Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Nathaniel3W]

So here's the latest trailer for Himeko Sutori's free expansion.

I've been spending almost all of my time on this expansion for over 6 months. I'm hoping it will get some attention and sell more copies of my game. I'm not sure how much attention it's going to get. And it's a completely different game from the base game. Maybe I need to include what I have as a fun little diversion for Himeko Sutori, and then develop it further in a standalone game. I'm not really sure what to do. Any thoughts?

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

This sounds like a more automated version of Galaxy of Pen and Paper and Knights of Pen and Paper- the characters playable were a composite of player, race and class- with each playertype and race having a specific stat distribution and a passive bonus while the class filled out the rest. Pf course in those games you were effectively dm and player so.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I've only watched some vidoes of it), but from what I can tell, the main difference Knights of Pen and Paper has with a standard RPG is that the player is deciding how many enemies to fight each combat. Basically you're just picking a new difficulty setting every combat.

My plan was to have the player control the monsters. I was thinking actions by the monsters would have some reward associated with it. For instance, a basic Claw attack that hits one target for minor damage might give 10 exp, while a Breath Weapon attack that hits multiple targets for heavy damage would give 300 exp, 100 gold, and a 20% chance for a magic item. I would probably also have the difficulty and monster level increase automatically, possibly every time the party enters the dungeon, and/or for every new dungeon. So, you're needing to balance the effects you're having on the AI party, with giving them enough exp and loot for later stages.

I also want to have non-combat encounters that the player would "run". For instance, the AI party might find a fountain, and behind the scenes they would decide what to do from a list of options based on their personality/mood. The player would then get options on how they could respond. When the player is putting together the dungeon, they can select encounters that they think they would know how the AI would respond. Players, of course, are somewhat unpredictable, so you can never be quite sure what they'll do.

Funny, I had the idea for a "reverse roguelike" just the other day. I decided that the most interesting option would be populating the dungeon with dangers randomly and letting the player place helpful things. Someone has to be leaving those wands of disintegration lying around after all. That keeps the traditional progression of the genre instead of making it about killing off the @ which would probably be too easy on any dlevel unless you were extremely resource limited. My conclusion after some thought was that it's tricky rewarding the player for "challenging" the AI without defeating it, and trying to simulate a party of tabletop players with personalities was well beyond the scope I considered.

Maybe you could take some inspiration from the Rune tabletop game. It's a unique dungeon crawler with a points system. Everyone takes turns running encounters, and it has more rigid rules for how the GM can act than most games. Whoever runs the encounter gets more points for injuring and otherwise setting back the players but loses points for outright killing them.

A point system for the dungeon could be interesting. If the game put down 100 points of encounters (30 point orc encounter, 20 point trap, and 50 point skeleton encounter), the player would then have that many points worth of rewards. They could do something like a 70 point treasure chest and 30 point altar, or whatever combination of equivalent point value.

My idea seems somewhat similar to the Rune system - rewards for actions taken against the heroes. I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Twiglard]

This is my second attempt at writing a game. The first one was the old XNA thing. Now is the second attempt.

My idea is to store ground and wall textures as flat textures and project them as quads to greatly simplify the workflow. Scenery, character animations and so on will all be all prebaked as usual.

At first I tried using SFML, but the goddamn thing doesn't even offer 3D vertices! Not to mention the inherent scalability issues due to the lack of proper sprite batching and complete lack of per-vertex data! Only per-shader constant data could be stored.

So I switched to the Magnum library. It's surprisingly well designed, exposing full GL functionality with a modern C++ API. Using the 3D Magnum API is only slightly harder than using the 2D-only SpriteBatch in XNA. Making a VAO from VBO's is trivial and doesn't even require computing offsets. The library uses move semantics and the equivalent of C++20's std::span internally. Then there's C++20's return value optimization that even further simplifies writing performant code.

Ironically, C++ memory management is easier than soft-realtime in .NET or other VMs with automatic memory management.

Implemented projecting quads onto an isometric grid and texture atlases. Not much for now.

 

[NoMoneyNoFameNoDame]

Interesting site you guys got here.

I am a developer. I once made a game. Now I want to make a sequel.
Good idea to do that sort of thing before running out of money, know what i'm saying?
I'm broke as shit though. Sales have crashed.

I want to speak on some matter undiscussed.

My game, probably would still have a future had I not taken it out of Early Access.
I did not gain anywhere close to sales than at any point of Early Access except the start.
At the start of Early Access had the benefit of the popularity I could generate on my own.

To be fair due to the valiant efforts of one of my players the game got a decent heartbeat after full release.

But all that doesn't matter because i'm here to tell you the situation isn't so simple.
I HAD TO LEAVE Early Access. It was killing me to not be able to measure anyone's actual interests.

But AFTER LEAVING, my game got way better. It went from being a game with no early game, mid-game, or end game.
No purpose even. To having all of those things within a month or two of releasing.

I have measurements now. The uncertainty is gone. I don't believe the game could have thrived in early access
because i'd be too worried about breaking stuff.

Anyway here's a teaser of the future.

https://i.imgur.com/6nVEXIi.png

 

[Bad Sector]

What sort of game is it? Judging from the shot it seems some sort of first person survival game? But then i see stamina and magic.

The terrain kinda reminds me of Frayed Knights.

 

[Angelo85]

For some reason the screenshot reminded me of an ancient survival game called Robinson's Requiem. Looking up screenshots now it's not really close in reality though :D
perhaps it were all the different status indicators bottom right, because the other game had an intricate medical system.

What's the title of your first game, NoMoneyNoFameNoDame?

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Is this another one of Prosper's alts? How many times has that guy (or someone claiming to be him) left the forum and said he's not coming back? I swear I've seen that map and that UI before.

 

[bionicman]

REDAXIUM 2.0???

 

[NoMoneyNoFameNoDame]

Bad Sector You are right about the survival.

The MP is used to close Voids in the game and is lost if you use a skill. It is refueled by sacrificing debris and bodyparts at a shrine.

What you are looking at is a wall hole in a tunnel linking the surface world and a underground libary.

I anticipate my game's sequel to be more adventurery.

The first game was more about exploration of all places rather than adventuring inside of paritcular place.

Angelo85
A clue about the first game's title: it was posted in the news section of this site sometime this month.

Nathaniel3W
Prosper? Could you convert that to hex bytes for me?

ANyway a new picture for you men.

I anticipate my sequel to look a lot like the first.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

[infidel]

I finally won my game after 500 battles. That is why making statistics in game is a good idea.

In both of my games I measure the average turns (well, it's more like average out of three successful tries since it takes so goddamn long) needed to win. This gives me a better idea than time because people with more knowledge play faster but take mostly the same amount of turns to victory.

Kind of like Rimworld, I guess. But should there be "real world" players controlling these characters, who might have a different personality? Maybe they drop out/come less frequently as they lose interest, or real world problems crop up. Should the DM player have some sort of budget, and need to deal with money for new rulebooks, snacks (which affect mood), and various other random expenses?

Judging from what you've written before that, you need to first focus on the "making the game challenging but not deadly for the virtual party". This feels like it should be a core feature, the DM can always kill them outright but that would just result in unhappy "players". So you'd have to gauge the party's state and offer an appropriate amount of challenge so that the "players" would be happy while balacing it with the virtual DM's "evilness". And after that you can deal with the budget stuff, integrating it into the core goal of making both the DM and party happy.

Maybe I need to include what I have as a fun little diversion for Himeko Sutori, and then develop it further in a standalone game. I'm not really sure what to do. Any thoughts?

From the commercial point of view a new game from the same developer always wins against any expansion in revenue. If the gameplay is different, even more so. But not necessarily in profits since the development costs can be higher. That's why there's so many garbage games produced daily on Steam. In your case you will also expand the HS franchise with a separate game. Just be clear on what's different from the main game so that people would not get confused.

I did not gain anywhere close to sales than at any point of Early Access except the start.

How did that happen? I thought EA games have way less exposure than the completed ones. I'm very interested since I'm one step away from clicking the submit button for my Parasite roguelike to Steam with EA enabled.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Maybe I need to include what I have as a fun little diversion for Himeko Sutori, and then develop it further in a standalone game. I'm not really sure what to do. Any thoughts?

From the commercial point of view a new game from the same developer always wins against any expansion in revenue. If the gameplay is different, even more so. But not necessarily in profits since the development costs can be higher. That's why there's so many garbage games produced daily on Steam. In your case you will also expand the HS franchise with a separate game. Just be clear on what's different from the main game so that people would not get confused.

That's what I was afraid of. Maybe what I can do for now is get lots of input and testing from my current players. Then when I have a pretty polished little adventure, I'll take the code and assets, make a full-size game from it, and sell that separately.

I did not gain anywhere close to sales than at any point of Early Access except the start.

How did that happen? I thought EA games have way less exposure than the completed ones. I'm very interested since I'm one step away from clicking the submit button for my Parasite roguelike to Steam with EA enabled.

Most of the stories I've heard from other devs (and publishers) is that you only get one launch. Everyone else said that if your launch is early access, then that's the only launch spike in coverage and sales that you'll see. That was not my experience. My full-release launch was much bigger than my early-access launch. I think the major determining factor in my full-release success was building up expectations throughout the EA period. I fixed all the bugs I could, I incorporated a lot of community suggestions, and I made frequent updates with lots of information about what changed. Then on full-release launch day, I got plenty of wishlist conversions, top listing in new releases, and lots of organic sales. Still didn't get much coverage as far as I can tell, but I think traditional game news outlets are pretty much irrelevant, unless it's a really big site, but none of those would ever cover my game anyway.

 

[NoMoneyNoFameNoDame]

infidel

Two factors.
1) My community reputation was already in play during start of early access.
Most people bought it back then.
2) I left EA during Wintersale. SO lot's of competition probably drowned my game's attention out.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Experience points for armies! https://youtu.be/_9FHUwT96JM
Is it an RPG now?

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

I am trying improve the graphics of the army units. So they will not look as "made in Paint in 1 minute".
https://youtu.be/M9CHFqerBQw
Now they look as "made in Paint in 2 minutes".

Really, I am working for hours. This is hard work.

 

[NoMoneyNoFameNoDame]

I am trying improve the graphics of the army units. So they will not look as "made in Paint in 1 minute".
https://youtu.be/M9CHFqerBQw
Now they look as "made in Paint in 2 minutes".

Really, I am working for hours. This is hard work.

Keep it up man it's great work! I'd estimate you're one of the premier game developers on this site.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I am trying improve the graphics of the army units. So they will not look as "made in Paint in 1 minute".
https://youtu.be/M9CHFqerBQw
Now they look as "made in Paint in 2 minutes".

Really, I am working for hours. This is hard work.

Unless you are spending time working on this in order to become a better artist, then your time would probably be better spent doing something else. I dropped some money on a pack of equipment icons over at the Unity Asset Store. With some edits, I turned those equipment icons into a skill board:

(First draft here, with test characters who have no clothing. My current skill board is a little different and I updated some of the icons.)

Are you being facetious about that taking hours? Because I could literally create those unit icons in under 5 minutes. If it takes you hours, and you don't want to use stock images or stuff from the asset store, then you should pay someone on fiverr to do it for you so that you can spend your time on the things you're better at.

 

[infidel]

Most of the stories I've heard from other devs (and publishers) is that you only get one launch. Everyone else said that if your launch is early access, then that's the only launch spike in coverage and sales that you'll see. That was not my experience. My full-release launch was much bigger than my early-access launch.

If I understand correctly, there were multiple changes over the last five years in how all of that works. You'd have to carefully parse what time people are talking about. My understanding from the internal Steam Dev forums and their documentation is that currently you don't get much traffic from an early access release but you will get your full-release launch shot anyway. Also there are less known five update visibility rounds, that apparently don't do much (at least for me), but Steam says they can give you moar if you ask politely:

2) I left EA during Wintersale. SO lot's of competition probably drowned my game's attention out.

Man, talk about bad timing Seasonal sales are the worst time for release. And in my experience they don't work at all. Now the new thematic fests do work really well OTOH.

And here's something from me:

Note to other devs: It looks like Steam doesn't care if there are multiple games with the same name on their platform, just like Itch.

My current plan is to work on the interim release until it looks closer to what I want now visually and then open up EA.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

infidel It seems like the visibility rounds didn't do much for me either. I think I've used 3 of them. I'll probably use another when my expansion is finished.

I didn't realize that Steam had changed its EA visibility algos. That's good to know. I'm sure I benefitted from that change with more visibility at full release.

My experience with sales is totally different from yours though. November and December, with the fall and winter sales, gave me at least 3x more sales than I had in any of the several preceding months. Even January, which contained only the ending part of the winter sale, had a big sales increase from say September or October.

I'll also be taking part in an upcoming themed sale. (I would say more, but NDAs and all... You may have gotten the same email, unless Valve only emails devs whose games have the appropriate tag.) It would be nice if that sale did as well as the fall or winter sale, but I'm thinking it may be too close to the end of the winter sale. I guess we'll see.

Note to other devs: It looks like Steam doesn't care if there are multiple games with the same name on their platform, just like Itch.

Sounds like I need to find a really popular game with a generic untrademarkable name. I'll make a game with the same name and benefit from their name recognition.

 

[infidel]

My experience with sales is totally different from yours though. November and December, with the fall and winter sales, gave me at least 3x more sales than I had in any of the several preceding months. Even January, which contained only the ending part of the winter sale, had a big sales increase from say September or October.

Are you comparing with your normal sales, or with your normal "on sale" sales? I'm comparing to my usual 50% off sale. Haven't bothered to compare to the normal ones.

I'll also be taking part in an upcoming themed sale. (I would say more, but NDAs and all... You may have gotten the same email, unless Valve only emails devs whose games have the appropriate tag.) It would be nice if that sale did as well as the fall or winter sale, but I'm thinking it may be too close to the end of the winter sale. I guess we'll see.

Yeah, for me this time it was a link to the page with all of the dates for the next fests for half a year or so. I think all Steam devs have equal access to it. Actually here's some Googling results:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...steam-sales-and-events-for-first-half-of-2022

This was the final thing to make me push for Parasite Steam release.

Sounds like I need to find a really popular game with a generic untrademarkable name. I'll make a game with the same name and benefit from their name recognition.

I wonder if there are any. Apart from the mobile SEO word salad, nothing comes to mind :D

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Are you comparing with your normal sales, or with your normal "on sale" sales? I'm comparing to my usual 50% off sale. Haven't bothered to compare to the normal ones.

Regular price. I did not have any price reductions during the entire early access. Since full release, I have participated in the summer sale, fall sale, and winter sale. One year after full release, my steepest discount was 40% off during the winter sale.

Including one of the themed sales you listed, Himeko Sutori will go on sale 4 times a year. It seems to me like discounting my game more often than that would be too often.

 

[infidel]

Including one of the themed sales you listed, Himeko Sutori will go on sale 4 times a year. It seems to me like discounting my game more often than that would be too often.

Quite the contrary, you're missing out on a serious chunk of profits (I'd argue on a larger chunk). You should make the sales (50% and more performs better but that's for you to decide) ASAP which is 6 weeks between sales now (excluding the seasonals) and will be 4 weeks soon. Steam will put you into the "on sale" lists for 14 days max and you will get good sales and traffic from that, way above your normal numbers. If you have multiple games, rotate them so that one is always on sale. Don't bother promoting the sale, it's not necessary.

If you're worried about perception, look at this way. Steam had 62 million DAU back in 2020 and I shudder to think what MAU is currently. 99.99% of these people have never heard of you or any places you visit to promote your games. And a tiny part of them might like the game enough so that they'll buy it because psychologically "50% off" looks good. Moreover, zero people that have already purchased the game will see that it's on sale, except the ones that have it on their wishlists.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

But I have to create graphics for units. Not a simple icon. And I like to show the attack, armor and how much men rating of that unit.
https://youtu.be/jdYjE6uzT10
Foe example gold for strong, silver for average, bronze for weak.
Most important that it has to be well recognized and clearly visible.

Another problem I won 166 battles and lost 37. But I only own the 15% of the map. On the easiest difficulty.

 

[Hag]

Haven't coded much since last summer, but did think about it and came to realize how bad my C was. I usually considered all the project files as a single namespace and tried to keep stuff ordered inside structs, passing them around as needed. It was either that or global vars, and everybody knows it's bad practice. After reading a bit the legendary K&R book, I had a breakthrough and realized each .c file was its own little black box, where local static variables or functions can implement complex functionalities, only exposing a few relevant functions to the outer program. It's easier and more ordered. Probably also reduces the risk of weird side effects when you fuck up.

Gives me a good reason to rewrite all my tangled mess.

 

[agris]

Another update from a nerd

You aren't me.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Making sound is also important and difficult. https://youtu.be/SHrjZdePpXM
But the game is more enjoyable, I confess.