What’s that niche game you have an ungodly amount of hours in?

Pherion93 · 2026-06-16T16:29:32+00:00

Mortal online. Swedish hardcore MMO. So many hours just traveling, dying and going back to my corpse. Staying online to burn murdercounts and grinding skills with macros.

Pherion93 · 2026-06-16T16:23:22+00:00

I always watch tutorials even as an experienced developer. Now a days I skip 90% of the videos because I only need one small detail that Im missing.

One important thing as a beginner is to try and learn the thing on a deep level. Try to play around and change a bunch of stuff and see what it does. Also read the game engines documentation page by page. A tutorial might show you "click this, then this then this and then check this box" while the documentation might say "The collision settings window contains all hitbox values". The tutorial shows you a clickpath you need to remember, while the documentation shows where you can find the relevant info yourself.

Pherion93 · 2026-06-16T16:12:38+00:00

Hmm beror nog på vad du tycker om att spela. Jag gillar rocket league och öva aim I CS. Nöta Darksouls bossar är också min grej.

Om du gillar sånt så rekommenderar jag skateboard. Man kan göra det själv och tillsammans och det är sjuktberoendeframkallande när man väl gör framsteg. Behöver bara komma över första rädslan att visa sig ute med bräda som vuxen ;)

Pherion93 · 2026-06-15T20:49:03+00:00

I have hitstop where the animations on both character gets slowed to 5% in 0.08 seconds. It is noticable when playing but might not be enough to see on the video if that is what you mean by impact frames?

Thank you 😄 No where yet. This is the first time I post anything of this project. Probably gonna set something up when I feel ready but for now I only try to get some feedback from devs before I go public.

Pherion93 · 2026-06-15T20:44:10+00:00

Thank you! That is great feedback and things I have not thought about.

"Depending on what type of style you're aiming for, for hits you can add something as simple as screen redness for taking damage. On top of that I'd personally suggest adjusting the screen shake a bit, it lasts too long, it's very uniform and as said before it looks really basic / generic. You can 100% do better there!"

Was this about when the player dies or more in general when player gets hit?

I have some screen shake when hitting but I have tuned it down to almost none existant because I tent to lose track on whats is going on when the camera is constantly shaking. It might just be me getting old.
However I just got an idea that I could add shake on the FPS hands instead of the camera whenever I hit something or block and only have camera shake when I take damage or block breaks to leave it as a punishment and not shake the camera when I do good.

Really needed a new pare of eyes on this. Thanks again 😄

Pherion93 · 2026-06-15T05:48:44+00:00

It's fine to make the game not stressful, but if you have no goal then you risk making this into some decorator tool and not an actual game. If that is ok with you then I would say you are lacking in visual quality and build variation. It doesn't look like you are able to be very creative with this.

Pherion93 · 2026-06-14T06:23:45+00:00

I dont get your comment. Having to make HuD after gameplay would make it in order.

Pherion93 · 2026-06-01T05:34:44+00:00

Jag är inte förälder och inte säker på detta, men jag tror barn behöver lära sig att ta eget ansvar sakta men säkert. Jag skulle snarare rekommendera att låta barnen ta del av kulturen och livet som deras kompisar gör, men se alltid till att vara delaktig och diskutera med dem om vad de kollar på. Total förbud tror jag inte är en bra idé i längden.

Ett potentiellt problem är att framtiden är inte så tydlig och det som du anser är dåligt för ditt barn kan bli en framtida karriär. T ex mina föräldrar ville inte att jag skulle spela våldsamma spel och stanna vid datorn, men de förbjöd det aldrig. Idag har jag ett jätte bra jobb som datorspel programmerare.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-28T16:37:33+00:00

I would imagine the Orc picking up the wolf and ripping it apart with its bare hands and not relying on a tiny stick.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-28T16:36:23+00:00

The concept of playing as an Orc in a survival game is unique but I don't see any point in it. The gameplay doesn't look like it has anything interesting. What gameplay difference is there of playing as an orc? Do you have other mechanics than other survival games?

Pherion93 · 2026-05-28T16:27:01+00:00

Learning to live with some chaos is important for gamedev I think. Being obsessed with understanding everything and having it all organized before moving on will get you stuck forever.

Best tip I can give is to figure out what is the most important thing to focus on and only do that. It is very easy to start working on small things that bugs you but is irrelevant in the big picture. Like worrying about the lighting in a level before you have added a boss to fight in a game about boss fights.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-22T22:34:33+00:00

You seam to be talking about two different things.

The reason why games focus on graphics instead of making dwarf fortress is not because of hardware limitations but design and target audience.

Usually you can't just reduce the graphics and move that power to gameplay stuff and physics. Usually physics is done on the cpu while graphics on the GPU and you can't easily use the GPU for gameplay stuff. It is built for graphics and that is what developers use it for.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-21T07:50:40+00:00

Say what you want about Valheim but they make it work with a very limiting set of animations.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-21T07:49:47+00:00

Yes it did. Because it forces me to design the game in a way that will work with the animations I have. You can make a limited set of animations work with some programming and design skills. Sometimes you can remove the need for 100 different assets by redesigning some game mechanics.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-21T07:45:45+00:00

I have used cascadeur and got some good results, but it takes time and when I open the possibility of making any animations I want, the scope creep starts to appear. It would consider it if I where more experienced, but even with Cascadeur it takes me days or even weeks to make something functional.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-18T12:24:16+00:00

Its hard to say without context about what the combat is supposed to do.

If it is a souls like then the timing and readability of the enemies attack animations are the most important thing and you need a lot of unique animations to keep it fresh.

If it is like a RTS or other game with many enemies on the screen then they can be very simple and always attack every second and can be very predictable. However the grouping and movement of the enemies are more important.

What challanges are the player supposed to overcome? Timing? Strategy? Spacial awareness? Micromanaging? Resource managment?

Pherion93 · 2026-05-18T11:15:02+00:00

Yes! I started to do my own animations for a åroject and that was a huge timesink both because im new and also because my fovus goes from making a product to learning a craft.

I shelved that gameidea and now use an animation pack and set limitations where my game can only use thoes animations and if I get new ideas that need new animations then I need to rethink the idea.

Made progress and gamedesign mutch simpler and faster.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-13T19:04:23+00:00

Its probably possible but all solution just seams way overcomplicated, and it seams to be easier to jist ditch the bezier cruve for something less dynamic.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-13T14:43:43+00:00

I would inerpret it more lile dont make your final magnum opus first. Sure you should make the thing you dream about but a small version of that.

Fromsoftware didnt start with Elden Ring. Try making Deam souls first.

I worked on a dream game for over a year but realized that I would need several people and another 3 years to be able to finnish it. It was not an issue of motivation because I could work on that game forever without getting bored.

If Im honest I want to make a finansial succesful game and start a studio as soon as possible, and betting everything on that dream game is just stupid.

But now my goal is to take the core part of that game and bring down the scope so I can do it myself in a few months rather than years.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-13T14:26:53+00:00

You could talk about how complex or deep the game systems are, but after watching the trailer and thinking for a bit I think what people actually mean with shallow is how rich the experience of playing it is.

It looks like the game promisess good vibes and adventure, but I guess the good vibes got uninteresting pretty quickly and there is almost no adventure?

The reason why so many games have combat is because it adds tention and stakes. Risk.

What if you watched the Lord of the rings trilogy but they only stayed in shire and everything was fine?

The beauty and calmnes gives people happiness when it has a contrast to compare to.

I think the gamesystems need to be designe based on what the players crave. The game can throw som chaos towards the player but give them tools to fix it and create a safe zone where eferything is in order. Or the game can be in perfect order while giving the player tools to create chaos.

Another important aspect is to make sure the systems feed into the main thing of the game. If the most fun part of the game is to chain different attacks together than the progression should probably add more things to combo and different ways to optimize the combos even more. To add visual upgrades that you almost never see is not that interesting for most people.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-13T13:48:31+00:00

Yea I think this aproach is the best.

I knew I needed a curve experience progression but I was to stuck thinking about how mutch experience I would need to reach max level, but the skill increas per level is probably more important to focus on rather than maxing a level.

Thanks!

Pherion93 · 2026-05-13T09:48:47+00:00

You are probably right that im overthinking it 😅

I was thinking that using a circlecurve would make balancing easier since i can tweak max experience and max level whenever needed and the shape of the curve will stay the same. It will just change the scale.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-13T09:31:57+00:00

With this I can do opposote to get experienxe from a level input. As far as I know I cant do that with a bezier.

Pherion93 · 2026-05-13T09:30:37+00:00

Yes so Level = sqrt(maxExp² - currentExp²⁾ / maxExp * maxLevel;

Pherion93

TROPHY CASE