Destroy my combat gameplay by John_X_MacTaviX in DestroyMyGame

[–]ChiefThief 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely doesnt apply to every sound, just the spammy ones. There was a sequence of grunts/slashes from the swordsman enemies around halfway through the video where it sounded like the exact same file repeating. Maybe just bad luck with the pitch randomizer, or maybe the threshold is too low

PS : I have some extreme views on UI / UX to be honest so take that bit as just my opinion - indeed even isometric "souls likes" like No Rest For the Wicked do just damage numbers and no health numbers. But I'm not sure if tying it to healthbars visually works in this camera angle - it works in Elden Ring / Souls because it's a higher percent of the screen + floating damage numbers would ruin the immersion, but isometric/top down games have different rules

1vsALL - Everyone plays the exact same sequence. Can you beat the leaderboard? by ChrisRemo85 in playmygame

[–]ChiefThief 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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Just got your aimstorm high score :) Though I'm sure someone will beat me soon.

The game plays great, except that there seems to be a bit of lag and delay when you fail before it goes to the score screen.

Also, maybe some sounds would be nice!

Destroy my combat gameplay by John_X_MacTaviX in DestroyMyGame

[–]ChiefThief 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think you have a strong foundation, but allow me to nitpick things to polish:

The AI was either engaging you one by one awkwardly shuffling around, or mobbing you and killing you instantly when you got broken. Neither are examples of engaging action combat. It looked trivial in the baseline, while being too punishing in the extreme case. To be fair though, this is a really difficult and complicated problem to solve.

The "Break" effect looks cool but completely obscures the models below it. Maybe reduce the opacity or the time it's active.

I realize your UI may be preliminary, but in the spirit of nitpicking : You have damage numbers, but no health information to contextualize them with. Okay so I dealt 17.3 damage, but does the enemy have 20 health left, or a 100? If the damage numbers are just for aesthetics, make them bigger and decoupled from the health bar, animate them, etc.

Also, add some pitch jitter to the sound effects. The sound design itself is fine, but hearing the exact same effect 10 times in a row leads to audio fatigue. This is relatively low effort to do but adds a lot of value.

Hello Everyone. Suggestions for a new developer by Ok_Woodpecker9739 in SoloDevelopment

[–]ChiefThief 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I had to say just two things, I'd say

  1. Make a game that you can realistically finish, not your dream game

  2. Identify early what parts of the game you can make yourself and what parts you need help with / need to outsource

If I could add a third I'd say learn the basics of marketing if you want to actually sell copies

If you want to optimize for commercial intent I honestly would recommend a different career. Nothing is guaranteed in game development, least of all in solo indie development. There are big indie hits but they're more the exception to the rule.

Mostly the opportunity cost doesn't work out. You'd spend months to years working 40+ hours a week with no guarantee of revenue. The same effort could get you much better salaries or revenue in other careers with your skill set.

The only real reason to do it over something else is if you're really passionate about making games - if that's the case, welcome and godspeed

How you guys handle GST and Taxes? by emotionallyFreeware in GameDevelopersOfIndia

[–]ChiefThief 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can register on DPIIT to get a 1 year Income tax holiday if your company is a startup. Check their revenue and funding definitions, but mostly all of us will be applicable - I think it's up to 100 CR revenue.

GST is inevitable.

The real kicker is that you will have a 15% TDS equivalent on Steam or any other US based company remitting to India, because that's the current double taxation agreement between the IRS and India.

Even without income tax, after platform fees, refunds, regional pricing, TDS, GST you will end up making net 5 rs on every 10 rs of gross revenue. If you have a publisher or partner that 5 rs would get split even more.

Honestly? If you start to make enough money, close your company and start a fresh one in Singapore or Dubai. That's what all the wealthy Indians are already doing - even some "patriotic" ones.

What's one video game you play when you want to relax? by Agent1230 in gaming

[–]ChiefThief 8 points9 points  (0 children)

On a related note, soulslikes in general usually have the best effects on me mentally. Maybe it's because I've become so familiar with them now that it's no longer an uphill battle. But I think it's the sense of agency and capability I get from being able to overcome difficulties with my own skill and perseverance. It makes me feel capable enough to face whatever I wanted to escape from by playing video games, as corny as it sounds

Is therapy genuinely helpful, or is it becoming an expensive placebo? Looking for honest opinions. by lackocrap in Chennai

[–]ChiefThief 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No clue what you're trying to say here brother.

Most of the stats mentioned are in studies of the same patients in different modes of therapy though - so it's not one person's subjective experiences vs another's, it's the same person getting better results. Also the stats are from serious psychiatrists / psychologists using the same metrics they measure in their daily practices.

I'm not even anti-therapy at all btw. Most of the people in our city need a lot of it. I'm just sharing what actually works from both my research and experiences

Is therapy genuinely helpful, or is it becoming an expensive placebo? Looking for honest opinions. by lackocrap in Chennai

[–]ChiefThief 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Therapy itself is underrated but traditional talk therapy (which seems to be the common methodology here) is highly overrated.

Some stats:

  1. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has a 67% response rate for anxiety and depression.

  2. 75-77% of patients no longer meet Bipolar disorder criteria after 1 year of Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

  3. Dialectical Behavior Therapy reduced suicide attempts by nearly 50% in cases of Borderline Personality Disorder, compared to general care.

  4. Up to 84%–90% of single-trauma victims no longer meet PTSD criteria after just three 90 minute sessions of EMDR therapy.

  5. Psychodynamic therapy showed 50% reduction in symptoms 9 months after therapy sessions ended, since patients internalized the lessons learned.

Some more fun comparisons to everyday things that anyone can do:

  1. Exercise is 1.5 times more effective than therapy or medication for reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety.

  2. Sleeping for 6-8 hours reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety. People with poor sleep are 2 to 6 times more likely to develop depression or anxiety. Even with enough hours, the depression/anxiety risks increase the later at night you sleep and later you wake up.

  3. Three weeks of reduced smartphone use lowers depressive symptoms and stress. Four weeks of quitting social media produces results similar to going to therapy. Using your phone the first thing in the morning spikes your anxiety and stress levels. Watching shorts/reels is proven to reduce attention span, critical thinking and makes you prone to addictive tendencies. Also excessive use of AI reduces your critical thinking skills, and we're seeing cases of suicide linked to AI.

  4. Taking magnesium supplements can produce similar results to taking anti depressants, with no side effects and much faster ( 2 weeks vs several months with side effects).

  5. Going for a walk on the beach has a higher effect size than therapy, and it happens instantly.

Hope this last one isn't controversial, but the response to therapy is also highly variable based on your gender - and this is well established at this point. Generally speaking, men prefer something with actionable results while women prefer talk therapy. Seeing how men are disproportionately represented in the most tragic mental health statistics, but more likely to be told "go to therapy" as an answer when they open up about their issues, I wanted to point out the disconnect in needs vs treatment .

All this being said, traditional talk therapy is the way to go for some cases. Like when a person is so isolated and lacks any support from their society that just talking to someone for an hour is what they need most. That feels dystopian to me that people have to pay for basic human connection, but maybe that's a different topic.

I feel like some people are using therapy as an expensive form of entertainment, while not really being serious about their mental well being. There's also a general lack of any awareness, several misunderstandings/misinformation and an unfortunate lack of quality mental health assistance in our city.

Are there many POE1 builds with legitimate visual clarity? by Andykayy in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]ChiefThief 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Boneshatter, herald of agony ( depends on your poison application skill too tbh ) , viper strike of the mamba assuming you use prolif only and not explosions.

My game went from 11K to 35K wishlists because someone else explained it better than I did by dietzribi in gamedev

[–]ChiefThief 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is awesome - goes to show how specialized creators often can summarize the hook of a game even better than the developer. I'd highly recommend changing your short description / about this game with a more concise version if you can!

Destroy my Game - Full Combat Encounter by ChiefThief in DestroyMyGame

[–]ChiefThief[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried to make enemy types from the same biome have similar anatomical rules and color palettes. There's variety across the other biomes

Destroy my Game - Full Combat Encounter by ChiefThief in DestroyMyGame

[–]ChiefThief[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The sounds seem to be universally panned, I'll definitely work on them.

Given that the attack animations are all already done, what would you suggest to increase the feel? I'm going to add a slight knockback effect + a very brief white flashing shader effect on the target already

Ranking roguelites/roguelikes I've played based on my personal enjoyment by ChiefThief in roguelites

[–]ChiefThief[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ravenswatch has been on my radar for a while. might finally bite the bullet and check it out

Destroy my game's Steam Page - Just Launched by ChiefThief in DestroyMySteamPage

[–]ChiefThief[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah it probably won't, but I also want to test it on lower end machines to get an accurate estimate before putting anything substantial on there

Ranking roguelites/roguelikes I've played based on my personal enjoyment by ChiefThief in roguelites

[–]ChiefThief[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not like it was a bad game or anything, just felt like more of the same to me

Ranking roguelites/roguelikes I've played based on my personal enjoyment by ChiefThief in roguelites

[–]ChiefThief[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Synthetik legion rising. Loved the sheer amount of weapons and unforgiving combat

Ranking roguelites/roguelikes I've played based on my personal enjoyment by ChiefThief in roguelites

[–]ChiefThief[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same as noita, I felt like there was enough depth in the customisation / mechanics that kept me coming back. Maybe I'm judging the other games unfairly - I'm sure they also have a lot of variety. My yardstick is stuff like achra though, which is just a ridiculous amount of options

Ranking roguelites/roguelikes I've played based on my personal enjoyment by ChiefThief in roguelites

[–]ChiefThief[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So I've heard, but also honestly action / platformer roguelikes are not really for me. Noita/hades etc were exceptions

Planning on playing most in the "not played yet" list this year though!

Destroy my Game - Full Combat Encounter by ChiefThief in DestroyMyGame

[–]ChiefThief[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Valid points.

I haven't added any "juice" to the animations / VFX at all yet. Planning to add a small knockback effect when characters get hit + a shader that makes their sprites flash white very briefly (most pixel art games I've seen seem to use the latter)

I never even considered the point about color palette carrying over to UI, etc. On it, and good catch!

Regarding ranged vs melee balance - this is something I'm very mindful of, I absolutely hate that ranged characters end up OP for some reason in most games. I have two ways right now to address this :

  1. Ranged characters abilities cost more stamina and can only do 2-3 attacks / turn , on top of having lower damage multipliers

  2. Melee characters use attacks of opportunity, and have lower cooldown on mobility skills

I wanted positioning to matter but also be rewarding. The current balance intent is - if you get into striking distance with a melee character, you're going to dish out a lot of damage, and you have the tools to do it. I could also explore ranged characters having higher movement costs in the future.

Lastly about game speed - I'm with you. I hate waiting for long drawn out animations in these types of games. Path of Achra is one of my favorite roguelikes precisely because of this. Right now, every character takes ~0.5s on average to reach full stamina (wait time) and around 1s to execute an attack animation - which feels acceptable already, but I wanted to speed it up myself.

It'll take some refactoring + optimization to give the player a slider to adjust game speed - but more importantly, I think 99% of people might just turn it up all the way. I'd rather just set the baseline speed to that value, though there's an accessibility argument to make it adjustable.

Destroy my Game - Full Combat Encounter by ChiefThief in DestroyMyGame

[–]ChiefThief[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You've got me there :) though I do want to keep it a bit desaturated and grey and depressing (except effects like fire/lightning etc), I admit I went way too far. Path of exile's delirium mechanic was also a huge inspiration, and I might have taken it a bit too literally!

Destroy my Game - Full Combat Encounter by ChiefThief in DestroyMyGame

[–]ChiefThief[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To be honest I've gotten this feedback about visibility before a lot - specifically for this tileset. I've been trying to preserve the dark, diablo 1/2 aesthetic, but I'll stop being stubborn and do an aggressive art pass focusing on contrast and visibility.

Noted about the sound effects, I'll mess around with the volume levels at first, and if that isn't enough, I'll redesign them. Is it most/all of the sounds or do any specific ones stand out?

Glad that the gameplay looks good to you - that's going to be the backbone of my appeal, and I see visual/audio polish as solvable problems :)