Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Bad Sector]

I decided to make an attempt at an OpenGL renderer for Petra:

Unsurprisingly, all the shortcuts i took while making the software renderer for the DOS version now come back to make the porting process harder :-P.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Bad Sector I don't know about those problems that you mention with high-refresh monitors, but 120 Hz refresh rate is important to cinephiles. Most movies are filmed at 24 fps. A 24 fps movie does not display well on a 60 Hz monitor. You have to alternate between showing a frame twice and showing a frame 3 times, which causes uneven movement called judder. With a 120 Hz monitor you show every frame 5 times, and the movement is much smoother.

 

[Bad Sector]

Nathaniel3W i guess these cinephiles hate 48 fps movies, then? :-p

(then again there are 240Hz monitors nowadays)

Sadly there are no perfect monitors :-/

 

[vdweller]

Bros if any of you is knowledgeable with Unity hit me up with a pm, I have a noob question about 2D camera zooming. thx

 

[Viata]

Why not just ask it here? If someone answer here, that may help someone else later if that person ever finds the same problem.

 

[vdweller]

Why not just ask it here? If someone answer here, that may help someone else later if that person ever finds the same problem.

Already did, some codexers are more bros though than a random guy out there

 

[Bad Sector]

I decided to make yet another attempt at having a development blog and wrote a bit about Post Apocalyptic Petra (as a game and about its development). Also since i am a huge fan of desktop-based GUI applications - especially those that actually take advantage of modern computer features, like graphics - i was looking for some tool to edit blogs with it and found Publii. The name is a bit silly and it is kinda annoying how everything is oversized and looks like someone assaulted my desktop with a tablet UI, but it does work and does what i need. It is also free and open source, which is neat.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

...and it is kinda annoying how everything is oversized and looks like someone assaulted my desktop with a tablet UI...

Windows 95 was the peak of UI design. Clean, simple, and everything placed where it belongs where you can easily find it. After that, everything became condescendingly cute, and after that everything got hidden in stuff I didn't realize was a button, and now everything is either meant for phones, or if it's meant for desktop then it's hyper-minimalist gray-on-white with everything useful hidden away where you can't see it.

 

[Bad Sector]

Windows 95 was the peak of UI design. Clean, simple, and everything placed where it belongs where you can easily find it.

Windows 95 was the first time Microsoft did real UX research and the last time they focused on that research (they've done such research later, but usually artists and designers won).

Having said that i think 98/2000 has a better desktop overall. Not all changes were good (i do not like the gradient titlebars) but for the most part they added additional customization functionality and features without breaking anything (e.g being able to create a custom toolbar on the desktop, being able to move stuff around in the start menu with drag and drop, etc - stuff that are missing in Windows 10, btw). And Windows 2000 was the peak Windows IMO, rock solid kernel, great UI, great customizability (for Windows) and not too heavy. It has been downhill since Windows XP though with the playmobil theme and icons. IMO.

Clearlooks for Linux (especially with a couple adjustments to make it more compact) was also good - clean to look at, nice shading and it was obvious what everything was just by looking at it (as opposed to modern style where everything is flat and you are lucky if there is a -usually faded out square- border to distinguish graphical elements).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Design Tip #101: If you want to create a believable game world, you have to make sure it's littered with cigarette butts.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Design Tip #101: If you want to create a believable game world, you have to make sure it's littered with cigarette butts.

Man's been playing his Elex.

 

[Talby]

A lil mini Zelda clone I've been working on.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

The background grass is too yellow compared to the rest of the plants.

What's the setting? Is that kid wearing a baseball cap? Not that there's anything wrong with a Zeldalike in a modern setting--I think an adventure in the woods starring Calvin and Hobbes would be a fantastic premise for a Zeldalike--but a baseball cap and blue jeans just look out of place right now.

 

[Talby]

The background grass is too yellow compared to the rest of the plants.

What's the setting? Is that kid wearing a baseball cap? Not that there's anything wrong with a Zeldalike in a modern setting--I think an adventure in the woods starring Calvin and Hobbes would be a fantastic premise for a Zeldalike--but a baseball cap and blue jeans just look out of place right now.

Thank you for the feedback. I went with a more yellow tone for the grass to make the trees and bushes stand out more. Do you think they should be the same colour? Or just similar?

Setting is modern day, it's going for a Zelda/Earthbound mashup feel. What kind of outfit design would you go with for the kid?

 

[LESS T_T]

Seems useful. Some junior dev compiled what he learned from senior devs.



PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Waf5BrbB_UFlwNWv46G7rChBVtDlOrxs/view

 

[CryptRat]

What kind of outfit design would you go with for the kid?

I like his current look.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Thank you for the feedback. I went with a more yellow tone for the grass to make the trees and bushes stand out more. Do you think they should be the same colour? Or just similar?

Setting is modern day, it's going for a Zelda/Earthbound mashup feel. What kind of outfit design would you go with for the kid?

The background grass doesn't have to be the same color as the trees and bushes, but I think it would look better if the color was closer. Right now the color is just kind of an obnoxious day-glow yellow. I think if you took a look at A Link to the Past and made your grass color vary as much as its grass color varied, then you'd be in a better position.

I think the hat looks fine. It just looks a little out of place right now because it lacks context. I look at the background and my brain expects Link in a green tunic. If you had the same forest background, with the same kid, but added a dog, or a Boy Scout troop, or a modern campsite, then I would have an easier time processing it all. Or if the UI hinted at something more modern, that could help too.

 

[Bad Sector]

Surprisingly, game development is hard. I found another crashing bug in Post Apocalyptic Petra.... so here version 0.99g that fixes it.

Considering the number of bugs i've managed to shove into a ~1h linear game and planning at some point to make a more open ended systems-driven game will certainly end up with some interesting results :-P

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Considering the number of bugs i've managed to shove into a ~1h linear game and planning at some point to make a more open ended systems-driven game will certainly end up with some interesting results :-P

Make sure to make it moddable.

Spoiler

And make sure it just works.

 

[Bad Sector]

Make sure to make it moddable.

Of course it'll be moddable

Even Post Apocalyptic Petra comes with an editor .

 

[The Avatar]

I added support for people on roofs. Now I can be popular like BG3.

 

[Zed]

I added support for people on roofs. Now I can be popular like BG3.

dope as hell

 

[Bad Sector]

The OpenGL version of Post Apocalyptic Petra is now working (outside a couple of glitches). I also added support for playing with a gamepad (it translates gamepad motions to 'fake' keys, not real analog motion... that would require a much bigger change that i do not really want to bother with - the biggest change i did for playing with a gamepad was allowing to use the arrows for entering key codes, though you can still just type them with the keyboard if you want) and using the mouse to turn around, activate things (left button), pick up things (middle button) and jump (right button).

There are still a few things i want to fix, but i might have a new version soon.

(also note that since the entire point of the game is to explore the levels, this video spoils half of the first level)

 

[shihonage]

I added support for people on roofs. Now I can be popular like BG3.

Rooftop Koreans simulator confirmed

 

[Bad Sector]

From the "Because I Can" department:

...comes a port to OUYA (that little cube at the top of the PC) :-P.

(it is actually just an Android port that runs on OUYA, there is nothing OUYA-specific about it)

In case you somehow missed the whole OUYA thing, it was the first Android "microconsole" which while a neat idea, it had a team of imbeciles doing PR - or anything related to communicating with people really - and it failed hard even though they were at a point where developers and players namedropped them and were Kickstarter goals, something that companies like Nvidia, Amazon, Razer, etc that made their own microconsoles later never managed to do.

There is also an OUYA game jam going on, but i'll most likely wont enter since i still haven't managed to get input and audio working (and spent like half a day chasing a bug which turned out to be a bug in the Nvidia drivers in my Shield tablet which is what i use for development since i only have a single monitor and cannot use the PC and OUYA at the same time :-P). But at least i'll have an Android version of the game working too (it'll require a gamepad though, i wont bother coding touch controls, so you'll either need a bluetooth gamepad, some USB gamepad or one of those Android gaming devices the Chinese love to make, like JXD's or GPD's devices).