Hobby and Indie Game Dev |OT 2020| Discussion, Help and Show-off

SpaceKangaroo · Jun 17, 2020

HandsomeCharles said:
Oh thats interesting, do you have any links to documentation about that? It might be worth checking out.

My underlying issue is that I produced all my assets for a native res of 720p, which obviously doesn't scale correctly into 1080p. That was causing horrible distortion when I attempted to play on the latter as I wanted my visible screen space to stretch to fit. I circumvented having to re-author all my assets by implementing a shader that takes bilinearly-filtered sprites and scales them with a combination of both nearest neighbor and bilinear filtering. It's used on all the assets, but for some reason isn't as good on the player.

I found this handy when starting out:

How to setup your 2D project for retro 8-bit games | Unity Blog

Many creators want to make a “retro” game but aren't sure how to acquire that look and feel. Read more to find out how to create an 8-bit retro game with Unity.

blogs.unity3d.com

You should be fine if you run the scaling correct. The only issue I could see with native 720p and uncompressed sprites for pixel perfect is texture size - probably not that bad though. Your real restraint should just be 16:9 aspect ratio. Having assets at a target resolution with the PPU set correctly and letting the pixel perfect camera do the heavy lifting from there.

The pixel perfect stuff can be a nightmare in some ways but when it all works it's great.

Urishizu · Jun 17, 2020

So something I've had a mental block on for some reason, but in the last few weeks seemed to figure out was splitscreen co-op in my titles. If anyone is using Unity and considering it, feel free to hit me up as I have some helpful tips there. That being said, I think the most useful thing to achieving it quickly was getting a lot of the "hard" stuff out of the way like having Rewired for input and being able to just have players/layouts in there. Pretty pleased with how it turned out for each titles, and will keep working to evolve it in the future.

Pics if anyone is interested... Happy to talk about the process as well.

Weltall Zero · Jun 17, 2020

Lautar0 said:
Testing my XCOM prototype with some Mass Effect models (because why not?)

I doubt Bioware would make a game like that so I guess it's up to me to create a mixture of XCOM and space piracy.

This seems incredibly ambitious and something I'd be 100% interested in. Is this your first game?

HandsomeCharles said:
I'm doing recolouring again because apparently I have a problem and can not be stopped.

I feel like having an entirely blue background, whilst good for readbility between it and the foreground, is really detracting from the vibrancy of the rest of the level. I guess thats mainly because the primary gameplay takes place in the "negative space" so the background is dominant in the viewport. I'm attempting some recolours to try and add a little splash into the background. I think I'm on the right track. Im concerned about negatively impacting the readbility, but I think that the experiments I have done so far at the very least make a more interesting composition to look at.

Any Thoughts? (Also keep in mind that the "close" bg buildings are on a slight parallax so when the player starts moving they'll move at a different rate to the foreground)

Original:

Recolour:

I do think the second one loses readability. You could perhaps get around that by darkening the middle layer, in addition to shifting it further to blue. Right now I don't think I would instinctively tell the BG buidlings apart from the FG ones.

I wouldn't be very concerned about the game happening in the negative space, because what the player is focused on is the positive space, to not collide with it. When you're playing you're not looking at the background even if the background is what takes the most space: you're looking at the terrain and enemies.

Deleted member 62221 · Jun 17, 2020

Weltall Zero said:
This seems incredibly ambitious and something I'd be 100% interested in. Is this your first game?

No, I have 2 other games developed alone and published on Steam (none of them were hits but I learned a lot by making them). I also have a mobile game waiting to be published on Google Play.
It is ambitious but I think it's doable. The problem I have is that I would require some good customizable humanoid models, I could probably buy some to use as base but then I would definitelly need to use my own (very limited) art skills to reskin and modify some of them to add more variety.
Anyway, XCOM-like ideas I have many so even if this particular idea proves too overwhelming I could try something else as long as I finish this combat system.

Weltall Zero · Jun 17, 2020

Lautar0 said:
No, I have 2 other games developed alone and published on Steam (none of them were hits but I learned a lot by making them). I also have a mobile game waiting to be published on Google Play.
It is ambitious but I think it's doable. The problem I have is that I would require some good customizable humanoid models, I could probably buy some to use as base but then I would definitelly need to use my own (very limited) art skills to reskin and modify some of them to add more variety.
Anyway, XCOM-like ideas I have many so even if this particular idea proves too overwhelming I could try something else as long as I finish this combat system.

Wow, you are a really talented and focused developer. Completing and publishing even one game alone is a massive achievement, let alone two (soon to be three). Mad props!

I'm very much looking forward to a mix of XCom and FTL. If it would make it more likely to be completed, I personally would be perfectly OK with simpler or nearly abstract character models in the vein of Frozen Synapse or SuperHOT (and both of these games are very successful so it doesn't seem like people in general have many objections with them).

Have you considered releasing any of your games on consoles?

Deleted member 62221 · Jun 17, 2020

Weltall Zero said:
Wow, you are a really talented and focused developer. Completing and publishing even one game alone is a massive achievement, let alone two (soon to be three). Mad props!

I'm very much looking forward to a mix of XCom and FTL. If it would make it more likely to be completed, I personally would be perfectly OK with simpler or nearly abstract character models in the vein of Frozen Synapse or SuperHOT (and both of these games are very successful so it doesn't seem like people in general have many objections with them).

Have you considered releasing any of your games on consoles?

Thanks.
I'm not really a fan of those art styles but I'm open to some level of "stylization" using less detailed textures and special shaders (if needed).
I already moved on from my previous games, I just don't find it worth my time to port them (assuming that I could), I would need to basically remake their controls which are pretty PC centric besides they sold very little. I prefer to use my resources in a new project that will be more polished.

Weltall Zero · Jun 17, 2020

Lautar0 said:
Thanks.
I'm not really a fan of those art styles but I'm open to some level of "stylization" using less detailed textures and special shaders (if needed).
I already moved on from my previous games, I just don't find it worth my time to port them (assuming that I could), I would need to basically remake their controls which are pretty PC centric besides they sold very little. I prefer to use my resources in a new project that will be more polished.

Fair enough. :)

jarekx · Jun 17, 2020

Went back looking at old prototypes and found this one. Called it StopGo at the time because it was a turn based game with non-grid based movement or collision ( I think that's the best way to describe it). I remember dropping it because I couldn't figure out how I could make the enemies actually hitting you from different radius feel right..like the slime always felt like it could hit you just outside of what the collision circle showed me and it felt annoying when they did.The other problem was when you had too many enemies at a time you would stop for their turn and it would just take too long cause I had it set up for each to wait for the other..which isn't a hard fix. If I could figure out how to get the hit radius correct it might be cool. Or maybe I just change it to a super hot system where the enemies only move and act when you do.

Card game is progressing as well.Inventory system set up as well as getting a choice of equipment on level up. It feels odd giving out equipment at levels, but just getting an HP upgrade on it's own felt worse. I just add some more enemies, cards, equipment, finish the level curve and rewards for leveing and I should have it playable from start to finish.

Deleted member 62221 · Jun 18, 2020

Turns out Google Play already published my mobile game but didn't send me any e-mail to tell me it was up :/
Anyway, in this link you can check it if you have an Android device: Zombie Dasher

This game will probably get buried (I'm more used to Steam games when publishing) but I wanted to see if my "combat by swiping" controls idea had potential and to add a mobile game to my portfolio so it's ok.

ZServ · Jun 18, 2020

Recently posted a big string of tweets about some of the efforts in optimizing Ephemeral Tale for Canvas over WebGL:

Doesn't go into the reasons why, but the performance improvement was bananas. From 30-40 in the overworld (dips to mid teens in combat), to 50-60 in the overworld (dips to mid 40s in combat).

Kalentan · Jun 18, 2020

Well, I made a thing. Technically this is basically the same as it was before (when it was Project Snow and the setting was different), but I made a new UI and such. Nothing fancy and technically it's all "faked" (as in the combat can only do as you see).

Enjoy my badly drawn wolf! If you can even tell it's supposed to be one.

For fun if you're bored here's a video of a test from a game I was going to try making back in 2017.

The Celestial Enclave - Test 3/25/2017

GPU: GeForce GTX 950 CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz Memory: 8 GB RAM (7.99 GB RAM usable) Current resolution: 1920 x 1080, 60Hz Operating system...

www.youtube.com

And go back even further here's an RPG Maker VX Ace game I tried to make, this one actually had a demo that had what was in the video and a bit more.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

HandsomeCharles · Jun 18, 2020

Lautar0 said:
No, I have 2 other games developed alone and published on Steam (none of them were hits but I learned a lot by making them).

Oh cool! You made Nomad Fleet, I remember reading about the development of that! Good luck with your android launch! :)

ZServ said:
Doesn't go into the reasons why, but the performance improvement was bananas. From 30-40 in the overworld (dips to mid teens in combat), to 50-60 in the overworld (dips to mid 40s in combat).

That's a great improvement, well done!

Kalentan said:
Well, I made a thing. Technically this is basically the same as it was before (when it was Project Snow and the setting was different), but I made a new UI and such. Nothing fancy and technically it's all "faked" (as in the combat can only do as you see).

Its starting to take shape! Don't worry about faking stuff or things not looking fancy straight away, you've got plenty of time to iterate and polish. It's just really nice to get something tangible out there!

====

I've got an implementation question for anyone that might know an answer:

Pixel-Perfect sprite positioning and Physics Engines. How do?

My game entities are driven by physics which forces them into positions that do not adhere to pixel-perfect co-ordinates. I could clamp the positions but then it interferes with physics and leads to jerky motion. I was considering clamping the entities when their physics bodies are at rest (As in, no velocity) but I was wondering if theres a more intelligent solution out there. Any ideas?

Jintor · Jun 18, 2020

you could remove the non-absolute values for positioning purposes then reattach them when you do the physics calc? I think that's one solution I used to use

HandsomeCharles · Jun 18, 2020

Jintor said:
you could remove the non-absolute values for positioning purposes then reattach them when you do the physics calc? I think that's one solution I used to use

I'm not sure I have the ability to do that, or I'm just misunderstanding you, haha! Since I'm using Unity's physics, I don't have access to the code that actually does the physics calculations so I can only modify things "post humorously". I think the closest thing I could do to that would be to adjust the positions of my sprites (but not the physics body) after an update has occurred.

Jintor · Jun 18, 2020

Oh see GML's inbuilt physic system sucks so everyone recommends you build your own haha

jarekx · Jun 18, 2020

Kalentan said:
Well, I made a thing. Technically this is basically the same as it was before (when it was Project Snow and the setting was different), but I made a new UI and such. Nothing fancy and technically it's all "faked" (as in the combat can only do as you see).

Enjoy my badly drawn wolf! If you can even tell it's supposed to be one.

Hey that's definitely a good start! . Just build the base out and keep iterating. Though I know how that is as I continually build up a project for a while and then drop it thinking there is nothing of value there.

HandsomeCharles · Jun 18, 2020

Jintor said:
Oh see GML's inbuilt physic system sucks so everyone recommends you build your own haha

Haha, oh well!

Weltall Zero · Jun 18, 2020

HandsomeCharles said:
I've got an implementation question for anyone that might know an answer:

Pixel-Perfect sprite positioning and Physics Engines. How do?

My game entities are driven by physics which forces them into positions that do not adhere to pixel-perfect co-ordinates. I could clamp the positions but then it interferes with physics and leads to jerky motion. I was considering clamping the entities when their physics bodies are at rest (As in, no velocity) but I was wondering if theres a more intelligent solution out there. Any ideas?

Oh neat, this is something I can definitely help with as it has been 100% relevant for Divinoids.

When I was making Divinoids, the recommended way to make your game stay pixel-aligned at all times in Unity (and yes, it sounds rather convoluted and counterintuitive), was to render the whole screen as a native resolution texture, then put that on a quad, and have the camera look at the quad. I know it sounds bananas but it's the solution that I found recommended everywhere. I gave a try, and it does work perfectly, and it's actually more efficient, especially if your native resolution is low (because you're rendering at that rather than the screen resolution).

Looking at the topic again just now, it seems you can now download an official Unity package that essentially does just that:

How to setup your 2D project for retro 8-bit games | Unity Blog

Many creators want to make a “retro” game but aren't sure how to acquire that look and feel. Read more to find out how to create an 8-bit retro game with Unity.

blogs.unity3d.com

Specifically, the option you want would be "pixel snapping":

I'm tempted to download and use this on Divinoids, and set that option as a toggable for the player to mess with!

All the above said, I did implement the first, manual method on Divinoids, but ultimately went against it. As you can probably imagine, it causes scrolling to be less smooth, especially for low moving elements like background planes. In your own game it will probably be much less jarring as your resolution is considerably higher, though, and there's no reason not to use the pixel perfect camera anyway, compare, and just uncheck Pixel Snapping if you decide against it.

HandsomeCharles · Jun 18, 2020

Weltall Zero said:
Oh neat, this is something I can definitely help with as it has been 100% relevant for Divinoids.

When I was making Divinoids, the recommended way to make your game stay pixel-aligned at all times in Unity (and yes, it sounds rather convoluted and counterintuitive), was to render the whole screen as a native resolution texture, then put that on a quad, and have the camera look at the quad. I know it sounds bananas but it's the solution that I found recommended everywhere. I gave a try, and it does work perfectly, and it's actually more efficient, especially if your native resolution is low (because you're rendering at that rather than the screen resolution).

Looking at the topic again just now, it seems you can now download an official Unity package that essentially does just that:

How to setup your 2D project for retro 8-bit games | Unity Blog

Many creators want to make a “retro” game but aren't sure how to acquire that look and feel. Read more to find out how to create an 8-bit retro game with Unity.

blogs.unity3d.com

Specifically, the option you want would be "pixel snapping":

I'm tempted to download and use this on Divinoids, and set that option as a toggable for the player to mess with!

All the above said, I did implement the first, manual method on Divinoids, but ultimately went against it. As you can probably imagine, it causes scrolling to be less smooth, especially for low moving elements like background planes. In your own game it will probably be much less jarring as your resolution is considerably higher, though, and there's no reason not to use the pixel perfect camera anyway, compare, and just uncheck Pixel Snapping if you decide against it.

Thanks for that, this is actually the same stuff that SpaceKangaroo posted when helping me out with the other issue! I might look into it if I get further issues, but it looks like for now I've got it to an acceptable level by clamping the entity to a P-P position when it is no longer in motion. Doesn't look jarring and gives pretty good results.

Here's a comparison of native res (720p) vs stretched to 1080 with the pixel scaling filter. If you zoom in on the 1080p you can see small artifacts and issues, but I think for gameplay purposes where you can't zoom in, it will be fine. Might need to try it out on a big-ass screen to make sure though! (Though tbh it scales to 4k just fine...)

720p

1080p

Mike Armbrust · Jun 18, 2020

Urishizu said:
So something I've had a mental block on for some reason, but in the last few weeks seemed to figure out was splitscreen co-op in my titles. If anyone is using Unity and considering it, feel free to hit me up as I have some helpful tips there. That being said, I think the most useful thing to achieving it quickly was getting a lot of the "hard" stuff out of the way like having Rewired for input and being able to just have players/layouts in there. Pretty pleased with how it turned out for each titles, and will keep working to evolve it in the future.

Pics if anyone is interested... Happy to talk about the process as well.

Congrats on adding co-op.

In the past when I did Unity splitscreen I had to program my own audio listeners so that I could put one on each camera. Has unity fixed this themselves or if not, what was your solution?

Urishizu · Jun 18, 2020

Mike Armbrust said:
Congrats on adding co-op.

In the past when I did Unity splitscreen I had to program my own audio listeners so that I could put one on each camera. Has unity fixed this themselves or if not, what was your solution?

As far as I know, it's still got the same issues. I had to rig up my own audio setup specifically for local splitscreen (and keep single player and online co-op the same). Wasn't too bad and works well enough.

Urishizu · Jun 18, 2020

HandsomeCharles said:
Thanks for that, this is actually the same stuff that SpaceKangaroo posted when helping me out with the other issue! I might look into it if I get further issues, but it looks like for now I've got it to an acceptable level by clamping the entity to a P-P position when it is no longer in motion. Doesn't look jarring and gives pretty good results.

Here's a comparison of native res (720p) vs stretched to 1080 with the pixel scaling filter. If you zoom in on the 1080p you can see small artifacts and issues, but I think for gameplay purposes where you can't zoom in, it will be fine. Might need to try it out on a big-ass screen to make sure though! (Though tbh it scales to 4k just fine...)

Just wanted to say I really like this art style. Looks cool! I don't know much about 2D games (as evidenced by the one I made with the screenshot above), but my only thoughts would be is if the player blends in too much with the background? I feel like I might get lost based on the screenshot tracking my player, but obv would need to see in motion since the camera will play a big role there.

Super cool style though! Interested to see where it goes.

Kalentan · Jun 18, 2020

jarekx said:
Hey that's definitely a good start! . Just build the base out and keep iterating. Though I know how that is as I continually build up a project for a while and then drop it thinking there is nothing of value there.

So question for others that worked on turn based battle systems... When your first building it out (assuming all of the other systems aren't in place), do you make it so it's self contained? By that I mean is that when all is said and done, obviously the battle system will use the character and enemy databases to draw stats and skills from. But I don't have those complete (only bits of the character database exist), so right now all of the damage and skills are just built into the menu directly.

jarekx · Jun 18, 2020

Kalentan said:
So question for others that worked on turn based battle systems... When your first building it out (assuming all of the other systems aren't in place), do you make it so it's self contained? By that I mean is that when all is said and done, obviously the battle system will use the character and enemy databases to draw stats and skills from. But I don't have those complete (only bits of the character database exist), so right now all of the damage and skills are just built into the menu directly.

I typically build a Sample database / structure first. So even if I only have the attack action in it I can expand that out when I need to. And it may not have all the data I need from the start, but I can expand that as I go. I usually use two Enums, one with the skill names that become the index of a grid. The second with skill data so I could have the name, description, damage formula, scripts etc. then I just create a script to add that data to the grid per item / skill.

Now if you want to use an external database I know there are ways to bring them in and I don't think they are hard. But this is just what I came up with and what works for me.

Edit: Quick and dirty example while on my phone at work.

Code:

enum skills {
    attack,
    total
}

enum  s_data {
      name,
      description,
      total
}


global.skill_grid = ds_grid_create(skills.total,s_data.total);
ds_grid_clear(global.skill_grid,-1)

//once i create this script i'd keep all the adds here
scr_add_skill(skills.attack,"Attack","A basic attack");

HandsomeCharles · Jun 18, 2020

Urishizu said:
Just wanted to say I really like this art style. Looks cool! I don't know much about 2D games (as evidenced by the one I made with the screenshot above), but my only thoughts would be is if the player blends in too much with the background? I feel like I might get lost based on the screenshot tracking my player, but obv would need to see in motion since the camera will play a big role there.

Super cool style though! Interested to see where it goes.

Awh thank you so much! Your 2D game actually reminds me of the first game I worked on profesisonally, its gives me some nostalgia! The atmosphere really comes across well in your screenshots too! (Both the new and old one)

It might look a little lost in those screenshots, but the object behind the character is the "Spawn Tube". It's one of (if not the only) object that the player is able to move in-front of. The majority of the time you're against the background. Here's a gif (butchered by twitter):

https://twitter.com/CharlieMcFD/status/1265342788415172611

Aaronmac · Jun 18, 2020

Been putting a huge amount of work into my anti-gravity racer recently. Really cool to see this thread be so active lately! Can't wait to share my progress with you all! :D

HandsomeCharles · Jun 18, 2020

Aaronmac said:
Been putting a huge amount of work into my anti-gravity racer recently. Really cool to see this thread be so active lately! Can't wait to share my progress with you all! :D

You can't say something like that with nothing to show! Such a tease!

Are you going more F-Zero or Wipeout? Or something else entirely?

Aaronmac · Jun 18, 2020

HandsomeCharles said:
You can't say something like that with nothing to show! Such a tease!

Are you going more F-Zero or Wipeout? Or something else entirely?

Oh, I've shown stuff already! F-Zero all the way, with my own flavor and additions thrown in! You can even play it, I released a demo in early March! Tell me what you think!

Youtube Vid!
Itch.io Link!

Basically everything is still placeholder, but that is rapidly changing!

Weltall Zero · Jun 18, 2020

Aaronmac said:
Oh, I've shown stuff already! F-Zero all the way, with my own flavor and additions thrown in! You can even play it, I released a demo in early March! Tell me what you think!

Youtube Vid!
Itch.io Link!

Basically everything is still placeholder, but that is rapidly changing!

Wow, you nailed the high-speed and general feeling of F-Zero. Congratulations!

iHeartGameDev · Jun 18, 2020

Aaronmac said:
Oh, I've shown stuff already! F-Zero all the way, with my own flavor and additions thrown in! You can even play it, I released a demo in early March! Tell me what you think!

Youtube Vid!
Itch.io Link!

Basically everything is still placeholder, but that is rapidly changing!

Looks amazing Aaron! I've been planning on making my own F-Zero inspired racer too! Looking forward to seeing future progress on your project!

Deleted member 62221 · Jun 18, 2020

Aaronmac said:
Oh, I've shown stuff already! F-Zero all the way, with my own flavor and additions thrown in! You can even play it, I released a demo in early March! Tell me what you think!

Youtube Vid!
Itch.io Link!

Basically everything is still placeholder, but that is rapidly changing!

I like those sound effects, they sound like Gundams fighting. Can I ask where did you get them? I need them for something

HandsomeCharles · Jun 18, 2020

Aaronmac said:
Oh, I've shown stuff already! F-Zero all the way, with my own flavor and additions thrown in! You can even play it, I released a demo in early March! Tell me what you think!

Youtube Vid!
Itch.io Link!

Basically everything is still placeholder, but that is rapidly changing!

Zoom out of that youtube video and into my heart! That looks like it has the exact F-Zero feel I've been craving! Ill download the demo tomorrow :D

Aaronmac · Jun 18, 2020

Weltall Zero said:
Wow, you nailed the high-speed and general feeling of F-Zero. Congratulations!

Thank you! I spent a lot of time on the game feel. I had been working on it for about 9 months before I ever even showed it off publicly around a year ago, so it's been in the works for a long time. I can't wait until I get the environment art, general sense of scale, and track surroundings made and that will really help the sense of speed even more I hope!

GoldHeart said:
Looks amazing Aaron! I've been planning on making my own F-Zero inspired racer too! Looking forward to seeing future progress on your project!

Awesome!!! Give it a shot for sure! The math doesn't end up being too bad, so if you ever need help with Quaternion shenanigans or anything else let me know. I would love to help out where I can!

Lautar0 said:
I like those sound effects, they sound like Gundams fighting. Can I ask where did you get them? I need them for something

They are acutally rips from the various Gundam games and shows that I've had lying around in my placeholder assets folders for quite a while. I don't remember exactly where I got them from unfortunately, but I honestly vaguely remember it being as simple as googling "anime mech sound effects" or "gundam sound effects" and it took me right to them. They work as excellent placeholders, and will be my target for general feel and sound. I love the crunchiness and attitude of classic anime sounds; they're so unique.

HandsomeCharles said:
Zoom out of that youtube video and into my heart! That looks like it has the exact F-Zero feel I've been craving! Ill download the demo tomorrow :D

Thank you! I've worked really hard to capture what I feel are the most important aspects that make F-Zero feel the way it does, but I've injected my own philosophies and game design goals in some places to make it feel unique. Can't get away from the obvious influence though; I'm such a huge F-Zero fanboy that I got sick of waiting for a new one and decided to try my hand at making an alternative for people to play! haha

Deleted member 62221 · Jun 18, 2020

Aaronmac said:
They are acutally rips from the various Gundam games and shows that I've had lying around in my placeholder assets folders for quite a while. I don't remember exactly where I got them from unfortunately, but I honestly vaguely remember it being as simple as googling "anime mech sound effects" or "gundam sound effects" and it took me right to them. They work as excellent placeholders, and will be my target for general feel and sound. I love the crunchiness and attitude of classic anime sounds; they're so unique.

Yeah, I imagined they were rips but I had hopes :)
I would buy a sound fx pack inspired by mecha anime, it would fit perfectly one of my ideas.

Kalentan · Jun 18, 2020

As my tweet said I added the ability to use skills and items. On top of that there was other behind the scenes stuff such as being able to have more enemies. Now technically I did have the ability to do that before but it relied on having multiple objects of the same enemy (and by that I don't mean a clone of an object, but literally a whole "unique" second enemy that was actually the same), but I went through my spaghetti code and it was literally as simple as moving 4 lines around and changing one variable.

While I don't show it off in the video, I can also "exit" commands now. So if I begin an attack I can back out if needed.

Not going to lie, the code is a bit of a disaster haha, on top of it being code I hadn't looked at in many months.

Here's a youtube video if you happen to be somewhere where Twitter is blocked:

FLCL · Jun 19, 2020

Now that I implemented some combat animations I ran into a problem and I think you guys can easily point me in the right direction.
When attacking the sprites takes up more space because the animation requires it which means the slices are for example higher in terms of pixels resulting in the character position when attacking being in a different spot than when idle or running. I hope that makes sense. How do I fix that? Or rather what's the proper way to handle it? Do I make sure all slices are the same height and width which means more empy space for some of them?

Aaronmac said:
Oh, I've shown stuff already! F-Zero all the way, with my own flavor and additions thrown in! You can even play it, I released a demo in early March! Tell me what you think!

Youtube Vid!
Itch.io Link!

Basically everything is still placeholder, but that is rapidly changing!

That looks amazing!

HandsomeCharles said:
Awh thank you so much! Your 2D game actually reminds me of the first game I worked on profesisonally, its gives me some nostalgia! The atmosphere really comes across well in your screenshots too! (Both the new and old one)

It might look a little lost in those screenshots, but the object behind the character is the "Spawn Tube". It's one of (if not the only) object that the player is able to move in-front of. The majority of the time you're against the background. Here's a gif (butchered by twitter):

https://twitter.com/CharlieMcFD/status/1265342788415172611

Seeing it in motion, the basic bakground actually fits really well. Do you have a gif with an updated colored background?

HandsomeCharles · Jun 19, 2020

FLCL said:
Seeing it in motion, the basic bakground actually fits really well. Do you have a gif with an updated colored background?

Thanks! I don't think it looks awful, in fact it looks fine in that gif as the BG elements that are visible are all the "Far away" ones which I think a fine being monochrome. My issue is really stemming from the closer ones which tend to be more visible at the start of levels, where the "negative space" is quite large and I feel it makes the scene look a little too blue. It's not that I actually want to colour them in, I just want to give the illusion of colour so that the player can say "Oh, yea thats a red building in the background".

I haven't updated any of the game assets just yet. I'm still playing around trying to figure out what I want to do. Last night and this morning I tried out a different approach, which was to create a bigger contrast between the clouds, sky and buildings whilst retaining the Monochrome. This is just a mockup (rather than an overpaint on a screenshot) but I kinda like it. Still not sure though. Feels like it works in terms of the sky and far building, but I don't like that the close buildings share the exact same shades...

I'm almost tempted to commission a really good artist to make a palette for me, haha!

手加減 TG · Jun 19, 2020

Aaronmac said:
Oh, I've shown stuff already! F-Zero all the way, with my own flavor and additions thrown in! You can even play it, I released a demo in early March! Tell me what you think!

Youtube Vid!
Itch.io Link!

Basically everything is still placeholder, but that is rapidly changing!

Many recent 'futuristic racers' fall on the WipEout of the fence but yours is unashamedly F-zero through and through! And your camera works much better than Sega's when going around the loop!

Do you have any music lined up yet?

Weltall Zero · Jun 19, 2020

FLCL said:
Now that I implemented some combat animations I ran into a problem and I think you guys can easily point me in the right direction.
When attacking the sprites takes up more space because the animation requires it which means the slices are for example higher in terms of pixels resulting in the character position when attacking being in a different spot than when idle or running. I hope that makes sense. How do I fix that? Or rather what's the proper way to handle it? Do I make sure all slices are the same height and width which means more empy space for some of them?

I ran into this problem as well; doubly so in my case because my characters transform and some of the forms have very different size ratios, etc. I went through several iterations but in the end, what I did is simply make sure that the center of each sprite sheet aligns perfectly with each other. This is a bit hard to explain so this is a graphic example:

As you can see, the "attack" sprite sheet is larger than the base one, but because the character is positioned the same relative to the center of the sprite sheet (marked with a red point), when going from one sprite to another, its visual position doesn't change. This does mean leaving more unused empty space behind the character in the attack spritesheet to compensate for the extra space needed in front, but you don't need to worry about empty space at all because Unity automatically fits all your sprites in one giant atlas like a puzzle (or at least I believe that's the current default behaviour if you don't manually create atlasses, because it's terribly documented).

HandsomeCharles · Jun 19, 2020

Weltall Zero said:
I ran into this problem as well; doubly so in my case because my characters transform and some of the forms have very different size ratios, etc. I went through several iterations but in the end, what I did is simply make sure that the center of each sprite sheet aligns perfectly with each other.

This is exactly what I did too. Had to bump up the size of my tiles quite significantly, so a sprite sheet ends up being quite large. This is an example of a single animation's sprite sheet:

Sprite sheet said:

However when the sprites are packed into the atlas it trims them down to the size of the "geometry", which eliminates all the unnecessary transparency. The final atlas looks like this (With all my current animations included on it))

Atlas said:

Its worth noting that Im using a different method to Unity's in-built tools, but I think they are accomplishing the same job.

Weltall Zero · Jun 19, 2020

HandsomeCharles said:
Its worth noting that Im using a different method to Unity's in-built tools, but I think they are accomplishing the same job.

Yeah, I think so too; it looks exactly like the atlases that Unity makes.

Aaronmac · Jun 19, 2020

手加減 TG said:
Many recent 'futuristic racers' fall on the WipEout of the fence but yours is unashamedly F-zero through and through! And your camera works much better than Sega's when going around the loop!

Do you have any music lined up yet?

None "lined up" yet, but I have had a couple of musicians reach out to me. I also have some others in mind to contact once I think the project is at a point where I'm comfortable bringing in other creative forces. That part should turn out just fine; I'm a lifelong musician myself with decent theory knowledge so you know I'm going to be picky with who I choose! :)

FLCL · Jun 19, 2020

Thanks Weltall Zero and HandsomeCharles! I assumed it was something like that.
I also found this article by a Redbluegames dev (Sparklite) if anyone like me are new to this and need some extra guidance in certain parts.

Kalentan · Jun 19, 2020

jarekx said:
I typically build a Sample database / structure first. So even if I only have the attack action in it I can expand that out when I need to. And it may not have all the data I need from the start, but I can expand that as I go. I usually use two Enums, one with the skill names that become the index of a grid. The second with skill data so I could have the name, description, damage formula, scripts etc. then I just create a script to add that data to the grid per item / skill.

Now if you want to use an external database I know there are ways to bring them in and I don't think they are hard. But this is just what I came up with and what works for me.

Edit: Quick and dirty example while on my phone at work.

Code:

enum skills { attack, total } enum s_data { name, description, total } global.skill_grid = ds_grid_create(skills.total,s_data.total); ds_grid_clear(global.skill_grid,-1) //once i create this script i'd keep all the adds here scr_add_skill(skills.attack,"Attack","A basic attack");

If I understand that code, does the grid expand automatically as you add data into skills and s_data or am I misunderstanding it?

Weltall Zero · Jun 19, 2020

FLCL said:
I also found this article by a Redbluegames dev (Sparklite) if anyone like me are new to this and need some extra guidance in certain parts.

BRB inventing time travel to send this to 3-years-ago myself. Man would this have saved me a TON of headaches... -_-

jarekx · Jun 19, 2020

Kalentan said:
If I understand that code, does the grid expand automatically as you add data into skills and s_data or am I misunderstanding it?

Ya, if you don't define each entry in the enum with a value then it'll start at 0 and count up. Grids are created with the width and height defined so if you just add total to the end of the enum it'll create the correct size and you can continue to add values and not have to worry about updating the grid size (as long as you add them in before the total). The most you'll have to do is update the script you use to add the skill data to the grid if you add new parameters. I also use this for items, equipment, etc.

Also if your skills are going to have icons, you can create a single sprite and keep each icon in the same order you have enum setup. Then all you have to do is use the enum reference (i.e skills.attack ) as the image_index and it will be the correct icon (unless you are using animated sprites, that'll require a bit more work).

Edit: I'm trying to decide if an idea is too similar to another game. Basically, I liked how dicey dungeon handled ability acquisition and activation. If you haven't played it, you roll dice at the beginning of your turn and you use those dice to activate different skills in 1v1 combat vs the cpu. Some skilsl had, numbers they had to be to activate,, or could only be odd / even, or couldn't be higher than a number, etc.

What I thought of was creating a game that the dice had various symbols that could be used for activating skills. So some skills would require a sword, some require a shield, etc. Some might even require multiple symbols. I also wanted equipment to give you certain dice...so a broadsword would give you an active skill you could use, and certain dice you would roll at the beginning of your turn..so you would be building up what dice you get..as well as what skills you have available to use them on based on your gear. I had also planned on the enemies having more standard actions, and also enemies could be in parties so you wouldn't just be fighting 1v1 all the time. Could also just make them more standard classes and you could pick skills as you level up instead of them being tied to gear as well.

Idk, it may be too similar. It's hard for me to define the line between iteration and cloning. lol.

Deleted member 2620 · Jun 19, 2020

Hah, I completely missed that I wound up posting this earlier in the wrong thread:

legit felt like this would never happen but i got the release approved and everything, i'm excited to release a god damned video game:

I landed on saving the launch trailer for, you know, the launch of the game, but it's so hard to not just release it lol

手加減 TG · Jun 19, 2020

Aaronmac said:
I'm a lifelong musician myself with decent theory knowledge so you know I'm going to be picky with who I choose!

Tremendous news. I'm certainly not going to preach how important music is for an F-zero atmosphere to you then.

Pooh · Jun 19, 2020

Aaronmac said:
Oh, I've shown stuff already! F-Zero all the way, with my own flavor and additions thrown in! You can even play it, I released a demo in early March! Tell me what you think!

Youtube Vid!
Itch.io Link!

Basically everything is still placeholder, but that is rapidly changing!

GODDAMN. You are definitely 99% nailing the feel of F-Zero. REAL good.

Myself · Jun 19, 2020

Long shot I know but is there anyone here working with Epic Online Services (We use Unity but I'm sure anyone with experience on any engine or language can help)? I've been investigating it for use in our upcoming ports and new games and I have a bunch of questions about things I can't grok. The docs aren't bad but miss some vital pieces and the support community is dead.

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