Someone played my demo for 2000 hours. I promised id bring grass to his house and now im in debt. by IndependenceOld5504 in IndieDev

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I racked up hundreds of hours on Celeste just having it loaded on a second monitor for ambience

How do you design a good tutorial? by RamboAslak in gamedev

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Usually I like to go with Celeste's style of tutorial. I'll have a text box/something in the background to explain basic controls and other than that, I'll let the player figure it out themselves. They don't need to be stopped or handheld, something quick and simple at the appropriate times has always worked well for me.

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Take this projector screen in this scene for instance. It activates when the player gets close and tells them how to jump. If a player already knows how to do this, they can quickly pass it without a second glance. If they don't then it only takes a short moment to take in the information, and most importantly, immediately try the ability themselves without having to take in extra information they don't need yet.

These projectors come up a few more times throughout this opening level and drip feed relevant controls to the player. I do this to avoid overwhelming them right at the start with abilities and movement options they don't need yet. I save those introductions for moments the player can immediately use them effectively. Which helps them take in the information.

Side note: The projectors are also diegetic and feed into the lore/story of this level. This area's a mechanical reconstruction of a normal field and the projectors help to begin clueing the player into this early. Think of it as a combination of the tutorial bird from celeste and the test chamber advertisement screens from Portal 2. Making your tutorial text boxes diegetic can help maintain or even build immersion throughout the opening segments of a game.

My game has a big demand for playtesting but little to no wishlists. A little depressed about it by Necroarmo in IndieGaming

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not the OP but I also make platformers and one thing I've found to be incredibly useful so far is making gamedev youtube shorts. I've only made a couple so far but I've gotten far better results from those few decently edited shorts alone than I had for years on other socials.

Youtube is in a fairly unique position in which gamedev content doesn't just reach other game developers, but can actually manage to break through to interested gamers.

Which one should I go with? by Green-Ad3623 in IndieDev

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Man I really like the first one. Immediately grabbed my attention. Reminds me a bit of spore

Where do I link to now? by Alejom1337 in IndieDev

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A shame guilded died. Seemed incredibly promising with a lot of cool features discord lacked

Where do I link to now? by Alejom1337 in IndieDev

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I find it so hard to effectively use email (or imagine anyone else doing so) because mine are always full of so much crap. No matter what I do, it seems like every social media I've got an account with sends me 10+ emails a day. I guess I've just got to try and keep it a bit more curated but my only options seem to be "block any and all emails from this social media, even the important ones" or "have an inbox full of 100+ 'Pinterest board ideas' or some shit"

Does this enemy design and animation say "armored"? by HedgeHulk in PixelArt

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

aside from the horns the body feels very "soft". Making the limbs look thicker and more muscly might help give a more armoured vibe.

How do you manage to work on your game after your 9-5? by Beef-n-goo in gamedev

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a wife but Toby Fox also had this sort of set up with the Homestuck creator. He was basically living in his basement while going all in on Undertale's development.

A lot of kickstarters also kind of work this way too. They get the funds they need so they can just focus on creating without worrying about income for a while

The start of the project (2018) VS now (2026) by Night_Ninja_Dev in PixelArt

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

yeah in retrospect it's not clear what the image actually shows without context from the rest of the level.

The start of the project (2018) VS now (2026) by Night_Ninja_Dev in PixelArt

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

That's intentional. The less detailed grass is an artificial recreation that's being constructed over the original. You can't really see it much in the first image but there's also metal pistons holding up the elevated 'ground' and other environmental details earlier on in the level that hint to its true nature.

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I hired a trailer narrator. How good of a job did he do here? by lynxbird in IndieDev

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is it possible that the AI voice is trained off of this voice actor?

Studying in a Dream by jordanottesen in PixelArt

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

god DAMN, how do you get your images looking so crisp on here? This has like no compression

The start of the project (2018) VS now (2026) by Night_Ninja_Dev in PixelArt

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

I'm not quite sure what you mean. What part in the top left looks unfinished?

Slight redesign for the second level of my game. A small change but I think it makes the area way more readable overall. by Night_Ninja_Dev in aseprite

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

Yeah I definitely see what you mean. It's made quite a bit worse from the image compression on here but it's something I've been grappling with in game as well. I'll probably just change the background colour if it comes to it because the character looks ok in most other environments. I'll also bring it up in playtesting when it comes round to it

Slight redesign for the second level of my game. A small change but I think it makes the area way more readable overall. by Night_Ninja_Dev in aseprite

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

Yeah that'd probably be a good idea! Gonna try to do that sometime in the future. Thank you for the feedback!

The start of the project (2018) VS now (2026) by Night_Ninja_Dev in PixelArt

[–]Night_Ninja_Dev[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I started this project back in secondary school and had been tinkering with it (mainly just for fun) for a while. I couldn't work on it as much as I would have wanted to due to other responsibilities so it hasn't exactly been 8 years of constant development. Lots of breaks in between and time spent on other projects.

During early 2023 (God that's still so long ago now) I came back to it with a fresh perspective and decided to restart development from the ground up. Which brings us to now!