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Games the community is working on/finished

Sad to say my own personal project is probably never going to be finished. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to do with it but I never was able to really learn how to make it a reality. Probably for the better as whatever I would have made woulda probably been pretty bad tbh.

On a brighter note I'm helping with the art on a Pheonix Wright type game that involves a unique twist on the formula with you having to essentially solve a case like CLUE so you get a bunch of evidence and have to combine or use it and then determine the culprit as opposed to these giant dramatic scenes of breaking the culprit down. Its really snazzy and I hope my friend who's making it is willing to let others play it. Its too good so far to just rot on his pc like his last project D:
 
Squire Grooktook said:
It's fine but engine doesn't really matter for something like that. If you want to use 3d graphics, use Unity. If you're going 2d graphics, use Game Maker. That's my personal recommendation.

Mhm... about that... yeah one of my group members was bickering over using it just for the sake of the game being 3d because "IT WELL LOOK BETTER!!!1111", as well as the fact that he knows how to use it... even though the rest of the group is more familiar with Lua.

At this point though, my motivation for it has really dwindled for the project, especially when I am convinced that some of the members have their heads shoved up in places tha- [TO BE ANNOUNCED] places to be possibly conceived. I'm not even sure why I'm in the group still, since it feels like either everyone is putting themselves above the group or are somehow convinced I'm the one managing it, when there's nothing in the rules over it.
 
North888 said:
Probably for the better as whatever I would have made woulda probably been pretty bad tbh

I wouldn't worry about that.

It's kind of a trial and error process and there's no shame in making something bad, because creating something bad is the first step towards creating something good.

With indie development there are basically two ways you can go. You can either make a whole bunch of games, with each one being a learning experience and an improvement over the last, or you can take the Crimzon Clover route and spend 9 fucking years making one good game. They're ultimately the same, really, since the 9 year development plan pretty much guarantees you'll be making and remaking the game as many times anyway. And with the many games route you have more finished projects to show for it by the time you reach one that people consider "really good".

CatfishZealot said:
Mhm... about that... yeah one of my group members was bickering over using it just for the sake of the game being 3d because "IT WELL LOOK BETTER!!!1111", as well as the fact that he knows how to use it... even though the rest of the group is more familiar with Lua.

At this point though, my motivation for it has really dwindled for the project, especially when I am convinced that some of the members have their heads shoved up in places tha- [TO BE ANNOUNCED] places to be possibly conceived. I'm not even sure why I'm in the group still, since it feels like either everyone is putting themselves above the group or are somehow convinced I'm the one managing it, when there's nothing in the rules over it.

A strong leadership role seems important in these types of amateur projects. My policy these days is that I try to give everyone room to be creative and move at their own pace, while incessantly hounding them to make sure they stay on track ^_^
 
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Squire Grooktook said:
I wouldn't worry about that.

It's kind of a trial and error process and there's no shame in making something bad, because creating something bad is the first step towards creating something good.

With indie development there are basically two ways you can go. You can either make a whole bunch of games, with each one being a learning experience and an improvement over the last, or you can take the Crimzon Clover route and spend 9 fucking years making one good game. They're ultimately the same, really, since the 9 year development plan pretty much guarantees you'll be making and remaking the game as many times anyway. And with the many games route you have more finished projects to show for it by the time you reach one that people consider "really good".

Its more like I really did anything with it. I had all these ideas and wasn't able to get past the first steps. I feel kinda sleazy making it outike I was actually making any progress on it when the most I did was mess around with a few engines and never really learn anything fundamental.
 
Don't worry about it. I'd personally recommend not giving up so easily, and suggest taking a beginners course on programming. A proper academic introduction is a far more solid start that should give you more confidence and understanding to using an engine then just poking around. If you can pass it, you can probably work Unity/GM/MUGEN/Multimedia Fusion/Whatever.

Might take more then one try though. If you have the time, it's worth a few shots IMO.
 
I've wanted to if not for time issues on my part. I'm not giving up on making games, but I'm downsizing what I want to do and lending a hand to other small projects to get my feet wet so to speak. Thanks for all the advice. Definately helped my confidence :D
 
Did a big update for my game on Friday. Features the original music posted before, along with some prototype stage 1 gameplay footage and news.


I'd usually do it with annotations, but I'm lazy so I put most of the stage explanation in the spoiler here. Basic gist of it (and the whole games system) is that the faster you kill things, the more enemies show up, and thereby the more points you get. It may look like enemies are always swarming you, but if you fall behind in killing them, the game throws like half as many at you. It's a good system if, like me, you enjoy murdering things quickly, but still want to do some dodging and stuff.

Oh yeah, I also added a tech roll and revenge attack so you can hurt while you hurt.


Also currently negotiating with an artist who's fan art I've been a fan of for several years. So far it's going good, her price is agreeable to me, and if all goes as planned, we'll be working together for some character designs come Febuary or so.
 
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I worked on learning how to make an NES game over winter break. The game I made is basically pong with fighting-game-inspired mechanics. You gain meter each time you hit the ball, which can be used to place a deflector or shoot a new ball, and you can hold the paddle still to charge it up and hit the balls harder. I brought it to the smash bros. club at my university and everyone seemed to like it, but I haven't yet gotten anyone to play it long enough to see how it works at a competitive level.

screenshot.png
 
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Yo, that's rad. Reminds me of Windjammers and Bang Bead (except Bang Bead sucks for various reasons whereas this sounds good)
 
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I haven't played windjammers, but it looks like it would feel fun to play. I think my game needs more visual and audio feedback to hook players. In particular, I want to figure out how to incorporate a little bit of hitstop without making the player freeze.

I brought it to a general video game and board game club today, and they did a tournament for it, which was super fun. And, someone explaining your game's mechanics to somebody else is one of the best feelings ever, holy shit.
 
Yeah, give it a spin on fightcade sometime. It's too intense for humans.

MysteriousJ said:
In particular, I want to figure out how to incorporate a little bit of hitstop without making the player freeze.

Yeah, I have come to realize how important that stuff is.

Most visuals and audio can be filed under aesthetics, and while many people will debate the relationship between aesthetics and gameplay, I've come to believe that little things like hitstop, sound effects, screenshake, flashes, and other details of the sort really exist on a blurry line between gameplay and aesthetics. Good sound design on a sword slash or a nice visceral screenshake or explosive effect will often make things feel better and thus make the gameplay more addictive. It's worth experimenting with.
 
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Finished a 26 page world building/character/art reference design doc and sent to the new character artist I'm working with. Looks like we're good to go unless things suddenly fall through like they have in the past knock on wood please don't jinx me oh wheel of fortune.

Also forgot to mention this last time, but next big update in a few month's will have a playable demo of my shmup for people to try and critique.

Also also since I'm corresponding with artist via twitter, I figured I might as well start posting lesser, day-to-day workings there. Take a look if interested.

An example:


Squire Grooktook-Today at 8:50 AM


Yes



I was hoping this would work for full backgrounds but apparently it's still too much pressure, alas.



Makes for a cool teleport effect tho


eebrozgi-Today at 8:50 AM

we use it for background here

from 0:11 onwards



Squire Grooktook-Today at 8:51 AM


HMMMM


eebrozgi-Today at 8:51 AM

not every line is drawn separately though


Squire Grooktook-Today at 8:52 AM


How'd you get it to not lag? I used a nested for statement to draw each pixel in the image line by line.


eebrozgi-Today at 8:52 AM

each pixel sounds pretty harsh


how about each line?


Squire Grooktook-Today at 8:52 AM


...



Why didn't I think of that
 
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Woah! @MysteriousJ, if you ever have NES questions hit me up! Been doing it for like... eight... years now. :( There's actually a nesdev competition that you could enter if you're interested. Ends very soon, though: http://forums.nesdev.com/viewforum.php?f=32

Squire Grooktook, I actually remember that dragon from pixelation a while ago. Small world! And nice distortion effects.

I'm slowly working on that Indivisible for NES thing, but everyone knows it will never actually be done. ;)
 
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Ha ha, yeah. I remember Hagane telling me he was going there for feedback on improving the sprite ^_^

When I get to about 3 stages done, I think I'm going to post a job offer there or at pixelhub for a secondary sprite artist. Wanna know how many assets I'll be needing first though.
 
This thread keeps reminding me I need to get back to making sprite work again I miss it so much Q_Q
 
Hey guys, do you think I can finish making a game with a group of people in one full day?
 
CatfishZealot said:
Hey guys, do you think I can finish making a game with a group of people in one full day?
Depends on your knowledge, the knowledge of the other people, and how intricate you want the game to be. It's definitely possible if everyone knew what they were doing and understood the goal they're trying to acheive.
 
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Okay on the bright side, it actually wasn't the game that was due today. It was just the documenting for the competition.

But since I keep posting on this thread, I'll just post this here.
https://imgur.com/a/SnZrw

Also what I forgot to add is I'm mostly doing sprite work, while another guy in the group programs the game, so I'm sort of keeping the final product secret until finished, and maybe when the competition is over, which should be four weeks later.
 
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Yoooooo Mode 7 up in this


Absolutely nothing 3d here. No manual animation either. This is all done with sprites and math magic worked on pixel lines.

The first background in the video is the raw, base image. All the following are various distortions of it happening in real time.


Kitaru-Yesterday at 10:20 PM

that's pretty sweet


i always wonder about these kinds of graphics tricks and how they might be implemented


trap15-Yesterday at 10:46 PM

like most of these tricks, it's just sine waves and simple trig :3


Squire Grooktook-Yesterday at 10:49 PM


God Bless the Triangle https://zeldawiki.org/images/thumb/e/ee/GoldenLand.png/300px-GoldenLand.png


trap15-Yesterday at 10:51 PM

indeed



CatfishZealot said:
Okay on the bright side, it actually wasn't the game that was due today. It was just the documenting for the competition.

But since I keep posting on this thread, I'll just post this here.
https://imgur.com/a/SnZrw

Also what I forgot to add is I'm mostly doing sprite work, while another guy in the group programs the game, so I'm sort of keeping the final product secret until finished, and maybe when the competition is over, which should be four weeks later.

Oh fuck I forgot to comment on this.

Nice, I wish I could sketch this well.

Blob/puddle monsters a cute
 
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Well the competition is over, and although some concepts I liked were omitted, the judges liked it, and the team placed second out of the state. :-D

As for more details on the game itself, it is still a dungeon crawler, and the whole team followed the requirements pretty well. The story is pretty much Wall-E but with a slime apocalypse in place of trash, and while the game is very short and linear, I think my sprite work turned out pretty sweet overall, and the game did flow very smoothly.


6zneig.jpg

Stuff that was omitted includes rock mining and lasers.
 
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Very important update to my pong game: you can now punch the paddles.

battle pong screen.png


I need to make a website so I can upload this...

@Kasumi what do you do to profile your code? My plan was to write to a specific address and use that as a breakpoint (e.g. STA breakpoint) for FCEUX's debugger and look at the cycle count between breakpoints, but it appears CA65 rearranges instructions(?) (For optimization?)
 
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@MysteriousJ I primarily use this custom build of VirtuaNES
sta $401E starts the timer.
sta $401F stops it.
I like it because the count is visible on the window always.

There's also Nintendulator debug extensions which gives you access to multiple timers:
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=65655#p65655
(Read the readme to find where to store, Debug, Disassembly to see the window with the timers)

Unrelated to profiling specifically, but it's worth checking out MESEN: https://www.mesen.ca/

Very powerful debugging tools, beats FCEUX in some ways. Not sure about CA65 rearranging, I've only used NESASM and ASM6.
 
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Thanks @Kasumi! I downloaded that VirtuaNES build and it's been a life saver. FCEUX's cycle counter might just be wrong.

I'm really happy with the improvements I've made to my game. It can be downloaded from my new website, if anyone wants to give it a try: http://mysterioussoftware.com/
 
Spent the last week working on the title screen for my game. Got a lot of feedback from a gamedev discord. Still not perfect (the actual art I used is unfinished, the guy who did it left before polishing it), but I'm fairly happy with it, and I need to move on now and get back to work on level / boss / mechanics for the upcoming playable demo.


Most of the seemingly hard things were easy (the reflection, the materialization of zenith) but little details surrounding them were a pain in the ass (keeping the reflection synced to water height, easing the motion on their movement, etc.)

By the way, the Japanese on the title wasn't my idea, and for the longest time I had no idea what it said. I was half expecting it to be gibberish or to say "fuck me", but I spoke to a translator and turns out it's actually just Aeon Zenith in perfect Japanese.

In a way, that actually kinda disappoints me.
 
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I would have liked it more as an article but THIS IS THE VIDEO I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!


(Guide to how collisions work in Super Mario 64.)
 
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I've been mentioning this a lot off-forum, but I'm getting a playable demo of first stage out by the 16th at least (when summer semester starts).

Currently working on boss fight (last mandatory part of the update I haven't done yet)


Got another phase or two to go after I finish the opener.
 
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Been a while since I posted here!

I got the demo out on time, as I promised. Personal goal achieved!

Problem is, it was shit and I was very unhappy with it! However, I think the feedback I received was excellent, and I'm looking forward to creating a much better second demo soon!

Anyway, for now, I'll just post some new videos and art.

Completed boss fight from the demo! Way too fucking hard.

Some revised stage design, now probably won't murder you in the first few seconds!

Also the floor tiles and circuit orbs are new and original. More pixel art on the way!

Aaaaaaaaand...character designs!

Player character (human form)

KfStMFM.png

That's just some rough sketch / concept work to decide on hair / rune style.

I have some newer, more detailed sketches, but they're very NSFW (all nudes), so I won't post 'em here lol.


Anyway, I might make a dedicated thread for my game soon. Maybe when I get the next demo out!
 
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C++ is love. What are you doing for rendering?
 
Starting with SDL2, if Valve uses it I imagine it must be pretty decent.

What do you like to use?
 
Enemy Concepts V4
B0rq2IV.jpg

WIP Main Character Expression Chart
66T2F1v.png

Some new gameplay mechanic stuff:

New mechanic added to address some issues I discovered. Slash an enemy to lock on, than charge to release a homing attack follow up.
E59H66U.gif


Boss Parts, snaky tail. Destroying individual parts hinders them and inflicts bonus damage.

Leading from that, some revised boss fight gameplay.

Besides that, still working on level design. Should have DEMO #2 ready during winter break.

Also a message I received from the composer I hooked up with:

For starters I was thinking of including vocals, sung by a female vocalist I work with from time to time. I hadn't quite decided on what language I want her to sing in, or if I should take some inspiration from Keiichi Okabe's tracks from the Nier games and Drakengard 3 and go for a fantasy language. But then I decided to keep this on hold until I got your input on it.

:eyes:
 
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