Games what "we" wrote
  • I want to do a game. I’ve got no time, and likely to leave it when the real work happens of prepping it into some kind of final product. What’s best for this doomed project? I kind of want Unreal but have read that’s not good for small teams / single devs so Unity?

    I’ll have to learn either C# or C++ anyway. Suppose C# is going to be easier and I’m not going to be pushing either engine with awesome graphics or anything.

    The C++ in Unreal is fairly safe though isn’t it? It’s got some sort of garbage collection?
  • acemuzzy
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    Unity likely easier than Unreal.  And is C#.

    But there are other good options if you're thinking 2d.  (Though Unity does 2d as well as 3d these days.)
  • Likely 3D models in fixed 2D perspective, like Ori.

    Got to work out the asset creation pipeline first. Quite interested in the Dead Cells style - rendering primitive 3D into sprites and touching them up. If I can get some version of that up and running then 2D. If not, then 3D.

    Going to be messing around in Blender for a few weeks getting that sorted (or not).
  • Unity is easy enough that even i managed to make a game in it. However i don't look at anything else any more as i don't have the brain capacity to learn something different so i'm not really up to date with everything, but i still think it sits in a good sweet spot of plenty of free stuff up front, and capable of being used for all types of games, and 'easy' to get to grips with.
    "Like i said, context is missing."
    http://ssgg.uk
  • I too vote for Unity. 
    Lately I half finished a tutorial to make an RTS camera. Tutorial video is 17 minutes or so. Took me a full two weeks to get that far. Sigh.....
    http://horganphoto.com My STILL under construction website
    PSN : superflyninja
  • For ease of use, Unity.
    For high end graphics and quality of marketplace assets, Unreal.

    For single person, newbie devs - definitely Unity.
  • Completed the RTS camera tutorial at the weekend. Yes! Even made a start on ANOTHER tutorial to lay out a nice hex grid. 
    However I wanted to add some pitch tilt control on the camera. Which is fine. But I want to limit the tilt amount. Works fine if rotating up (so camera looking down toward ground) but its not working in the opposite direction. Fucking quaternions! I forgot how much I dislike this sort of thing.
    http://horganphoto.com My STILL under construction website
    PSN : superflyninja
  • Sounds like:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock  ?

    tl;dr - store pitch/yaw/roll as floats in your controller, clamp the pitch amount between the values, then update camera transform rotation from the euler angles you have.
    HDRP base assets have a decent little camera controller class "\Base HDRP Assets\Scripts\SimpleCameraController.cs"  for reference
    Spoiler:

    So in the Update() func, after all the key abd mouse handling, clamp m_TargetCameraState.pitch values to the range you want.
  • Nice thanks, Ill take a look when I get some time!
    http://horganphoto.com My STILL under construction website
    PSN : superflyninja
  • What I've been working on:

    I've been working on a 2D game whose concept originally stemmed from The Edge's magazine's 'Do Not Harm' competition. I only had the idea after the competition had closed so didn't work on it for a while, and I also knew the amount and quality of graphical and audio artefacts would be too much for me to do.

    I keep going back to it to try to find an approach that is within my capabilities and not too time consuming.  So I went back to it last year and also thought that turning it into a racing game would reduce the landscape required (keep going round in laps and as focussed more on the other racers scenary could take a back seat). Whilst I enjoyed working on the AI having got a lap working it became clear it was too slow and therefore not enjoyable. 

    Then after playing Minecraft I wondered whether a blocky approach to the graphics may be possible. I'm still working on it and as expected it is taking time, and may be too much/too hard (also trying to fit at least a semblance of narrative to it). Still I have a tutorial (too hard at the mo) and some limited gameplay.

    New Game:

    Whilst playing on my iPad an advert for a simple but fun looking game appeared, which I downloaded (I think it may have been called Color Bump). It was fun but so many adverts. It also seemed like it would be easy to make. So as a quick distraction I started to try and recreate it, but found it boring and decided maybe the game I'd played had kept interest as the prevalence of adverts always left me wanting/waiting for another level to try.

    Anyways, I changed the game to a puzzle type affair, whilst keeping the concept of pushing cubes that I appreciated in the game.

    It just uses cubes, spheres, lighting and the default physics engine so wasn't too hard to do (I would guess at a few months - but looking at the date I created the initial project the first attempt was started in December last year - however I was predominantly working on the 'do not harm' game in my free time and only recently got into working on this new one).

    Initial plan was for it to be released on just Android as I wasn't too sure how original the concept is and thought maybe it would get rejected in the review process. But this week it has been approved on iOS and today on Android so here are the links:

    Promo Vid:


    As it was a small pleasant distraction -currently free, with no adverts, no analytics or tracking.

    iOS:
    https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/red-white-and-blue-blocks/id1580281463

    Android:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bleatbleat.redwhiteandblueblocks
  • acemuzzy
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    Great stuff! Installed!
  • Yay! Installed
    "Like i said, context is missing."
    http://ssgg.uk
  • Nice one, installed!
    http://horganphoto.com My STILL under construction website
    PSN : superflyninja
  • I'll have a play with this later, sounds good.
  • Thanks for the comments :-)

    'Boom' I did appreciate & laugh at the comment Drew (which has now turned invisible), went away for a long weekend so was unable to respond.

    To avoid a tutorial the early levels are very easy, the first is to give the player a chance to grasp/play with the controls and realise collecting blue blocks is the way to complete a level. Then a slow introduction to the other mechanics.

    Level 4 which features a simple maze of exploding blocks was introduced after watching 3 or 4 people play the game and realising most were swiping to move the ball and this level hopefully wouldn't work with the swipe approach. It seems to have worked from what I've seen (sample size of 2 ;-). It hasn't solved the problem of someone trying to drag the ball around, but felt it was unlikely many people who play games on their phone/tablet would try to use that control scheme due to the (imo) obvious lag between the drag and ball responding.

    In case interesting for anyone writing for mobile devices - the things that caught me out near the end of development were the vast array of different aspect ratios on mobile devices (ended up writing a script to adjust the camera view to ensure the width/height of the level was within the camera's field of view). Followed by a realisation that notches and curved corners were a thing, which although not too hard to fix felt annoying at the time.
  • I have a notch, so thanks.
  • To test joystick input for twin stick gamepads I've created a little Twin-Stick Shooter. 

    It's got an on-line high score table, so you can enter your name at the end of the game, the top ten player's names are displayed at the Game Over Screen. (note- not sure this always works, but it seems to have been reliable recently).

    It's playable here (works in Firefox, and hopefully most browsers, (Safari - to get controller to be detected it seems to need to be plugged in after the web-page has loaded - so if already plugged in - once game has loaded unplug controller and plug back in)):

    https://www.bleatbleat.com/TwinStickShooter/twinstick/index.html

    Instructions :
    Need a joypad (e.g. PS4 controller (tested) or Xbox Controller) connected to PC.
    As Joypads seem to have different mappings the first thing to do is respond to requests to move appropriate joysticks and press buttons. If the same axis is detected for horizontal/vertical, then reload the page and try again.

    On a PS4 controller the X button isn't detected, so use the O button, the bottom right shoulder trigger also isn't detected so use top right shoulder trigger.

    Standard twinstick shooter controls. However there's also a slow down meter at the top, when charged (yellow or green) then pressing the 'Slow Down' button slows down time while button depressed and slow down meter not depleted.

    Extra Life every 250 points.

    Otherwise just shoot everything, aside from the green power-ups that can be collected to boost shooting speed temporarily.
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    Nice. Had to unplug and replug the 360clone pad I have but it worked in Chrome (Windows 10)

    Forgot about the slowdown button!!  :)
    Holding the wrong end of the stick since 2009.
  • Chrome Windows 10 works dandy with an Xbox One controller.
  • Thanks for trying the game and feeding back. It's good to hear it working with Xbox controllers.

    I think the having to unplug, then reconnect the controller on some browsers is related to a security feature on the browser. I've seen a suggestion that the web-page on these browsers shouldn't make any calls to get the input values on the controller until it has been first detected by the browser. When I have time I'll try a change requesting the player 'waggles' the joypad's joystick prior to the WebGL code starting the procedure that checks input.
  • acemuzzy
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    So unity have merged with a malware company. Hmm...

    Maybe I should try Godot. Not that I'm doing any gamedec atm though! Guess I need to get back into coding in general though!!
  • acemuzzy
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    This is getting quite the backlash on the old socials

    Hadn't realised the current boss is former EA CxO. Send a dick. Plus their shares have talked 60% in a year. Oops.
  • Sigh, I miss trying to make games. Never have enough time to dedicate though.
    http://horganphoto.com My STILL under construction website
    PSN : superflyninja
  • dynamiteReady
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    acemuzzy wrote:
    Maybe I should try Godot...

    Thoroughly recommend it. The C# API has come on nicely too, though I like the Godot scripting language.

    Might be worth waiting for the official version of 4 to drop, which I'm pretty sure will find a lot of professional traction. 
    It will have feature parity with Unity apparently. But I'm happy enough with v3.

    Edit - That said, as you're into Rust, you could see what state Amethyst is in. The docs suggest it has a nice programming model (somekind of eventbus thing), but there's some thought work associated with graphics processing, as the renderer is a separate component. 

    And I don't think the project has a UI yet - https://amethyst.rs/
    "I didn't get it. BUUUUUUUUUUUT, you fucking do your thing." - Roujin
    Ninty Code: SW-7904-0771-0996
  • gamerluke wrote:
    What I've been working on: I've been working on a 2D game whose concept originally stemmed from The Edge's magazine's 'Do Not Harm' competition. I only had the idea after the competition had closed so didn't work on it for a while, and I also knew the amount and quality of graphical and audio artefacts would be too much for me to do. I keep going back to it to try to find an approach that is within my capabilities and not too time consuming.  So I went back to it last year and also thought that turning it into a racing game would reduce the landscape required (keep going round in laps and as focussed more on the other racers scenary could take a back seat). Whilst I enjoyed working on the AI having got a lap working it became clear it was too slow and therefore not enjoyable.  Then after playing Minecraft I wondered whether a blocky approach to the graphics may be possible. I'm still working on it and as expected it is taking time, and may be too much/too hard (also trying to fit at least a semblance of narrative to it). Still I have a tutorial (too hard at the mo) and some limited gameplay. New Game: Whilst playing on my iPad an advert for a simple but fun looking game appeared, which I downloaded (I think it may have been called Color Bump). It was fun but so many adverts. It also seemed like it would be easy to make. So as a quick distraction I started to try and recreate it, but found it boring and decided maybe the game I'd played had kept interest as the prevalence of adverts always left me wanting/waiting for another level to try. Anyways, I changed the game to a puzzle type affair, whilst keeping the concept of pushing cubes that I appreciated in the game. It just uses cubes, spheres, lighting and the default physics engine so wasn't too hard to do (I would guess at a few months - but looking at the date I created the initial project the first attempt was started in December last year - however I was predominantly working on the 'do not harm' game in my free time and only recently got into working on this new one). Initial plan was for it to be released on just Android as I wasn't too sure how original the concept is and thought maybe it would get rejected in the review process. But this week it has been approved on iOS and today on Android so here are the links: Promo Vid: As it was a small pleasant distraction -currently free, with no adverts, no analytics or tracking. iOS: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/red-white-and-blue-blocks/id1580281463 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bleatbleat.redwhiteandblueblocks

    Just downloaded this.  Well done, it's a fun wee game.
  • Just downloaded too. Nice one Luke
  • Thank you, that's nice to hear :-)


    Regarding the Unity/Ironsource merger. Unity has for quite a while being introducing new half baked 'features' incompatible with the older way of doing things and even the Long Term Support branches regress on bugs which take a while to get fixed, this is frustrating. They also seem to try to force you to use their offerings. UnityAds is included by default in new projects affecting the Android permissions required (at least in the versions of Unity I have been using), whilst the API doesn't give control over when an advert is to be downloaded, giving less control to the developer.

    The Unity CEO on the merger apparently (haven't watched the video in question) said that "devs who don't plan monetisation earlier are fu**ing idiots". Link: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/unitys-boss-says-devs-who-dont-plan-monetisation-earlier-are-fing-idiots/

    Criticising your Users like that is offensive and jumping to assumptions on how people should use the tool suggests Unity will be designing future updates with a particular focus rather than allowing people to use the tool with the freedom to implement what they want. It also is ignoring developers who use Unity for producing training, simulation, constuction and AI applications where the payment model is totally different from the mobile game market.

    I tried CryEngine two years ago, but it was not as easy to use as Unity. 

    I last tried Godot at around v2 and again didn't get on with it - but may give a newer version a try at some point. 

    Amethyst looked interesting, but it appears to be 'on hold' https://amethyst.rs/posts/amethyst--starting-fresh

    So at the moment I'm still sticking with Unity as have a couple of projects I'm still toying with occasionally.

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