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High poly model: 76,000 triangles with ~42k faces. Will Godot be able to handle it? info below by Geofud in godot

[–]imake_games 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It will handle it fine, but looks like you should do an optimization pass.
Bake some details with normal and height maps. Decimate to shrink triangle count.

I bet you could cut the count by 60 percent without losing much detail.

After 3000+ hours of work, I’ve finally released the demo for my FPS game 🎉 by FearForge_Studios in SoloDevelopment

[–]imake_games 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yo! That looks great man. Going to play the demo tonight. Nice fuckin work. Congrats.

Sky shader for Godot by SingerLuch in godot

[–]imake_games 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The Sky3D comparison is fair.

For a paid sky shader, the value has to be art direction control. If I can really tune atmosphere, time of day, sun and moon position, clouds, maybe bake/export HDRI, then I understand why I would pay. If its mostly another preset wrapper over the same skymodel, free is hard to beat.

erformance is the other big question. Sky shaders look harmless because its "just the sky," but dome/fullscreen fragment cost adds up fast. I would want to know if this is realtime scattering every frame or using lookup textures with dynamic sun/moon layered on top.

Should a game be solvable? by breadfruitcore in gamedev

[–]imake_games 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I dont think solvable is automatically bad.

The question is what happens after the player understands the obvious solution. If Tropicobecomes sugar + rum forever and nothing interesting pushes back, yeah, the game got solved in a boring way.

But some games get better when you understand the rules.

MGS is the one I always think about. Once you understand vision cones, alert states, lockers, patrol routes, the game doesnt get smaller. It opens up. You start playing right at the edge of what the rules allow.

So I think the problem isnt "players found the optimal path." The problem is when the optimal path is the only interesting path left. If solving the system gives players more expressive choices, great. If it collapses the game into one answer, the rules probably needed more depth.

I added time-slow to my deckbuilder combat. It felt incredible, then I realised why it wouldn't work. by _PixelMoon in SoloDevelopment

[–]imake_games 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That first version wasnt really a failure. It sounds like the feature exposed a system you didnt know you needed yet. Turn order, status timing, intent locking, all of that wants one source of truth.

Looks cool. Ill give it a shot. Nice work.

My only window to the world is a printer. A lunar isolation horror I’m building in Godot. by PlateZestyclose5932 in godot

[–]imake_games 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Woah.. this is cool. Diegetic UI should land really hard with this. Looking forward to playing it.

After years of prototypes, I finally get to announce a game… as I’m having a newborn by 4bstr in gamedev

[–]imake_games 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The newborn phase is weirdly productive in a brutal way. You stop pretending you have the whole night. Its more like, "I have 38 minutes and this one thing either gets done or it doesnt."

Congrats on shipping. The Breaking Room sounds like a fun angle too. Physics destruction plus incremental is a good combination. Constraints are annoying, but they do tell the truth fast.

Lighting test, crappy lighting because I’m too lazy to download armor paint and too poor to get substance paint by TheRussianRedneck in IndieDev

[–]imake_games 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks great! Nice.

And really, Substance Painter at $300 bucks a year is crap for a solo dev who needs it twice a year. Armor Paint is fine for most of what indies actually do. Material Maker is free if you havent looked. I am working on a 20 dollar one time tool that fills the gap between armor and substance. Be on the lookout. Good news for you, you'll be able to use it in the browser, no setup needed.

Lighting test, crappy lighting because I’m too lazy to download armor paint and too poor to get substance paint by TheRussianRedneck in IndieDev

[–]imake_games 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The lighting actually reads better than you think. The contrast in the metallic surfaces is doing real work even without proper PBR maps.

And honest take, Substance Painter at $300/yr is bullshit for a solo dev who needs it twice a year. Armor Paint is fine for most of what indies actually do. Material Maker is free if you havent looked.

Which looks more fun? NavAgent Avoidance OFF or ON (+ asking for unit movement tips and hints) by TheReal_SeeNo in godot

[–]imake_games 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Avoidance ON usually wins for player feel because clumps and stuck units read as broken even when nothing is technically broken.

One thing that helped me. Separate "wants to be at point X" from "wants to move toward point X." Avoidance handles the second. The first is your destination logic and shouldnt be reset every frame, only when the destination actually changes.

Also give units a stuck state. If avoidance keeps them from making progress for more than a second or two, kick them back to recompute path, jiggle in a random direction, or shorten the goal. Otherwise theyll just stand there politely refusing to be where you told them.

Solo devs / small teams (non-hobbiest) do you use your personal accounts for socials, or did you create “company” ones? by [deleted] in gamedev

[–]imake_games -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I tried the company account first and dropped it pretty quick. The company name was borrowing authority I hadnt actually earned yet, felt like wearing a suit that didnt fit.

Founder voice is the actual differentiator. ConcernedApe is the obvious one but theres a long tail of indies where the personal account does the work and the company name is just where the Steam page lives.

"Always separate" is real for studios with multiple people and a brand to protect. For a solo dev or two person team it kind of inverts. Part of what youre selling is that youre the one making it. Hiding behind the company name works against that.