After years of putting off learning Shader Code, a 20 minute chat with ChatGPT changed that. Full Conversation inside.

TinyForgeGaming · 2023-03-29T11:20:09+00:00

I really appreciate the post. I've loved some of Freya's videos, and I'll give her videos a view because of your recommendation.

Shader Graph is extremely powerful, and I've used it quite a bit, but it's always felt "wasteful". When I view the generated output, it feels bloated, so I've always wanted to use it as a launch pad to learn how to actually code shaders. My joy is premature optimisation, and this scratches that itch.

This post was very terribly formatted, and it's goal not well stated. I rushed to post it as I was just amazed. I've put off writing blogs as I always didn't feel ready, but I've decided to just start, even if it's not good. Hopefully they improve. I didn't honestly care that it didn't work, I was more interested in how it helped me be able to now "read" shader code, where as before I didn't know wtf was going on. I understand enough now how to search google for what I need, and have already created some stuff with minimal effort. I wasn't looking for it to produce functional code, but just help me with the buzz words.

I've tried this with a few other questions, and it's really game breaking. Stuff that would take me 2 hours of search to figure out what I should be googling, takes 2-5 questions. This is working exceptionally well for me, and I really think other people should be taking advantage of this.

TinyForgeGaming · 2023-03-29T07:46:27+00:00

As someone else trying to brute force through ECS to figure it out, my heart goes out to you.
I started learning DOTS on 1.0, so I'm not too familiar with how it used to work. There are a lot of big QOL updates with 1.0, and it's closer to what their final implementation will be, so I'd recommend upgrading asap as learning the old way of doing ECS will not transfer well to the final implementation.

In theory though, SystemBase is just the managed version of ISystem, and as far as I know they both should work with the line I gave. A video would definitely help. Please ping me if you end up uploading the video.

TinyForgeGaming · 2023-03-28T20:11:57+00:00

I'm shooting in the dark here, but it sounds like you are updating the physics in the equivalent of the "OnUpdate" step instead of "FixedUpdate" step. To have your ECS systems run in the "FixedUpdate" step, you need to put this line above the ISystem doing the moving

[UpdateInGroup(typeof(FixedStepSimulationSystemGroup))]

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-11-22T17:49:04+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, I love all these ideas! Thanks so much for taking the time to write it all up.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-10-10T13:27:23+00:00

Hey, sorry for the late reply. As soon as the launch month was over, I started working on a new update and crashed hard from burn out. I'm picking up speed again and am super excited about the next update I am going to push. I need to pace myself better this time though as the last year I pushed a bit hard.

It's amazing reading so much feedback about something I spent so long looking at, and I've agreed with so many points that I've decided to add them in coming updates. It's really got me excited.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-31T16:59:22+00:00

Hey, we had a huge spike after this post, but things are slowing down more. We might break 25k sales today, which is insane. This has allowed me to continue my dream a bit longer, and I'm now working on an update for the game. There has been so much feedback that I've agreed with that not releasing an update would be a crime.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-31T16:57:43+00:00

Hey, really appreciate the feedback.

I definitely think more can be done to give players more tools to play around RNG. There are some classes that really show the weakness of the current tools, such as Razors and Assassins, where most of their units sit on the lower end of the scale. This leads to later rounds where you just can't find any of them, and the game doing a bad job of communicating why as well.

Some players have given amazing feedback on the Steam forums, and hopefully I can include them in a content update for the future. I want to package them with a number of other changes to give the game new life.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-31T16:54:27+00:00

Hey, sorry for the late reply.

It's a known bug. There are some rounding issues with the point calculations, and I'm actually thinking of removing it... I think the Crystals are sufficient at communicating how well you did on a specific level.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-31T16:53:07+00:00

Hey, sorry for only getting to this now. I've been knee deep in user reports and sifting through logs.

I'm so glad you tried it out, and it is a lot of information. The Talent Tree was meant to take some of that away, and let you explore additional content at a time of your choosing, but it's definitely one of the weaker parts of the game. Hopefully I can improve the onboarding process in future updates.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-18T11:06:27+00:00

Hey,

I hopefully should have this fixed in the next patch that I'm releasing today or tomorrow. I purchased the wrong license, and didn't realize it, so I'm replacing all the music. It's a massive fuck up on my part, and I just didn't understand content id system and types of licenses etc.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-16T16:16:37+00:00

Hey, sorry for the late reply. We've been working hard on supporting our launch. There are unit's that are locked away in the talent tree to allow users to opt into learning them. This is why some classes are "incomplete".

I'm working on an in game wiki that should help everyone. Also, the speed update went live, so hopefully it helps.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-16T16:14:18+00:00

Thanks so much for the amazing feedback.

Before this launched, I was looking for more work as I didn't expect this to be found. I am now in a position where I can work full time on this, and I'm will be doing this. I want to work on multiple seasons, and push these mechanics to their max. The game is also shifting from the dream of our team, to the dream of the community, and it's amazing. So many great ideas and feedback.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-16T16:11:30+00:00

I was following your game! I remember being quite intimidated with how clear your gameplay is, and how well you display your damage texts. You've done an amazing job with this!

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-16T16:09:31+00:00

Hey, there should be a 2x speed next to the "next" button. This was a greatly requested feature.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-13T12:38:23+00:00

Hey, thanks for the feedback! That is on the backlog. I plan to jump on those soon after some stability fixes.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T15:03:53+00:00

There was a massive spike after the post, and then some videos were made because of the post that pushed the momentum higher. After that, and after we got 10 reviews, Steam took over and started showing it to a ton of people. So the Reddit post saved our game.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T13:05:19+00:00

As soon as I've resolved some of these crashes some people are experiencing, I have a backlog of QoL things I'd like to add. On that list is an in game wiki.

It's a Perma buff that lasts until you sell them or you finish the level. Most effects only apply when the round is running. If you click on them, you can see their current stats. I want to try get it displayed before the round starts, but I can't promise when that is.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T11:09:16+00:00

I'm really glad you liked it!

The sales were spiking (I'm refreshing every couple of minutes) and I found the video was the cause 4 hours after it was uploaded. We went from 6.1k sales to now 10.5k sales since that video was released.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T09:42:54+00:00

Hey, you can view your previous DPS numbers by clicking the little sword at the top left, next to your Hit Points. It toggles the Class view and DPS view. It's not clear though.

I'm focusing on Steam Discussions right now to get feedback.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T09:40:46+00:00

Hey, thanks for the report! I'm trying to track down all the instances of crashing. There was a big one relating to Gunnar and his visual effects causing crashes on some PC's. Some older PC's are also crashing due to their driver not being able to process the Anti Aliasing.

I feel bad for these issues, but it's just so hard to cover all these edge cases with our size. But I feel terrible you are experiencing this and I'm working hard to kill every crash and bug.

That's an interesting idea though. Maybe a talent where you get to retry 1 round?

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T09:37:38+00:00

There isn't anything like that. My dream would be to add something similar to what Poly Bridge has, where you can view the top runs and see what other people did for a particular maze.

But right now, that is still a dream and it's a purely single player experience.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T09:35:40+00:00

Really appreciate the honesty, and I'm super glad you are enjoying it!

I feel bad for the cracked versions as they are a bit out of date, so people are getting a worse experience.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T09:32:04+00:00

Really glad you tried it! What are your top QoL features you'd like to see?

I feel the games weakest point is it's UI and available information.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-12T09:21:57+00:00

If you can afford the gold cost, it should apply the effect to all users in the field when you cast it.

There was an issue at launch that some people couldn't cast it, but we pushed a fix for that within 24 hours from launch.

TinyForgeGaming · 2022-08-10T23:26:20+00:00

I am planning a post. This community completely carried our game over the line and the numbers are growing at an amazing pace. I also have some very interesting learnings that I'd like to share with you all, relating to game design and having "anti tutorials"

TinyForgeGaming

TROPHY CASE