Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Russia is over. The end.]

I hate not just the portraits, but everything else in your game, but those portraits are an improvement, although I don't appreciate this style.

Cut down on the number of NPCs. Make 10 of them, but give uniqueness to each. Make them respeccable if necessary, allow them to change class.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

The other artstyle is definitely better, they look like people instead of prosperian creatures.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Well, that's pretty much what I would expect from 4chan.

I agree with Bester... I mean, with the advice to make fewer characters. That way you can spend more time on other aspects, such as graphics. The graphics don't have to be ultra realistic 3D models. And they don't have to be painted masterpieces. They just have to be appropriate to the setting and pleasing to look at.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

New trailer:



I need to make the text more readable. And some people have said it needs a stronger opening. But I think this is pretty much the direction I'm going. That's going to be my Steam trailer and the official trailer until I'm closer to release, unless any of you have some advice on what I really need to change and why. I can change the Steam trailer at any time. And this particular YouTube video has less than 20 views, so if I replace it now, it's not like I'm going to lose a million views from GameSpot or something.

I also have a new branding image:

I'm hoping that looks interesting and attractive enough to generate clicks on Steam. And I hope it gives just a tiny hint of what's in the game.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

The branding image looks like an ad for character sprite pack/generator I think it needs little more to tie it with the gameplay so it's more self-explanatory, especially without context.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I can see your point. Maybe I should see if I can get an image of an army lined up on the battle map...

 

[Tavernking]

The name is hard to recall for anyone who's not a Japanese(?) speaker. I read the name, tried to commit it to memory for a second, came back five seconds later and googled 'Himkemo Sukori' and couldn't find anything.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I got a lot of negative feedback on 4chan

This isn't saying much, those dudes are absolute niggers of the worst order.

 

[d1nolore]

The new portraits are much better. I don't think people will pay for a game that looks like little effort went into it, regardless of how much work went into the game below the surface. If its free they'll give it a go and you can win them over with the gameplay, but if its paid you'll need to attract them enough to give it a look over. You could get around graphical limitations by releasing a demo perhaps and selling them on the gameplay. Just my thoughts.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Reposting the new update.

Latest progress vid.

 

[hello friend]

looks really sweet zwansig

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Thanks. Gonna show more stuff a bit later down the road, need to finalize a few things inside this level.

 

[vonAchdorf]

New trailer:

I need to make the text more readable. And some people have said it needs a stronger opening. But I think this is pretty much the direction I'm going. That's going to be my Steam trailer and the official trailer until I'm closer to release, unless any of you have some advice on what I really need to change and why. I can change the Steam trailer at any time. And this particular YouTube video has less than 20 views, so if I replace it now, it's not like I'm going to lose a million views from GameSpot or something.

The trailer has a very classical (heroes' journey) vibe which is good in my book.

 

[Tavernking]

The new portraits are much better. I don't think people will pay for a game that looks like little effort went into it, regardless of how much work went into the game below the surface. If its free they'll give it a go and you can win them over with the gameplay, but if its paid you'll need to attract them enough to give it a look over. You could get around graphical limitations by releasing a demo perhaps and selling them on the gameplay. Just my thoughts.

Demos traditionally decrease sales.

I wonder if Age of Decadence developers regret making a demo for theirs.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

vonAchdorf thanks, yeah, I've been studying story structure lately. I'm actually using Save the Cat!, which has more than a few parallels to Hero's Journey. The first 10 seconds of the trailer summarizes STC's debate beat, which serves the same purpose as HJ's refusal of the call and crossing the threshold. And then the adventure begins, the heroes lose their way, etc., which have their places in both templates.

And Tavernking is right about the demos. Sure, there are plenty of people who will tell you "I wouldn't have bought that game, but I played the demo first and liked it..." but on average, the demo will cost you sales. If you want to get people interested in the game, you need a trailer, screenshots, and YouTubers. All of those depend on your game's visual appeal. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's hard to overstate how important appearance is.

 

[Tavernking]

vonAchdorf thanks, yeah, I've been studying story structure lately. I'm actually using Save the Cat!, which has more than a few parallels to Hero's Journey. The first 10 seconds of the trailer summarizes STC's debate beat, which serves the same purpose as HJ's refusal of the call and crossing the threshold. And then the adventure begins, the heroes lose their way, etc., which have their places in both templates.

And Tavernking is right about the demos. Sure, there are plenty of people who will tell you "I wouldn't have bought that game, but I played the demo first and liked it..." but on average, the demo will cost you sales. If you want to get people interested in the game, you need a trailer, screenshots, and YouTubers. All of those depend on your game's visual appeal. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's hard to overstate how important appearance is.

What if your game looks shit to watch someone play, but is actually a lot of fun to play for yourself? (for eg. Solitaire, idle games, really heavy story based games, games with lots of Menus like Democracy 3)

Maybe then would actually be more advantageous just to release a demo? Because I feel like this is the direction my game would go towards.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Well, in that case, I don't know. I don't know of any studies that broke down the demo results like that. I guess it's your game, your call, you know? If that's the direction that you want to go then I wish you the best of luck and I'm really interested in hearing how it turns out.

 

[hello friend]

vonAchdorf thanks, yeah, I've been studying story structure lately. I'm actually using Save the Cat!, which has more than a few parallels to Hero's Journey. The first 10 seconds of the trailer summarizes STC's debate beat, which serves the same purpose as HJ's refusal of the call and crossing the threshold. And then the adventure begins, the heroes lose their way, etc., which have their places in both templates.

And Tavernking is right about the demos. Sure, there are plenty of people who will tell you "I wouldn't have bought that game, but I played the demo first and liked it..." but on average, the demo will cost you sales. If you want to get people interested in the game, you need a trailer, screenshots, and YouTubers. All of those depend on your game's visual appeal. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's hard to overstate how important appearance is.

Trying to "craft" a story in accordance with theories of the structure of myths and dramaturgical models in general is a mistake. A lot of writers these days trying to be clever about story. You end up with something bland and lifeless. Just make something you think is fun and atmospheric. You'll get many times more out of reading Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson than reading Joseph Campbell.

 

[baturinsky]

And here's a first look at the new desert-themed assets:

Feels a little weird that sprite is not rotating at all when scene does, then just jumping to another side sprite. Have you trying rotating sprite billboard a bit depending on direction?

 

[Nathaniel3W]

baturinsky I'm afraid the only thing that would really fix that situation is adding more sprite frames to get 8 (or more!) directions instead of 4. I had originally started with the sprites acting more as a billboard, facing the camera. That actually looked really really strange. The sprites right now all face perpendicular to the camera vector in the XY plane, and just straight vertically in the Z, tilted inward at the sides of the screen to counteract perspective, and stretched vertically as the sprites get closer to underneath the camera also to counteract perspective. I think that changing the XY orientation of the sprites would actually make them look more out of place.

And now I'm going to complain about Reddit again because I'm still annoyed at a discussion I had there months ago. This is where Reddit would say "Stop making excuses and go pay for double the number of sprite frames so that your game doesn't look like shit." And I either explain why I'm not doing that and everyone tells me to stop being defensive, or I just say, "OK, thanks for your input."

Tip from someone who has learned the hard way: Do not engage in frank gamedev- or business-related discussion with potential customers. Go ahead and be honest among other devs, on your development blog, or in one-way communication. But do not have an honest two-way public discussion with fans or customers on any of your tough decisions, whether technical or business. Although they may say otherwise, your customers don't want to hear the reasons behind your tough decisions. Anything you say is just an excuse for why you're not doing it right. All your customers want to hear is "Yeah, you're right. I should do it your way."

...But now that I'm off that soapbox, I'm thinking about what I could do to hide the problem if I can't exactly fix it. Maybe I should change the camera spin speed so that it snaps to the next view angle faster, and maybe you won't really notice that the sprite stays the same over 90 degrees of camera movement.

 

[hello friend]

I don't think it's a problem. It looks good. It might be better to use a free camera if people find the transitions too jarring, it's exacerbated somewhat by the camera rotating around the sprite. The perambulist in the top right (walking past the guard) doesn't look all that funny despite sprite switching in the same way.

 

[Magitex]

baturinsky I'm afraid the only thing that would really fix that situation is adding more sprite frames to get 8 (or more!) directions instead of 4.

Have you tried prototyping a blend effect, something like side-ways swirling pixels with blurring in the appropriate direction for a few frames on rotated characters directly? or taking half of one frame and blending with the new one? (again, mostly to simulation the motion of turning)
You could also tilt portions of your sprites (not the whole sprite) to give things a bit more of a organic feel when rotating.
Another way is as you mentioned, just rotating the camera faster. I would recommend implementing some blur during the transition and not using raw frames as it will still be somewhat noticeable.

I don't think you have to leave it as it is, but I also haven't done enough experimentation with limited animation sets to give a concrete answer to the problem (other than more $$$). My own game is top-down to avoid this kind of artistic cost, but obviously it has a very real cost in terms of appeal. In your case I don't think it presents much of a problem visually - your game is looking great.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Modern engines have sprite rotation, scaling and etc.... He must be doing something homebrew.

Even snapping to one of the 4 cardinal directions should be pretty easy to implement based on camera viewpoint as the camera moves.

I honestly can't understand why this is a problem. It's a very basic algo and the solution is easily solvable.

Zep--

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Zep Zepo My sprites have 4 directions and the camera can rotate 360 degrees, so as the camera rotates, you see each side of the sprite for 90 degrees and then the sprite changes. Someone said the change was jarring. I'm considering ways to make the transition less jarring.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Committing sudoku on cam.