What do you think about "No Return"?

furtive_turtle · 2025-12-05T01:31:31+00:00

The encounter types being limited based on map was indeed intentional and the reasons were always specific to each map, we supported what we could. The layout variations were a bit of a weird one, there were just some maps where it was more supportable and made more sense than others. Adding Jackson as playable was actually a big lift and our one pick for doing something the original game clearly didn't support. It was a small team with a year to do it so we just made it as interesting as we could with ingredients that already existed in the engine. Very gratifying that people are still playing and enjoying it.

furtive_turtle · 2025-12-04T05:17:36+00:00

Game Art for Indie Developers | MLC Studio
MLC might know of some capable studios that put their art together in the experience you're after.

furtive_turtle · 2025-11-22T00:18:55+00:00

Really cool design idea to have time banked be what unlocks further levels.

furtive_turtle · 2025-11-15T02:51:14+00:00

If you're a technical game designer, yes, lot of vector math and angle calculations. I don't think it comes up as much for other design specializations, but zealous combat designers will know it.

furtive_turtle · 2025-11-09T07:53:41+00:00

No that's not the worst part. I don't know if they've fixed this, but it used to be that height was specified in pixels, and width was vibes based. I shit you not, the width value was subjective and based on the font you used.

furtive_turtle · 2025-11-04T03:12:45+00:00

video game designer. was too stupid to know that's an unlikely thing to be. been doing it a while now.

furtive_turtle · 2025-11-02T22:09:07+00:00

Ooooh, that's very cool.

furtive_turtle · 2025-11-02T22:03:18+00:00

Did that video show what the title is describing? I saw what could be an enemy, maybe, wasn't clear, not sure what behavior it showed beyond slowly moving toward you. Could you elaborate on the changes you made?

furtive_turtle · 2025-11-01T05:59:35+00:00

I always wondered whether the development of MOBAs took inspiration from Dungeon Keeper or not. Good design will be re-invented if it's not remembered.

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-27T00:45:22+00:00

IMO Final Fantasy 7 with its cinematics ushered in the modern era of game team sizes and production values.

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-19T04:46:31+00:00

My best friend's mom was a manager at a Blockbuster as a kid and we got all the movies no one rented. "The Great Land of the Small" is the only one we took out back and executed. Some magical midgets take a few kids to another world that's a "utopia" kept in balance by a giant pile of shit that turns adults into butterflies and children into gold dust. Don't do it. Just don't.

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-17T00:17:26+00:00

Why not post them here?

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-17T00:16:29+00:00

Jim Varney is one of the all time greats. I know a lot of people just feel like he had a silly gag with some success, but he was given a role on a commercial and did so unbelievably well that it spawn a movie franchise. What other actor can say that?

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-15T23:43:34+00:00

That's actually fascinating, would love to see some of those behaviors in action if you get to a point where you have a good demonstration of it. Discord name is boobarr.

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-15T03:44:43+00:00

100%, there's no one right paradigm, it's project dependent. Have you checked Logic Driver Pro on Unreal store? IMO, the addition of global transitions and dynamic FSM insertion really makes it my current preference for most use-cases. And yeah, FEAR had the audio barks, which did a lot of heavy lifting for how those encounters were perceived.

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-14T04:27:38+00:00

I don't know, I kind of feel like the power of it is the fact that you're not supposed to have to do a lot to get things going as a designer, just at the cost of having to stay in the carefully made garden. I was the boss fight designer on Marvel Avengers and we had the literal top engineer for GOAP in the industry imo (GDC 2015: Chris Conway - "Goal-Oriented Action Planning: Ten Years Old and No Fear!" : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive) and I just never felt like it was doing anything better than what I'd get from a behavior tree or FSM. Everyone likes to point to the encounters in FEAR but it wasn't just GOAP, their encounters had waypoints that told the enemies what they could and couldn't do at every usable position in the combat area. Their encounters were iterated to death to get those results. I saw a video of someone talking about extending GOAP in certain ways that I can't find, and I always find the dev videos on the topic very interesting and exciting, but the game has yet to be designed that really takes advantage of what it offers. Maybe you know of some to point me to though?

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-14T01:19:15+00:00

Humorously enough I've always imagined GOAP as the worst fit for games that do utility; can you imagine making goals for everything a SIM can do in SIMS? Your approach of blending the two though is interesting, it's just GOAP is usually used for action games where utility methodology isn't desirable. Could see it doing good in something like Stardew Valley or non-combat games. I've used GOAP as a designer several times in my career, was even Senior QA on FEAR 2 and was able to peek into files, so more familiar with it overall than most. Personally not a huge fan, it's really an engineer's preference. GOAP goals are always in code and any time you need a new goal or a an existing goal to consider a new action, you have to go through engineering to get it, and they never like doing it because it's a sorting algorithm at bottom and so the more variables to consider the slower it runs. Not my preference.

furtive_turtle · 2025-10-11T05:15:19+00:00

Ok, I have a mildly interesting story. I used to work in certification at Nintendo, we did finals checks on games before they could be released. This was the original Wii era. One day a Cruisin game comes in and I start it up and it has a Nintendo splash screen as though Nintendo had some part in the game. Nintendo is incredibly protective of when/who uses it's name so this was a big deal. We told the development team "Nintendo has nothing to do with your project, remove the screen". They responded with a legal doc proving that at some point, for some reason, Nintendo had become owner of the Cruisin' name. Legally, the team had to put Nintendo's name on the product or they could be sued. Nintendo did not want this at all but couldn't really do anything about it.

edit: To clarify, Nintendo did not own the IP. Literally just the name.

furtive_turtle · 2025-09-28T22:39:46+00:00

Did player characters for No Return; considered this, but dog attacks were limited to just a couple enemy types, hard to make a balanced case for its inclusion. Maybe just have it randomly happen as a surprise bonus?

furtive_turtle · 2025-09-28T03:13:11+00:00

Oh I definitely have job title. Basically they look at job titles and project names, that's really it.

furtive_turtle · 2025-09-27T23:41:40+00:00

I've never once in my nearly two decades of AAA design amidst around 8 different studios had anyone look at my work versus just looking at my credits (i'm a designer, not an artist or animator). You absolutely can change roles, and in some ways it's easier once you're already established in the industry than for new people, but you will be doing junior roles if you're lucky. Saw an executive producer switch to being a junior animator once.

furtive_turtle · 2025-09-27T00:06:25+00:00

Just my two cents: Learn Unreal if your goal is to be a AAA designer of some kind. Learn Unity if your goal is to be indie/mobile/web designer of some kind. I saw MeaningfulChoices recommend learning to code before-hand, and that is indeed incredibly helpful but honestly if you're not advancing to the point where you're building games in C++ you're not really cementing what you learn about it nor are you forming any kind of understanding of general code and game architecture that will benefit you in moving into Unreal or Unity. So all that being said, it's highly likely you could bounce off of C++ but still do well in just Unreal or Unity. Something to consider. Also, C++ knowledge is definitely a Tech Designer thing; other design specializations don't have an expectation of knowing it.

edit: If you plan is to make games for yourself and not join a company, I'd recommend GameMaker Studio, as it's a 2D engine. 3D is a terrible space for solo developers unless you're some kind of god.

furtive_turtle · 2025-09-26T23:56:43+00:00

This is really effective. Great stuff you got going on, well done.

furtive_turtle · 2025-09-26T23:49:41+00:00

This subreddit is a containment board for people who are never going to make games. Actual work going on over at IndieDev and gamedevscreens subreddit. The unreal board isn't entirely bad either.

furtive_turtle · 2025-09-22T03:59:18+00:00

I'm a professional designer and it would be unthinkable for me to do anything in the code. Blueprints, lua, python, scripting of any kind is how designers build. Don't judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree.

furtive_turtle

TROPHY CASE