Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Moaning_Clock]

Does anyone else have any advice for other good passion project working practices for people who have jobs in a similar domain and find themselves feeling burnt out juggling the two at the same time?

I only did updates for months ... huh, I still do. It's not even feeling burnt out, I just need uninterupted time to get something going. Do a gamejam - maybe built on it afterwards. I think the biggest roadblock is to start in a way that you have something tangible even if it is small. Because then a longer break doesn't affect you as much. At least that's the case for myself.

In your specific case I would just dedicate a certain amount of time in a week for the game (maybe waking up half an hour earlier or do 2 hours on a Sunday, just something which you can repeat). And if you want to be done in a reasonable amount of time: scope as much down as possible. Cut like 75% of the game and make a big nice-to-have-list. Or just work on it for 20 years and be the next Grimwah.

 

[Justinian]

Getting into a steady work place. I decided to work on fun stuff like attacks first to build enthusiasm and it seems to be working. And actually it works out anyway since getting the base gameplay to feel good is the most important part early in development.

Hopefully there will be something playable by the end of next week.

Spoiler

 

[Nathaniel3W]

The last time I posted here I was having problems with the wheat fields. They were fun to walk through, but they caused a slowdown because of the sheer number of interactive foliage actors on screen. I roughly doubled the length and width covered by a cluster of wheat, so was able to bring the count down to 1/4 while keeping the same density and the effect is pretty much the same. Thanks for all of your suggestions.

I've been adding some other stuff. I wanted the areas to have more unique enemies so I made a few.

The frog, crab, and tortoise are all new. The bird is mostly a recolor of another sprite. The crab and tortoise share a new leveled loot table. Right now monster shells can only be sold for money, but in the future I might add some quests or crafting recipes for them. The frog uses goblin loot tables.

I've been a little concerned that maybe the enemies are too cute. The player might feel bad about killing them. I hope not. Maybe the tortoise needs a spiky shell, at least on higher-level variants.

Today I've been trying to get the look right for this level.

It's called Gloomwood. Enemies will be undead, bats, wolves, pumpkins, and bandits. I'll add some fog volumes among the trees. Not sure what else it needs. Maybe some lamps along some of the paths. I'll keep working and give it some thought.

Did I post this here?

I thought the town of Gearbridge needed something unique. If I had more time and resources I might add more stuff. This will do for now.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

The gear thing looks really cool

 

[Zeusington]

I thought the town of Gearbridge needed something unique. If I had more time and resources I might add more stuff. This will do for now.

My feedback here is kinda general regarding what I can see for your whole game, not just this part. It definitely looks competent on a technical level and the combat looks like FF12 but it doesn't waste your time, which is a good thing imho.

What kinda rubs me wrong is that your store page leads with "The borders of reality start to crumble as an unseen threat breaks its way into the world" and some other rhetoric it doesn't really indicate visually. It really just looks like a bunch of dudes whacking flora and fauna because they can. I'm all for whacking monsters with misfits, but a looming threat needs presence lest it just sounds like marketing. Maybe some baddies / vfx with a distinct look marking them as the looming threat? It'd be a good way to indicate "oh SHIT we gotta WHACK THAT" without being too heavy-handed. Aesthetic choices like that are better done sooner rather than later so give it a thought.

 

[Hobknobling]

The last time I posted here I was having problems with the wheat fields. They were fun to walk through, but they caused a slowdown because of the sheer number of interactive foliage actors on screen. I roughly doubled the length and width covered by a cluster of wheat, so was able to bring the count down to 1/4 while keeping the same density and the effect is pretty much the same. Thanks for all of your suggestions.

I've been adding some other stuff. I wanted the areas to have more unique enemies so I made a few.

The frog, crab, and tortoise are all new. The bird is mostly a recolor of another sprite. The crab and tortoise share a new leveled loot table. Right now monster shells can only be sold for money, but in the future I might add some quests or crafting recipes for them. The frog uses goblin loot tables.

I've been a little concerned that maybe the enemies are too cute. The player might feel bad about killing them. I hope not. Maybe the tortoise needs a spiky shell, at least on higher-level variants.

Today I've been trying to get the look right for this level.

It's called Gloomwood. Enemies will be undead, bats, wolves, pumpkins, and bandits. I'll add some fog volumes among the trees. Not sure what else it needs. Maybe some lamps along some of the paths. I'll keep working and give it some thought.

Did I post this here?

I thought the town of Gearbridge needed something unique. If I had more time and resources I might add more stuff. This will do for now.

The font and the health bar in the combat screen clashes with the art style and the character's head needs more work. I know this is work in progress, but just to make sure you know since most people won't give you proper feedback in game development communities.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I thought the town of Gearbridge needed something unique. If I had more time and resources I might add more stuff. This will do for now.

My feedback here is kinda general regarding what I can see for your whole game, not just this part. It definitely looks competent on a technical level and the combat looks like FF12 but it doesn't waste your time, which is a good thing imho.

What kinda rubs me wrong is that your store page leads with "The borders of reality start to crumble as an unseen threat breaks its way into the world" and some other rhetoric it doesn't really indicate visually. It really just looks like a bunch of dudes whacking flora and fauna because they can. I'm all for whacking monsters with misfits, but a looming threat needs presence lest it just sounds like marketing. Maybe some baddies / vfx with a distinct look marking them as the looming threat? It'd be a good way to indicate "oh SHIT we gotta WHACK THAT" without being too heavy-handed. Aesthetic choices like that are better done sooner rather than later so give it a thought.

Unfortunately, that actually is a bunch of marketing speech. I put that trailer together over a year ago when I had just the beginning of a procgen campaign and hadn't even started working on the story campaign. I need to make a new trailer now that I'm working on the main campaign. I'll definitely give some thought to unique/tougher enemies, especially the enemies behind the whole plot. Thanks for the feedback!

The last time I posted here I was having problems with the wheat fields. They were fun to walk through, but they caused a slowdown because of the sheer number of interactive foliage actors on screen. I roughly doubled the length and width covered by a cluster of wheat, so was able to bring the count down to 1/4 while keeping the same density and the effect is pretty much the same. Thanks for all of your suggestions.

I've been adding some other stuff. I wanted the areas to have more unique enemies so I made a few.

The frog, crab, and tortoise are all new. The bird is mostly a recolor of another sprite. The crab and tortoise share a new leveled loot table. Right now monster shells can only be sold for money, but in the future I might add some quests or crafting recipes for them. The frog uses goblin loot tables.

I've been a little concerned that maybe the enemies are too cute. The player might feel bad about killing them. I hope not. Maybe the tortoise needs a spiky shell, at least on higher-level variants.

Today I've been trying to get the look right for this level.

It's called Gloomwood. Enemies will be undead, bats, wolves, pumpkins, and bandits. I'll add some fog volumes among the trees. Not sure what else it needs. Maybe some lamps along some of the paths. I'll keep working and give it some thought.

Did I post this here?

I thought the town of Gearbridge needed something unique. If I had more time and resources I might add more stuff. This will do for now.

The font and the health bar in the combat screen clashes with the art style and the character's head needs more work. I know this is work in progress, but just to make sure you know since most people won't give you proper feedback in game development communities.

Thanks for the feedback! I based them off of FFXII's health bars.

FFXII's user interface is a lot more colorful than mine, which probably works better with the more colorful characters. My user interface is based on Octopath Traveler, which is mostly black and white. (I'm just now noticing this: I don't know what language Treffler, Angriff, and Aktion are. I just grabbed this from the internet somewhere.) Should I make my HP bars less colorful to match the rest of my UI? Or when you say it clashes with the art style, do you think it would look better more pixelated? Bigger? Bigger would be fine, except that we're actually looking at a zoomed-in and clipped screenshot, and with a full party of 7 and lots of enemies on the screen it can get kind of chaotic.

If I'm going to rework the HP bars, I was thinking of doing something else. I need to include character level somewhere. I was thinking of writing the character level next to the character/enemy name.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

The gear thing looks really cool

Thanks! It's a geodesic sphere from Blender with two materials. There's a big gear spinning counter-clockwise and a small gear spinning faster clockwise. I split the sphere where I wanted the gears to be, and then expanded the faces slightly so that the teeth will overlap.

 

[baboogy]

Does anyone else have any advice for other good passion project working practices for people who have jobs in a similar domain and find themselves feeling burnt out juggling the two at the same time?

I had to work on a project with a rather strict deadline alongside a day job with even worse deadlines.

Short-term advice: break things down into tasks you can finish in an hour or two.
Long-term advice: watch your energy and trim as much fat as possible to finish the project before you lose interest. Otherwise, you're fucked.

Does anyone else have any advice for other good passion project working practices for people who have jobs in a similar domain and find themselves feeling burnt out juggling the two at the same time?

I only did updates for months ... huh, I still do. It's not even feeling burnt out, I just need uninterupted time to get something going. Do a gamejam - maybe built on it afterwards. I think the biggest roadblock is to start in a way that you have something tangible even if it is small. Because then a longer break doesn't affect you as much. At least that's the case for myself.

In your specific case I would just dedicate a certain amount of time in a week for the game (maybe waking up half an hour earlier or do 2 hours on a Sunday, just something which you can repeat). And if you want to be done in a reasonable amount of time: scope as much down as possible. Cut like 75% of the game and make a big nice-to-have-list. Or just work on it for 20 years and be the next Grimwah.

Thanks, the scoping down is something I've already accepted as a must do. Have cut the scope from what I originally set out to do more than once now, really trying to focus on making the essentials feel as good as I can make them. It'll be something to build off of.

 

[Bad Sector]

Short-term advice: break things down into tasks you can finish in an hour or two.
Long-term advice: watch your energy and trim as much fat as possible to finish the project before you lose interest. Otherwise, you're fucked.

Man, based on past experiences, for the sort of (most of) the games i'd want to make i'd need to be trimming through the bone to avoid losing interest :-P

 

[PlayerEmers]

Started learning some godot. Going to mess around with it and prototype something... probably something top-down... IDK
What i know for sure is that i need to stop procrastinating and actually do something.

 

[rap2h]

Started learning some godot. Going to mess around with it and prototype something... probably something top-down... IDK
What i know for sure is that i need to stop procrastinating and actually do something.

I randomly clicked on your itch link and tried rockitcarnage, I like it!

 

[PlayerEmers]

Started learning some godot. Going to mess around with it and prototype something... probably something top-down... IDK
What i know for sure is that i need to stop procrastinating and actually do something.

I randomly clicked on your itch link and tried rockitcarnage, I like it!

ty
I abandoned with because at the time I though a speeding type of platformer was not a good match for shooting mechanics + physics based platforming skills
But recently Laika got released and for the looks of it, it did a good job.

Might come back to it but my mind for now is set in other style of games

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Short-term advice: break things down into tasks you can finish in an hour or two.
Long-term advice: watch your energy and trim as much fat as possible to finish the project before you lose interest. Otherwise, you're fucked.

Man, based on past experiences, for the sort of (most of) the games i'd want to make i'd need to be trimming through the bone to avoid losing interest :-P

Sometimes big projects can be broken down into several smaller games that work as stepping stones towards the original goal.

I don't think it's a good example but think of trying to tackle Daggerfall on your own by starting with a pure dungeon crawler and building the open world in a sequel.

IMO, getting shit done and seeing the results is the best way to maintain interest, and the "less is more" rule is king here.

 

[Yuber]

I am trying to make a 4X AI that is not cheating with same capabilities as the human player. But if I make a map with much ocean and the AI is done discovering their starter continent it can happen that it is traveling many many turns through the ocean trying to find a new continent.

I guess it is realistic but it can make the AI take forever to find other players.

 

[Tavernking]

I am trying to make a 4X AI that is not cheating with same capabilities as the human player. But if I make a map with much ocean and the AI is done discovering their starter continent it can happen that it is traveling many many turns through the ocean trying to find a new continent.

I guess it is realistic but it can make the AI take forever to find other players.

Yeah, why change it given your mission is not to let the AI cheat?

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

I am trying to make a 4X AI that is not cheating with same capabilities as the human player. But if I make a map with much ocean and the AI is done discovering their starter continent it can happen that it is traveling many many turns through the ocean trying to find a new continent.

I guess it is realistic but it can make the AI take forever to find other players.

Could you make it search smarter? It would not be cheating to check more likely places first.

 

[MF]

Yeah, Yuber just draw a circle in the center (or an oval with the minor axis as phi if the map isn't square) and set a preference for targets on or near the outline of that circle. It's what humans do subconsciously and it's also the likeliest place for land tile aggregation if you're generating it minesweeper style.

 

[ciox]

The last time I posted here I was having problems with the wheat fields. They were fun to walk through, but they caused a slowdown because of the sheer number of interactive foliage actors on screen. I roughly doubled the length and width covered by a cluster of wheat, so was able to bring the count down to 1/4 while keeping the same density and the effect is pretty much the same. Thanks for all of your suggestions.

I've been adding some other stuff. I wanted the areas to have more unique enemies so I made a few.

The frog, crab, and tortoise are all new. The bird is mostly a recolor of another sprite. The crab and tortoise share a new leveled loot table. Right now monster shells can only be sold for money, but in the future I might add some quests or crafting recipes for them. The frog uses goblin loot tables.

I've been a little concerned that maybe the enemies are too cute. The player might feel bad about killing them. I hope not. Maybe the tortoise needs a spiky shell, at least on higher-level variants.

Today I've been trying to get the look right for this level.

It's called Gloomwood. Enemies will be undead, bats, wolves, pumpkins, and bandits. I'll add some fog volumes among the trees. Not sure what else it needs. Maybe some lamps along some of the paths. I'll keep working and give it some thought.

Did I post this here?

I thought the town of Gearbridge needed something unique. If I had more time and resources I might add more stuff. This will do for now.

Since you're also on UDK, you could maybe look into spline loft actors, they can be used to make nice-looking roads, paths, rails, and other winding things, since right now it seems you use landscape painting for that. It works nearly as good as the spline meshes in UE4 and later.
The setup takes a little while to figure out, but there are tutorials. https://docs.unrealengine.com/udk/Three/UsingSplineLoftActors.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=0OlHcOUWfsU

 

[GoblinGrotto]

I am trying to make a 4X AI that is not cheating with same capabilities as the human player. But if I make a map with much ocean and the AI is done discovering their starter continent it can happen that it is traveling many many turns through the ocean trying to find a new continent.

I don't think the zig zag pattern represent how a player would travel. Probably should make it pick direction and have it somewhat keep to it for some turns.

Also I don't mind an AI cheating as long as it's not too blatant and in the player face. I'd rather have an AI provide an interesting challenge than be "human" like.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I am trying to make a 4X AI that is not cheating with same capabilities as the human player. But if I make a map with much ocean and the AI is done discovering their starter continent it can happen that it is traveling many many turns through the ocean trying to find a new continent.

I guess it is realistic but it can make the AI take forever to find other players.

Doesn't the problem come from AI having too short line of sight? Increase seeing radius for both player and AI and check what happens.

 

[Justinian]

wasted all day but finally found a fairly easy way to do chain lightning. Unfortunately I will be limited in what I can do for the chaining sprite since I have to stretch it (for whatever reason, the tiling sprite function doesn't have a length you can set).

Spoiler

 

[what am i doing]

I am trying to make a 4X AI that is not cheating with same capabilities as the human player. But if I make a map with much ocean and the AI is done discovering their starter continent it can happen that it is traveling many many turns through the ocean trying to find a new continent.

I guess it is realistic but it can make the AI take forever to find other players.

I know that looks like a dumb path to take, but in fairness, that kind of pattern can happen in a 4X even as a human player. You go one way, you don't find anything. Maybe you could keep going... or maybe you turn around and start searching in another direction. I think the only problem here is that it sometimes travels too close to known areas - arrow 4 passes pretty close by the end of arrow 1, arrow 5 passes by land that's presumably already known, and arrow 9 returns to an area that's been visited already. I would suggest that when it's on "exploration" mode (as opposed to just trying to traverse the ocean to a known location) it should avoid setting locations that are within a given distance from already-visited locations as its next area to check.

Basically, I think doubling back should be ok, it should just spread its targets out more.

 

[ciox]

This might be interesting when it comes to the idea of searching with limited information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lévy_flight_foraging_hypothesis
Anyway I'm pretty sure the solution is for the AI to use more and more probes to search, based on what its resources allow, think hiring more heroes in Heroes 3 to explore the map faster.

 

[what am i doing]

Tried integrating SMAA to smooth the borders between individual tlies and reduce the amount of minor pixel extrusions that would occur where small landmass features turned into one visible pixel when viewed at a distance. SMAA did not help; it produced no visible change and on particularly low settings (such as depth-based edges) would generate a lot of "sparkling" visual artifacts. Wasn't any good so I took it out (I don't think SMAA is a bad form of anti-aliasing; it just wasn't what I needed). So instead I decided to try turning on multisampling, which I'd initially avoided because it supposedly is one of the most performance-taxing forms of AA, only behind supersampling. On integrating it I found that not only did it smooth the borders and eliminate tiny artifacts, but it didn't make any major difference in frame time (8 samples, which was the maximum my weak laptop GPU will support); actually it had less of an impact than SMAA. Maybe because I'm not doing deferred rendering (which supposedly makes it much harder for the GPU to determine which parts of the scene actually require multisampling and negate the performance benefits it offers relative to SSAA), and maybe it's also partly due to the way the scene & geometry is laid out.