Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I have no idea what is going on in that video. What's the yellow line? What the big arrow thing supposed to represent?

Some commentary would be nice explaining what is going on.

Zep--

Like Ninjerk said, the yellow line is your aim and shows you the inverse normal to the new gravity that will be applied, in its current form it is used for debugging but something similar will probably be required to help the player navigate.

The big white arrow used to represent the global gravity (again for debugging and helping to orient the player) but is now broken, will have to fix the math to get it working correctly.

If you're going to make it into a real game, then what are the chances you'll get me to make music for it?

 

[r3jonwah85]

I have no idea what is going on in that video. What's the yellow line? What the big arrow thing supposed to represent?

Some commentary would be nice explaining what is going on.

Zep--

Like Ninjerk said, the yellow line is your aim and shows you the inverse normal to the new gravity that will be applied, in its current form it is used for debugging but something similar will probably be required to help the player navigate.

The big white arrow used to represent the global gravity (again for debugging and helping to orient the player) but is now broken, will have to fix the math to get it working correctly.

If you're going to make it into a real game, then what are the chances you'll get me to make music for it?

Probably pretty high, but I never make promises I can't keep But I have actually been thinking about these kinds of "problems", how to handle other people involved in projects in the best way?

1. Pay someone to do a certain amount of work as a freelancer? Good thing is you keep your potential earnings but the downside is the cost up front (and the potential zero income...).

2. Share revenue percentage once game is selling (if it is selling)? Hard part is to find someone willing to agree to this and also how is the percentages divided?

3. Start company together and share all burdens and profits equally?

4. Other solution? What have people here done? Kind of interested to know how the real world works.

Anyway, fixed the arrow thingy in the previous videos, but since that is not all that fun to show I spent an hour doing a small test of importing some Quake assets into Unreal Engine 4 and some basic coding to get the grenade launcher working (not accurate, will have to look up the detonation times, bounce properties, initial velocity etc in the Quake source). I apologize for my horrible grenade jump skills...

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Probably pretty high, but I never make promises I can't keep But I have actually been thinking about these kinds of "problems", how to handle other people involved in projects in the best way?

1. Pay someone to do a certain amount of work as a freelancer? Good thing is you keep your potential earnings but the downside is the cost up front (and the potential zero income...).

2. Share revenue percentage once game is selling (if it is selling)? Hard part is to find someone willing to agree to this and also how is the percentages divided?

3. Start company together and share all burdens and profits equally?

4. Other solution? What have people here done? Kind of interested to know how the real world works.

When I was working in social gaming, I usually received a specific amount of cash per contract, plus royalties.
I'll give you an example.

I received a request to do music and sfx for a game. Usually I had to do 4 music tracks + all sfx (about 20 sounds, but don't ask me to do sfx, I usually hate to do that shit).
Let's assume we agreed on $1000. I receive $500 up front, then I get the rest when the job is done (usually in a week or two, sometimes in 2-3 days).
Then I receive a certain percentage off the money that is left after publishers get their cut.

The numbers are made up, of course, but you get the idea.
Also, the quality of work was questionable. It's hard for me to make the best shit non-stop. I usually need some time to experiment and find the right style for the project, and then I'm ready to produce cool stuff. Except I rarely had the time for that. Out of 6 projects I worked on during 2014, only one project allowed me to get the time in order to do some good stuff... but the funny part is, I got extra time because the programmer assigned to the project was a total hack, and they had to rewrite the code from scratch to make it work.

Then their next project was a complete disaster, and instead of giving it more time, they pushed the release date like a drinking party. After that I quit working for them.
If you ever encounter a noir detective game with oriental music, then it was probably me. Sorry about that.

EDIT: That doesn't mean I can only accept this kind of contracts. I'll tell you more when I'm not drunk.

 

[r3jonwah85]

Probably pretty high, but I never make promises I can't keep But I have actually been thinking about these kinds of "problems", how to handle other people involved in projects in the best way?

1. Pay someone to do a certain amount of work as a freelancer? Good thing is you keep your potential earnings but the downside is the cost up front (and the potential zero income...).

2. Share revenue percentage once game is selling (if it is selling)? Hard part is to find someone willing to agree to this and also how is the percentages divided?

3. Start company together and share all burdens and profits equally?

4. Other solution? What have people here done? Kind of interested to know how the real world works.

When I was working in social gaming, I usually received a specific amount of cash per contract, plus royalties.
I'll give you an example.

I received a request to do music and sfx for a game. Usually I had to do 4 music tracks + all sfx (about 20 sounds, but don't ask me to do sfx, I usually hate to do that shit).
Let's assume we agreed on $1000. I receive $500 up front, then I get the rest when the job is done (usually in a week or two, sometimes in 2-3 days).
Then I receive a certain percentage off the money that is left after publishers get their cut.

The numbers are made up, of course, but you get the idea.
Also, the quality of work was questionable. It's hard for me to make the best shit non-stop. I usually need some time to experiment and find the right style for the project, and then I'm ready to produce cool stuff. Except I rarely had the time for that. Out of 6 projects I worked on during 2014, only one project allowed me to get the time in order to do some good stuff... but the funny part is, I got extra time because the programmer assigned to the project was a total hack, and they had to rewrite the code from scratch to make it work.

Then their next project was a complete disaster, and instead of giving it more time, they pushed the release date like a drinking party. After that I quit working for them.
If you ever encounter a noir detective game with oriental music, then it was probably me. Sorry about that.

EDIT: That doesn't mean I can only accept this kind of contracts. I'll tell you more when I'm not drunk.

Ok, thanks for the info! So the actual "maker" of the game has to be pretty damn sure the game gets releases and make some money, otherwise money spent on external people is a big expense. Well I guess that is only fair when you think about it.

Another video to keep this thread going:

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Ok, thanks for the info! So the actual "maker" of the game has to be pretty damn sure the game gets releases and make some money, otherwise money spent on external people is a big expense. Well I guess that is only fair when you think about it.

The director was also an experienced developer, so they knew what to do in order to release it.
Unfortunately, he worships mobile and social platforms and praises Diablo 3.

 

[r3jonwah85]

Took a couple of hours and tried to get a nice mood and setting, might totally change but I rather like it. Also a small test using text to speech.

 

[Ninjerk]

ROFL man that's awesome. Sounds like a 1980s documentary about space.

 

[tuluse]

Definitely have a dark portal vibe going on.

The text to speech also reminds of me of ASA: A Space Adventure.

 

[Zed]

here's my fantasy top-down killer game

http://absum.se/game.zip

AI is fucked up

but at least you can shoot

HOW TO PLAY:
WASD to move
hold mouse button, release to fire arrow

 

[r3jonwah85]

Testing out making the "scanner" actually scan something, now it produces a crude 3-dimensional copy of the environment. Could be a nice gameplay element where you send in drones to scan for enemies etc. Lost of stuff needs fixing to make it look better, but at least the idea works and did not take to long to implement. But to make it look better I think a grid is more appropriate than a radial spread as it is now.

here's my fantasy top-down killer game

http://absum.se/KSWB.zip

AI is fucked up

but at least you can shoot

HOW TO PLAY:
WASD to move
hold mouse button, release to fire arrow

Only 22 bytes and empty when I try to download this, so either I just got a nasty virus by clicking on unknown stuff on the interwebz or something went wrong in your upload

 

[Zed]

r3jonwah85
sorry! fixed it

 

[tiagocc0]

here's my fantasy top-down killer game

http://absum.se/game.zip

AI is fucked up

but at least you can shoot

HOW TO PLAY:
WASD to move
hold mouse button, release to fire arrow

Pretty cool arrow shooting, maybe he could walk slower when aiming and eve slower and walking backyards.

 

[r3jonwah85]

r3jonwah85
sorry! fixed it

Looks really cool, the graphical style is great and the combat feels snappy. Making it into full game? And what plans do you have for the AI?

 

[Zed]

r3jonwah85
sorry! fixed it

Looks really cool, the graphical style is great and the combat feels snappy. Making it into full game? And what plans do you have for the AI?

I'll try to make a super simple AI to start off with
No player in sight -> nada
Engaged or see player -> chase
In range of player -> attack

I have no plans at all. Just experimenting.

But an immediate goal is to add tons and tons of blood.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

here's my fantasy top-down killer game

http://absum.se/game.zip

AI is fucked up

but at least you can shoot

HOW TO PLAY:
WASD to move
hold mouse button, release to fire arrow

Instructions were tl;dr for me, I tried stabbing the knights by clicking fast near them. Good thing they didn't have attacks yet.

Could use some more blood and some over the top sound effects.

 

[Mastermind]

First try at character pixel art in a long, long time.

 

[A horse of course]

First try at character pixel art in a long, long time.

Mud monster? Looks like it under the robe

 

[Mastermind]

No, just a mage. Under the robe it's all dark gray (except eyes), but I fucked up the hood/right shoulder part and was too tired to fix it. The chest could use some work too, I originally wanted to have some golden chains go across but for whatever reason I just went with random folds and it looks odd. Was going for a king of worms aesthetic with the mage being a dark figure with glowing eyes:

All around I'm happy for a first try considering past attempts at learning how to do cloth ended pretty poorly. At least this is something I can build on.

 

[shihonage]

Looks Heretic-style.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

First attempt at pixel art.

On another note, I'm jumping into development to set the ground for interactive stories, and once I get funds from my business pal, we'll go full crazy.

 

[Mastermind]

Looks Heretic-style.

Just to clarify, the image in that post is from Daggerfall.

 

[shihonage]

Your original sprite looks nice, but not Heretic-style. Also, the front of the robe needs to be "fixed" somehow. It looks like a sixpack or something.

 

[Mastermind]

Yeah I was gonna have some golden chains go across the chest like old military uniforms. IE:

I changed them into wrinkles because I was overdue to go to sleep and wanted to finish it, which didn't work out too well.

 

[Abelian]

You mean like this?

Spoiler

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[r3jonwah85]

Some updated stuff for my gravity game prototype: