Hobby and Indie Game Dev |OT 2019| Designing, Drawing, Coding, Composing, Everythinging

[Mihai_]

Hi guys. I'm wondering if anyone would like to test my educational game. I'm looking for bugs, feedback and everything that may help.
The game is named Colors on Canvas; more about it here: https://mihaipuiucernea.itch.io/colors-on-canvas

I'll have a test build available soonish and I'll send keys on itch.io to everyone that would like to help me test it or offer feedback.
Thanks.

 

[jbr373]

I learned a few tricks about avoiding background blending a few days ago as I was following a selout tutorial; I think you could find some use.
http://www.yarrninja.com/pixeltutorial/chapter12.htm

Another thing I forgot to mention: are you using a fixed palette for your game? The reaper sprite definitely doesn't seem like you are, and this is one of the most important things to nail down as soon as possible. If you feel it's too late / too much work to enforce a palette now, at least try to make new sprites adhere to a palette of your choice. I personally like Endesga32 a lot, althouh I use DawnBringer32 in my game. Perhaps these might be a bit too vibrant for the tone of your game, though.

Edit: Quick and dirty edit: converted to Endesga32, applied selout techniques above, and added lighting from the fire. Didn't have time to add antialias or texturing, sorry. I think this could look pretty neat as the lighted up parts move and flicker when the fires move.

(Images)

Here's how it looks against all the same colors used in the cloak itself, to demonstrate it doesn't disappear against any of them:

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the link to the tutorial, I'll be sure to take a look at it!
And no, I'm not using a specific palette but I'm staying with the same colors as much as possible.

I did put some time into reworking the sprite, trying to make it stand out more in the scene. I did also add some very light blue near the flames for now (I plan to do lighting like this by reworking my light shaders, they currently only do stage lights). This is the current state:

 

[petethepanda]

It's 2019, and I'm kind of horrified that it's 2019 already, so I'm going to post in here to try to convince myself to commit to the idea that I'm going to at the very least put something together in Twine and put it online - as a single thing, or in pieces/chapters, or something - just to say I've finally f'ing done something with these wasted creative impulses in my head.

The scariest thing about trying to force myself to do something is coming to terms with the fact that I could have done it so, so many years ago.

 

[SweetSark]

It's 2019, and I'm kind of horrified that it's 2019 already, so I'm going to post in here to try to convince myself to commit to the idea that I'm going to at the very least put something together in Twine and put it online - as a single thing, or in pieces/chapters, or something - just to say I've finally f'ing done something with these wasted creative impulses in my head.

The scariest thing about trying to force myself to do something is coming to terms with the fact that I could have done it so, so many years ago.

Click to shrink...

Hello there!
My suggestion I have is to just write whatever thing you have in your head to a book just to not forget.
Myself I have so many ideas for videogames and I just write them down.
When you are ready you can see your notes and remember the details of your idea.

Btw, can you share with us what kind of story it have?
The Twine is mostly for adventures games.

 

[Jobbs]

I recently finished up my moveset.

The game has 18 different weapons (mostly guns, but a few melee things), 45 equippable modules that modify your capabilities/powers, and a slew of tech and spirit powers.

This is the power fist (actual name tbd). It can be charged up and released, and if executed in the air it does a spin attack. Lore-wise it's the fist of a robot you can kill.


Pretty fun to have crossed this milestone. :) Now I can focus my energy pretty much entirely on level design. 2019 is going to be juicy

 

[GameDev]

Maybe it'll be good to add something on SDL in the resource page:
https://www.libsdl.org/

I recommend SDL to people who want to learn low level development without getting overly bogged down in OS specific stuff.

 

[AlsoZ]

I recently finished up my moveset.

The game has 18 different weapons (mostly guns, but a few melee things), 45 equippable modules that modify your capabilities/powers, and a slew of tech and spirit powers.

This is the power fist (actual name tbd). It can be charged up and released, and if executed in the air it does a spin attack. Lore-wise it's the fist of a robot you can kill.


Pretty fun to have crossed this milestone. :) Now I can focus my energy pretty much entirely on level design. 2019 is going to be juicy

Click to shrink...

The punch looks satisfying but the spin seems a bit out of place with how smooth everything else looks and animates.

 

[Jobbs]

The punch looks satisfying but the spin seems a bit out of place with how smooth everything else looks and animates.

Click to shrink...

It's spinning at 60 fps, I guess the gif makes it look choppier. In any case, it's styled after the spin jumps that were common in the games that existed when I was growing up. I think it feels kind of satisfying, but I'm probably biased. I understand your point though

 

[Jintor]

it's pretty classic

 

[Weltall Zero]

It's 2019, and I'm kind of horrified that it's 2019 already, so I'm going to post in here to try to convince myself to commit to the idea that I'm going to at the very least put something together in Twine and put it online - as a single thing, or in pieces/chapters, or something - just to say I've finally f'ing done something with these wasted creative impulses in my head.

The scariest thing about trying to force myself to do something is coming to terms with the fact that I could have done it so, so many years ago.

Click to shrink...

If it's any consolation, working on a game and realizing you've been doing it for 2 years is equally scary. :D

One thing I can say is that the "I should have started doing this years ago" is very strong when you actually do start, but I think for entirely different reasons than you think: it's so enjoyable that you feel like you've been missing out.

When you start making a game you will definitely get that "I should have started doing this so long ago". But obviously, this is a reason to start as soon as possible.

Click to shrink...

So... what is exactly stopping you? You don't know where to start or what engine to choose? Do you have any applicable skills? Tell us a bit more about yourself. :)

I recently finished up my moveset.

The game has 18 different weapons (mostly guns, but a few melee things), 45 equippable modules that modify your capabilities/powers, and a slew of tech and spirit powers.

This is the power fist (actual name tbd). It can be charged up and released, and if executed in the air it does a spin attack. Lore-wise it's the fist of a robot you can kill.


Pretty fun to have crossed this milestone. :) Now I can focus my energy pretty much entirely on level design. 2019 is going to be juicy

Click to shrink...

The punch looks frankly amazing, but I concur that the spin looks weirdly choppy. It could be a combination of being a very quick spin with that 60 -> 30 conversion indeed, but I think you might want to add a "trail" / "blur" effect. Something like this, but in your style:

Slowed down:

 

[Jobbs]

This is what it looks like at 60 frames

https://streamable.com/obuka

obv I cropped it in somewhat to see it better embedded

In any case I had considered adding some smeared/blurred art onto the spin, but I thought it worked well enough for now as is so I moved on. I might revisit it at some point if anyone else complains.

 

[Deleted member 39479]

Hot damn Jobbs those visuals are incredible and your animations are smooth as butter, especially at 60fps. I don't mind the spin at all. Can't wait to see more levels from you, I bet they're gonna be gorgeous.

 

[Weltall Zero]

This is what it looks like at 60 frames

https://streamable.com/obuka

obv I cropped it in somewhat to see it better embedded

In any case I had considered adding some smeared/blurred art onto the spin, but I thought it worked well enough for now as is so I moved on. I might revisit it at some point if anyone else complains.

Click to shrink...

Considerably better at 60 FPS indeed, but still a bit different than the rest of the game. I wonder why that is, perhaps simply a consequence of a lot of movement in a very small time frame.

 

[Jobbs]

Considerably better at 60 FPS indeed, but still a bit different than the rest of the game. I wonder why that is, perhaps simply a consequence of a lot of movement in a very small time frame.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, the gif framerate is pretty low, so when something is spinning quickly a lot is lost. And it's a fair criticism nonetheless. When trying to have a lot of content I can't always let the perfect be the enemy of the good (though I am guilty of this sometimes).

Hot damn Jobbs those visuals are incredible and your animations are smooth as butter, especially at 60fps. I don't mind the spin at all. Can't wait to see more levels from you, I bet they're gonna be gorgeous.

Click to shrink...

Thank you :) I haven't shown other areas for a variety of reasons (not the least of which being they're just not ready), but now that basically all the groundwork is laid I am free to focus on level design and environment art in 2019. :) I'm pretty excited.

 

[Mengy]

This is what it looks like at 60 frames

https://streamable.com/obuka

obv I cropped it in somewhat to see it better embedded

In any case I had considered adding some smeared/blurred art onto the spin, but I thought it worked well enough for now as is so I moved on. I might revisit it at some point if anyone else complains.

Click to shrink...

Woah, that looks fantastic!

 

[Weltall Zero]

Yeah, the gif framerate is pretty low, so when something is spinning quickly a lot is lost. And it's a fair criticism nonetheless. When trying to have a lot of content I can't always let the perfect be the enemy of the good (though I am guilty of this sometimes).

Thank you :) I haven't shown other areas for a variety of reasons (not the least of which being they're just not ready), but now that basically all the groundwork is laid I am free to focus on level design and environment art in 2019. :) I'm pretty excited.

Click to shrink...

Just in case it's not obvious, I think the game looks fantastic. It might be quite an specific, odd thing, but from the second video I'm particularly delighted how you nailed the UI. I love the weapon icons and the layout. I appreciate how hard it is to get menus and UI just right!

 

[RazorbackDB]

Tried my hand at sculpting, honestly I expected worse, proportions are all over the place but it resembles it, somewhat.

Reference:

Result:

Can this become a meme like the one from the restored paiting?, please?

 

[SweetSark]

Btw Jobbs, is the Hero

Tried my hand at sculpting, honestly I expected worse, proportions are all over the place but it resembles it, somewhat.

Reference:

Result:

Can this become a meme like the one from the restored paiting?, please?

Click to shrink...

For a first try is very good.
The only suggestion I have is to make the nose little longer. Is just too flat.

 

[jahasaja]

I recently finished up my moveset.

The game has 18 different weapons (mostly guns, but a few melee things), 45 equippable modules that modify your capabilities/powers, and a slew of tech and spirit powers.

This is the power fist (actual name tbd). It can be charged up and released, and if executed in the air it does a spin attack. Lore-wise it's the fist of a robot you can kill.


Pretty fun to have crossed this milestone. :) Now I can focus my energy pretty much entirely on level design. 2019 is going to be juicy

Click to shrink...

That looks so fun to use! You game really shows well! I think people just want to play it when they see it,.

So all the enemies are also done?

 

[ThatPersonGuy]

I wanted to make circular pong and now I'm researching dot product projection at 11 PM at night. Am I a real game dev now?

 

[Pooh]

I wanted to make circular pong and now I'm researching dot product projection at 11 PM at night. Am I a real game dev now?

Click to shrink...

Yes but you will level up when you say "fuck it" and do it the "wrong but easy" way

 

[jahasaja]

If it's any consolation, working on a game and realizing you've been doing it for 2 years is equally scary. :D

One thing I can say is that the "I should have started doing this years ago" is very strong when you actually do start, but I think for entirely different reasons than you think: it's so enjoyable that you feel like you've been missing out.



So... what is exactly stopping you? You don't know where to start or what engine to choose? Do you have any applicable skills? Tell us a bit more about yourself. :)



The punch looks frankly amazing, but I concur that the spin looks weirdly choppy. It could be a combination of being a very quick spin with that 60 -> 30 conversion indeed, but I think you might want to add a "trail" / "blur" effect. Something like this, but in your style:

Slowed down:

Click to shrink...

I think it would look better if you animated the blur and removed it on the inside of the tail. I would also add it to the head.
Here is an example of animated blur. (Sorry for the blinking stuff forgot to remove)

 

[trugs26]

This is what it looks like at 60 frames

https://streamable.com/obuka

obv I cropped it in somewhat to see it better embedded

In any case I had considered adding some smeared/blurred art onto the spin, but I thought it worked well enough for now as is so I moved on. I might revisit it at some point if anyone else complains.

Click to shrink...

Love the subtle grid overlay effect.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I recently finished up my moveset.

The game has 18 different weapons (mostly guns, but a few melee things), 45 equippable modules that modify your capabilities/powers, and a slew of tech and spirit powers.

This is the power fist (actual name tbd). It can be charged up and released, and if executed in the air it does a spin attack. Lore-wise it's the fist of a robot you can kill.


Pretty fun to have crossed this milestone. :) Now I can focus my energy pretty much entirely on level design. 2019 is going to be juicy

Click to shrink...

Congrats, Jobbs. You've been working on ti for a long time.

 

[correojon]

This is what it looks like at 60 frames

https://streamable.com/obuka

obv I cropped it in somewhat to see it better embedded

In any case I had considered adding some smeared/blurred art onto the spin, but I thought it worked well enough for now as is so I moved on. I might revisit it at some point if anyone else complains.

Click to shrink...

I have to say that the original GIF looked "bad" to me, to the point that I thought that the fast spinning move didn´t work correctly with the more slow and powerful ground attack of the fist, like it was a bit contradictory. However, after seeing the 60fps footage it looks amazing! I can also appreciate now the slight camera shake when landing which gives the move a lot of weight and power, bridging the gap between the ground and air moves. Kudos!

 

[Weltall Zero]

I think it would look better if you animated the blur and removed it on the inside of the tail. I would also add it to the head.
Here is an example of animated blur. (Sorry for the blinking stuff forgot to remove)

Click to shrink...

The slowed down version is to let people see individual frames here, in-game it looks like the "fast" version (I think actually faster). I can't "animate" the blur because each 45º turn appears for only one animation frame (and even so it's one of the fastest animations in the game). :) In-game you're not going to even see individual frames at that speed, especially considering it spins just once and the focus is on the stings flying everywhere (it's a ranged 360 attack).

You do have a point about removing blur inside the tail and adding it at the head. I actually tried both at some point and didn't much like the result, but I should revisit it. I'm thinking the axis (or mass center) of the spin may be a bit off too.

Edit: OK, how's this? (this is the speed it plays in-game):

Slowed down:

 

[jahasaja]

The slowed down version is to let people see individual frames here, in-game it looks like the "fast" version (I think actually faster). I can't "animate" the blur because each 45º turn appears for only one animation frame (and even so it's one of the fastest animations in the game). :) In-game you're not going to even see individual frames at that speed, especially considering it spins just once and the focus is on the stings flying everywhere (it's a ranged 360 attack).

You do have a point about removing blur inside the tail and adding it at the head. I actually tried both at some point and didn't much like the result, but I should revisit it. I'm thinking the axis (or mass center) of the spin may be a bit off too.

Edit: OK, how's this? (this is the speed it plays in-game):

Slowed down:

Click to shrink...

If it is motion blur you want to create try using onion skin to see were the animation was in the frame before to know where the blur should be. I would put it more on the top and the back of the head. The tail motion blur I am not sure, the one you have now does not really correlate with the previous frame.

 

[Jobbs]

Hot damn Jobbs those visuals are incredible and your animations are smooth as butter, especially at 60fps. I don't mind the spin at all. Can't wait to see more levels from you, I bet they're gonna be gorgeous.

Click to shrink...

Considerably better at 60 FPS indeed, but still a bit different than the rest of the game. I wonder why that is, perhaps simply a consequence of a lot of movement in a very small time frame.

Click to shrink...

Woah, that looks fantastic!

Click to shrink...

Just in case it's not obvious, I think the game looks fantastic. It might be quite an specific, odd thing, but from the second video I'm particularly delighted how you nailed the UI. I love the weapon icons and the layout. I appreciate how hard it is to get menus and UI just

Love the subtle grid overlay effect.

Click to shrink...

I have to say that the original GIF looked "bad" to me, to the point that I thought that the fast spinning move didn´t work correctly with the more slow and powerful ground attack of the fist, like it was a bit contradictory. However, after seeing the 60fps footage it looks amazing! I can also appreciate now the slight camera shake when landing which gives the move a lot of weight and power, bridging the gap between the ground and air moves. Kudos!

Click to shrink...

right!

Click to shrink...

Thanks guys for the kind comments. :) It's nice to be hit with some positivity from time to time.

That looks so fun to use! You game really shows well! I think people just want to play it when they see it,.

So all the enemies are also done?

Click to shrink...

Thank you. :) The enemies are not all done. I've made about 8 of them -- Ultimately there will be far more, I'd predict somewhere in the 30 range at minimum. I haven't really focused on enemies much yet, I wanted to make sure all of the powers and base systems were in place and how I wanted them before focusing too hard on building the world up. The moveset is pretty ambitious compared to anything I've done in the past but having more depth and variety was important to me to make the game feel how I wanted it to feel.

 

[Slixshot]

This is what it looks like at 60 frames

https://streamable.com/obuka

obv I cropped it in somewhat to see it better embedded

In any case I had considered adding some smeared/blurred art onto the spin, but I thought it worked well enough for now as is so I moved on. I might revisit it at some point if anyone else complains.

Click to shrink...

Your work is inspiring, Jobbs. I backed you a long time ago. Good luck finishing the game! Can't wait to see more.

 

[RazorbackDB]

More sculpting fun, without any reference this time. I think it came out ok.

If I keep at this pace just learning new tools for modelling and game engines I'll make a game by 2050. I think I will just try to blockout a level idea I have and try to write some gameplay just with a dummy character to get my ass moving.

 

[Mik2121]

I was playing Vane yesterday and decided to try and somewhat replicate (and make a tutorial out of) a couple of the elements done in there.
I went with some very simple and basic methods, but hopefully it's a fun short read and video.

https://gamedevthings.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/low-framerate-animation-via-shader/


Also amazing work here like always. Jobbs I've been looking forward to your thing for years now!

 

[Sean Noonan]

I was playing Vane yesterday and decided to try and somewhat replicate (and make a tutorial out of) a couple of the elements done in there.
I went with some very simple and basic methods, but hopefully it's a fun short read and video.

https://gamedevthings.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/low-framerate-animation-via-shader/


Also amazing work here like always. Jobbs I've been looking forward to your thing for years now!

Click to shrink...

I tried to do this with the candles in my game - think I was semi successful...

 

[CptDrunkBear]

I've been messing around with a snes mode7 sort of style in unity, I really like how it's turning out.

https://gfycat.com/FluidEveryIcefish

 

[SaberVS7]

I've been messing around with a snes mode7 sort of style in unity, I really like how it's turning out.

https://gfycat.com/FluidEveryIcefish

Click to shrink...

Ooooh, that looks really good.

Are you using a pixelization shader to achieve the look, or am I missing the mark here?

 

[CptDrunkBear]

Ooooh, that looks really good.

Are you using a pixelization shader to achieve the look, or am I missing the mark here?

Click to shrink...

There's a lot going on here. First, I'm rendering the base plane there with nearest-neighbor interpolation (preserving the "pixelly" look). It's just a giant texture with a tileset that ends up being an overworld map that I then put on a simple plane.

At around 300 meters, I then have a vertical plane with a matte painted horizon, that scrolls right and left at the same speed as you turn, same as old-school stuff like mario kart.

Finally, all the other things on-screen are sprites, which were hand drawn for each angle and distance, then I do some quick math to decide which one to draw and where on-screen.

Thanks :D

 

[Weltall Zero]

There's a lot going on here. First, I'm rendering the base plane there with nearest-neighbor interpolation (preserving the "pixelly" look). It's just a giant texture with a tileset that ends up being an overworld map that I then put on a simple plane.

At around 300 meters, I then have a vertical plane with a matte painted horizon, that scrolls right and left at the same speed as you turn, same as old-school stuff like mario kart.

Finally, all the other things on-screen are sprites, which were hand drawn for each angle and distance, then I do some quick math to decide which one to draw and where on-screen.

Thanks :D

Click to shrink...

That's seriously impressive, congratulations. I was quite confused by the first sentence until I realized you were talking about the ground's "plane" (as in unbounded bidimensional surface), not the player-controlled "plane" (as in "aircraft" :D).

I think the question SaberVS7 was making is, how are you doing to make it all look low-res; I'm assuming you're either rendering the entire game at a low resolution, or rendering it into a low-res texture that you then project onto the camera? If you weren't doing either of these, the ground wouldn't discretize to on-screen large "pixels" even using nearest neighbour, right?

 

[CptDrunkBear]

I think the question SaberVS7 was making is, how are you doing to make it all look low-res; I'm assuming you're either rendering the entire game at a low resolution, or rendering it into a low-res texture that you then project onto the camera? If you weren't doing either of these, the ground wouldn't discretize to on-screen large "pixels" even using nearest neighbour, right?

Click to shrink...

Ah derp. Yeah, I just render it to a small texture, which I then draw to the full screen with nearest-neighbor. For Unity, that pipeline is known as a render-texture. The only thing that's 3D is the ground-plane (Didn't even realize haha). Everything else is placed on screen (with pixel coords) using Unity's UI system, so there's actually very little 3D. Very much in the spirit of the SNES mode7 stuff. It's all faked!

 

[Weltall Zero]

Ah derp. Yeah, I just render it to a small texture, which I then draw to the full screen with nearest-neighbor. For Unity, that pipeline is known as a render-texture. The only thing that's 3D is the ground-plane (Didn't even realize haha). Everything else is placed on screen (with pixel coords) using Unity's UI system, so there's actually very little 3D. Very much in the spirit of the SNES mode7 stuff. It's all faked!

Click to shrink...

Yeah, that's probably the coolest / most impressive thing! I watched a pretty in-depth video about how Mode 7 worked a couple months back (posted here on Era) and it was absolutely fascinating. Obviously some of the more esoteric trickery (for the ground plane in particular) is not necessary now that 3D rendering is trivial, but still.

 

[Lady Bow]

Any tips for doing dynamic/ragdoll hair in Unity? I've tried doing three rigidbodies on my three hair bones (base, mid, end) with a bunch of different joint configurations but they've always been very buggy and erratic. I try playing with the clamp in the joint settings so they don't go all over the place and it seems to make it even more crazy. Is there a better way?

 

[jbr373]

I started reworking the combat in my project, and moved away from simply having 3 attacks mapped to a chain oriented system.
The player now has 3 "Blessings" which the player can apply for a energy cost. Said blessings can then either be used to perform a special attack or kept on the player as a positive effect (although this positive effect is rather minor). The special attack changes depending on the active blessing - AoE, Missle or Heal.
The cooldown is the energy bar itself, which slowly recharges (the recharge speed can be upgraded). I use this as a cooldown mechanism which is more variable than using static times.

I also made a small video showing some combat against simple enemies:

 

[Weltall Zero]

I started reworking the combat in my project, and moved away from simply having 3 attacks mapped to a chain oriented system.
The player now has 3 "Blessings" which the player can apply for a energy cost. Said blessings can then either be used to perform a special attack or kept on the player as a positive effect (although this positive effect is rather minor). The special attack changes depending on the active blessing - AoE, Missle or Heal.
The cooldown is the energy bar itself, which slowly recharges (the recharge speed can be upgraded). I use this as a cooldown mechanism which is more variable than using static times.

I also made a small video showing some combat against simple enemies:

Click to shrink...

Video isn't showing for me; I don't even see a video embed or anything.

This reminds me of one of the Guardian, one of the classes in Guild Wars 2: you can "equip" a number of class skills; each one provides both a passive buff an an active skill, with the caveat that using the active skill removes the buff until the cooldown completely recharges.

 

[jbr373]

Video isn't showing for me; I don't even see a video embed or anything.

This reminds me of one of the Guardian, one of the classes in Guild Wars 2: you can "equip" a number of class skills; each one provides both a passive buff an an active skill, with the caveat that using the active skill removes the buff until the cooldown completely recharges.

Click to shrink...

I uploaded the video to gfycat, the imgur video option seems to not work correctly.
And the system is my solution to having more skills than buttons - I wanted skills to be mapped to the controller face buttons only (A,X,Y), so I went with that.
It allows me to have 3 skills on one button while also mapping the blessing skills with a switch.

Funny that you mentioned Guild Wars 2, considering the fact that the blessing system is essentially a modified seal system from classic WoW Paladins :) Without the mana pool issues, at least. I found it to be very useful as a baseline to modify and adapt to my skill / mapping problem.

 

[jahasaja]

I started reworking the combat in my project, and moved away from simply having 3 attacks mapped to a chain oriented system.
The player now has 3 "Blessings" which the player can apply for a energy cost. Said blessings can then either be used to perform a special attack or kept on the player as a positive effect (although this positive effect is rather minor). The special attack changes depending on the active blessing - AoE, Missle or Heal.
The cooldown is the energy bar itself, which slowly recharges (the recharge speed can be upgraded). I use this as a cooldown mechanism which is more variable than using static times.

I also made a small video showing some combat against simple enemies:

Click to shrink...

Looks very cool and most important fun. Love the pixel art of the door.

My only nitpick would be that the animations could use some more frames to look smooth.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I uploaded the video to gfycat, the imgur video option seems to not work correctly.
And the system is my solution to having more skills than buttons - I wanted skills to be mapped to the controller face buttons only (A,X,Y), so I went with that.
It allows me to have 3 skills on one button while also mapping the blessing skills with a switch.

Funny that you mentioned Guild Wars 2, considering the fact that the blessing system is essentially a modified seal system from classic WoW Paladins :) Without the mana pool issues, at least. I found it to be very useful as a baseline to modify and adapt to my skill / mapping problem.

Click to shrink...

Hahah, yeah, I never played a Paladin in WoW (played mostly vanilla Horde), but Guardians are pretty obviously the Guild Wars versions of them. I guess the "self-buff you can turn into an active spell" is thematically appropriate for paladins, which in turn makes the mechanic a good pick for your game's spells.

I looked up how it works in GW2 to jog my memory, in case they give you gameplay ideas or even an idea for an alternate character. Guardians actually have all three of their Virtues active at the same time by default; you don't actually choose which one you have active. They only go down when you use the active skill tied to them, and stay down until its cooldown refreshes. Specifically (copypasted from the wiki):

• Virtue of Justice - Burn foes every few attacks.
  Activate: You and your allies inflict burning on the next attack.
• Virtue of Resolve - Regenerates health.
  Activate: Heal yourself and nearby allies.
• Virtue of Courage - Grants aegis every few seconds.
  Activate: Grant aegis to yourself and nearby allies.

Thematically, it represents a sacrifice by the Guardian to power up or defend its allies at a cost to themselves. In your specific case, the nice thing with this model is that you only need three buttons, one for each active skill, rather than four. So I guess if you find yourself desperately needing to free one more button (I've been there!), this could be an alternative, although I realize it's incompatible with your current implementation of bars / cooldowns.

Looks very cool and most important fun. Love the pixel art of the door.

My only nitpick would be that the animations could use some more frames to look smooth.

Click to shrink...

I was about to say the roll in particular would benefit tremendously from a couple more in-between frames, yeah, especially as a fast action you use a lot. Everything else seems fine to me.

 

[Hampig]

Does anyone have a good resource that talks about level/stats scaling in games? Wondering if there's anything showing perhaps a set of guidelines that popular/successful games follow, or if it's largely just trial and error.

I've been playing some idle games lately, and the algorithm behinds the costs of upgrades interests me. The consistency behind upgrades and their benefit and how that's handled in the long-term, especially since for the most part they don't deal with percentages at all. I know you could just go exponential, but there's more to it then that as far as I can tell.

I haven't looked too closely yet to identify myself, but when playing SpacePlan I was surprised at how big the boost upgrades were giving me felt, yet how manageable the overall numbers stayed for the duration of play.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I know you could just go exponential, but there's more to it then that as far as I can tell.

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For most idle clickers I very much doubt there's more to it than exponential. It feels like a pretty straightforward exponential scale to me.

 

[Hampig]

For most idle clickers I very much doubt there's more to it than exponential. It feels like a pretty straightforward exponential scale to me.

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Yeah maybe, but it didn't feel like it with at least SpacePlan. I'll have to look into it more, you might be right though and I'm overthinking it.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Yeah maybe, but it didn't feel like it with at least SpacePlan. I'll have to look into it more, you might be right though and I'm overthinking it.

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I haven't played SpacePlan, so I can't comment. You can however make some pretty good estimates if you, say, write down stats at each level.

 

[SweetSark]

So, I want to post something related with Game Development, but for the people looking for a job:

Some hours ago I posted in my Thread about a Comic series named "Spaicy", because they released 3 months ago [I think] an announcemet that the author is looking for videogame programmers for a [possible] videogame she want to make with others.
Here are what they are looking for:

• The idea is to create a video game engine for the Spaicy project for PC and consoles.
• We are not looking to do several stages or more. for now we only want to develop the engine with a test stage .
• Payment is open to agreement.
• The type of game is 2D platform with RPG aspects. Our references of game programming is Rayman Legends and Fancy Pants due to their fluid gameplay.
• For this project we aim to have a test stage with place holders objects, as a first step, to be able to test the collision among other factors.

You can apply for an interview below:

https://form.jotformz.com/82256865404663

 

[Camille_]

Aah, it's been so long, I forgot what this tastes like, but finally, I have something new-ish to show for screenshot saturday: colored, finished enemies acting their part in the prototype!


Going back to the prototype after this small break off it goes to show how far I still am from the mark, lots of issues to deal with and stuff I had progressively learned to look over. So the to-do list doesn't grow any shorter, but for this small scene, at least I'm getting a *liiitle* closer to what it's going to be like, someday, eventually maybe!