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Do you use development 'cheats' in your games?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by andymads, Dec 17, 2015.

  1. andymads

    andymads

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    I do. I couldn't work without them. For me, it's one of the first things that goes into a new project.

    I have 2 main systems.

    (1) Controls in Inspector:

    Screen Shot 2015-12-17 at 07.40.45.png

    (2) A 'control panel' that can be brought up in the game in editor or device (3 finger touch on device):

    Screen Shot 2015-12-17 at 07.42.37.png
     
    theANMATOR2b and Martin_H like this.
  2. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    I start a lot of my games with extra 'developer' money. It makes no sense trying to play test late stages of the game by getting through all of the early stages each time.
     
  3. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Yup, they are pretty much not optional for large or complex games for the reasons @BoredMormon said. You have to fix/tweak something that takes a couple of minutes, only to spend 10 minutes getting to point in the game to test it, gets really old fast.
     
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  4. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Especially if you suck at playing your own game and have to make several attempts to pass level one. ;)
     
  5. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Ours are pretty much like the sims style one. 3 finger tap (on device, ctrl +tab in editor) brings up a console where you can enter cheats / macros that mod the game state or apply data patches. We just add new ones as needed. When cut submission builds, the entire functionally is stripped out for release.
     
  6. ippdev

    ippdev

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    Gads.. I don't play games as I am so fed up with playing games...and stopping to tweak this, that and the other. I always enjoy a new project until I then don't. Same story every project. It would be nice to play something I made without ever having played it prior to get a fresh look at it.
     
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  7. darkhog

    darkhog

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    But why? Can't you just remove some too OP ones and add few "funny" cheats (big heads, etc.)?

    Anyway, I don't think I need any cheats for my game, but if I will I'll add them. And if I don't, before release I'll add some funny ones.
     
  8. IllogicalGames

    IllogicalGames

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    yes i did that a lot. its really helpful. you dont want to play whole level just to test the achievement screen.. or you dont have to kill x amount of monsters to test the drop rate..
     
  9. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    It's kind of a "must have" during development for all of the reasons people have mentioned.
    It'd be a huge waste of time to actually have to play through the bulk of the game to test later areas or even just wander around to test a new area you added.

    In my current Christmas project when the player moves through a certain passage they enter stage one of the main gameplay. The first thing I did was to make it so when the game begins the player no longer starts outside their house and now starts a few pixels away from the passage. And the passage itself now leads to the second gameplay area because that is the area I am currently working on and testing. Later they may enter the passage and magically appear halfway through this stage. Anything you can do to save time during development is a must for us hobbyist game devs with limited time. Well for anyone really hobbyist or pro.
     
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  10. IllogicalGames

    IllogicalGames

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    yea totally agree with this. this is what i meant. also when testing your game, you want to avoid to play the same level again and again it might make you become better at that level, and when you are better, you feel the game is easy, thus u increase its difficulty to match your own skill.
     
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  11. Yash987654321

    Yash987654321

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    I do use chests. I even have a great window named inspector (Editor only) for that :p
     
  12. PenguinEmporium

    PenguinEmporium

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    Yeah, cheats are useful. My company uses "cheats" to test offline functions.
     
  13. mayasim

    mayasim

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    ya but the excitement of Mod or cheated game ends when it become nlimited.Fun and thrill is always with impossible games not modded games.
     
  14. QFSW

    QFSW

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    I have cheats so that i can test the game at higher scores, or quickly spawn a new asteroid or power up
     
    GarBenjamin likes this.
  15. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    What is the cheats you are talking about? Is it the cheat codes in games or something else?
     
  16. QFSW

    QFSW

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    Programming debug features or 'cheats' that we can use in the editor or development versions for testing
     
  17. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

  18. Stardog

    Stardog

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    I use ContextMenu a lot so I can run functions by right-clicking the script.
     
  19. BFGames

    BFGames

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    We are using an in-game console in our newest game. Impossible to test more complex games without any help.

    We can give all items in game to your character, spawn special npcs, set day time, complete objectives, travel around the game world, set stats for you and npcs and so much more. We used an asset store asset as a base. It works amazing.

    An example, i write something like this when it need an item or need to travel:

    giveItem Rifle Kim 1,
    giveItem Cheese Kim 67,
    travel 6 17 false
     
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  20. BornGodsGame

    BornGodsGame

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    if you are doing any type of RPG, you must have an insta-kill button.
     
  21. FuzzyQuills

    FuzzyQuills

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    Tell that to the developers of Gradius... ;) (That's Konami I think)

    As for myself, I haven't found the need to use "development cheats." yet. there's probably going to be some project in future where I might need them.
    That reminds me of the GBA Crash Nitro Kart... :p (Lunar Gravity was hilarious to play with!)
     
  22. AndrewGrayGames

    AndrewGrayGames

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    I usually design my games scene-by-scene; I set up scenes to be able to work independently of each other with a configurable state. When a scene is good enough, I lock it down by way of removing the object that initializes the state (my "Ambassador" object, specifically.)
     
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  23. IllogicalGames

    IllogicalGames

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    that is interesting way to work around.