Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Joined on the 4th of July]

What's this?

It's not 100% similar to QERadiant/LithTech DirectEditor, but this little tool should've been available for Unity at the start.

How well does it export stuff out of Unity? Manual seems to say something about .obj export, but that might mean material/texture information doesn't get exported at all, and you'd have to assign them again in some other program.

I don't care about material or texture information (my game doesn't use textures and there is only a handful of materials I ever use), so I never bothered to test that. There is a free version available, and it's going to be a part of the newer Unity versions so you might as well see for yourself.

Well, nevermind about that. I found something that looks really good while also letting me stay away from Unity.

https://matt-lucas.itch.io/level-buddy

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

What's this?

It's not 100% similar to QERadiant/LithTech DirectEditor, but this little tool should've been available for Unity at the start.

How well does it export stuff out of Unity? Manual seems to say something about .obj export, but that might mean material/texture information doesn't get exported at all, and you'd have to assign them again in some other program.

I don't care about material or texture information (my game doesn't use textures and there is only a handful of materials I ever use), so I never bothered to test that. There is a free version available, and it's going to be a part of the newer Unity versions so you might as well see for yourself.

Well, nevermind about that. I found something that looks really good while also letting me stay away from Unity.

https://matt-lucas.itch.io/level-buddy

If you wanted a Doom-style editor w/ the ability to export meshes w/ proper material/texture assignment then GZDoom Builder has this option available.

 

[CryptRat]

I know that it doesn't help judging that these are two completely different characters, but is there one art style you particularly like/dislike?

 

[StaticSpine]

I know that it doesn't help judging that these are two completely different characters, but is there one art style you particularly like/dislike?

I prefer the first.

 

[Egosphere]

I know that it doesn't help judging that these are two completely different characters, but is there one art style you particularly like/dislike?

The yellow one is a lot better. The 2nd one could be improved if it either removed all those soft shadows and replaced them with strong ones ( like the 1st one ), or more time was put into rendering and making it more realistic. The white silhouette doesn't really do much either.

 

[CryptRat]

Yes, I don't know how I ultimately feel about the white silhouette. It was first added because of the black coat of the gunner (and the white border works OK with the overall presentation) :

It's clearly not needed though (and anyway could also be thinner and use the white color used in the game instead of shiny white).

The reason we're asking for opinions is that we don't know how people feel about that kind of over-stylized and unrealistic style, we like it but if you told me it's ridiculous I couldn't really argue.

For the small already released devilmen game we're currently making different assets for the 5 monsters (they currently all use the same) and we may switch the style or not.
But after that we may definitely go with the style of the first picture if you also think it works.

[off-topic]We're going release the "final" version of the devilmen game under a few days or weeks, no change to the content but some bug fixing, full screen mode and other options (like combat log scrolling speed), better handling of the game speed and then more assets (monsters but also stairs a few other things).

[/off-topic]

 

[Zep Zepo]

The white border on #2 looks like ass...dump it.

Zep--

 

[vlzvl]

The reason we're asking for opinions is that we don't know how people feel about that kind of over-stylized and unrealistic style, we like it but if you told me it's ridiculous I couldn't really argue.

I am not a designer but what i do not like in both images is their background.
It's just black.
Have you considered adding some gradient background or something showing from *where* these characters come?

 

[CryptRat]

I tend to like black backgrounds, especially coupled with the alien guy's style, but it's not out of the question :

 

[Mustawd]

I kind of like the black backgrounds myself.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

CodexAdministration.jpg

 

[shihonage]

Last week I had an excellent in-person interview for my dream job with a mobile gaming company which focuses on mobile core demographic, i.e. deeper gameplay, more innovation, no "Flappy Bird" mentality. The offices had catered lunches, foosball machines, and were full of loveable nerds. Received my rejection letter today.

 

[Mastermind]

finally made a makeshift chargen for my game. wasn't that much work but even a gui full of placeholders is a pain in the ass to make.

mostly classless system, your class just determines attribute priority (3 attributes, one primary, one secondary, and the remaining one tertiary) which in turn have small but sizable impacts on your resources and the function of various other parameters, as well as your class weapon. tomorrow i'll be doing something fun, like chopping my dick off implementing the first enemy

 

[Nathaniel3W]

shihonage that's too bad, but feeling good about an in-person interview probably means you did pretty well. There are other gamedev studios out there. I'm sure they even have foosball machines. If you really want one of those jobs, I'm sure you'll get it if you keep trying.

I've been working on a battle map using the dungeon assets.

This small map took me about 3 days to make. I'm hoping that now that I know what I'm doing, the next one will go faster.

Did Final Fantasy Tactics have about 40 battle maps? Maybe that should be my target. 40 battle maps. I have 3 in this build, and 3 more good maps from an older build that I can copy in.

Next I need to add some kind of autoscaling for the enemies. At this point in the game, my guys were mostly level 3, and they're tearing these level-1 slimes apart, occasionally one-shotting them.

 

[Mustawd]

Next I need to add some kind of autoscaling for the enemies. At this point in the game, my guys were mostly level 3, and they're tearing these level-1 slimes apart, occasionally one-shotting them.

Don’t take shortcuts. Balance you encounters by hand appropriately. Level scaling sucks.

Just my two cents.

 

[vlzvl]

At this point in the game, my guys were mostly level 3, and they're tearing these level-1 slimes apart, occasionally one-shotting them.

I also agree that level scaling sucks big time, i believe it's the worst ever invention to CRPGs.
You could apply some xp scaling though so it makes no difference to more powered parties to kill a handful of them.
I would find it a lot more realistic to tear apart slimes with one hit and die one-hitted by level-15 cyclops on next area.
It is your decision to go into high-leveled and become dust. One of the few reason i loved Might & Magic and hated Oblivion.

 

[shihonage]

shihonage that's too bad, but feeling good about an in-person interview probably means you did pretty well. There are other gamedev studios out there. I'm sure they even have foosball machines. If you really want one of those jobs, I'm sure you'll get it if you keep trying.

Thanks, but this was after getting 4 rejection letters from companies in the area. It's hard to jump from devops into gaming. Actually given how amazingly the interview went, I was puzzled by their excuse for rejecting me (which was already screened for in phone interviews). I think they googled me and found on my public FB profile that I was member of a group called "Right-wing news" or something like that. The retards who created the group didn't make it secret, and on FB you get joined against your will.

 

[Viata]

on FB you get joined against your will.

What?

 

[shihonage]

on FB you get joined against your will.

What?

https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=530751057073830

There's no confirmation box, and it's easy to miss some of this shit if you have a lot of notifications going on. You get auto-joined, and then you have to manually leave. If you didn't miss the notification.

 

[Viata]

Holy shit. Just create some fucked up group and mass invite every person you hate and them use it to destroy their lives.

 

[RatTower]

Well, nevermind about that. I found something that looks really good while also letting me stay away from Unity.

https://matt-lucas.itch.io/level-buddy

This is actually super useful for quick blockouts & early level iterations.
Thanks!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Some glimpses of the new ingame areas.

 

[Mastermind]

finally this @#$& hound is implemented. still need to draw up some attack animations, but it patrols, moves towards me when i get closer, charges when it's almost within melee range and attacks, stopped walking through walls, stopped walking on its back, or backwards after bouncing off a wall, bleeds when shot and leaves a corpse when killed.

 

[ProphetSword]

Early version of the combat engine for the game I'm now calling
"Magic & Mercenaries: Curse of Eternal Darkness"

Things to keep in mind while watching the video:

* The delay speed in combat (which is adjustable by the player) is intentionally set to the slowest speed for the video. A player can adjust the combat speed more to their liking when playing the game, so it isn't always this slow.

* Only one PC in the party has a weapon or armor in my test party. So, real PCs would kill these monsters quicker (and avoid getting hit more often). I just didn't think to drop anything on them when making the video.

* There are currently no spells programmed in the game, so this is a straight up melee bash-fest at this point.

* As far as options go, "Guard" is currently not implemented, so I just have some PCs "Pass" their turn and end it instead of defending themselves. This is not a choice I would make in a finished version of the game.

* Things that will be in the engine eventually (opportunity attacks, for example) are not currently implemented. Options are limited at the moment.

* The Round counter isn't working, and is eternally stuck at Round 4. That's just because I haven't started working on it yet.

* Some of the test PCs have conditions on them, but those conditions are just there for display purposes and don't actually do anything yet.

* Everything you see here has a possibility of changing at some point in the future.

Enjoy.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Adding some dynamic gfx to the maps, looks like it's getting better and better.