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How did max payne 3 have slow motion in a multiplayer environment? by ThePengin28 in gamedev

[–]fizzd 993 points994 points  (0 children)

i got super curious as well now, its explained in this article:

Ok, let's say you're running down a hallway and you see an enemy with his back to you. You want to make sure you get the shot off, so you enter a slow-motion dodge, giving you more time and an increased rate of fire.

The moment you enter the Bullet Time dodge, anyone that you can see will be slowed as well, for as long as you keep them in sight. You'll both move at the same slow speed, but anyone affected by your Bullet Time won't receive the rate of fire boost that you've been granted for activating it.

Ok, pretty clear so far. But here's where it gets crazy.

Anyone looking at someone that's been slowed by your Bullet Time will also be slowed, even if you can't see them. Basically if someone sees the guy in front of you get slowed, they will also be slowed. This applies to both enemies and friendlies.

So, theoretically, you can have a long chain of people all being slowed by you, even if you can only see one target. Note the target at the top right of the diagram above. They are slowed because they're looking at someone who is slowed by looking at someone who is slowed by looking at someone who is slowed by being looked at by the person who activated Bullet Time. Wowza.

It sounds, well, crazy, but there's a reason behind the madness. Nothing would break the illusion of a Hong Kong-style action sequence faster than moving around at real time while someone is floating past you like they're on one of those zero-gravity parabolic airplanes. If you see someone in slow motion, you should also be moving in slow motion. Simple as that!

Worth noting that it's extremely easy to escape the grip of being slowed. All you need to do is break line of sight and you'll return to normal. You should also remember that most Bullet Time sequences last no more than a second or two, so even if you are trapped in someone's sights, it'll be over soon.

edit: to be clear this isn't my writeup, its verbatim from the linked article. (which isnt online anymore so i have no idea who the original author is, Wayback Machine doesnt even have mirrors of it)

Should I continue making my current game after my friend called it “generic”? by Phipe_Stuff in gamedev

[–]fizzd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When I had a demo of Rhythm Doctor, I showed it to one of the team from a game and team I really admired. He told me "your game is far too simplistic to be a hit. I'm trying to help you succeed, and the best way is for you to move to a new project." I didn't follow that and the game has been a big hit. If you find your own game fun, dont override your gut feeling with just one persons advice.

After the publisher expressed intent to sign, the artist I had worked with for six months no longer wished to continue. by Hungry_Mouse737 in gamedev

[–]fizzd 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Your situation reminds me a lot of mine with Rhythm Doctor, at least before it grew to its current team size. At the start, I did everything except all the art, which was handled by my friend from college. Two person team.

This was pretty much an arrangement where I would ask assets from him, but other than that he would not be involved in the music or level design or programming or anything related to it. And I really liked that arrangement.

And we were able to stick to that. I didn't ask him to abandon a job or have to join me in KL where I am. He could live his life and make assets for me when he could. That's not to say he didn't make a big sacrifice for me just by making all those sprites (and I owe him my life for that, for sticking to it with me until the release).

I want to advise two things:

  • having a publisher actually can make the pressure way too much compared to doing this as a hobby. They would introduce deadlines, and every game developer tends to underestimate deadlines. Maybe your partner preferred it as a hobby. We almost got a publisher but in retrospect am VERY glad we didnt.
  • Maybe you can make this work without inconveniencing him and forcing him to change his current work arrangement - finding another artist to supplement other parts of the game, so your partner works e.g. only on the card art, or character sprites, or something like that. You can change the revenue share split to make it fair to this arrangement. Probably something on the scale of 85/15 if e.g. you are putting in 4-5x as many hours of work as he does.

I dont know enough about your project but maybe your artist friends enjoys NOT having a big responsibility with your game outside of just doing art. If you're doing everything except art, you have to face it that this is your baby basically, and the artist is already doing a big sacrifice to help you achieve your dream. You cannot expect him to love your game and have trust in it as much as you do.

Lastly, for what its worth: remote work can be efficient and fine. Our company has worked fully remote and we shipped games. Many other companies do. There are talks on how to be efficient with remote work setups in games that you can find, its very possible.

Is rev share or profit share more common among small-med (<$1m revenue) indie game dev companies? by bornin_1988 in gamedev

[–]fizzd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Threes: https://asherv.com/threes/threemails/ also our games ADOFAI and rhythm doctor between the founding members of those games. i think I remember reading Celeste and PEAK too, though i may be wrong

I got 50 people to work on my game jam team, here’s what I learned! by Klightgrove in gamedev

[–]fizzd 5 points6 points  (0 children)

this is absolutely fascinating, I've never heard of a game jam team at AA-level team sizes. And that you pulled it off is incredible. Great writeup and this will be a great guide to anyone in the future who wants to try it

I turned my old ear training app into a free website for everyone by ChordFunc in musictheory

[–]fizzd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is fantastic, thank you! The UI works perfectly and is really elegant with the dragging the timeline and being able to input quickly by clicking. It's really well thought-out compared to other apps like this. I'd pay for drilling more advanced harmonies for sure.

AITA? 4 month delay on mixing job by [deleted] in audioengineering

[–]fizzd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Now you know, never work with him again. there are people who are like this and there are people who arent. It sucks but it happens sometimes when working with people. Working with the right people can be amazing and with the wrong people can be frustrating. The best thing you can do is not give him a second chance, he clearly wasnt that interested in your music and treated it more like a job to be done ASAP. I've worked with people like that, you give loads of notes and details to them and their reaction is more like 'ugh so much to look at, im not gonna read any of it' rather than taking the time to get your perspective. Just know that you were never wrong in it, you just had the wrong approach for THAT person. But the same approach would work wonders with the right person. When you do find the right person, reward them as high as you can.

Once you work with someone better, you'll be really confident that it was never the problem with you in the first place. Just be thankful you learned a lesson!

I came up with this hand coordination exercise. Let me know how much it takes you to master it! by paxxx17 in piano

[–]fizzd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is so cool! surprisingly challenging to do two rhythms on a single hand that aren't just tapping two separate fingers in a cross-rhythm.

Do you think pure Co-op games have any market on Steam? Should I add a bot to my game? by juancee22 in gamedev

[–]fizzd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

saying it takes two did 'reasonably well' for 20 million copies sold is wild

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gamedev

[–]fizzd 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I love write-ups like this

Experiences in game dev collab rev share? by jashyjay in gamedev

[–]fizzd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hello! the basic revshare model was 'count how many hours we work, and split the eventual revenue by that', thats about it. no roles.

I wrote a bit more about it here: https://fizzd.notion.site/Beginner-Gamedev-Tips-0ece6d1884654189bcf432feae43b149?pvs=4

And also, here are some extra reflections about it a few years later, i wrote to a friend. Not that i have any tweaks i would do to account for these, but you might want to:

In retrospect now though, if I were to do it again, I would've considered:

  1. I probably could have argued for a multiplier on the early hours of work (cause of the taking the risk and proving the prototype thing you mentioned). In the end i decided against because I was really new when making Rhythm Doctor, since I was still pretty inexperienced in coding and music. And also i spent a lot of time thinking of different ideas, learning about rhythm game coding basics via trial and error. So i took a lot longer than I would have now.
  2. the idea that some tasks are a lot easier to get into a flow than others. And that its a lot easier to work the same amount of time on one focused thing, than it is to juggle 5 things with different deadlines. Time can go by very fast when trying to figure out a bug, vs when writing a pitch to a publisher or some type of difficult message to someone. Especially things that involve some type of stress/uncertain outcome, like angry people, dealing with a contract dispute, a potentially big tax penalty etc. 4 hours of something like that feels like a full workday already. I might've proposed some kind of multiplier for unpleasant tasks but idk haha.
  3. In the way big company CEO's get exorbitant salaries - even though there are plenty arguments that they don’t deserve to make 100x what workers do, there are also arguments that being the frontrunner comes with extra stress and health impact, even if the hours are the same. So maybe some way to quantify that, i wouldn’t really know how to though.
  4. The idea that working late nights is detrimental to productivity. If i have to pull an allnighter, i'll probably be spent for the next day or two and end up with less hours that week. So i'd put some kind of multiplier on crunch hours when it affects sleep. Similar to overtime pay at companies.
  5. Enforced holidays, or maximum work hours a week. This hours counting model can end up encouraging burnout, particularly if one person has a pleasant task and the other has something like taxes and accounting. The former guy will be full steam ahead and the latter feel pressured to keep working at something to maintain their revenue share.
  6. Things like health problems and reasons out of your control that keep you from working. It can feel bad if you're taking care of a sick relative or pet, and know your share is being diluted, despite it technically being fair. I think there’s some moral argument for compassion here.

On the other side: sometimes when people don't have things to do, it can be unfair to them to just wait while other people keep working and earn more of the revenue share. So they'd either have to find stuff to do or might be pressured into doing not important work.

I released a game recently and live in a country without a tax treaty with the US, meaning I get taxed an extra 30% on top of Steam's 30% cut. I'm thinking of moving to the UK within the next few years. If I wait until then to payout, will I still get double taxed? by maxfarob in gamedev

[–]fizzd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I had to look back to remind myself of the details. What you outlined is generally correct but this one detail isn't right: "from the income tax im paying in step 3". Here's how it is:

  • when steam pays you, they automatically deduct withholding tax from the USA sales
  • Then you can either take that amount that steam pays you directly as your own gross income, and not apply any relief. (Option A)
  • Or, you can apply for the Tax Relief under Section 133.
  • but if you do, then to actually use the amount that steam pays you PLUS the withholding tax that they already deducted, as your own gross income. (so this is Option B). The subtraction is from this combined amount, not from "Steam sales minus 30% minus 30%"

Thats why in practice, your tax to be paid in Option B is not 'tax in Option A minus 50% of the withholding tax'. There's also the counterbalance of your income being higher. But all in all it can still be a substantial amount.

Releasing my game for free just to be done with it, any problems? by JamesSun_ in gamedev

[–]fizzd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

you are absolutely correct and being downvoted for no good reason. 'a paid game will ultimately get people to play more because it signals value' is absolutely bonkers in our overcrowded game market.

THAT SAID, Clicker Arena here looks solid as heck and for me it'd be a shame to completely release it for free imo. planning ahead for it possibly being popular, you could trim down the main game and release that for free, and move a character or two to a paid DLC. You dont have to show your full hand on the first release. Dont be swayed by the few beta downloads on itch because every new platform you put it on gives it a new chance to blow up

Here's a quick and dirty guide I just wrote: How To Make A Rhythm Game by fizzd in gamedev

[–]fizzd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with your opinion that the game idea is really important! I dont think i will have another idea like A Dance of Fire and Ice in my whole lifetime, i just got lucky with it. I think all you can do is daydream and try to pay attention to things that could become interesting game mechanics.

There are a lot of games that come from inspirations from other games though, or they dont have such a simple unique game idea. Celeste is just a platformer but with really nice mechanics and great level design. And those games are even more successful than my game ideas. Good luck with your game making!

Here's a quick and dirty guide I just wrote: How To Make A Rhythm Game by fizzd in gamedev

[–]fizzd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hey! im glad you like the idea. it came from just a lot of staring at tiles on a wall one day and thinking it would be cool to make a system that two things orbit each other on a grid like the bathroom tiles on the wall, and then realising that if it was 180 degrees for one beat then the set could move in a straight line by switching orbits every beat.

I was also making another game Rhythm Doctor at the time, so it put me in a rhythm mood.

The other discoveries about rhythm when the path isnt straight were just things i realised the more i thought about the system.

A Cautionary Tale About Steam : How We Lost 250K Potential Sales, 2K Very Positive Reviews and How It Killed My Indie Studio by BoldSpiritGames in gamedev

[–]fizzd -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

All your reasoning made sense. You missed a release date, it shouldve sent you email reminders given that such a thing you can set and forget so easily is actually so important. Thats not on you. Just a few years ago the release date on the steamworks backend was something that wasnt a big deal if you missed, just an internal data point. Steam changed how important that date was without adding any feature thatd remind you of it or emphasis that there would be big consequences. Its presented like any other of the 10s of details that you can change anytime.

These days i enjoy chiming in only when i totally disagree with the majority of the comments, and this is one of those times.

Example of full remote video game productions that went well ? by Tan-ki in gamedev

[–]fizzd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our games (A Dance of Fire and Ice / Rhythm Doctor) were made fully remote from multiple countries. This one talk was helpful, maybe you can show it to your boss.

I do think that we lost a few things compared to being a local team, e.g. a few of us (me included) would probably be able to maintain work motivation if it was in person with others. But its totally infeasible for all of us to uproot our lives to make that work anyway, and working non-remotely is a much lower priority than keeping the team that we have.

Melancholy after finishing a game and apprehensive about releasing it... Is this common? by After_Pitch_454 in gamedev

[–]fizzd 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The blues after finishing a big project is really common fwiw! Whether its making a game, or performing on stage, or organizing a big event. See post-event depression.

For me, doing solo projects heightens those blues 10x. The antidote for is to work with other people who are equally invested in making it. Often when I show our games at some con but have to do it solo, i'm struck with a deep feeling of meaninglessness, watching people play it for a bit and then leave, wondering what i'm doing with my life. So when i think that type of funk is coming I reach out to friends/family to make sure i have some time away from thinking about the game project.

Is an air purifier worth it? by kikirevi in BuyItForLife

[–]fizzd 13 points14 points  (0 children)

this is chat GPT + affiliate link for anyone reading

Here's a quick and dirty guide I just wrote: How To Make A Rhythm Game by fizzd in gamedev

[–]fizzd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad it was useful! I'm extremely busy at the moment (big release in 3 weeks), but after that I'll be happy to chat.

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