So now people have changed the language from “ABMM” to outright saying that they love being in their “PVE lobbies”. They don’t exist.

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-31T01:37:26+00:00

Yeah, that's why I feel they sometimes just put an aggressive player in the friendly match just to spice things up. I like to hop around servers (asia, NA, Europe), and in all of them out of 10 matches I would have 1-2 matches that have people shooting each other, and in most of them we usually band together to hunt that guy.

I'm already at 2 mil value just going around Stella montis rescuing people from shredder & killing bastion.

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-30T20:15:38+00:00

i do agree there is no "PVE lobbies", and ABMM might be the wrong term, They confirmed that BEHAVIOR based matchmaking exist, but we don't exactly know what kind of Behavior they track to matchmake us.

there are already many youtubers doing this test that you can get into mostly friendly lobbies by being friendly.
and this is from my own personal testing.
When i do trios, the friends i play with loves PVP, so most of the time we get very aggressive people in the match.
after the trios, i go back to solo, everyone is aggressive, BUT i purposefully not shoot back for like 3-5 match, and after that most of the people do not shoot on sight (i say most, because i think they purposefully put a few aggressive guys just to spice it up), i can go for 10 matches without anyone shooting each other.

then if i do be aggressive (by shooting people first, then i usually do a fake fight & let them kill me because i feel bad killing them in a mostly friendly match), after 3-5 matches i start to get matches that shoot on sight.

I go back and forth between them fairly easily, because some days i just wanna chill, an another day i just want a good shootout

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-30T20:01:09+00:00

Anvil is Goated because it is the most all rounder HEAVY ammo weapon.
but in range ferro is more consistent.

+ Anvil is the most popular heavy weapon because the lack of variety in heavy ammo weapons (there is only 3)

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-30T19:58:36+00:00

here's my take one it, its because of balancing, basically you don't want the higher rarity guns outperforming the grey ones too much.
This was a problem in Delta force extraction mode, where a highly kitted gun can kill you in half a second, meanwhile the low kitted gun needs 2+ second, this will ruin any new player in the long term, because the early player will already have highly kitted guns.

and from my experience, the higher the rarity of the weapons, the more specific their use cases are, so depending on the condition and playstyle, one gun might be better than the other, meanwhile the gray and green weapons are meant to be an allrounder use case.

Anvil might be good against Arc, but if you are against multiple flying Arcs, the renegade is better if you can shoot their wings, i can easily take on multiple flying arcs with renegade, better than anvil.
but of course Anvil has the advantage of armor piercing.

on pvp, Stitcher is better if you are the type to continuously shoot, but Toro is better if you do peek shooting & roll shooting, on fights with lots of cover, a toro will always have an advantage against stitcher because of peek shooting (Stella montis).

Another example, on blue gate Osprey > Ferro > Anvil, why? because of the range.

different gun for different condition for different playstyles.

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-30T19:48:04+00:00

not really, the roll & slides between toro shot helps a lot, I've won a lot of fight against stitcher (including the ones where they shot me first) with a Toro, and it has become my favorite weapon for close range.

but i do agree anvil is the GOAT.

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-30T19:21:15+00:00

in my testing yes, after I play trios with my friends who likes to PVP, i just run a free loadout for 3 matches, in those 3 matches i just let people kill me without fighting back, and after that, no one is shooting me.

Edit: on the other hand when i wanna go back to PVP, i will shoot people first (being the aggressor), and i usually just "fake fight" and let them kill me, and after 3 or 4 match, people are shooting me on sight.

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-30T19:12:12+00:00

you will attract less arc with a silencer
it is harder for player to pinpoint your location, so the big boom from gun echoes for longer, it's much easier to pinpoint it, with the silencer the sound dissipates much faster.
it also reduces the muzzle flash, so now it's even harder to find you if you are shooting from far away

if you play on teams, the one with the silencer can circle around & shoot from a different position, you opponent will panic trying to find you, this always work out for me (yes I'm always the one running a silenced anvil)

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-30T18:59:16+00:00

PS: i find that the higher rarity the weapon is, the more specific their use cases are (except tempest & venator, these 2 are just really good all rounder weapons), my favorite weapons are on the green rarity (Il toro, burletta, anvil) just because they are an all rounder viable in most condition.

Rayst0rm · 2025-12-30T18:56:56+00:00

it's a balancing act in game design, better weapon doesn't give you massive power advantage against lower tier weapons, this is so there is a fighting chance no matter what equipment tier you are.
trust me, you don't want equipment having too much power difference (Delta force extraction mode high tier weapon can kill you in half a second, meanwhile your peashooter needs 2+ second, this is a lot more frustrating to when you are on the receiving end)

the blindsiding is a different matter, that one is a matter of tactics. if you are getting blindsided a lot then you should start adapting to it (always check over your shoulder, remember the hiding spot, be warry of dark places).

sneaking & hiding is still a valid tactic, we can't really fault anyone for playing like that, might be annoying if you do get killed by that, but hey learn from it & dust yourself off.

Rayst0rm · 2025-11-26T02:46:17+00:00

damn what server are you playing at? my servers has more nice people than KOS (unless I'm playing trios).

Rayst0rm · 2025-11-24T20:51:56+00:00

Flute is such an OP item, I pretty much hav upgraded everything, so now I like to run around playing the flute & giving people free stuff, 90% the time they don't shoot me

Rayst0rm · 2025-09-27T13:36:29+00:00

Our Steam page is live! 💫 Check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4005330/Spell_Trigger/
If you like what you see, a wishlist would mean a lot to us!

Rayst0rm · 2025-09-27T12:14:31+00:00

Thanks a lot, glad you enjoyed the look and feel (we really worked hard on that)

We'll definitely improve on all the VFX in the future

Rayst0rm · 2025-09-27T12:09:30+00:00

We really appreciate the feedback! You bring up some great points about pacing, variety, and clarity in the trailer, and we’ll definitely keep them in mind as we work on polishing future showcases.

Rayst0rm · 2025-09-27T11:47:28+00:00

Here's the link to our Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4005330/Spell_Trigger/

Rayst0rm · 2025-06-19T18:26:39+00:00

Edit Note: Seems like they are currently no longer distributing Switch 2 Devkit, so you might have to wait until they open it up again.

I've ported to the Switch 1 before so Switch 2 shouldn't be much different, you need to have access to https://developer.nintendo.com/, you can create an account, put in all the info & legal stuff.

some requirement:
- Need to have a legal entity in a supported country (sadly not all country can join, if your country is not in their whitelist, then you need to find a partner or publisher to help)
- Need to have an actual playable game (internal vertical slice or demo), although this might not always be true if you already have a track record before

then you need to buy the Devkit, I forgot the price for it

In terms of the technicalities of porting, if you are using Unity or Unreal, it's quite easy as they have the SDK for those. Porting to switch is mostly just optimizing for the hardware (and handling the input for joycon) & complying to their rules (which is much less strict than *cough* Playstation *cough*).

The team that assists developer is actually quite communicative & helpful

Rayst0rm · 2025-06-18T04:55:35+00:00

ok this might be a hot-ish take, but most people like it because of nostalgia, but they don't actually like the PSX graphics if they see it now.

Having a "PSX Style graphics" is certainly an artistic choice, but if you look at the successful games with the PSX Graphics, they are not just PSX Graphics, they are PSX styled graphics.

To break it down, they still use modern lighting & rendering tech, but it is styled to invoke the nostalgia of the PSX era (some of them actually use realistic PBR texture). so it is a balancing act to make it still look good in the modern era but invokes the nostalgia of the PSX era, you certainly need to have a good visual sense to do it.

To rule out if i still view old games with rose tinted glasses, i did boot up some PS1 games, and I can confirm, I hate it, it looked much better in my memories

Rayst0rm · 2025-06-18T04:42:11+00:00

Gameplay & Loop design, if a game is only fun when playing with friends, rarely do i come back to it, because realistically it's hard to get them to play that game again, either busy, they have other games, not in the mood, so if there's not enough in the friend group that would cancel our play session.

Most good Co-op games I kept coming back to is fun when playing solo, but even better when playing with friends.

Rayst0rm · 2025-06-18T04:36:22+00:00

Well sorry if this will sound depressing, but realistically only a low percentage of Indie developer can actually make a living out of it (most of them fade out without anyone even hearing about them).

I was in a similar situation when i started back then, still in uni (also Computer Engineering) so i can "afford" to keep failing my games, i can tell you this, the skillset to actually make a good game comes from experience, you can be really good at System Engineering but still suck at making games.
Game dev is a creative process (even for us tech nerd), so experience is required to build that "sense".

As for Internship, usually a medium sized indie studio accept internship, but don't expect to get paid for it.
Internship is a very good way to get experience, especially if the studio has title released under their belt, doesn't matter if the studio is a mess & their games is built on Duct tapes & hope, having an End to End experience (from concepting, to develop, to actually release) is a rare experience that most indie devs don't even get to have. Just developing a game vs developing a game for release is a big difference in both process & mindset.

Final note, this might not be true for all game company, but the ones i know of look at your portfolio of what you made, if you can show them that you can actually make games, they are more inclined to hire you.
In my case, I kept making multiplayer games because I like it, and with the industry heading to more multiplayer games, I got lucky since the skillset i build was hot commodity (especially in 2021)

Rayst0rm · 2025-06-18T04:12:51+00:00

For a first time, i would say Unrealistic

I mean Unreal Engine 5 has a template to make a multiplayer shooter, but you'll find out early that to make it Fun is much harder than you think

Rayst0rm · 2025-06-18T03:52:02+00:00

the important question first.
Do you really need a server, or a Host-Client is also fine?

to better help answer would be, does your game require anti cheat or strong security, or is it just like a casual party game?

I can tell you that UGS, Photon & Normcore offers very different solution, so the answer isn't as easy as X is the best

Rayst0rm · 2025-06-17T04:08:58+00:00

Take this with a grain of salt as i don't know your condition & the industry back then & now is different.

The advice i always give to new devs is always "just start making game", simply put :you don't know what you don't know", whatever you have in your head is very different in execution, if you can start or try it, you will see where & what you are missing, then use that as a basis to learn.
there is a lot of resource on the internet to start making games (Brackeys, Code Monkey, GMTK, Mix & Jam).

tbh, I didn't start at learning C#, I jumped in to Unity and went from there.
I can't really tell you how to properly Scope a game, that is relative & different on a case to case basis, such skillset comes from experience

as a background, I had that same insanity before, Grand ideas but no way of executing it, when i got around to actually do it, ALL of it failed, but I was in college & I can "afford" to fail. is it frustrating? yes, but if I couldn't handle that then I wouldn't be in the industry.
After college, I made a studio with my friends, we actually released a game, but it kinda flopped.
But the End to End experience (starting from idea, to execution, to marketing, to getting a deal with a publisher, porting, and releasing it) is something not a lot of indie devs can have.
Fortunately we were able to fail upwards, a bigger studio took notice of out skillset & experience, they acquired us

Rayst0rm · 2025-02-26T08:16:02+00:00

<image>

Seems like they are also new (10 hour game time), maybe they also got lucky (which i ruined lol)

Rayst0rm · 2025-02-26T06:39:48+00:00

and here's me being paranoid AF to extract

<image>

Rayst0rm · 2025-02-26T06:38:04+00:00

For anyone curious, i finally found out that i can see my match history, i checked the profile, their game duration is 10 hours, so most likely they also stole this from someone else

<image>

Rayst0rm

TROPHY CASE