/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

www.newgrounds.com

/r/webgames

oh, and kongregate, of course

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>>22922

Nope HTML5 is rather 'penetrated'. Especially with webasm on the horizon and emscriptens asm.js optimizations that can convert C SDL into WebGL and similar web technologies for performant graphics.

If you really want something like Flash, you're probably better off with OpenFL + its Starling port.

>>31781

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_devil_is_in_the_detail

>>31788

the devil is in the [lack of] detail

Here are some things that I think instantly make your game better, and it shows to anyone considering your game:

>Effort put into the assets

In other words, try not to have your game have shitty repetitive music, grating sound effects, pixelshit graphics, mobileshit graphics, or rip your graphics from elsewhere (unoriginal graphics, Unity store shit). The game should try to be unique and stand on its own.

>Don't use over-extravagant animations for everything

By this I mean don't do shit that looks like it would be in an old licensed Barbie game, a mobile game, or some other shovelware. Really, you can look at a lot of trash games for examples of what NOT to do, and this seems to be a common one. It's a dead giveaway that you're playing literal shovelware.

>A nice, consistent art style and theme

Whether it's cartoony, anime, abstract, realistic, or whatever, there shouldn't be anything that looks out of place unless it is expressly meant to be out of place. Also goes back to original graphics.

>Attention to contrast/color theory

For example, in a platformer, the foreground should be distinct from the background. A player should be able to take a quick glance at the screen and tell what can be interacted with and what can't, and in what ways. Thought should be put into how the game looks in screenshots; what is the general tone of the game, or the particular level, scene, etc? How easy is it to see or miss things during play?

>Special attention paid to controls

How the game feels is really important to if the game is fun or not. If the controls are awful, you might have a game that is only fun at specific moments in the game and shit everywhere else, like certain 3d Sonic games. Key configuration/gamepad binding built in is good too, particularly if it works with whatever you throw at it.

>Bugs have been removed and the game is stable

Some bugs are okay if they are fun and don't break the game, but everything else must be fixed. If you can find a bug almost immediately when playing blind, then you just know the gPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>31826

Thanks, this is exactly the kind of stuff I had in mind.

>>31317

you should, tho. you've been working on it for years, haven't you? So what's up with the rare progress?

>>31406

no, im not the op, im talking about the 3d city.

>>29686

>Not game dev

Levels are in games

https://www.indeed.com/q-Video-Game-Level-Designer-jobs.html

>Plenty of positions in game dev focusing specifically on level design

Are you retarded?

>>29152

>MAINLY LEVEL DESIGNERS/ WRITERS

Learn good PCG OP, and you'll have an infinitude of levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation

>>31813

http://pcg.wikidot.com/

>>31497

>lol why, what kind of game is it?

Forgot I made that post. Back then, the game was raw. The engine is done now. I'm doing stages, art, and sound now. An OST isn't really important. Sound effects are. I'm inept in all these things so it's taking a long time. It's a shmup.

What DAW to use that's free, preferably open source that will let me write music using actual musical notation?

I have used pirated stuff before, Cakewalk Sonar from memory with a bunch of VSTs that were pirated, but I would much prefer to do everything legit.

>>31738

maybe Musescore? It's for producing sheet music

>>29066

>discussion about tools that can be used to make games are not gamedev

Holy shit youre retarded

>>29059

SQLite is usually used for an offline database

Woah, do not allow your database to be connected to in any way freely. That's begging to get fucking ruined. Create a server that communicates in some well-defined API (Protocol Buffers, Cap'n Proto, and homemade JSON are good choices), and use your database from that. There are way too many things a raw database connection can do to trust that. You should only expose the absolutely most limited functionality necessary.

That, and raw database queries are brittle. You can make changes to your database while still maintaining a stable frontend API if you use a server to broker your data. If you allow raw database connection, your API will be impossible to keep stable. This also moves all the server logic from the server side into your client side, which you don't want.

If your concern is "TCP messaging for various front ends", then bypass that shit entirely and use a proper message serialization library like protobuf.

Again, if you can access your database directly from the internet, you're doing it very fucking wrong.

>>29066

Okay, so on a distributed RPG on a website that lets you play, how is MySQL not part of game dev? Or for that matter, lets say learning Canvas for the game UI?

Please kys.

Systems engineering is absolutely salient if your making a game that isn't a stupid simple 2d platformer for one player.

Totally depends on what type of game you're making, what language you're using, and everything else. Your Op is utterly useless to garner any help.

Are you making a MMO type thing? Is it being handled by a dynamic back end like PHP/Python(Flask)/Node(Express)? How often does your volatile data change? You might want to use Memcached for your data. Is your client using something like Canvas/JS for the UI? Are you using Ajax for something like Websockets for multiplayer interactions?

etc.

>Have 33x33 mesh, generate 2D vector values randomly on each point

>Interpolate between 4 corners to generate values

But apparently this isn't Perlin Noise unless you take surface normals?

>>31741

Specifically for it to be classed as "perlin" noise you need to calculate a dot product (surface normal I guess is one way to say it) and interpolate.

I'm completely new to procedural generation but I'd like to use it to generate dungeons. I have no idea how to start, so I was wondering if there were any good examples or tutorials for starting with procedural generation

>>31744

Depends on what kind of game and what kind of dungeons you are making. If you're interested in minecraft-style generation, look at http://accidentalnoise.sourceforge.net/minecraftworlds.html

If you're interested in Daggerfall-style dungeons: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Dungeons

If you're after something nethack-style: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AAdonaac/20150903/252889/Procedural_Dungeon_Generation_Algorithm.php

And finally, there's also the classic Legend of Zelda style, which doesn't require too much explanation.

>>31760

Thanks for the links, the nethack one looks very promising!

Beta testing is probably the best option. There's a lot more to it than tweaking numbers though. Unit X might be superior when played a certain way against Unit Y, unless Unit Y uses Z strategy. Shit's complicated. Probably best to tweak as best as you can, and just hope nobody finds an exploit. If they do, you're gonna end up in the whole nerf/buff cycle. Also there's no need for 100% balance, it just doesn't need to be terribly unbalanced. People will develop strategies to counter minor unbalances.

>>31563

How would I get the initial balance right? Or is it simply a matter of setting some "finger in the air" numbers and just tweak like crazy for 100's of games? Balance is extremely important to my game, so I want to try and be scientific about it. I know that in the end gameplay and experience wins over statistically accurate models, but if my game has 1000's of gameplay options, I think that doing this statistically will cover more scenarios quicker than just tweaking as I beta test.

I doubt there's a formula you can use to ensure the initial figures are balanced. Too many variables to consider. I think the only real automated solution would be AI vs AI testing. But AI would not play the same way as humans.

>>31560

>I am thinking I could run game move simulations in the spreadsheet?

Absolutely. Excel/VBA is a very good fit for what you are talking about.

I've seen people taking a specific part of the throwing random action a million time by a CPU. They usually save the result in a hash table in which they key is a list of action/item/card... used in order in the test and look toward the ratio of success/failure by each key. It's extremly effective for card game apparently.

Sometime, when there's no absolute solution, you can only find your answer by doing empirical test.

>>31421

I'll give a response some time soon, but don,t have the time to invest in a decent reply right now.

>>31448

Whenever man, I'm not going anywhere. I appreciate the time you've already given me.

>>31421

In all honesty, we've approached the limit of complexity that a AAA studio's money-handlers are going to approve of funding. If you implement what you've got right now as a 3D simulation (using only x and y coords for movement), you'll have something special that non-technical people can admire. If you can find any nice assets to put over said simulation, all the better.

If you want to make it far more complex, however, here are some more considerations.

Does a car's position from point A to point B factor into lane switching? (ie, can two cars be side by side, restricting lane switching?) If so, can cars collide by switching lanes into occupied positions?

If a car brakes faster than the one behind it, is there a collision?

If there is a collision, how does this effect path finding? (ie will cars all get in another lane to avoid the lane with the collision?)

You describe the lane-switching logic as if the people will always make good decisions. Is there some percentage chance a person will make a bad choice?

What of stop signs and lights?

This could keep going, unfortunately.

>>31421

This is too complicated to start out with. There's a reason why the early Sim City games didn't have this kind of thing. Make a graph of interconnected intersections. Each path has a capacity of X cars based on various factors. Cars will try to path along the intersections to their destination. Each tick, cars will offload from one path to another in FIFO order. Then you can work on the other parts of the game.

use the ppu and apu core from a nes emulator but with modern control logic sans fpu arithmetic.

>>28134

nasir did it 30 years ago on an apple IIl

>>18753

I would accept 8 bit for art style, but I would avoid imposing limitations of the 8 bit era if it meant a game would be worse off.

However, there can be things learned about keeping code compact in genreal by learning why nintendo programmed games the way they did in the 8 bit era.

>>28134

Yes, in fact it looks like all modern NES development is done by one-man teams

I hope this isn't too off-topic, so let me shorten it.

tl;dr

How do you deal with the psychological demands involved in developing games?

Do you have psychological problems? If so, what have you done to mitigate them?

shameless self bump

>>31526

/agdg/ would have more than a handful of released games if we knew the answer to that.

>>31525

I haven't released a game myself, but here's my two cents on how to deal with psychological problems from my experience:

Pretend you don't have these psychological problems. Try to avoid acknowledging them and just try to live life as if you're perfectly normal. And whatever you do, don't treat the psychological issues as some kind of disability.

Telling yourself; "I can't do X, because I'm too depressed/anxious/whatever" will only lead to failure.

Good luck with your game!

>>31526

i´m going to throw a hunch and say to use that on your game. Similar to what Neverending Nightmares dev had done. Try to convert that issue onto the game as a premise, mechanic or whatever and you might be able to do something different.

>>30128

>>If you don't start with C it will be harder for you to learn how to manage memory

What you really mean is ASM, and on platforms such as Gameboy or Sega Genesis.

That's when you really start to do some crazy shit for memory management.

>>31488

This meme needs to die.

Managing memory in C or C++ is easy if you take the time to learn how to do it.

And if you're making a game, you should be programming your own memory allocator anyway.

And that means conforming to the C++ STL Allocator model so that you can use the STL containers.

If you're only interested in PC, your own allocator isn't as important. But the second you need to do Network programming, Graphics programming (with OpenGL or some such), or need to be able to debug your own fucking code with a debugger, you damn well better be able to handle memory.

Otherwise, every programming problem you come across will become a question of "what existing library can I leverage?", and you'll forget how to be a fucking programmer.

This is like telling a driver that they don't need to worry about petrol.

>>31517

>"what existing library can I leverage?", and you'll forget how to be a fucking programmer.

haha sounds like a suit

>>31537

You know it

>>31437

Sounds like typical ideaguy shit driven by "I want dat porn".

>>31441

It's not, believe me

Your ideas are meta-tier unless you're already done or halfway in progress with storylines/routes manuscript and designs.

Games shouldn't be excessively "featureful" and if it is then it's considered as a sign that there is nothing holding everything together - a sign of weak story. The end.

A simple and compelling slice of life without using magic can top a "story with all that complicated magic nonsense chuunibyou bells and whistles".

>a game without game over

How?

A VN with 3D is just overkill.

If you are serious about 3D just do some yandere school clone or a pokemon-level of polygons (3D chibi).

I hope you're not that "babbys first dev" who just mixes everything good unders the sun into the blender. A game must be compelling not attention-grabbing.

Just use live2D.

Good luck.

So you can't provide good writing, grammar or spelling, you can't provide the art, what do you provide? Are you actually good at programming?

>>31445

>good at programming

You don't need such thing for porn game.

I posted a couple ideas to >>31374. Probably best to keep all the ideas in that thread.

Got an amazing concept for a game that seems doable. Mods please anchor this thread even though board's super slow lol

>like world of warcraft

Well, figuring out how to make a server and database would be high up on the list of you want to make an MMO of any style.