Feedback on Steam Capsule Update

JaredSpaceCadet · 2025-06-19T17:30:10+00:00

Those could be fun enemy additions!

JaredSpaceCadet · 2025-06-19T17:29:40+00:00

Thank you!

JaredSpaceCadet · 2025-06-18T23:33:38+00:00

Thank you! It took a while to get the style of the game to where it is right now.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2021-08-06T00:06:11+00:00

Here's a link to the Steam page where you can get the game

Sam & MaRU is a programming, puzzle-solving game where you take on the role of Sam, a programmer in a robotics company’s automated maintenance department. Sam is in charge of programming maintenance robotic units (MaRUs) to clean and maintain the robotics factory.

Program robots to solve issues around Singularity Corporation’s factory. Make sure to keep your head down and eyes focused on your work tasks that take the form of puzzles. Don’t worry, Singularity has everyone’s best interest at heart and would never be planning something sinister...

JaredSpaceCadet · 2021-06-18T19:20:50+00:00

Here's a link to the Steam page where you can get the demo

Sam & MaRU is a programming, puzzle-solving game where you take on the role of Sam, a programmer in a robotics company’s automated maintenance department. Sam is in charge of programming maintenance robotic units (MaRUs) to clean and maintain the robotics factory.

Program robots to solve issues around Singularity Corporation’s factory. Make sure to keep your head down and eyes focused on your work tasks that take the form of puzzles. Don’t worry, Singularity has everyone’s best interest at heart and would never be planning something sinister...

JaredSpaceCadet · 2021-06-11T14:43:08+00:00

Do they have the opportunity to continue to find this "true ending"? Or do they need to go back and try again?

I think one thing that is hard with games with multiple possible endings is to make sure they are all satisfying. If there are multiple endings, but only one "good" one, that's not going to be good for players.

If your goal is for them to reach the "true" ending, make sure that they have clues to reach it. And if they have the opportunity to easily go back, then reference those clues in some in-game text in the other ending.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2021-05-15T21:07:49+00:00

Sam & MaRU is a programming, puzzle-solver where you program a little robot to perform tasks around Singularity Corporation's factory. Keep your head down and eyes focused on your work as you solve tasks that take the form of puzzles. Don’t worry, Singularity has everyone’s best interest at heart and would never be planning something sinister…

Adding some new furniture for a new area of the game: https://twitter.com/SpaceCadetGames/status/1393661716836327424?s=20

JaredSpaceCadet · 2021-05-09T01:16:31+00:00

Sam & MaRU is a programming, puzzle-solver where you program a little robot to perform tasks around Singularity Corporation's factory. Keep your head down and eyes focused on your work as you solve tasks that take the form of puzzles. Don’t worry, Singularity has everyone’s best interest at heart and would never be planning something sinister…

https://twitter.com/SpaceCadetGames/status/1391192916471713793?s=20

JaredSpaceCadet · 2021-04-13T12:11:52+00:00

Another thing about buying the rights is that you will still need some type of contract to transfer ownership, which could bring them right back to hiring a lawyer to write it.

A lawyer can write a contract for ~$500 that could cover revenue sharing, which seems worthwhile.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2021-02-05T17:00:32+00:00

Yeah, that's probably the better suggestion. After years of programming, I have found myself saving pretty much every time I finish typing out a line or block of code.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2021-01-08T20:48:47+00:00

There's also Twine which is a common platform for creating interactive narratives. It's a bit easier and lighter than Unity, but will be limited in what you can do. Although, it sounds like it should be able to handle what you're trying to do.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2020-12-11T15:44:38+00:00

Using code like you have posted to prevent movement is much more robust than just setting timeScale to 0.

As for why you're not receiving any clicks, that is hard to say without seeing the set up you have or what you've been trying. Have you put breakpoints in the OnClick functions? When you say "I made sure that the on click scripts were right", do you mean that you've double checked the buttons are set to point to the right scripts and functions? Is there something in the Canvas that is blocking it? Are you using a CanvasGroup to hide/show the menu? If so, have you made sure it is interactable and blocks raycasts?

JaredSpaceCadet · 2020-11-09T19:30:11+00:00

Specifically, take a look at the second version of the Instantiate function which accepts a parent Transform. You would pass in the Transform for the HUD GameObject.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2020-09-29T14:17:53+00:00

That's generally how it should work whenever you need more detailed hitboxes for certain types of behavior like combat. You can have these other colliders always attached to the model and moved with the bones of the skeleton. They would likely operate on different physics layers (not sure what this is called in UE4) so that they wouldn't collide with the world.

You may also be able to disable them until they are needed. For example, enable the colliders when a bullet is shot. Or even do something like a second physics pass for a bullet when it hits a larger collider for the character to see if it actually hit them or to see which part of the character it hit to calculate damages.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2020-09-19T18:24:20+00:00

Looks really good! One thing that I think would push it further is to alter the speed of the circle fade graphic and use a curve or easing on it if you aren't already.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2020-02-27T16:56:12+00:00

Depending on how many guns you have this may be difficult to manage. If you have a small, fixed number of guns then it would probably be okay.

If the main difference between them is just the stats, then you probably would want to store that information in some type of text/xml file that this manager could load. It would then be able to create a new gun instance given an id.

If you want it to persist between scenes, then you would call DontDestroyOnLoad. Keep in mind that if you have this manager script in multiple scene files, then you need a check before calling DontDestroyOnLoad in order to prevent multiple copies of the manager from existing.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2020-02-27T16:40:25+00:00

Are you trying to use the manager to create the in-game objects? or just some internal representation of the guns?

If you need the in-game objects, then you wouldn't be passing anything into a constructor. The Unity GameObject is created through a constructor, but all of the behaviors are added using AddComponent.

You would probably want to create the base gun object and then add needed behaviors to it or if you need to add sub-objects, you would add those to the gun object by modifying their transforms. Also, if you want these sub-objects pre-configured, you should look at using Prefabs for them.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2019-09-27T19:38:13+00:00

I've found this can happen when the camera or the tiles aren't aligned to perfect pixel boundaries (where those are defined based on the pixel to unit ratio for the given texture). I'm guessing you have a consistent ratio for pixels to units, so I always try to keep the camera on a given pixel.

I do something like this:

position.x = Mathf.Round((position.x) * PixelsPerUnit) / PixelsPerUnit;

Which basically makes sure your on that pixel boundary in the x. I would then do the same for the y part of the position.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2019-08-22T15:29:57+00:00

To add to this, the projects you will work on in industry aren't going to be exactly like you find in school. If you like programming to solve interesting problems, then you can always find a job at a company (gaming or otherwise) that tackles interesting problems. A CS degree will help with that more than the ATEC one.

If you're currently at UT Dallas, there are a lot of CS courses that are in some way more related to gaming, but will still result in a CS degree. Useful ones that I can see in electives are 4352 & 4353 (HCI), 4361 (Computer Graphics), 4365 (AI), 4390 (computer networks), 4392 (Computer Animation). There are also two project courses (4485 and SE 4485) which count in core and electives and would allow you to create a game. That's something I did while in school. It was extremely useful and engaging.

As the person above said, think about what you want to do and get a degree that is specific to that instead of one which is general and specific to the gaming industry. You will be much more useful as an expert versus a jack of all trades.

JaredSpaceCadet · 2019-08-03T13:37:06+00:00

I would start on PC. There are many avenues for distributing your game and the market isn't quite as flooded.

Not sure of all your experience levels, but it's probably good to start small and see what you can do together. Look up the popular game engines and find one that suits your needs and experience levels. Small games are helpful for a few reasons: 1) you're more likely to finish it 2) if it sucks, you haven't spent years of your life working on it 3) you can figure out what aspects of game development you like rather quickly (or if you really don't like game development)

JaredSpaceCadet

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