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

elLOaSTy · Nov 19, 2019

Finally finishing my trailer for tomorrow! Hope people like it, I can't wait to start showing off and demoing the game.

this has been the toughest and most humbling project Ive ever taken on. I have such a new appreciation for all game developers and I'm not even coding anything. I've never been so exhausted in my life.

Update: It's done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5dRwLof85g&feature=youtu.be

Minamu · Nov 19, 2019

Hey, does anyone know how I can easily rearrange my unreal blueprint components? I'm just trying to make sure my staticmeshcomponents for example are next to each other, but there doesn't seem to be an option available for anything besides reattaching as a new root. Moving components around in Unity as a click and drag breeze.

RazorbackDB · Nov 19, 2019

Minamu said:
Hey, does anyone know how I can easily rearrange my unreal blueprint components? I'm just trying to make sure my staticmeshcomponents for example are next to each other, but there doesn't seem to be an option available for anything besides reattaching as a new root. Moving components around in Unity as a click and drag breeze.

Afaik the most you have is the align and distribution settings, there are a couple of addons extending the blueprint editor on the marketplace but I haven't tried them, I think your best bet would be to write a simple python script https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Editor/ScriptingAndAutomation/Python/index.html

Jintor · Nov 19, 2019

oops wrong thread

Weltall Zero · Nov 19, 2019

Henry Gale said:
Finally finishing my trailer for tomorrow! Hope people like it, I can't wait to start showing off and demoing the game.

this has been the toughest and most humbling project Ive ever taken on. I have such a new appreciation for all game developers and I'm not even coding anything. I've never been so exhausted in my life.

Yeah, I've coded software of all kinds from civil engineering to accounting to video streaming to telemedicine, and nothing comes close to the amount of work that goes into even simple, indie videogame development. But at the same time, it makes it so much more of a challenge, which I love. :)

Minamu · Nov 19, 2019

RazorbackDB said:
Afaik the most you have is the align and distribution settings, there are a couple of addons extending the blueprint editor on the marketplace but I haven't tried them, I think your best bet would be to write a simple python script https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Editor/ScriptingAndAutomation/Python/index.html

Hmm okay thanks :) To be clear, I'm only talking about reordering the list of attached components in the component tab, not actual blueprint nodes, in case there was any confusion :)

wwm0nkey · Nov 19, 2019

Finally got my Mega Man Battle Network card system working exactly the way I want and creation of new cards is real easy with scriptable objects (such a good system for card games btw). Now I just have to work on the 3rd person controller some more and I can start hooking that card system up to the actual gameplay.

The basic idea for the game is a mashup of Battle Network and Phantom Dust, I like the BN card system and I like the idea of Phantom Dust A LOT but the controls are.....yeah not good. Unlike PD I do have the mana spawn around the map rather than being a card to encourage movement around the map.

Mr.Deadshot · Nov 20, 2019

There is a nice sound & SFX bundle at humblebundle. I might get that for my RPG game I am working on that will probably never be released lel. I hope all these resources are free to use in non- and commercial products, I didn't find any detailed info about that, unfortunately. But I guess they are:

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/sound-fx-software

Weltall Zero · Nov 20, 2019

Mr.Deadshot said:
There is a nice sound & SFX bundle at humblebundle. I might get that for my RPG game I am working on that will probably never be released lel. I hope all these resources are free to use in non- and commercial products, I didn't find any detailed info about that, unfortunately. But I guess they are:

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/sound-fx-software

It took me a while to find the license, but it seems like it does indeed:

https://www.gamedevmarket.net/terms-conditions/

4. LICENCE (A) – For purchases made after 00:00 (GMT) on 15th January 2019

4.1. A "Licence" means that the Seller grants to GDN (purely for the purpose of sub-licensing to the Purchaser) and GDN grants (by way of sub-licence thereof) to the Purchaser a non-exclusive perpetual licence to;

(a) use the Licensed Asset to create Derivative Works; and

(b) use the Licensed Asset and any Derivative Works as part of both Non-Monetized Media Products and Monetized Media Products, with no restriction on the number of projects the Licensed Asset may be used in. In either case, the Licensed Assets can be used in Media Products that are either:

i) used for the Purchaser's own personal use; and/or

ii) used for the Purchaser's commercial use in which case it may be distributed, sold and supplied by the Purchaser for any fee that the Purchaser may determine.

4.2. A Licence does not allow the Purchaser to:

(a) Use the Licensed Asset or Derivative Works in a logo, trademark or service mark;

(b) Use, sell, share, transfer, give away, sublicense or redistribute the Licensed Asset or Derivate Works other than as part of the relevant Media Product; or

(c) Allow the user of the Media Product to extract the Licensed Asset or Derivative Works and use them outside of the relevant Media Product.

BlastProcessing · Nov 22, 2019

Moved our animations from sprite based to rigged. It was a tough choice because I, personally liked the charm of sprite animations, but it does allow us to have orders of magnitude more animations in game. So we can do stuff like this now:

pauloshinobi · Nov 22, 2019

BlastProcessing said:
Moved our animations from sprite based to rigged. It was a tough choice because I, personally liked the charm of sprite animations, but it does allow us to have orders of magnitude more animations in game. So we can do stuff like this now:

this is really charming, I love it!

HayaoYamaneko · Nov 23, 2019

Planning to start working on my first game with no art/programming knowledge.

It's going to be a simple 2D top-down RPG - no battle system, just NPC-interaction and item collection to solve puzzles/progress (if there's no battle system does it still qualify as an RPG? I'm not sure what to label it). The focus will be on the plot and atmosphere.

My plan is to use RPG Maker MV. I also thought it might be a good idea to give it a Game Boy-style look to mask any of my art deficiencies, to make it easier for myself to learn pixel art if I end up using something like Aseprite, and to keep things on a small and manageable scale for my first project.

My main question right now: are there any resources for tilesets (specifically GB style) beyond OpenGameArt and itch.io? I'd like to start with pre-built assets and then learn to make my own later to fill in what I'm missing or modify existing content.

Ruruja · Nov 23, 2019

HayaoYamaneko said:
Planning to start working on my first game with no art/programming knowledge.

It's going to be a simple 2D top-down RPG - no battle system, just NPC-interaction and item collection to solve puzzles/progress (if there's no battle system does it still qualify as an RPG? I'm not sure what to label it). The focus will be on the plot and atmosphere.

My plan is to use RPG Maker MV. I also thought it might be a good idea to give it a Game Boy-style look to mask any of my art deficiencies, to make it easier for myself to learn pixel art if I end up using something like Aseprite, and to keep things on a small and manageable scale for my first project.

My main question right now: are there any resources for tilesets (specifically GB style) beyond OpenGameArt and itch.io? I'd like to start with pre-built assets and then learn to make my own later to fill in what I'm missing or modify existing content.

Have you looked into GB Studio? Though I suppose you need an emulator to play games made on that.

HayaoYamaneko · Nov 23, 2019

Ruruja said:
Have you looked into GB Studio? Though I suppose you need an emulator to play games made on that.

I've taken a cursory look at it - and although I want the GB aesthetic, I don't want to be confined to the limitations of the GB just in case I realize I want a bit more flexibility, whether with regards to graphics or mechanics, deep into the process.

dannymate · Nov 24, 2019

I've been out of action for the past month or so as I've not been eating properly with gastritis. I'm a bit annoyed about it really I was very close to finishing a big module of my game, modular INK which controls directly how the story is portrayed to the player. Hopefully I'll be able to show that off properly soon, I'm actually super proud of it. I've put that to one side for now as christmas is coming up and I'm still not 100% so I thought I'd focus on doing a smaller project to help me with things I don't understand so well. I wanted to understand 3D models, rigging, generating random characters and using animations. (Textures can come some other time).

So I thought I'd do a little robot fighting game or at least that's my intention. The robots would be modular with changeable body parts and each part would have accessories that could be attached (probably just an assortment of cubes). Animation-wise I'll just focus on walking cycles maybe look at how inverse kinematics works. Hopefully that should help me understand most of the above and even give me something I could use in my main project. So any help would be appreciated.

Deleted member 2620 · Nov 24, 2019

laughing at myself for getting such a kick out of this. it's not even applicable to my current game!

dannymate · Nov 26, 2019

I went out and did some research on creating my own 3D character and found a really good tutorial playlist with everything I need to do it in blender. So in my hubris instead of copying exactly what they did to create a human I thought I'd create a little robot. I managed to make, rig and animate it thanks to the tutorials but it's a walking abomination.

I also managed to get it in Unity and give it a little test and it works!!

There was one issue where the movement speed was slower than the default unity Ethan model. If anyone knows why it would save me some time but I just upped the agent speed for now.

All things considered though for a first time I'm happy. I'm typically awful at art and actually making something like this was super handy. For now I'll continue with the videos and hopefully get better.

Binster · Nov 26, 2019

I'm working on a puzzle game, using Unity! It features a cat! Here's the cat having a wash :

I've not put gameplay up yet, or got a title, but when I do I'll post it here :)

Weltall Zero · Nov 26, 2019

Binster said:
I'm working on a puzzle game, using Unity! It features a cat! Here's the cat having a wash :

I've not put gameplay up yet, or got a title, but when I do I'll post it here :)

As the resident crazy cat person, this gets my seal of approval, it's really well animated!

Binster · Nov 26, 2019

Weltall Zero said:
As the resident crazy cat person, this gets my seal of approval, it's really well animated!

Thanks :) If you look at the replies to that tweet, I had a bit of a brainfail as I tried to work out if it was washing its ear in the right direction, then I went and re-animated it washing front to back, then I saw a youtube video of a cat washing its ear and decided that it actually washes front to back to front. So... I guess it's fine!

Weltall Zero · Nov 26, 2019

Binster said:
Thanks :) If you look at the replies to that tweet, I had a bit of a brainfail as I tried to work out if it was washing its ear in the right direction, then I went and re-animated it washing front to back, then I saw a youtube video of a cat washing its ear and decided that it actually washes front to back to front. So... I guess it's fine!

They wash back to front the vast majority of the time, yep. They mostly clean the "outside" of the ear, which is why cat owners sometimes have to clean their insides themselves.

Someone should animate the rarer but perhaps even cuter double paw / double ear washing animation. I'm not saying that that "someone" has to be you, but... :)

Binster · Nov 26, 2019

Weltall Zero said:
They wash back to front the vast majority of the time, yep. They mostly clean the "outside" of the ear, which is why cat owners sometimes have to clean their insides themselves.

Someone should animate the rarer but perhaps even cuter double paw / double ear washing animation. I'm not saying that that "someone" has to be you, but... :)

Sounds like a challenge! :)

I've not done too much other animation yet (although here's the trot because it's also cute) but I do want to do stuff like if you run the cat around in circles it will chase (and eventually, catch) its tail. Meow!

trugs26 · Nov 26, 2019

These cat animations are great.

Weltall Zero · Nov 26, 2019

Binster said:
Sounds like a challenge! :)

I've not done too much other animation yet (although here's the trot because it's also cute) but I do want to do stuff like if you run the cat around in circles it will chase (and eventually, catch) its tail. Meow!

Wow, this is really good stuff, congratulations! It's so full of life and detail, it could be in a Nintendo game.

Binster · Nov 26, 2019

Cheers guys! I'm an animator by day, and this is my first foray into solo game development (and by extension, C# coding and game design and everything else).

Thus far it's been a lot of fun, but having shown the game twice at public events, I am now acutely aware how important clear and readable level design is, so that's the next step to solve before I show the gameplay proper :)

Suffice it to say at this early stage, the game is a puzzle game that features quantum mechanics...

HayaoYamaneko · Nov 27, 2019

Heads up - RPG Maker MV is 75% off and GameMaker Studio 2 is 20% off on Steam

elLOaSTy · Nov 29, 2019

I did it!

The trailer is out, my kickstarter page approved and live! The campaign begins on the 10th!

I'm really new at doing any kind of animations with After Effcts so I'm really happy with how my trailer came out.

Hoping people dig it, I really only made this game because I really wanted to play it. I never planned on devoting a year and a half of my life to it, but here we are 🙃 what a thrilling and exhausting experience

Binster · Nov 30, 2019

Henry Gale said:
I did it!

The trailer is out, my kickstarter page approved and live! The campaign begins on the 10th!

I'm really new at doing any kind of animations with After Effcts so I'm really happy with how my trailer came out. Hoping people really dig it, I really only made this game because I really wanted to play it. I never planned on devoting a year and a half of my life to it.

Slick video! Best of luck with everything :-)

elLOaSTy · Nov 30, 2019

Binster said:
Slick video! Best of luck with everything :-)

Thank you! I worked really hard on the video, now I just gotta keep going haha

Bufbaf · Nov 30, 2019

I tested music implementation and it seems to work fine!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvgherY85UU&feature=youtu.be

Also I created a Twitter and website to post updates and keep me going, so if you'd like to follow and subscribe and such feel free at twitter.com/kittywantspizza

Apart from that I made some progress, mostly planned out the third scene and I'm in the middle of inserting the drafts and programming their puzzles and mechanics. Gotta take some time though to add all lore and story bits for the first few scenes though, if only to be done with them content wise.

Edit wow, Harmony looks cool! Good luck!

Randomly Generated · Nov 30, 2019

HayaoYamaneko said:
Heads up - RPG Maker MV is 75% off and GameMaker Studio 2 is 20% off on Steam

I've used GameMaker in the past, but how robust is RPG Maker? I know it has a... complicated reputation. But I'd like to make a dialogue heavy RPG and this seems good for that, no?

elLOaSTy · Nov 30, 2019

Bufbaf Thank you!!

Kitty Wants a Pizza looks like youre putting a ton of work into it, tremendous job. I look forward to seeing more.

I thought some people may get a kick out of this. I wanted to share how far my game came from the first VERY rough prototype to the current launch ready version

Benz On Dubz · Dec 1, 2019

Still working away on The Sheep and Fox Show!

I added a main menu, intro sequence, and logic to flow between the different states. I've also started focusing in on the combat responsiveness and timing:

Sean Noonan · Dec 1, 2019

Back on this...

Weltall Zero · Dec 2, 2019

This may be the epitome of all silly questions, but how do you credit yourselves in a game that you mostly did on your own without sounding ridiculously self-aggrandizing? I mean, this looks ridiculous:

Direction
[Me]

Design
[Me]

Art
[Me]

Music
[Someone else]

Coding
[Me]

But this looks only somewhat less ridiculous, and ugly as fuck due to the large font used in the credits headers:

Direction, design,
art and coding
[Me]

Music
[Someone else]

I'm thinking of cutting "direction" or "design"; which would you guys remove? Do you guys do this differently?

Fake edit: Spelunky just lists Derek Yu and Andy Hall repeatedly, but FTL / ITB list Justin Ma and Matthew Davis as "created by". I like the latter a lot, I'm stealing it. :P

Dave. · Dec 2, 2019

Look at any Hideo Kojima game and feel better about it :D

stan423321 · Dec 2, 2019

Weltall Zero said:
This may be the epitome of all silly questions, but how do you credit yourselves in a game that you mostly did on your own without sounding ridiculously self-aggrandizing? I mean, this looks ridiculous:

Direction
[Me]

Design
[Me]

Art
[Me]

Music
[Someone else]

Coding
[Me]

But this looks only somewhat less ridiculous, and ugly as fuck due to the large font used in the credits headers:

Direction, design,
art and coding
[Me]

Music
[Someone else]

I'm thinking of cutting "direction" or "design"; which would you guys remove? Do you guys do this differently?

Fake edit: Spelunky just lists Derek Yu and Andy Hall repeatedly, but FTL / ITB list Justin Ma and Matthew Davis as "created by". I like the latter a lot, I'm stealing it. :P

Is there a reason to not invert headers?

(ME)
Coding, game design, art, direction

(COMPOSER)
Music

Weltall Zero · Dec 2, 2019

stan423321 said:
Is there a reason to not invert headers?

(ME)
Coding, game design, art, direction

(COMPOSER)
Music

That's kind of the opposite of how credits work, don't they? How would that work with headers with multiple people in it, like testers or special thanks?

Dave. said:
Look at any Hideo Kojima game and feel better about it :D

Hahah, if anything I'm getting embarrassed by proxy and try to avoid that as much as I can.

Which come to think about it, is pretty much the Kojima experience in a nutshell.

Deleted member 2620 · Dec 2, 2019

Weltall Zero said:
This may be the epitome of all silly questions, but how do you credit yourselves in a game that you mostly did on your own without sounding ridiculously self-aggrandizing? I mean, this looks ridiculous:

Direction
[Me]

Design
[Me]

Art
[Me]

Music
[Someone else]

Coding
[Me]

But this looks only somewhat less ridiculous, and ugly as fuck due to the large font used in the credits headers:

Direction, design,
art and coding
[Me]

Music
[Someone else]

I'm thinking of cutting "direction" or "design"; which would you guys remove? Do you guys do this differently?

Fake edit: Spelunky just lists Derek Yu and Andy Hall repeatedly, but FTL / ITB list Justin Ma and Matthew Davis as "created by". I like the latter a lot, I'm stealing it. :P

lol I just went through this to a degree. I have dynamic credits with scenes that depend on the route you took through the game, and they're set to the credits music, so you get a lot of lingering shots on my name and I'm just gonna own up to it

In my case, I think I put myself in three roles before the music credit, and then i have a lot of special thanks entries

SaberVS7 · Dec 2, 2019

Weltall Zero said:
Fake edit: Spelunky just lists Derek Yu and Andy Hall repeatedly, but FTL / ITB list Justin Ma and Matthew Davis as "created by". I like the latter a lot, I'm stealing it. :P

Yeah honestly in the context of being a near-solo multi-disciplinary developer, that's honestly the route I would recommend.

Having a dozen different credits with the same name (and only the same name) attached to all of them just looks tacky.

Anyway, almost done with my prototype for JAEGER's Unity version. Barring any unforeseen events getting in the way I should be back to posting Screenshot Saturday content again by the new year. Lot of good lessons learned from making the initial version in GameMaker that certainly went a long way when I started from scratch in Unity (Now with 90% less Spaghetti Code).

stan423321 · Dec 2, 2019

Weltall Zero said:
That's kind of the opposite of how credits work, don't they? How would that work with headers with multiple people in it, like testers or special thanks?

I've seen it done before, at any rate. Undertale definitely does a variant where it lists roles above one name and makes the name itself big.

Weltall Zero · Dec 2, 2019

Tain said:
lol I just went through this to a degree. I have dynamic credits with scenes that depend on the route you took through the game, and they're set to the credits music, so you get a lot of lingering shots on my name and I'm just gonna own up to it

In my case, I think I put myself in three roles before the music credit, and then i have a lot of special thanks entries

Try the "created by" route, I think it works well.

SaberVS7 said:
Having a dozen different credits with the same name (and only the same name) attached to all of them just looks tacky.

Tacky is exactly the word, thanks.

Deleted member 2620 · Dec 2, 2019

Weltall Zero said:
Try the "created by" route, I think it works well.

I probably should. I need a minimum number of names to display spread out between five credits "scenes", but I group up a lot of the Special Thanks and I could compensate for grouping my name into one entry by splitting those out more.

Weltall Zero · Dec 2, 2019

Tain said:
I probably should. I need a minimum number of names to display spread out between five credits "scenes", but I group up a lot of the Special Thanks and I could compensate for grouping my name into one entry by splitting those out more.

Ah, I see. I feel like if it was just two appearances, you can get away with it by putting someone else in between (in my case, and I'm guessing a lot of other quasi-solo devs too, that would be music). But it seems hard to split "created by" into precisely two roles, unless you straight out omit the rest of them.

I particularly like "created by" because it mirrors other kinds of works created by one author, like e.g. comics written and drawn by a single person.

elLOaSTy · Dec 2, 2019

I honestly just put created by and then my name and the artists who contributed to my game. I wouldn't wish to lessen anyones impact by trying to list all of the things I did. I am making a physical game however so it's a little different.

Arebours · Dec 3, 2019

what is the most sane way to author vertex texture blend weights(for blending multiple materials based on vertex color)?

Mike Armbrust · Dec 3, 2019

I've been mostly missing from the internet since November was so busy but I went to my first indie dev event!

Despite being a full time dev for 6 years now, this was somehow the first time I participated in something like this and had a demo station.

It was great showing the prototype for my RPG and talking freely about the colossal technical challenges I'm working on. Sometimes you get numb to problems and it's really nice to be reminded that the results are cool. I also really enjoyed checking out other games and ideally I can start being more active.

Proxy-Pie said:
Interesting, thanks! Though I'm not sure if that particular palette can work with my example, there aren't any 2 shades of blue that are close like that...

Thanks! Idk if you remember me but I know you from Vizioneck and VGC haha.

The idea I'm going for is that all 8 bosses and the player start off as basic squares of different colors with simple abilities, but the more you progress the more the bosses get stronger as well, and the bosses can be challenged out of order Megaman style. Here's what the above boss would look like if he's encountered earlier:

I recognized your name but didn't want to jump to the conclusion that it was you. How are you doing?

Weltall Zero said:
Ah, I see. I feel like if it was just two appearances, you can get away with it by putting someone else in between (in my case, and I'm guessing a lot of other quasi-solo devs too, that would be music). But it seems hard to split "created by" into precisely two roles, unless you straight out omit the rest of them.

I particularly like "created by" because it mirrors other kinds of works created by one author, like e.g. comics written and drawn by a single person.

I'd echo "created by" or other all encompassing terms like that. If you have a large team then it has issues but otherwise it's a very clean way to say "unless otherwise stated, you can assume the work was done by this person/these people."

Another thing to think about is putting your name in the title or associating your name with the title. Here's a GDC talk that sold me on the concept.

Sean Noonan · Dec 3, 2019

stan423321 said:
Is there a reason to not invert headers?

(ME)
Coding, game design, art, direction

(COMPOSER)
Music

Who did you direct exactly?

Weltall Zero said:
I'm thinking of cutting "direction" or "design"; which would you guys remove? Do you guys do this differently?

"Design" and "Direction" are not the same thing. One is a discipline, the other is a responsibility within a given discipline.

For what it's worth, I tend to go with "A game by..." for up front credits and "Created by..." for back end credits.

Weltall Zero · Dec 3, 2019

Sean Noonan said:
"Design" and "Direction" are not the same thing. One is a discipline, the other is a responsibility within a given discipline.

Agreed, that's why I originally listed them as separate. But to cut it down to three, it was either rolling them together, cutting "art", or cutting "coding". Now that I think of, I could also have rolled "art" (i.e. sprites) and "design" into one, I guess.

You do have a point that "direction" may be the most superfluous one when working alone because you don't "direct" anyone, although I also thought of that as directing the project itself (towards a certain destination; that is, making the important decisions, much like a project manager). Again, when working alone, that kind of gets covered by "design".

Ah well, it really doesn't matter anymore since "created by" does the trick just fine. :)

Wikzo · Dec 4, 2019

We just released a new trailer + release date for Lightmatter. It feels surreal to be so close to releasing our very first commercial game on Steam :O

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

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