Game Development Omni-thread [Unity, XNA, UDK, etc]

tastydonuts

Those look pretty neat!

Starglider

Trumpets wrote: »

At last a DPB comes at a good time for me! Apple Jack 2 is pretty much done now so I'll be entering, fo' sho'.

From your previous game and what you've posted here I'd say you have an excellent chance of being a finalist.

Trumpets

From your previous game and what you've posted here I'd say you have an excellent chance of being a finalist.

I dunno, being a 2D platformer is going to count heavily against it. Will you be entering (I think you pulled out last time, didn't you)?

Starglider

Trumpets wrote: »

I dunno, being a 2D platformer is going to count heavily against it.

I assume that's bone-dry humour considering that 2D platformers took the grand prize in 2011, 2010 and 2009 (also third prize last year and second prize in 2010). At this point I'd be very surprised if the winner isn't a 2D platformer.

Trumpets

I genuinely had no idea they'd won three year's running. The only one I could think of was Oozi's Earth Adventures, and that didn't get first place. I'm not sure how much of a platformer Dust is but I take your point.

I'd bet against one winning this time though. They must be getting fed up of the things.

darleysam

Since Microsoft keep replying with the "we've given them a platform, it's up to them to advertise", I was wondering what people here were actually thinking of doing to promote their games when they're done? I figure a bit of discussion might help throw up some good ideas.

AlejandroDaJ

Yeah. Leave Xbox Live Indie Games. That's the best idea I've come up with.

Trumpets

Other than sending out a load of press releases to all available websites and magazines, there isn't a huge amount you can do, I wouldn't have thought. And of course most of them won't be interested in XBLIG. The best place to put an XNA game is Steam, but they are quite selective and most games won't get on there.

GnomeTank

I'd be interested to here rainbow and slash's thoughts on what it took to get CSTW and BoD7 on Steam.

darleysam

Has anyone considered Windows Mobile, too? I know it's pretty weak compared to other options, but wouldn't it be relatively quick to port across to that? But yeah, as the local guys who broke out of XBLIG, it'd be good to hear how they managed to get on Steam.

GnomeTank

Paging @RainbowDespair and/or @slash000, you guys have any insight in to what it took to get your two games on Steam as an indie dev? If you can say much at all, not sure how that all works.

SmallCaveGames

Not speaking for them of course, but I believe it was proof of concept and an application process, like everyone else. I think it's fairly safe to say that the positive XBLIG press and success was a help.

Although other XBLIG games that made it to Steam actually were not runaway successes on the XBLIG platform.

slash000

We can't say a lot of specifics about the process involved in working with Valve to get our games on Steam. What we've said in the past is basically what SmallCave is getting at, that having a good game with some press attention probably helped a lot. Cave's also right in that not every game released on Steam was previously a huge sales hit or in the media, so it's not like there's 1 way to do it. I think it simply helps to have a sold game with a unique hook and some supporting reviews that show that the game is good.

Gaspode_T

I've followed Xbox Indie Games scene pretty closely the last 2 years and I think there are some misconceptions about whether or not Xbox Live Indie Games has made people money or not. I can say for a fact that it has, because I work at Microsoft (not on the games team) and I've seen internal numbers for the platform. The point of contention is always more like "is it being all that it can be" and of course the answer is no. However some games have been quite successful, especially those that feature in some combination of avatars, zombies, guns and mining. Some of those games are still generating crazy sales. I've done some pushing on people in charge internally to try to make positive changes for the marketplace, some of the things have taken hold but it's starting to get harder to make anything happen now that Xbox 360 is basically a finished product.

Unfortunately XNA will not be available on Windows 8 Metro platform. This is unfortunate in that Windows 8 is having a big touch based focus and the technology may power many devices in the future. This is being mitigated to a small degree - one of the godfathers of XNA Shawn Hargreaves is going out of his way to provide similar APIs that can be integrated into things like Sharp DX or XNA-like wrappers.

You always should be flexible to adapt to technology shifts and changes, I myself didn't predict that javascript would be as critical as it is today and I have a problem in dealing with javascript at work because I don't feel comfortable with it. However javascript is a huge part of much HTML5 development and HTML5 is being advocated as one of the options for indie style games. They just kind of casually dropped a megaton at GDC in announcing "Xbox Live Web Games" which will give web games (HTML5/Flash) access to Xbox Live services, yes...achievements, leaderboards, all that jazz that XNA developers always wanted on XBLIG. The reason XBLIG can't get it very easily is that the APIs are RESTful HTTP based commands that indie games would not have easy access to because HttpWebRequest is specifically excluded from being used by Xbox indie games (WP7 games are different story).

Any indie developer should work on developing some business savvy and street smarts. It's not just about how much the platform does for you, it's about finding the place that suits your strengths and also figuring out the audience and what is in demand.

The thing i would propose to people trying to figure out where to release games is to first decide if you want to aim for open marketplace or a closed marketplace. There is a huge difference. Open marketplace you don't have to be invited or selected to release. iOS games are this, so are XBLIG. Closed would be XBLA or Steam. It's completely different.

Open marketplace:

Advantages:
- If you basically do whatever submission is needed, you can get on.
- Can take more risks.
- Success on open market can naturally allow you to move to closed at appropriate time.
- Sometimes supports ad-supported or F2P game models in a better way.

Disadvantages:
- Often they are flooded with huge amount of games, making it hard to be noticed.
- Often pricing is forced down because of various reasons, so getting large revenue is tricky

Closed marketplace:

Advantages:
- Easier to be noticed (sometimes!)
- The owner of the marketplace wants you to succeed
- Easier to price at a higher price (sometimes!)
- Sometimes the marketplace/platform will have a more enthusiastic fanbase

Disadvantages:
- Hard to get on, harder to take risks
- If you fail, you fail hard
- Timeline is known to drag on for console marketplaces, publisher being involved causes nightmare scenarios sometimes

The open marketplaces right now are:
"The Internet", Xbox Indie Games, Chrome Store, Indie City, WP7 marketplace, iOS App Store, Android Market/Google Play

Soon to be available: PlayStation Suite, Windows Store

Some closed marketplaces are apparently easier to get onto than Steam (Desura, Gamer's Gate)

Things to monitor as part of choosing marketplace:
1) What is the active userbase size
2) What sort of games are popular on that marketplace
3) What sort of "gaps" exist (demand but games not available)
4) What is your short term and long term business goal and how can it map to selling games on which place
5) Is there anyone you would want to partner with to get help (publisher, platform owner, whatever) - think of this step like a band signing to a record label for help with touring

Uselesswarrior

I don't know if this is the proper place for this, but I didn't want to start a new thread. I figured anyone interested in game development might be interested in this.

From Reddit, Unity3D is giving away their basic iOS/Android versions until April 8.

darleysam

I just think there's some really good games on XBLIG, and there's great ones being made and talked about in this thread which I'm sure would flourish on other platforms. It feels like there's a pretty big cloud of pessimism hanging over XBLIG, and that doesn't need to be the way.

Trumpets

Apple Jack 2 box art attempt #1:



I think it look OK, but as someone else has pointed out, it doesn't really tell the prospective buyer much about what kind of game it is.

darleysam

Yeah, I think there's a better idea out there, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.

Starglider

Trumpets wrote: »

I think it look OK, but as someone else has pointed out, it doesn't really tell the prospective buyer much about what kind of game it is.

I think that's ok in your case because the art is surreal and striking, such that quite a few people would click on it just to find out what the hell it is about.

Meanwhile I have implemented the ability to make connections between the power rings and the defence obelisks;



Will almost certainly have to tweak the positions based on playtest.

Trumpets

I've tried to draw something based on the Mario 2 cover (I borrowed its game mechanics so I might as well borrow its cover) but my drawing skills weren't really up to it. With any luck Starglider is right and the image above is intriguing enough to get people clicking.

Starglider - how long have you been working on Windhaven now? It must have been a while?

Kupi

I'm hearing that box art say "This is a game about a man with an apple for a head," and frankly at that point it's done everything it needs to. Box art doesn't have to tell you what the game is about, box art makes you want to know what the game is about.

Starglider

Trumpets wrote: »

Starglider - how long have you been working on Windhaven now? It must have been a while?

Two years four months, although that doesn't include the nine month beak in development I had to take.

I can't afford a custom fail screen for every mission, but the most important ones have them;

gjaustin

Glad to see this thread is still alive. I need to dust off my engine and get back to working on my game.

templewulf

Does anyone know what the situation is with XNA, Windows 8 and the Metro store? It sounds like XNA games won't be allowed on the Metro store, but you can still use it for XBox and WP7.

Is there some alternate framework they'd like us to use for store entries? Is there anything that supports all three platforms short of having to cobble together our own cross-platform support in C#?

Kupi

Well, Windows 8 is going to have a .NET implementation and so far as I know all XNA requires is a working .NET framework and a DirectX installation to function, so bare minimum you can launch it from the desktop, like every other application grandfathered onto the platform. Backward compatibility and nigh-indefinite support is sort of Microsoft's thing. The Windows 8 app store is, from what I hear, pretty much exclusively founded on a new presentation format which is predominantly accessed through C++ and HTML/JavaScript. Anything I've heard in game development news for Windows 8 has to do with things like integrated shader debugging in Visual Studio 11 for C++ with DirectX. I wouldn't totally rule out XNA getting some kind of app store function because it's not beyond the realm of possibility, but I haven't seen anyone say anything about it. XNA itself will run for another three Windows iterations, at worst.

templewulf

Kupi wrote: »

Well, Windows 8 is going to have a .NET implementation and so far as I know all XNA requires is a working .NET framework and a DirectX installation to function, so bare minimum you can launch it from the desktop, like every other application grandfathered onto the platform. Backward compatibility and nigh-indefinite support is sort of Microsoft's thing. The Windows 8 app store is, from what I hear, pretty much exclusively founded on a new presentation format which is predominantly accessed through C++ and HTML/JavaScript. Anything I've heard in game development news for Windows 8 has to do with things like integrated shader debugging in Visual Studio 11 for C++ with DirectX. I wouldn't totally rule out XNA getting some kind of app store function because it's not beyond the realm of possibility, but I haven't seen anyone say anything about it. XNA itself will run for another three Windows iterations, at worst.

So your speculation is that it simply won't have access to the tile UI functionality but that it should still be executable once it downloads from the store?

The response I've found from Microsoft was "While the XNA Game Studio framework will not be compatible with Metro style games," which seems ambiguous enough to accommodate that. I'm not optimistic about it, but I'd be pretty happy with that.

Kupi

Well, I'm saying it's possible that they could support downloads of XNA games through some form of app store for Windows. I have seen absolutely nothing concrete to support that idea, and they seem to be pushing C++/DirectX or HTML5/JavaScript as the official games implementation. So, from where we stand now, it's safest to say "XNA will work on Windows 8, but nobody has said anything about official distribution mechanisms on the PC".

Trumpets

Someone, completely unsolicited, has drawn this brilliant Apple Jack 2 cover:



Now clearly it's streets ahead of my effort, above, but would it be OK to use something that so obviously copies the Mario 2 cover? Especially when the game already copies the Mario 2 pick up and throw mechanic?

agoaj

The color scheme on the main character needs to be more wrong.

slash000

If the game and cover were directly parodying Mario 2 then I'd say it's completely fine. But since it's not really intended to be a parody so much as an homage to Mario 2, I'd say you're in a bit of a gray area. If your question is, "Will this get failed?" well probably no, but I don't suspect that's what you're asking.

edit:
If you're considering whether it's a parody or not, ask yourself this: What about Mario 2 or Mario 2's cover is it making fun of? It's not really making fun or satirizing Mario 2 or Mario 2's cover, hence, it's not a parody.

Trumpets

Well, that fact that he's holding a washing machine rather than a turnip (or whatever it was) is kind of parodic. It's the background and lettering being identical that bothers me more than the main image, but the artist is reluctant to change them.

Starglider

Yeah, it's striking, but crossing over into 'blatant rip-off' territory I think. Nice that you actually care about that, many indie devs wouldn't...

AlejandroDaJ

I really don't think it's a big deal, I'm betting it's covered by parody.

GnomeTank

Yeah, I agree with Alejandro. I think it's covered under parody, and I personally wouldn't lose sleep over using it.

templewulf

GnomeTank wrote: »

Yeah, I agree with Alejandro. I think it's covered under parody, and I personally wouldn't lose sleep over using it.

I doubt there's going to be a lot of market confusion between apple jack and a 24 year old NES game.

Balrog

That cover is awesome. I say go for it.

Trumpets

Yeah, although I'd rather use something that wasn't based on an existing cover, it's too good not to use. Thanks for your advice!

I'll be uploading the game for playtesting later today, if anyone fancies a go. I tried last night but the website wasn't cooperating.

Balrog

Trumpets wrote: »

Yeah, although I'd rather use something that wasn't based on an existing cover, it's too good not to use. Thanks for your advice!

I'll be uploading the game for playtesting later today, if anyone fancies a go. I tried last night but the website wasn't cooperating.

I played it for about 30-45 minutes or so last night. At one point when I was aiming and moving the left stick I thought I would be able to move the camera with the right stick but it didn't work that way. That's probably not worth changing but whatevs.

I had a lot of fun with with it and the opening cutscene was pretty funny. Outside of the comment above I can't really think of any suggestions. Well, I thought it would look cool if there were dust particles or rocks when you pushed a block but other than that it was really good. Nice work, man.

Trumpets

Thanks for giving it a go. It would make sense to let the player look around with the right stick at all times, but since the camera moves to give you a good look at where you're aiming it's probably not worth the headache of changing it.

The block definitely need some dust or something when pushed / dropped but my attempts looked rubbish. I'll give it another go.

Out of interest how did you find the difficulty? Did you use the rewind much?

Balrog

The difficulty felt just right to me, I think I only used the rewind once or twice and that's when I was being really careless. The checkpoints are really well placed as well. I think the only time I got a little annoyed by the difficulty (or checkpoints) is the first stage where you have to throw the certain color enemy at the certain color bubble, I got past the first couple of sections and died and restarted and going through that again was a little tedious. I'm not sure what a good fix for that section is, I like the matching color idea but the execution isn't very fun. It might be better if the bubbles were moving targets or if you had to bank off a wall to hit them or something. Just chunking the enemy down a horizontal opening seems like it could be fleshed out a little more.