment yourself (like using the old slot method around a point).
     
  8. GarBenjamin

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    Yeah that is how I see it. This kind of when taken to this unnatural degree is just going in a black hole and I am sure many game devs are there. Lose sight of the goal being to make a game and instead spend tons of effort and time trying to achieve near perfection of a problem that shouldn't existin the first place. Lol

    The other thing that stands out to me is like the UE example. To me it is flawed from the start. When making an AI even the simple things I have done for tests I look at it like what would I do? What would people actually do?

    If we saw a video of actual humans trying to cross to the other side like that we would think they are complete idiots. If I was going across and saw a crowd already bottlenecked ahead I would steer around the outside from the start. And before that even I think people would tend to shift to one side. Something as simple as veer right. Now looking down from above the people moving from left move down a ways and the people moving across from the right move up a ways so we end up with two streams of traffic.
     
  9. GarBenjamin

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    Here is another example of an Indie having made several different modest games and built up a following in the process. Not a huge following yet but much larger than most including me with 6,000 followers on her Twitter account alone.

    This is her latest (here is the Steam page) and the first she has set a minimum price on. The previous ones are either free or pay what you want. Actually I guess she did have one other game that had a minimum if $1.

    She uses a unique interesting visual style. But then she also seems to make interesting games as well.

    The latest game


    One of her earliest releases was a pack of 3 games with 1 game made each week. Had that same style.

    So... basically... here it is... the secret to Indie Game Developer success. Make games (ideally interesting games). Release them. Market them. And through this process of actually making games, releasing them and marketing them build a fanbase over time who appreciate your games. When fanbase reaches a reasonable size make a more ambitious game and actually charge (more) money for that one. And then repeat.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2018
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  10. N1ghtrunner

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    I agree with this. I'm pretty late to this thread but i got here in the middle of some discussion around AI and how its implemented etc. AI isn't even necessarily important. There are people on the play store etc. who are making ridiculously simple games (hidden object, Angry-bird re-skins etc.) who through cleverly targetting and properly marketing their creations have amassed hundreds of thousands to millions of users. They feed them ads, and make good money out of it.

    The challenge is to:
    1) Create something that is simple
    2) Create something that is fun
    3) Learn how to build an audience that you can show the thing to
    4) Take the feedback, adapt and get better.

    Most of us are not going to be one-his-wonders. The indie dev I took inspiration from most recently was Toby Fox, who made Undertale almost entirely alone in GameMaker. I think the problem alot of wannabes have is a) making something that is too complex for their skillset at the time and executing it in a way that is unacceptable to the person that will play the game (shoddy implementation of features) b) getting distracted c) having no idea how to market / grow an audience.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2018
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  11. sngdan

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    I stumbled over this game by accident today...quite clever tower defense game with minimal GFX + good strategy + very clear interface. I only played it once, but this looked like a direct implementation of your design goals. Apologies if it was mentioned in this thread before. https://www.kongregate.com/games/preecep/desktop-tower-defense
     
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  12. AndersMalmgren

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    You take for granted people have flash installed? :D
     
  13. sngdan

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    No :) haha, I was actually surprised, I have Flash installed....something in Chrome came up and I clicked "allow"... it's worth googling a video of the game if you dont want to install Flash or in case of Gar, install Flash :)
     
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  14. GarBenjamin

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    With all of the people making games there is no doubt that anything we come up with has been made or is currently being worked on to some degree of similarity. I mean when you have literally thousands maybe tens of thousands of games being released every single day it's the just the way it is.

    But there being 100 games out there somewhere that have similar goals as ours is not a big deal. Our game will still have some unique aspects whether it is design choices or in the way the game feels etc. As will theirs.

    I haven't visited Kongregate in years. Just didn't care for the platform. I like their new Kartridge must better.

    Anyway thanks I will definitely it out! It sounds familiar so I think I may have seen it at itch.io or GameJolt. Not sure. Have seen so many games. The name sounds like it should have been played on a desk top with pencils, pens, erasers, coffee cups, etc being the units.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2018
  15. sngdan

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    I did not mention the similarity in a negative way but as an inspiration to build upon. Except for the low-res, I thought, it is a very clever way implementing what I understood your design goals where + you outsource the level design to the player. Take a look, it might give you an idea or worst case some entertainment only :)
     
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  16. GarBenjamin

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    Ha ha my bad. So many times people look for reasons why something cannot work. World is full of "negative Nancys" as they say. Lol

    My design is basically finalized I am in the 11th hour and release is fast approaching. But I always enjoy checking out other people's games and I agree there should be some "ah... that's a cool idea. Very nice!" moments there.

    I've not actually a seen a defense game that set out to have more of a balance of strategy and a "arcade action" feel. Majority seem to play quite slowly and very similar with either no real excitement or with the "excitement" coming from superfluous FX.

    Next brain break I will see if I can find a video on it.
     
  17. sngdan

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    i recommend to play, the aha effect comes, when you realize that you need to play a little bit of dungeon keeper and need to build a dynamic maze (i only realized after the game was over) and that there is actually a real design strategy required.

    ps: I never really played TD games, so this was a welcome surprise + I will get your game, when its done. I rarely program anything these days, but i might get my hands dirty with the ECS and a prototype of something
     
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  18. GarBenjamin

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    Absolutely agree. In general I mostly support solo devs who create tiny experiences. There are exceptions of course.

    As a developer I am "a fan" of the devs who create games in a reasonable amount of time where I define reasonable as a short dev time. Of course "short" depends on what exactly the game is and has in it but generally these would be games created in several months or less. Again there are exceptions though such as the dev spending 2,500 hours over a 2.5 year development period to create Sm4R.

    Personally I still think it is a huge dev expense. Of course a lot of this depends entirely on how much you value your time. 2,500 hours done as a business is $125,000 to me. If I was in a different situation say I had a job or had created other businesses averaging $10 per hour in that case it would be valued at $25,000 by me. If I lived somewhere my job or other businesses I had created averaged $2 per hour then I'd value the dev time at $5,000.

    But as it is now to me it is a huge dev expense and this time is only for the playable demo release. Development continues. That is great in a way because through continual development over time the dev can grow the fanbase.

    I just prefer a model of starting with tiny game projects and getting them out there much sooner to grow a fanbase over time. So far I have only 2 free games completed and I still need to release them at itch.io as well. I kind of feel like it is too early for me to release a for sale game and maybe should release my defense game for free as a marketing tool. But I think I will stick with the original idea of free tiny demo and paid full release. It will be a very low cost since it takes about 1 hour to play through beginning to end so average person should get 1.25 to 1.5 hours of play before completing the game. Maybe $97 for the paid version. Then I only need to make a total of about 85 sales. Lol ;)

    Anyway that's why I think about dev time. In the context of a business as in a person staking their living on on it we can't focus on "dreams & a prayer" but need concrete items. Or at least I do. And since expenses are based on time it is the only way to approach it imo. Straightforward is we need $x per month. There are y hours in a month we can work. So how much is each of those hours of time worth (needs to be worth) is straightforward to calculate. Doing something we enjoy and have a passion for doesn't remove this fundamental requirement.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2018
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  19. zenGarden

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    Because this is the goal of many triple A games, making the more realistic game.

    Yeah, you can do more arcade, player needing fast reaction and good strategy to win.
     
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  20. GarBenjamin

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    Well I appreciate that. I did have a look on YT and the visual style is very cool. Very simplistic yet a very unique personal touch to it. Certainly far less games that look like it than many others. The game has a very different goal than mine but is definitely innovative with the whole channeling the enemy concept controlling their movement by placing units. I then did some quick research and the game became massively popular within a few short months of release and ended up generating $100k per year in ad revenue. Enough the dev quit his job and pursued game dev full time.

    I think mainly he had the right idea at the right time and got a lot of great help in marketing through bloggers and gaming magazines at the time. I was hoping more he had slowly ground his way up over time without huge external factors but it is still cool. Now has a a company and team focusing on mmorpg games. So in this way he did start simple and scale up over time.
     
  21. GarBenjamin

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    I understand in a AAA context. When you have hundreds of people... groups of highly skilled people for each discipline... all working on a game it is completely different than one solo dev.

    Not that there haven't been a super tiny percentage of solos who have worked on games for many years that have been quite impressive & achieved tremendous success. But I mean I just don't understand why people look at what the AAA companies are doing so much when they are not a AAA company. I can get it if a person wants to focus on making a game that reproduces and improves on one small piece of the overall AAA game. But I will never understand a solo looking at the AAA games instead of other Indie games by solo developers as the ultimate goal to strive for. It just makes no sense to me personally.
     
  22. N1ghtrunner

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    So I feel like unless you have significant experience and a huge fan following, sinking 2,500 into a project can only be seen as some kind of 'passion' initiative that is frought with risk and the high potential for failure. For Indie developers, we really have to adapt some agile principles and fail fast, not slowly and at great expense to ourselves.

    For example - anyone following the development of Space Venture?? An adventure game from the guys who made the original Space Quest by Sierra? The thing is 5 years overdue and every 3 months or so there is an update on how close they are - its a joke. Those guys are trying to make one entire thing, with voice actors and all, which is ultimately a passion project, and by the time they are done, their huge fan following might not even care anymore. So why in this case, do they not do what Telltale did with Monkey Island? Release an Episodic game - 1 game broken down into 5 chapters. The first chapter is free, to get you going (hooked), and then you pay a quarter of the price of a full game for each of the next 4 episodes. To me that model is genius (though telltale clearly werent): Build the base for a thing, release a small part of it, see how it does, get feedback, improve it, tweak it, and release the next part. Incremental development and improvement. Rinse and repeat money. While you're doing that, cross-sell some of your other stuff.

    Part of me thinks this is why we see the sort of train wrecks that are Fallout 76. A big corporate tries to be agile, but doesnt control that one dude that needs to make the gravity response to a falling rock 'optimal'. And this dickhead then doesn't fix all the serious simple bugs that really piss off the players on release, and hello day 1 patches. This is a key area where indies can do better than AAA's - release stuff that is enjoyable (works and doesnt cause frustration), and build on that.
     
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  23. zenGarden

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    A solo can do some AA game perhaps , for example Epic has lot of high quality assets to make a high quality game, but it takes lot of time to make such high quality game.
    Sure not all solo can do such amazing games, but it would be great as we would have more great high quality games.



    You like small and minimalist game engines, did you heard about this one ?
    https://heaps.io/
    It has been used to make some succesful indie 2D games.
     
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  24. GarBenjamin

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    We already have great & high quality games made by one person. Highly rated games enjoyed by a huge number of people. Stardew Valley, Dust: An Elysian Tale, IconoClasts, Retro City Rampage, Axiom Verge, Unturned, Bit Blaster XL, Minecraft (originally), Baldis, Papers Please, ORCS, It Lurks Below, Etc. Of course some of these are not entirely one person as they may have contracted out work for art, music, etc but are generally viewed as being solo efforts. I don't know if that is really a good thing... probably a bad thing because it misrepresents and sets unrealistic expectations for what one solo dev... truly just one person alone period... can do.

    Anyway people are already making high quality games. Are you looking at the hundreds of humans AAA big, flashy orchestral productions again for the meaning of high quality? :D
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2018
  25. zenGarden

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    I mean solo AA games with realistic high res graphics ;)

    That's indie amazing solo work
    https://tibbletop.itch.io/character-customiser
     
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  26. GarBenjamin

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    Ah graphics. My next game before the ultra low poly just for you I might create a simple sliding puzzle or match the symbols to uncover the scene game. It will have truly awesomely realistic graphics although perhaps I will do a bit of processing to stylize them giving them a bit more color etc. I can just take some very high resolution photos of nature scenes then split them up. I can even go a step further and record a short video clip at the same time I take the photos so upon successful completion the image "comes to life" for a few seconds complete with the audio. Can you imagine that? True AAA quality or even better visuals!
     
  27. zenGarden

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    Why not.

    This is not best level design, but it's great indie creativity.


    This other one is the perfect example of things to avoid; no level design , too dark, no environment colors, confusing action, too much camera blurr and that music ...
    It would have lot more sucess as a techno dancing rythm game than a fighting game lol
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2018
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  28. neoshaman

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    Another way to put it:

    Have a strong and interesting identity that sets you appart. First visual to attract, second setting to foster identification and interest, third gameplay to have retention.
     
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  29. GarBenjamin

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    For 2D I think this game has an awesome aesthetic. I keep making my 2d visuals way too detailed and want to get to a simpler yet much more expressive & interesting visual style like this in the ring at time=1:46 I could do more & better animation this way...
     
  30. GarBenjamin

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    Never came across it before. Looks interesting. I did some dev in HaxeFlixel a few years back when I was hardcore searching and testing different alternatives.

    I am very content with AppGameKit 2. I can develop in it quickly because it feels so natural. The only game engine I want to experiment with is Construct 2 or 3 for 2D. So I might test that for my next 2D game.

    There are so many out there now with new ones popping up every month it seems. And older known ones are getting some impressive updates such as Godot 3 and the latest version of CryEngine.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2018
  31. GarBenjamin

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    I think Slayer Shock is a good 3D target for a solo Indie although it was actually made by 3 experienced game devs. I think it represents a scope for game size, visuals, audio, gameplay, etc a solo Indie could realistically strive to achieve. Not the first game or even a third game but to work up to over time if they really want to make bigger games. It's a cool concept, interesting mechanics and environment. It's interesting.

    Of course the implementation of hit boxes, enemy spawning etc wasn't very good based on Steam reviews (although I didn't notice any issues in the parts of this guy's video I watched) but I mean in your version you would do those things right and reach the full potential experience that should have been.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2018
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  32. GarBenjamin

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    I just played it. I must say even as much as I am an advocate of gameplay over presentation when I saw this I thought "now this truly looks like 3 to 10 second drawings for every enemy and tower." I would say this is probably the lowest art workload of a game I have ever played. Yet I ended up playing it for quite a while. It is very addicting so ultimately it reaffirmed my view that at least for some people such as myself the art just needs to be functional as long as the gameplay is well done. Judging from the dev raking in so much money for years from the game and the fact the game was played over 15 million times just in the first four months of its release and growing massively in popularity from there I definitely cannot be the only person with this view.

     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2018
  33. zenGarden

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    CryEngine is still too messy, it's too much fps framework with rigid overall character ai and animations system.
    Yeah there is new 3D engines , and the more the better choice.
    https://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2018/09/04/CSharp_Game_Engines.aspx

    Too minimalist, it doesn't cost a lot making another shapes colors for hair , boots, upper shirt and some head details.
    Anyway, you do as you like, minimalist 2D can be good sometimes.

    It's crappy just looking the video and not playing it, from bad animations and no blending to palette colors and ligthing that would need to be stylized to work better.

    Graphics and HUD are so much confusing and crappy that i would even not try it lol
    What much time does it cost to make 3D or vector like graphics to 2D to make those few tower defense units and rework the whole UI ? It's lazyness almost lol
    It looks like some game jam made very quickly.

    Anyway, just saying minimalist is good for people without big skills about art, but when it's too minimalist it will only be good for a niche , to get larger audience it worth it to spend more work to enhance graphics to get a better game readability and appeal.
     
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  34. BlankDeedxxAldenHilcrest

    BlankDeedxxAldenHilcrest

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    This thread is still going?
     
  35. GarBenjamin

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    GameFromScratch is where I heard about the CryEngine update. Their YT channel is great at covering updates and new releases of game engines and other dev tools. I didn't actually check it out firsthand but in the video it seemed to be much improved from the version I checked out several years back. That's actually why I came back a month or two whatever it was ago. To tell ShadowK about it but he had already left.

    Different views. I think it looks much more interesting like this than if it was detailed pixel art, HD, etc. Has an interesting look and everything seems extremely readable to me. Very expressive in stance, movement, attacks, etc.

    LOL well look at all that is in the game and this was a few experienced people at least one came from AAA. So I think it is a great goal for a solo dev. It takes a lot of work to make even a tiny game very solid and good. The scope of this game seems big certainly for one person. I am kind of surprised that experienced devs would make such mistakes with collision boxes and such though. But I thought maybe they were really stretching themselves due to the scope of the game size of the areas all of the buildings to explore, etc.

    LOL! It is incredibly minimal no doubt about it. But once I started playing all of the scribbles had meaning. I'd like to use art this minimal when I do a game with a fairly large scope. I think I would probably have to spend a little more time on the visuals though. Not so much the actual art itself but for feedback on hits and death, etc. Be a great choice for a top down rpg game.
     
  36. Woha, Mr. Pointy. I just finished the entire Buffy series again for this year... :D I always wanted to make a Buffy remix somehow, now I watched this video (and the part2) and I want to make that game again. Although I was planning to make Slayer VI (slayer six - as a nod to the slayer named Vi /Violet/ played by Felicia Day).
     
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  37. zenGarden

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    GameFromScratch just scratch the surface of 3D engines LOL
    They don't make a game or use 3D engines deeper to know what works and what doesn't work well, it's good to get general information only.
    Check CryEngine forums, it didn't changed a lot, it will be hard for new comers and C++, while C# is useless because it's barely supported and community is too small to help
    https://forum.cryengine.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=11340&sid=b55d6a47f6b0cbacf6c09414fe64aa20
    https://forum.cryengine.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11337&sid=c6e38f605270d98eea60317ba36e586c
    https://forum.cryengine.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11413&sid=c6e38f605270d98eea60317ba36e586c


    I would say they have rushed the game release, like many do.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2018
  38. orb

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  39. zenGarden

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    Yep, sometimes working as full indie dev can be risky, but better try than never know if it was possible for you :rolleyes:
     
  40. AndersMalmgren

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    If you believe in your product maybe its better to go full indie, me and my business partner like champagne and oysters so we have not decreased workload on our day jobs. Though it means dev.time is slow, and our customers have noticed.
     
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  41. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    What customers ? It is not gamers buying your game ?
     
  42. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    Yeah, yes the time between updates have not gone unnoticed is what I meant.
     
  43. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    Yeah that's what I mean they cover a lot of the dev scene. They don't get in-depth in the videos but they do cover a lot of tools and engines. I've seen some things in their videos I wouldn't mind trying out sometime.

    If only a person had unlimited time. I don't so I try to keep my game dev very focused on getting stuff done. Good news is I am back focused on wrapping up the current game project! So now will try again targeting completion by end of this coming weekend.

    Did another round of playtesting last night and seems I only need to....
    * add a few more sound FX for feedback
    * add a couple more visual FX for feedback
    * make a proper "won the game" ending
    * consider if I want to do the audio background for the beginning I was thinking of
    * fix the tracking of the 90-degree turret unit... it doesn't "feel" right at all compared to the exceptional tracking of the 360-degree and a third of the time seems to completely ignore an enemy it should be targeting

    Might be a couple of more things but basically I think that is it. All should be light work except for making the audio for the beginning and maybe the won game sequence depending on how much I want to do. Probably just show the pristine city and throw some fireworks out and call it done. Anyway I am looking forward to wrapping this up. I think I may still be able to complete it within 115 hours. I'm at 109.25 hours now. If not then surely 120 hours. This stuff just takes time especially all of the playtesting & balancing to get the right "feel".

    How's your new project coming along? Did you get the environment done?
     
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  44. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    That's good news.

    I made many generic low poly characters i can customize as i want.
    There is lot of work and research on the design phase, 2D quick draws to setup scene style, mood, environment, interactive things, gameplay, it will be a Zelda nes but i don't want to make a copy.
    I am switching for this game to a very small 3D engine with minimum features, it's not modern and very limited, and i'm not decided on the graphic style but will be simple like some of those :
    https://twitter.com/Bcubed_Labs
    https://twitter.com/Doodstormer
    https://twitter.com/hashtag/gravastar?src=hash
    The graphic style is not defined yet, so i can't move on textures or flat colors, while i can start blocking some levels and start some gameplay meanwhile.
     
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  45. neoshaman

    neoshaman

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    here some more advices and example
     
  46. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    That was excellent. Thanks for sharing. I suppose it may be strange that I find the majority of these protoypes more interesting than most games being created. Would like to see more games released that have the same "look n feel" as these prototypes. They have a very unique clean simple yet very expressive vibe to them.

    On the art aspect alone it's kind of strange because people seem to view it as these are using "generic" stuff and they need to do the "real" art. And in reality I see it like no you are taking visuals that are unique and replacing it with visuals that look much more like "everything" else. In a sense they are taking the uniqueness away by trying to make things look ""professional" or "finished". Anyway I would really like to see these people given 2 to 3 weeks to prototype an rpg game.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2018
  47. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    Sounds like you are off to a great start! And those examples look great especially like the the first one.

    It's interesting that you said you will use a more limited engine. Why did you choose to use a more limited engine? Is that to serve as a constraint limiting what is easily possible so you easier keep the scope in control? Or you think development will be faster? Or you just wanted to do a project in something else just for fun or learning? Or..... ?
     
  48. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    Good advices , prototyping to test new ideas and pick the right tools.
    There is some really cool game prototypes in the video.

    Faster to launch and more responsive because it's small , minimal interface , few essential tools, so much basic that there is no revenue limit or royalties; it's really enough for such simple stylized game , while i have many ideas to make diversified and interesting gameplay.
    I don't need a truck to push an egg LOL

    What is interesting, is the limited features force you to focus on simplicity about your graphics and animations (no ik, no complex animation states, just simple animations blending to look good enough).


    https://twitter.com/i/status/1066227287954120709
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1066375351876632577
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1040097439003238400


    While a game with advanced shaders and particles, and modern post effects and lighting, cinematics and advanced animation features, needs a bigger 3D engine more capable.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2018
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  49. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    Okay so kind of a combo. Very rapid startup (when I launch AGK2 it appears instantly with my project fully loaded in... I mean literally like 1/2 of a second or less but it's a tiny program I have only 20 code files containing about 8,000 lines of actual code) saves time and yes I get the simpler more focused part too. That is the constraint thing I mentioned... when you have all of the fundamentals covered extremely well but not the fancy stuff you tend to focus more on the important stuff (I mean as in the must have must be right stuff... there are certain things that a game must have and have them done very well with a high quality but advanced shaders and so forth have little to nothing to do with those things) and yes if you don't need all of the fancy stuff it tends to just "get in the way" in a sense.

    Well good luck. If you create a dev log somewhere message me the link please.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2018
  50. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    You could make a flat polygon game and mix with cinematic tool and advanced particles :rolleyes:
    Yeah, as indie it's best when you can find a style that lower the amount of work.
    Like this game
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1067475453559087104
     
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