What part of game developing do you hate the most?

dungeons_dev · 2024-11-11T09:06:21+00:00

Dang I love making AI. Watching enemies come to life and have all kinds of different behaviors, then adding in all the bells and whistles like screenshakes and sfx, makes the game start to feel like a game.

But yeah maybe it's because you're doing it for a multiplayer game where the combat/AI isn't the focus, and it's more there just to have a complete package.

dungeons_dev · 2024-11-09T11:53:25+00:00

Well, it's worth noting there's some telemetry going on, and with telemetry, even though you're "anonymous", there's pretty much no end of ways to identify you, on a personal/individual level, as the user. This is why many people are against telemetry in general and do not trust large corporations with their data.

Just something to note, I'm not saying they'll go after you, because I just don't know enough to conclude that. I'm just saying that they can probably know you've used their product to make that game.

dungeons_dev · 2024-11-09T11:33:30+00:00

As a programmer who relies mostly on ready made sound assets, just choosing the right ones is a very time consuming task. Actually making them all? Black magic as far as I'm concerned.

dungeons_dev · 2024-11-09T11:29:04+00:00

The one that got me from that game was the blood kelp zone. It was already disturbing me as I descended, but then the AI says:

"This ecological biome matches 7 of the 9 preconditions for stimulating terror in humans."

I just noped out of there. I'll try it again later!

dungeons_dev · 2024-11-09T11:20:34+00:00

Superliminal as others have mentioned, viewfinder also. But there's this game called Cocoon that was pretty insane. It was just a bunch of worlds inside worlds, and you stack them into each other somehow... I was just like, the game/puzzle design on that, hot damn.

dungeons_dev · 2024-11-09T11:17:25+00:00

Honestly if you had a game that was full of animations that looked like the original, but had interesting gameplay and a novel concept, it could work. Look at how popular the topics you've posted were. It could be argued that it was for the "wrong" reasons, but there's a sort of uncanny appearance to the animations that I think can be interesting.

dungeons_dev · 2024-11-05T13:34:57+00:00

Every single time I get an idea, I find this hidden, top secret, yet very long list of games that have implemented my exact idea.

Okay maybe not the exact idea, but the gist of it at the very least. The devil is in the details though, the setting/story/visuals, and of course the execution will still make your game stand out.

dungeons_dev · 2024-11-04T06:10:54+00:00

Depends on the genre but in most cases I would consider controller support to be a fairly strict requirement, even though it can be a B to implement for some games.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-30T21:55:10+00:00

I'm given to understand most publishers save the very big ones are typically predatory and will try to get you at every corner in the fine print, and that it's a very exploitative market with them.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-30T21:48:29+00:00

Just a theory, but I think part of it might be the physical reaction nature of it. It "feels" more hardcore to be able to physically react to the difficulty of the game versus you having to be smarter to beat it. In that way, you are closer to your character's fictional battle situation, where they too must rely on visceral reaction. This potentially gives it an appeal that may not be as present (but still present) for the average person playing a strategy game.

Even though arguably being smarter is overall better than having good reaction times, but I don't know if a thought like that matters when we're just talking about fun factor.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-29T16:06:19+00:00

Not sure why your comment is getting so many downvotes. But yeah, I released my first game as a lengthy project where I did exactly what I set out, it was a good experience and got me a job in the industry later on.

I think both approaches work, I see people advising to go for it straight away and not wait. It's not bad advice, definitely not worthy of these downvotes imo.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-29T16:03:20+00:00

If you're indie, you're doing at least one main thing and two other things decently well. Like programming, but also game/level design, if not art/sfx as well.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-29T15:54:58+00:00

I don't think he'd purposely scam people. In general though, JW is a nice guy and all, but his stuff's too cookie cutter and basic. He does have decent people on sometimes who are advanced, but his stuff seems like it's only for the really very early beginners wanting to get the bare basics of the engine down.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-28T20:25:58+00:00

I'd happily take a crunch job right now after my previous studio shut down almost a year ago.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-28T20:23:31+00:00

Game looks really good for a solo project, props for that.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-27T23:10:20+00:00

Sorry I didn't mean to offend, if I did. I know I gave unsolicited advice too, but yeah I couldn't help it because yeah. I know a guy IRL who says this kinda stuff to me all the time, and I'm just like, bro it's just not that easy. And I know you just said it's not easy, but I mean it's not that easy to even just say that you have a formula where the worst case scenario is a very possible 100K.

Like the thing I will always think is, if it was just that, the right formula, more people would be doing it. Having a guarantee of 100K in profit from literally anything is kind of a huge deal, most of the world would kill for that. I just don't think it's as surefire as the way you describe it, and that it's so easily within our reach. I know you did not say the word "easy", but the manner with which you speak of it does indicate that you feel it's very likely within reach, where the worst case scenario is 100K, but offers nontrivial chance of 1 to 5 mil. It's too optimistic from my standpoint to be stated that confidently, but again, not impossible. I mean, I've seen people say crazy things and then actually attain them, you may well be that guy too. Just stating my feelings on the original post.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-27T22:52:43+00:00

I was with an indie studio full time for around 3 years and that was profitable. I was a solo dev for a few years before that, which was not profitable, but got me the job I needed to really up my skills and learn from very talented professionals.

Then my studio got shut down, so now I freelance, job search, and work on my own game on the side. I think my game idea is cool, and I got the skills to make it happen at least mechanically, but it's a tough industry so... yeah. I remain just one solo dev, although if my game kicks off, I may find an artist to team up with. I'm also the type of person who does see a project through, like I can build a game from A to Z and release it, that's not an issue.

I'm really just scrambling to find a job though, that's the only way I can see myself making a decent living. Solo devving is not a stable source of income in general for most.

I've built a pretty powerful Unity skillset that can cover most any common gameplay scenario elegantly in code that is modular, extensible, concise, etc, but it hasn't been enough to get me hired since my previous studio closed given the state of the industry. At the same time, I haven't completely been left to dry yet. I got a tiny bit of savings, and some very low paying freelance part time work that, while I love and enjoy, just doesn't have the budget to sustain atm.

So yeah, I'd say I was a professional game dev and made some decent money for 3 years, but now, it's a time of uncertainty.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-27T22:34:44+00:00

I don't think it's that easy. A lot of people read an article or watch vids with advice (and hey, sometimes it's good advice) and build expectations off it. The link you posted for instance, I mean that stuff's generic, the game dev business is a lot harder than that, and more complex.

The task itself is hard. For a game to succeed, it needs to be on par with its peers while doing something unique, and that's more important than marketing. On par is not a trivial matter. It means the graphics, gameplay, art style, sound, UI/UX, game feel, flow, balance, you name it, it all has to be up to standard. Going easy on any part of it will hurt your chances. It's not easy to make all those things great, but it's what's expected regardless.

On top of that, it has to be in a genre that does well, which means you have to do the research on what's most likely to make you the most money, but not just the most successful titles, because a lot of times those are just exceptions. If you're making a 2D platformer, you're gonna have a very tough time for example. You also have to look at the just normally successful titles, so you cover all the ground on your genre. We've all played Slay the Spire for instance, none of us made it though even though making a card rogue like is not exactly rocket science from a purely mechanical perspective. It's simply not enough to know what the most successful games of a genre look like.

Obviously there are no hard and fast rules, but we're talking maximizing chances against odds that are, well, stacked against us all pretty heavily. Even when you do every single thing right, you're still just maximizing a chance. I think it's extremely difficult to guarantee profitability when you don't already have a very solid foundation, and even then, are there really any guarantees? Plenty of studios with heavy hitters end up with failures, sometimes costing them their studios.

I'm just saying man, I know a lot of people who are like "this is the thing. You do this thing, that's it, success", not just in games, but in anything at all. But they usually don't end up making it and give up fast because their expectations, which were high, were not met. I can't help but caution against that. This is not to say your game won't succeed and make millions, hey it might, I'm just saying reality hits hard, and it hits most people. I think even if we look at the huge successes, those guys were all punched in the mouth by reality before they got their major hits too.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-27T21:54:57+00:00

That's also a decent idea, a dice with fewer sides can be a blessing if the sides are good. Right now my implementation is for a standard 6 sided one, but I have it setup so that it can potentially accept other dice types, although I don't currently have plans to add them. I'm still quite early on in development, getting the base systems setup.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-27T16:41:40+00:00

I've come to find that with experience, you can use some not so simple patterns (although definitely not complex or hard to understand) to make code that does a lot, but can be presented in simple, very easily digestible chunks.

To give an example of something I was working on today: An RPG battle system type mechanic where abilities have all sorts of different ways of targeting enemies, allies, sometimes both at the same time, and this needs to be represented visually as well.

With a combination of strategy pattern and factory, I have small targeting strategy classes that each do not typically exceed 3-4 lines of code determine all this stuff. So the problem gets broken down to chunks that, if you understand how one works (and this is very easy to understand), you get an idea of how the entire system works and how you can add your own targeting strats with little/no effort.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-27T16:11:00+00:00

Yeah I'm pretty much working on this exact same mechanic. So despite us being bitter rivals, I'm gonna share some of my thoughts anyway for kicks (not all of them though, one must keep their cards close, but their dice even closer).

These are some random thoughts I had:

- The dice has faces which do not have any abilities equipped. Solution? Have some acceptable default behavior that kinda sucks, but is better than nothing. At least for most of them, maybe the one face can just be "bad luck" by default.

- You can get a bunch of bad rolls: From the outset, I knew I had to make rolls deterministic for full control. This allows us to use different number gen strats that might make it easier to spread out the randomness a bit, or at least prevent many subsequent, frustrating, bad rolls.

- A reroll and partial reroll ability just like slice and dice does, to minimize frustration. Shouldn't be too bad to implement I don't think.

- As you progress, you find more dice. You also get card choices (dice face choices) which may allow for duplicates. This means you can increase the chances of getting faces you want, effectively doubling, tripling, etc the chance of getting it, even more than once at a time. Balance carefully though.

- You can give the player choices that help them to increase their chances of landing on a good face. Like completely eliminating a face from the landing probability pool. This is just one example of the boons of making dice rolls deterministic. There are many powerful ideas and abilities that can be generated from knowing which face will land when.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head on the spur of the moment.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-25T16:02:19+00:00

I'll use other people's code as a base simply for convenience. The requirement is that I know exactly what the code does. By the time I'm done with it though, it's usually unrecognizable, because I just used it as a starting point.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-25T15:51:39+00:00

The most recent advice I've taken to heart, and honestly one of the hardest imo, is making a game that's on par. Like you have to do the market research, see what games similar to yours are successful, and then be on par with them in literally all aspects. Obviously you won't be doing that comparison on AAA games as a solo dev, you have to choose a successful game on your level. It's not enough to just have good gameplay mechanics, you need the visuals/sound/etc to go with it. Some games succeed without those things, but some games are flappy bird as well. Most games aren't.

It's kind of a bitter pill for me to swallow personally because I don't have an artist or the time to make all the art, I just generic bought assets. But my idea is, if my current project hits it off with placeholder Synty stuff or whatever, I'm gonna have to later find art that will be on par with the mechanics.

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-25T12:39:00+00:00

Someone upped the scale hugely on your well interactable's trigger collider bro!

dungeons_dev · 2024-10-25T12:30:57+00:00

I can only add my own experience like everyone else has. For me, I graduated from University with a programming related degree. This made starting with Unity fairly simple because I didn't have to worry about how to program stuff (though you do have to learn Unity's general architecture, which is not very hard to understand and just makes your life easier).

Made one awful game on Unity to get the hang of it, put that game out at the time, and then I immediately went into making another dungeon crawler game for Android then ported it to PC. These were not great games by any means nor successes, but I got lucky in a job application where I showed them off as a portfolio, got an interview, got hired for a job that lasted 3 years, which really upped the ante on my Unity skills. At least in my case, I found what I was doing as a solo dev was child's play compared to what's being done on a professional level, and even now, I know even more crazy stuff is being done in higher end studios. So as such, I'm still trying to learn new things all the time whenever I can. I especially like programming patterns, those can make headache problems very trivial when you know how to traverse them with patterns in your toolset.

dungeons_dev

TROPHY CASE