|
It's a shame we all missed the I'm about to take a few weeks break from gamedevving to travel, get out of my head-space and regenerate my mental health bar. But before I go, I'd like to share with this thread a gif of a quaint little village being built: http://gfycat.com/TinyWellwornCassowary
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 03:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 11:29 |
|
|
Mata posted:But before I go, I'd like to share with this thread a gif of a quaint little village being built: http://gfycat.com/TinyWellwornCassowary
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 03:23
|
|
|
Compared to Metroid Fusion? At this point I'd say it's probably about the same amount of story, though the actual cutscenes/in-game story bits aren't designed yet so could change once we start seeing how the game plays with the story bits in there. And I definitely want more of a feeling of exploration than that game had, they made it feel a bit linear for my liking, I wouldn't sacrifice the feeling of Metroidesque exploration for storytelling.Nition posted:When you make a Kickstarter page you can share a link to it with people before you launch it publicly. Once there's a pitch and visible gameplay footage etc it'll be much easier to critique.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 03:24
|
|
|
Mata posted:But before I go, I'd like to share with this thread a gif of a quaint little village being built: http://gfycat.com/TinyWellwornCassowary
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 03:27
|
|
|
Mata posted:It's a shame we all missed the Unless there is a gameplay element to making town halls of varying sizes, just make the cursor be a 4x4 square when building stuff like that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 03:31
|
|
|
zolthorg posted:Unless there is a gameplay element to making town halls of varying sizes, just make the cursor be a 4x4 square when building stuff like that. Yeah, I might change the building process in the future. The size of buildings does matter though (stuff can be built inside houses), and even though town halls can only be 3x4 or 4x4 it introduces the player to the build process (position -> size -> door).
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 03:45
|
|
|
PxlWrm posted:Compared to Metroid Fusion? At this point I'd say it's probably about the same amount of story, though the actual cutscenes/in-game story bits aren't designed yet so could change once we start seeing how the game plays with the story bits in there. And I definitely want more of a feeling of exploration than that game had, they made it feel a bit linear for my liking, I wouldn't sacrifice the feeling of Metroidesque exploration for storytelling. I think right now (and this is kind of in general) the biggest warning sign is that you and your team don't actually seem to have any real goals. It's all kind of waffley "metroid game with plot and stuff". Do you guys even have a design document?
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 03:47
|
|
|
My other concern is how can you just scrap what was the originally-planned mechanic that would separate it from other metroidvanias? Programming the dudes to interact with each other in every possible way you're gonna include in the game would take maybe an extra two to four weeks tops (and I'm using the timeframe of a one-man crew for that) and I think you're approaching it from the perspective that you'll have to make double the puzzles when you really won't; instead of making puzzles for one, you're just making completely different puzzles that use both characters--you're not actually investing any more time into it than you would've if there was just one character because they're fundamentally separate games.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
PxlWrm posted:Compared to Metroid Fusion? At this point I'd say it's probably about the same amount of story, though the actual cutscenes/in-game story bits aren't designed yet so could change once we start seeing how the game plays with the story bits in there. And I definitely want more of a feeling of exploration than that game had, they made it feel a bit linear for my liking, I wouldn't sacrifice the feeling of Metroidesque exploration for storytelling.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 04:26
|
|
|
Zereth posted:If players care about your game at all, somebody will find a way to sequence break it. Unless you just outright don't let the player into/out of areas until plot points happen, at which point we're back to Metroid Fusion's railroading. If I ever made a Metroidlike that people took the time to sequence break, I'd take that as the highest mark of honor for anything I've ever done. In order to sequence break the game you have to a. Have taught the player hidden affordance of mechanics that are in place ("Hey, you can bomb jump but it requires skill") b. Give the player suggestions as where to be, without telling the player he needs to be in this corridor and then he can go to the next. c. Have the player set intrinsic goals that may only be important AFTER they played the game before. (Hey I know the game is telling me to get the water gun but I really want to get the doublejump so let's do some fancy jumping techniques and done woo~) Metroid, and the entire genre is about exploration, when you are playing through your first times it's about exploration of the world and the items in it, through the items and techniques in it. If a player can use the items to explore the world THROUGH exploring the game then that demonstrates the player thinking about your game in a way that isn't them just slogging through it to give up. This is why I think Super Metroid is the best entry in the series, Prime accidently fell into it's role because of glitches expanding the game and offering more exploration to the player, and Fusion doesn't work as a Metroid game to me. Forer fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Jul 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 04:48
|
|
|
The White Dragon posted:Programming the dudes to interact with each other in every possible way you're gonna include in the game would take maybe an extra two to four weeks tops (and I'm using the timeframe of a one-man crew for that). Don't be so sure about this. Remember Daikatana?
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 04:50
|
|
|
The White Dragon: Please, please stop giving people advice about programming. Given the approach you have taken in making your current game your experiences will most likely not generalize.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 05:41
|
|
|
Internet Janitor posted:The White Dragon: Please, please stop giving people advice about programming. Given the approach you have taken in making your current game your experiences will most likely not generalize.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 05:44
|
|
|
The complexity of that feature would depend largely on whether the other player has AI when you're not controlling them (like they follow you around), or if they just stand still. The latter could still be a fair bit of work, but the former would be a huge amount of work.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 05:49
|
|
|
JossiRossi posted:I think right now (and this is kind of in general) the biggest warning sign is that you and your team don't actually seem to have any real goals. It's all kind of waffley "metroid game with plot and stuff". Do you guys even have a design document? The story/demo doc is the beginning of the design doc, with bits of it living on whiteboards - we've only been in prepro for about a week and a half (though we've been talking about the game for a while), and part of that time was dealing with the legalities of starting our own LLC, figuring out our budgets, Kickstarter details, etc. And we do have real goals and a lot of the game is designed (not the actual levels), I just can't tell you guys the details or show you the cool concept art showing the uniqueness of the main character, which I know sounds shady. As for changing that twist, we're actually closer to the original game concept now, we had added that later on as a "wouldn't it be cool if..." thing. I wasn't worried about programming it, I've actually worked on a pure Lost Vikings clone before (on GBA) and had started implementing a two-character system in my prototype. But our single designer wasn't feeling confident about coming up with those puzzles while designing the exploration and level maps while balancing the game while making it fun to play both characters in the time we have, particularly with just a $95k goal. It was a hard decision but we had to be realistic and not overreach. PxlWrm fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jul 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 05:58
|
|
|
Here's the thing; no one is going to steal your ideas or story. Everything's been done before. Execution is what matters and you won't be able to get solid feedback until you show us some of your execution. I have a fantastic idea for an epic RPG with branching routes, time travel, and character customization but it's worthless until it's a real, tangible, playable thing. So post something, anything, that we can give you actual feedback on, otherwise we're just going to keep telling you reasons it won't work and you'll just keep assuring us it's not an issue / you totally have that covered. Also, I don't want to sound too negative or anything, but as a huge fan of Super Metroid I feel like the last thing the genre needs is more story. It needs new, innovative abilities / forms of movement, less railroading, and immersive atmosphere. I might not be a typical fan, but I'd be completely sold on a Metroidvania that advertised no dialog or cutscenes. That's just me getting off on my soapbox rant about Metroid-likes, though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 06:07
|
|
|
DeathBySpoon posted:Also, I don't want to sound too negative or anything, but as a huge fan of Super Metroid I feel like the last thing the genre needs is more story. For me personally that goes for most genres. I'm a voracious reader (my degree is actually lit) but I get bored with half rear end game stories. It's one of the reasons I rarely finish games anymore. I can play through Zelda LttP or Super Metroid over and over but a modern take with all the bad text or cut scenes can't sustain a single play through. The Sequelitis videos do a great job expanding on this. I know "like Dark Souls" has become a joke but I backed this Metroidvania because I liked the art and they said they were going light/atmospheric on the story in the manner of Dark Souls. People obsess over Dark Soul's difficulty and miss its old school emphasis on environmental storytelling so hopefully that's the route they'll go.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 07:47
|
|
|
I don't have a whole lot of programming knowledge, but I'd like to make a game like Wizardry/Etrian Odyssey/Shin Megami Tensei/Might & Magic. First-person grid-based dungeon crawler RPG. I'm learning to use Game Maker, which allows for some 3D stuff, but I'm wondering if there are better tools out there for this particular purpose.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 14:49
|
|
|
Probably Unity or Unreal honestly but both of those require a decent bit of programming knowledge. Game Maker would probably work really well for a first version or a prototype though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 14:51
|
|
|
Mata posted:But before I go, I'd like to share with this thread a gif of a quaint little village being built: http://gfycat.com/TinyWellwornCassowary That building animation is fantastic; You just made classic games like Warcraft and Age of Empires look really bad. demota posted:I don't have a whole lot of programming knowledge, but I'd like to make a game like Wizardry/Etrian Odyssey/Shin Megami Tensei/Might & Magic. First-person grid-based dungeon crawler RPG. I'm learning to use Game Maker, which allows for some 3D stuff, but I'm wondering if there are better tools out there for this particular purpose. In a perfect world you'd find a programmer to buddy up with. I'm the opposite, I'm a developer who has programming knowledge but I just don't have the artistic skills to do art assets and if I'm the sole project programmer I don't have time to do level design and iterative testing and improvements of levels. I know for a fact there's at least two goons already working on first person dungeon crawl games, maybe try to team up with one of them? Its tough to work with other people because of ~your vision~ but its so much easier to actually complete a project if you have more manpower. I'm trying to remember which thread they were posting in, this one, the pixel art thread, the game development thread, I can't remember... Those kinds of dungeon crawlers, especially with simpler graphics, aren't too hard (compared to other games) to implement, so doing a custom engine is feasible and then leaves you to free to add whatever features you want. That said, you should be able to pull something decent off in gamemaker. Unity would be better but require more programming. Custom engine requires even more programming. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jul 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 16:36
|
|
|
demota posted:I don't have a whole lot of programming knowledge, but I'd like to make a game like Wizardry/Etrian Odyssey/Shin Megami Tensei/Might & Magic. First-person grid-based dungeon crawler RPG. I'm learning to use Game Maker, which allows for some 3D stuff, but I'm wondering if there are better tools out there for this particular purpose. Definitely Unity. GM will work just fine for the dungeon crawling part, but it's limited data structure support is going to make your RPG stuff hell. Unity let's you use C#, which is perfect for that, and first person dungeon crawling is some of the easiest 3D to do. If you have more questions feel free to ask, this is exactly the style of project I'm working on now.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 16:44
|
|
|
PxlWrm posted:Yeah, we're already setting up the Kickstarter page, I helped write the 135 character quick-pitch today. I might be able to share more details next week, one big thing we are waiting on is the actual legal formation of our company, our lawyer is being slow. Backwards priorities!! You're literally at least 12 months away from the point where you should be assembling a Kickstarter or worrying about any sort of legal stuff. Just work like crazy on a game until you have something that's impressive in one or more ways. That's all that matters. Polo-Rican fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Jul 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 17:33
|
|
|
demota posted:I don't have a whole lot of programming knowledge, but I'd like to make a game like Wizardry/Etrian Odyssey/Shin Megami Tensei/Might & Magic. First-person grid-based dungeon crawler RPG. I'm learning to use Game Maker, which allows for some 3D stuff, but I'm wondering if there are better tools out there for this particular purpose. Yep Unity is your best bet. I've been making one for a while and there's a dude on tigsource also working on one in Unity who makes really detailed blog posts that'd be useful to check out. If you have any questions feel free to hit me up PM.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 19:11
|
|
|
Unity is pretty incredible once you get past the interface. I found that it was a hideous, incomprehensible mess at first but I soldiered on and holy gently caress am I glad I did. You can do pretty much anything you desire in Unity. I have yet to try something that I couldn't make Unity do. Even if it's a thing that Unity can't normally do the C# implementation means you can just program it yourself and Unity is just like "hey here is a new thing I can do!"
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 19:14
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:Even if it's a thing that Unity can't normally do the C# implementation means you can just program it yourself and Unity is just like "hey here is a new thing I can do!" After that package it up as a DLL (or source) and put it up for sale on the asset store and cash in big time*. *Probably not that much but money is money and supporting others will make you improve it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 19:24
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:Unity is pretty incredible once you get past the interface. I found that it was a hideous, incomprehensible mess at first but I soldiered on and holy gently caress am I glad I did. You can do pretty much anything you desire in Unity. I have yet to try something that I couldn't make Unity do. Even if it's a thing that Unity can't normally do the C# implementation means you can just program it yourself and Unity is just like "hey here is a new thing I can do!" There's a bit of a bell curve. It starts out with a huge "oh gently caress what am I doing" cliff. Then you get to the top and it's a lot of "man unity is rad, I can do anything!" and then there's a sharp dropoff when you're about 80% done with a project and realize the last 20% is going to be spent finding workarounds for Unity bugs or limitations.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 19:35
|
|
|
Huh. Okay, so for someone with little programming knowledge (introductory programming courses), how does one make the jump from Game Maker to Unity? I don't think I'll be working on this for a good long while, so I'm in no rush there, but I am kinda curious.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 19:56
|
|
|
You download unity and look at their extensive documentation/video tutorials.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 19:58
|
|
|
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 21:00
|
|
|
demota posted:Huh. Okay, so for someone with little programming knowledge (introductory programming courses), how does one make the jump from Game Maker to Unity? It shouldn't be too hard. Mostly download it and some examples and toy with them and learn from the examples. There's a gigantic developer community for unity so its easy to google for information, and lots of them are just getting into things so that helps. If you wanted to prime yourself, you should learn some basic C#. Nothing too crazy, but if you could get a hello world running in visual studio and write a few methods that'd probably help out in the future. C# is pretty darn similar to Java if you've ever worked with either, and it has a very C syntax while being very verbose and easy to read. That said I think you can get pretty darn far in Unity without even knowing C#, just using existing components and stuff. But I haven't worked on it much.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 21:03
|
|
|
I've been trying to get into Unity on several occasions but always end up hating the experience. I don't know, I just can't wrap my head around the interface I guess. I ended up borrowing the entity-component system for a personal game dev library though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 21:27
|
|
|
I'm planning on building a multiplayer dungeon crawling game, and I wonder if anyone's ever used Photon (https://www.exitgames.com/en/Realtime) before. Is it a waste of time to get into, or has anyone had success with it? I know network multiplayer is hard as poo poo, so I'd like to get that done first if at all possible.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 22:02
|
|
|
Photon only handles sending and receiving messages, utilizing their cloud servers. You still need to do stuff like client side prediction and all that yourself. Hammer Labs has a tutorial kit in the Asset Store on a multiplayer shooter kind of game using Photon if you want to learn more. You can forgo their kit and just watch their YouTube videos. It's pretty good but keep in mind that most of the stuff they're teaching is not authoritative. If you want to setup a model similar to something like Quake 3 (where players host servers), there's a new Unity networking middleware called Bolt. It takes care of client side prediction of transforms, syncs mecanim states (!!!) and does lag compensation with hitboxes (i.e. records hit box positions over time on the server side to compensate for lag between server and client). Its still pretty hands on and you kind of have to do things in the 'Bolt' way, but it's looking to be a decent networking solution that doesn't depend on someone else's servers. Or you could use both, maybe use Photon as a backend for Bolt. It'd be a lot of hacking around though, especially for someone that's new to networking.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 22:18
|
|
|
Polo-Rican posted:Backwards priorities!! You're literally at least 12 months away from the point where you should be assembling a Kickstarter or worrying about any sort of legal stuff. Just work like crazy on a game until you have something that's impressive in one or more ways. That's all that matters. I'm glad you said this so I don't have to. It is spot on.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 22:28
|
|
|
ShinAli posted:Photon only handles sending and receiving messages, utilizing their cloud servers. You still need to do stuff like client side prediction and all that yourself. Hammer Labs has a tutorial kit in the Asset Store on a multiplayer shooter kind of game using Photon if you want to learn more. You can forgo their kit and just watch their YouTube videos. It's pretty good but keep in mind that most of the stuff they're teaching is not authoritative. Bolt looks extremely neat. Having the lag prediction and interpolation built in is a god send because it's the worst part of writing netcode.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 22:39
|
|
|
Anyone have any experience with the major adventure game engines Wintermute, Visionaire, and Adventure Game Studio? AGS is a bit long in the tooth at this point, the last release of Wintermute was in 2010, and Visionaire is used for all of Daedalic's games but documentation in English is practically nonexistent!
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2014 23:33
|
|
|
JossiRossi posted:
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 01:07
|
|
|
PxlWrm posted:Yeah, make the entire game, THEN get funding to make it. I like how you think! Now if only I could convince my creditors to think that way... :p They're not saying the entire game they're saying make enough of it to prove that you can, in fact, deliver the goods and then ask for money to finish it. If you can't produce a short, playable demo you can't produce the full game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 01:08
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:They're not saying the entire game they're saying make enough of it to prove that you can, in fact, deliver the goods and then ask for money to finish it. If you can't produce a short, playable demo you can't produce the full game. Right, which is what we are doing, there will be a playable demo in two months when we launch our Kickstarter, I'm creating an enemy AI as we speak. But saying to wait *12* months is saying to complete the entire game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 01:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 11:29 |
|
|
PxlWrm posted:Yeah, make the entire game, THEN get funding to make it. I like how you think! Now if only I could convince my creditors to think that way... :p Your creditors might also like business plans, details about your project (even those secret twists that supposedly will make the game not suck!) Then they may also want prior proof that you and your buds are capable of finishing even the simplest of projects, let alone something like a Metroidvania which just so happens to take a lot of effort to not be a total steaming pile, and even with effort can suck by accident incredibly easily. I get that you are passionate about continuing to make games after having been let go but you have the attitude and actions of a couple of kids who plan to take on the world after having completed 3 years of a 4 year schooling program. Keep it up and you'll join the illustrious ranks of These Guys. Now prove me wrong. Ultimately that's what I want. I really hope you have just done a poor job portraying you and your team, and that is the preferred outcome. However, so far I am just not seeing it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 01:17
|
|