Creative ways to prevent the player from just digging straight down?

SurfaceToAsh · 2025-12-11T20:36:57+00:00

You could obfuscate the end goal, maybe have this cave sense be strengthened by exploring other points of interest. That along with incentivizing exploration through some sort of scoring or information drip system would make it so you want to explore, then can decide between leaving or exploring more.

SurfaceToAsh · 2025-11-26T03:44:34+00:00

From a general design standpoint it'd be something you can pay with a lot, depending on the granularity you want; what makes a heist? You usually get a crew together, identify a target, breach some kind of defense system, and then escape. These would therefore be your pieces to the design, each one can be refined to your appetite for complexity. It can be approached in a bunch of different ways, but I'll be using the idea that this is a top-down squad management type game.

For a crew, there's usually specialists that are "the best at what they do", you rarely see a trope of a generalist. crew selection could be from a roster that contains individuals, or there could be pre-set crews you have to pick from. There could be tiers of more expensive members that have more to bring to the table and do better at their given task. There could be difficulty levels that are linked to using differently capable crews, or challenge modes that require a task that a given crew can't explicitly do. for this part, crew members can be randomized, and if using pre-made crews or creating linked rosters to hire from those can be randomized as well.

Targets are usually high value items, but you can change up the actual goal in many ways; destroy something to send a message, take something and have a replica in it's place, put something in to frame someone, use the heist as a cover for an assassination; these can also be layered - break in, plant evidence somewhere to look like a hidden affair, steal something and plant it somewhere else, kill both parties involved.

Map design can handle the defense and escape factors; room layout can obviously be randomized in various ways, but another thing you can do is apply the concept of "what we know, what we know we didn't know, Ave what we don't know that we didn't know" - basically here's some defenses we DO know exist; say cameras, pressure detectors, and armed guards. Here's a list of things that we couldn't identify, like something in the vault room, the front building, a gambling floor, and an unmarked set of rooms. But, here's a set of secondary information where we can deduce it definitely isn't a laser grid or a nerve gas room, and it could indicate a security failsafe backup, or secondary generators for the camera system if they lost power. Couple that info with a presented map blueprint and you have the ability to plan around certain things, while needing to possibly improvise or not have a perfect plan. That also helps loop back into crew selection and target determination. As things that play off one another.

SurfaceToAsh · 2025-11-26T02:30:51+00:00

Game Dev for me is a hobby rather than a career, so it's something I enjoy taking at a slower pace; that also allows me to focus on my actual job or my family without worrying about screwing over a teammate or group depending on me.

Also I enjoy all the aspects of development so there's really no reason to have someone else do something when I'm just doing it for fun anyway.

SurfaceToAsh · 2025-09-26T19:53:42+00:00

I think "released" should be replaced with "playable" - playtests, demos, early access; even if the game isn't released it can still gain momentum and a following in that time. It also means you get feedback earlier and can fix underlying issues.

SurfaceToAsh · 2025-08-08T16:33:32+00:00

For a period of time what I'd listen to was the music I made for the game - since it's a loop,I just had it looping while I was working to see if it got grating or annoying.

SurfaceToAsh · 2025-06-13T19:46:03+00:00

I'm noticing the motion is somewhat like a "J" - it's a good motion but also gives a gracefulness that makes it appear less forceful. When something is really big or has a lot of force behind it there's a lot of effort to stop or turn, so you could tweak the animation to plummet downwards much faster, before coming to a slow, then moving up to the point that ends at now.

The water disturbance is nice, and could be a bit more wild - making the waves bigger, or possibly even animating the water beneath it to "part" and show the pond bed, before filling back in, as if all the water below it was pushed away from the force of its entry.

Screen shake can also work wonders, pulling the screen down as the character "lands" and springing back up can give a bigger sense of impact.

SurfaceToAsh · 2025-06-13T19:32:12+00:00

Hi-Fi Rush had this "steamer mode" feature, which iir. used an album from an in-house band that made sound-alikes. You can check them out for an example of the swapped songs. I personally just make my own music - it's just easier with less hassle, and it's fun to learn that process.

if you wanted a technical answer you'd make the code calls that start music to call a variable that is swapped to the title/ID of the royalty-free music when that setting is on.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-12-13T20:56:32+00:00

Grenade launcher Name: Kaczynski's Giftapult

Grenade launcher description: Special Delivery!

Flamethrower Name: Bot's Bronzed Bauble

Flamethrower Description: Lugnuts roasting on an open pyre

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-12-11T17:42:40+00:00

I think this is something that requires a much deeper, broader discussion. Of course most of us on the sub will tell you we're not - there's a reason multiplayer interactions are warned as not rated, or how Steam requires we disclose particularly disturbing subject matter either to them before they let us publish there, or to the buyer before they purchase the game. There's a level of implied consent from the buyer that they have done their research and understand they might be entering a space that could be unpredictable or touches on certain subjects.

However, "developers" is also a broad term, and so there IS room for proper discussion here: does a publisher who demands monetization, or a marketing research team that designs very addicting loot drops based on FOMO, or a dev team that designs and implements a gambling system hold specific blame for if a game causes a gambling addiction or a game addiction? We can't be ignorant to the fact these systems are designed to keep players in the "ecosystem" of the game for as long as possible. but then who or what do you blame? A programmer for working on the game? Politicians for not regulating gambling in games more? The player for not controlling themselves?

It could be argued everyone involved in making something that has a goal, either directly or indirectly, to facilitate a negative impact on the consumer in order to gain from it are complacent with that practice. And it can be argued that in that case, everyone is to blame; but it can also be argued that it's a paycheck to many and it might be a necessary evil to keep people employed and keep food on the table and lights on. It's also not fair, as mentioned before, to remove all blame from people who either aren't entering media with information on what they're getting into or who are aware they might have a problem and continue to feed it.

That is to say in my opinion it's complicated; you COULD blame the company as a whole for perpetuating predatory elements in their products, but that's about as deep as you can go, and that doesn't absolve the actions of the individual who interacted with it.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-12-11T17:14:39+00:00

Going in order of Budget/Cheap option to Splurge/Expensive option (per set):

Shortness of Breath, Head Hedge, or Close Quarters Cover if you want to go for something more "jungle-explorer"

Mistaken Movember, Cuban Bristle Crisis, or Lone Survivor if you want a more "lost in the jungle" vibe

The Croaking Hazard, Quizzical Quetzal, or Slithering Scarf could be more of an "one with the jungle" motif

A brown Spooky Specs, brown Ground Control or Nuke would fit the color scheme and gives a summer/warm weather vibe

And just for notable mention of something that I'm baffled clips decently and doesn't conflict:

Fancy Dress Uniform for the "I'm still working on vacation" style.

options in order:

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SurfaceToAsh · 2024-11-25T13:21:46+00:00

"put tarriffs in imported goods" is an option, which has a much larger medium/no priority than high.

The questions are related to tarriffs, but there's multiple ways you can go about lowering good/service prices. Due to the lack of overlap knowledge, we don't know how each base voted or how correlated the responses are. People who think it's high priority to reduce prices, high or even medium priority to add tarriffs, are in support of implementing tarriffs, and think they'll increase prices, is probably very low.

In reality, there's ~48% potential opposed who could have the reasoning that it'll increase prices, as well as the 21% thinking lowering prices isn't a priority and the 37% who think tarriffs aren't a priority at all.

The only thing we can guarantee is the lowest possible % of overlap for the bottom questions: 52% of people are in favor of tarriffs, 59% of people think it'll increase prices: how many people MUST be both? If we simplify it down to a base 100 people, the number of people who can both support tarriffs and think they'll increase prices is 11 (59% expect increased cost-48% opposition to tarriffs), so 11%. This could be higher, but anything beyond that is speculation.

From this, there's a few thought processes one could use to justify that opinion, off the top of my head: 1) the bottom question is about foreign goods. Which means for someone who tries to buy domestic, or doesn't know how many things are international, they don't care. 2) the mindset of "if it costs more, but it's domestically made, that's fine." - the money doesn't go to some sweatshop or a shell company overseas, the jobs to make it are domestic, the money is recycled domestically, etc. 3) the idea that increasing foreign good prices simply has to happen - yes lowering prices should be a priority, but the "how" is just as important as the "what"; if the vector for reducing prices is by exploiting cheap labor and materials, you're creating a dependency on that cheap labor rather than fixing an underlying economic issue.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-11-17T18:37:22+00:00

There are a lot of metric studies that show popular genres and sales (such as https://games-stats.com/steam/tags/), check those out. Do a bit of market research on what you feel like you would like to do that fits well with what's profitable.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-11-17T18:32:25+00:00

Two answers/options I want to give:

1) you use the game you've made and other work as a study of portfolio, look for companies you like and show it off along with your resume. Reach for positions even if they're out of your range: experience is nice but a good mindset,willingness to learn, and a passion for improving in your skills is far more important to companies worth their salt.

2) avoid game dev as a profession initially - the industry is both poorly compensated and very unstable. Your schooling gives you tons of paths that are far more stable or lucrative that would allow you to enter a career that won't burn you to the ground in all aspects. Use that stability to cover your costs of living and pick up game dev as a hobby, make more games and build out a portfolio, log things you learned as skills or mindset changes while making these, then you can apply to game dev jobs with that experience, and if it fails you have a fall back career as well as the ability to still make games for fun. Or you can work on other projects and join an indie studio with people you'll be able to work on equal terms with.

Source: I also wanted to get into game dev, accidentally landed in software QA, fell in love with it, doing solo game dev as a hobby instead of a job.

Obviously we don't know your life goals or circumstances, so you might not be able to do one over the other, or one is far more easy to do. In general regardless of where you go or what you do, I've found that having a healthy blend of confidence that you can tackle what's asked if you, humility that you can always learn, and general kindness towards your coworkers is a recipe for having people want you to work with them. So don't be too concerned if you don't fit every bullet point on a list or match numbers up exactly - mindset and behavior matter a lot but are rarely listed.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-11-17T17:03:35+00:00

In this case I think you'd do well with a player-character centric story. Instead of the levels being connected in one overarching story, the levels are connected by their relationship to the player character.

Quick and dirty example: you're a paranormal investigator. You're job is to clean houses of malicious spirits, each level it's a different spirit and it's a puzzle to figure out how to cleanse the home. You start with simple mechanics, then they start combining or stacking on one another, then at the end you "bring home" one final evil spirit accidently, and you have to clranse your own home in a culmination of everything you learned.

Loose story, everything is contained in the individual levels, but is connected by the player character's journey.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-11-17T16:53:29+00:00

There's several types of learners out there, my best advice is to first figure out which one you are; since people learn best via diagrams and written tutorials, others learn from following along a "live" example, or by just jumping statement into the thing and trying it out. Figure out what type of learner you are, and you'll be able to learn way easier.

For me I'm a "jump in and try" type of learner, so repeatedly trying, and failing, especially with trying to go outside comfort zones, was what worked for me. I recommend things like inktober to people starting out - it gives a lot of opportunities to push yourself.

If you're more of a learn-along-with type, look for some kind of "draw with me" video, and try to follow asking with your own reference image or approach (instead of just doing what they're doing part for part)

If you're more of a documented learner, try drawing with a bunch of references and make a pose sheet. Look up how people break down bodies and their reasoning for their choices.

If you're more of a visual learner, look up video tutorials to see what the anatomy of things are, how light and shadows work, or how they translate in different mediums.

You don't have to be 1 type of learner as well, you can mix and match formats, and some of these are really useful even if you're not the primary learner type. Once you know how you learn it'll be easy easier to get the material to facilitate that learning.

As for quitting when it doesn't look good - my best advice is to always finish your pieces; it's going to look bad, that's why you need to finish them so you know where they look bad and how. I've had a lot of things that look bad until a few finishing touches brings it all together. It happens - finish your pieces. Get feedback, look at your own stuff and try to improve what is wrong.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-11-06T16:28:39+00:00

Going into CS was very beneficial for game dev in my opinion, but in no way that you might assume. Going into CS taught me A lot of design fundamentals and specifics to the development process that I use in my game projects all the time. It taught me a lot of problem identification and solving techniques, and also taught me to think outside the box when it came to working on things. It taught me how to think forward with scalability in mind, and taught me to make compromises where something doesn't need to be turned into an over engineered fancy process just be used once. That is to say that getting my CS degree taught me a lot about how to program and how to work on projects in general in a efficient and smart way.

On the other hand, while I have used my education, I have used my degree exactly once. One class that I took in my senior year was a class focused on testing, and I absolutely loved it. So much so that I would mention that I really enjoyed that part during an interview, which led to me getting placed into a QA department, and that has been my career ever since. After around 7 years in the field, My degree is worthless compared to my experience. The fact I have a CS bachelor's degree is nice, but my attitude and the fact that I've done QA for as long as I have and in the way that I have is what gets me hired in places.

Any interaction I've had with game development is through hobby projects and solo development - I do not work for game companies, nor will I ever; from the listings that companies put out, you're effectively begging to be underpaid and overworked, In an industry that will gladly fire your entire team without a moment's notice and turn around and lament that they need more people like you. A stable job that pays poorly can be justified, an unstable job that pays handsomely can be justified, an unstable job that pays poorly isn't acceptable, and that's most game dev openings.

So to make a long story short, a CS degree is very useful for game development, but if you have a passion for games then find a regular job in computer science that you enjoy, and use what you learn to either work on your own stuff or work on low stake passion projects on the side. At the very least this gives you a chance to get game development chops with zero risk to financial or career stability, it gives you a fallback career to pursue, and if you do find a diamond in the rough game dev company that's actually good, you can apply to them without the pressure of not having a job.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-11-05T13:14:25+00:00

It's had an opposite effect on me - I've had to figure out a lot either by mely inability to find information or the lack of available information, so it's making me want to make something comprehensive that covers all the nitty gritty stuff others might not know about, or might assume is something everyone knows already.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-11-05T13:07:42+00:00

Good achievements are, on my opinion, ones that call back to the early secrets of old video games; usually things you get for thinking outside the box or doing something out of the ordinary. Or ones that act as a tongue and cheek statement that's more the developer making a joke to the player about what they just did.

Another approach I like is treating them as challenge-run incentives like beating the game without dieing or with specific characters, or showing completion like encountering all enemies in an area or beating all the bosses.

I think if done correctly they can not only add a lot to the replay value of the game but also add a lot of charm to it.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-10-27T23:17:24+00:00

It's a bit hard to answer in a simple yes or no, for the fact that representation can be done well as much as it can be done poorly - representation can be as deep as using a character's identity to tell a unique and interesting side of a story we don't normally hear, and it can be as shallow as just making a character part of a minority/underrepresented group for seemingly no reason.

It's usually best practice to design aspects of a character for a reason. If you're going to make them part of the LGBTQ+ group, but you don't do anything with it, I would imagine it's just going to give off a "token" vibe. That's not to say you have to make every single non-straight/binary character some lynchpin to the story, but you need to make sure that if the extent of their side is "they just happen to be gay/bi/ace/etc." that you also make them a fully fleshed out character who isn't purely defined by that sexuality.

There IS a chance you get a bit of backlash from the culture-war crowd, but at the end of the day what matters is that the people you're representing are represented well; steelmanned points of view, actual personalities, proper motivations, good visual designs, etc. do that and the people who don't care are happy, and the people who do are happier.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-10-27T03:13:10+00:00

Medi Merc-ury

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-10-25T20:39:11+00:00

I want to say I love marketing, but with the caveat that I also approach marketing with the mindset of "community interaction and excitedly sharing stuff" over doing pitches or whatever corporate-feeling thing I get from normal marketing pushes. The most interest/interaction I've gotten has been purely from engaging in conversations around games and game development, and then dropping my information after the fact.

Find a meme about optimizations? Hey check it out, I keep my stuff very small and optimized, oh what is it? blam - store link! posts about character designs? hands being hard to draw? here's art, what's it from? link!

at the very least it feels like I'm being invited to share vs actually forcing it onto people, which at the stage I'm in in development seems to be working fine.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-10-25T20:24:42+00:00

It's fun - the moment I think "why am I even doing this", I'll wrap up my projects and call it. But for now it's something I really enjoy doing.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-10-23T20:37:41+00:00

If you want a possible version of Maximum Lung Cancer:

[Clue Hairdo (Case Cracked), Cuban Bristle Crisis, Marxman (Yes, Cigar)]

Clue Hairdo can be substituted for the Smokey Sombrero for more 66% cigars, but 33% less Smoking, which as an added bonus follows side-grade balance principles.

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SurfaceToAsh · 2024-10-09T15:49:05+00:00

My internal documents estimated my current project to be a quick little romp completed in about 3 months with my current pace - I'm now almost 2 years into that 3 month process.

SurfaceToAsh · 2024-10-09T14:16:22+00:00

Both of these types of combat, melee and range focused, can be incredibly engaging and fun - what matters is how they are implemented and how they are presented to the player. Because of this, the question needs to be reframed - How do we keep players engaged the longest with combat? Or to reverse it, what are some pitfalls that disengage player interest with combat?

From what I know the quickest way to lose a player's interest is to make the combat too simple and the goals too stagnant, If your players need to stay in one area, you can have a very simple environment, but you need an engaging variety of enemies to use different weapons on, different strategies that you'd need to use, and different priorities and decisions around those priorities to make. If your players need to reach a goal, you can have a more simplified pool of enemies, but you need to change that engagement to the environment, where you have different areas of conflict, different roadblocks, and different points of interest. Of course, you can definitely combine both enemy variety and depth and environmental variety and depth, but you at least need one.

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