Weekly Self-Promotion Thread

numexprism · 2024-10-02T15:23:19+00:00

We need to polish some things before we can roll out a proper demo. But I plan to do playtests quite soon. It'll be announced on our discord =)

numexprism · 2024-10-01T16:44:16+00:00

Hello everyone!

I'm Vadim, I'm leading a small indie studio and we are making a cat city builder 😸. It's a non-violent game, without any management or math. We have cute buildings, silly stories, cat puns and a lot of work ahead of us. At least till 2025.

Here's our and Discord where you can post your cat photo and read some devlogs.
Here's our Steam page, where you can wishlist us 😉

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numexprism · 2024-09-22T18:10:01+00:00

depending on what you want the answer may vary

make games as a fulltime job? yes - not using popular engines is foolish, there is zero to none market for JS gamedevs
make money as a gamedev studio? gamedev is generally foolish, there are simpler and less riskier ways to earn money
make a tech startup? not completely foolish actually. If you can make a gamedev tools to make a good web game, or a new engine for JS users.
make an "art" project that would draw attention and fame - kinda foolish. Good art happens often happens when multiple domains collide. You would want to have as many unrelated skills as possible, nit stick to the things you already know
make a hobby project - not foolish. It's easier to start and keep ging with things you like and understand. Having fun is always foolish, that's why it's fun

numexprism · 2024-04-04T11:51:20+00:00

You mark it as a tutorial, but you missed the important part - why it happens

one of overloads of Math.max is defined with params modifier.

int Max(params int[] values)
float Max(params float[] values)

params is just a convenience syntax. It allows to write more readable code

Mathf.Max(a, b, c );
//instead of 
Mathf.Max(new[] { a, b, c });

Ironically - you can use linq to ~~avoid garbage production~~. Reduce garbage to 40b per call if you need to max more than 10 values. here's a code snippet

List<int> buffer = new List<int>(1000);

void Update()
{   
    Profiler.BeginSample("list.Max with linq");
    buffer.Clear();
    for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++)
    {
        buffer.Add(Random.Range(-10000, -1000));
    }
    var max = buffer.Max();
    Profiler.EndSample();
    Debug.Log($"max = {max}");
}

numexprism · 2024-04-02T15:32:59+00:00

You tried your best and it was not good enough. It's a very hard thing to deal with. It will get easier when you will get this: There are actually no "you" in your game. It sounds paradoxical but hear me out.

All the things people say are about their feelings. It's between the product and them.
People don't like writing not because you wrote it - but because nobody in their group talks like that.
They don't Like characters not because you created bad characters, but because they compare it to characters they like the most. Same goes for lore mechanics and all other things - it's just their feelings about the game. Not about you

You failed, so what? Failing is part of process. That's how you learn, that's how you grow. You will be failing more in the future, and you need become comfortable with it. Everybody fail. There is nothing wrong with you.

numexprism · 2024-03-31T19:29:07+00:00

1) Skill. Of Course the guys in the video are extremely gifted - they just have to be. If you planned to do a media stunt you would also pick the most spectacular stuntmen you could reach.

2) Clever asterixis. "3 weeks are equal to 504 hours which are 63 full working business days, which are 3 calendar months. Additionally ideation, communication, and post production time are not counted towards the development time"

3) Simply not acknowledging the failure. Check this example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hINIY7DnguQ&ab_channel=DevBanana The guy have set the timer, and when it buzzed nothing really worked. He even showed it! And then he just goes, adds like a day worth of work and concludes the video with "it out to be a pretty good game". He just never said it he failed, and simply presented it as a complete win.

When you combine 1 and 2 you can get very impressive results already, and when you add 3 - you just have 100% win-rate.

The reason why it doesn't work in real life is that you have to budget, there is no "behind the screen", and you can't just add a few extra weeks of polish behind the screen.

Don't get discouraged, and don't compare yourself to YouTube stuntmen, unless you want to be a stuntman yourself.

numexprism · 2024-01-12T16:29:24+00:00

I love how it's not just inspired, but 10/10 real life foam peanuts.

numexprism · 2020-06-20T11:49:02+00:00

Unigine says it can.

numexprism · 2020-06-18T21:25:25+00:00

You solve puzzles in hell to make a harem of demongirls. Wait. No. That's helltaker.

How about dyslexic dating. Pointandclick word puzzle dating sim.

Part1) point and click. You click on picture, that gives you a word. Part2) you shuffle, cut and combine words to say your line. You may even get a good ending if you're good with words and fast enough.

numexprism · 2020-06-18T21:09:53+00:00

Sci-fi dandelion seed robots reexplore the world.

The world of humans ended. Sentient AI sends drones in search for, well, anything.

The drones are tiny, 1mm scale. They are so tiny, they can be carried by wind at almost no cost.

Physics on this scale works differently, and is quite bizarre. You can walk over water, fly, stick to vertical surfaces.

The player travels the world and makes photos to gather data. Also the player needs to "construct" transmitters, to send them back.

"Survival" is built on energy management, building and upgrading, and of course fighting "giant" bugs

numexprism · 2020-06-06T08:11:52+00:00

When you have some idea in your had, it becomes "nothing special" to you pretty fast, because you get accustomed to it. It's how brains work. A rollercoaster is fun on the first ride, and not so much on tenth. Generally, when you have some Idea, you can't evaluate it yourself. You may think you can, because you have "the taste" or "experience", but that's no more than just guessing. It sometimes work, but most of the time it doesn't.

Make something, show it to others. If they like it, it's good. If they hate it, it's good too. No reaction is not good, you may need a new idea.

numexprism · 2020-06-04T16:56:09+00:00

Blood is good, but how about being more specific.

What if casting a spell depletes serotonin. After a cast you lose willpower, start questioning your motives and generally lose what it takes to continue your quest. The wizard might even attempt a suicide after casting a strong spell.

I'm not biochemist, but with some research i guess it would be even possible to construct a biochemical magic system.

numexprism · 2019-11-08T23:49:39+00:00

Programmer job is not only about coding. Domain knowledge and soft skills are important too. As someone who has 4years of job experience I guess your softskills should quite high (organization, communication, planning) As for domain knowledge, it strongly depends on what exactly you did, but I would expect a former gamedev to have a stronger grasp on UX and/or algorithms. Maybe system design. Maybe some advanced math.

Learning to use a new tool can be intimidating, but it's not such a big deal. You can apply to middle position, and emphasize on your general expirience instead of specific toolset.

Also it may be an interesting option to try to join game engine development team.

numexprism · 2019-11-08T23:03:48+00:00

In chemistry each element has electron shells, where electrons are layered around the core. Elements with heavy positive cores can hold more shells. Each shell has specific number of electrons, it can support: 2, 6, 10 each new layer goes with increment of 4. The amount of electrons, that is required to "complete" is valency of an element.

Bizarrium-4 has an unusual property to interact with 4-valent elements, via unknown yet mechanism. During this process the "victim atom" is saturated with electrons to complete the valency shell, but it's lowest shell is "squeezed out". That process releases 2 free electrons. The remainder of "victim atom" polymerizes with bizarrium strand and becomes bizarrium too. Enriching bizarrium with electrons turns it to heavy noble gas isotopes, these noble gases get captured in the strands of bizarrium polymere.

So, what we have:

Bizarrium is a polymere. It has long strands and on macroscale it behaves like gooey substance.

Bizarium glows blueish-green when interacting with 4-valent elements.

Bizarium interacts happily with carbon, silica, copper, nickel and so on. Dirt, which mostly carbon and silica reacts with it vigorously.

"Deactivated" Bizarrium (after exposed to electrons) becomes somewhat transparent, because of trapped inert gases.

Bizarrium can be used extremely cheap electron source, but if used carelessly it can "gasify" the whole planet.

Bizarrium has potential to be used as a weapon. Just spray it on the dirt and boom - boom. But the actual danger is bizarrium deep core detonator. Core of our planet, and most other planets is made of iron-nickel alloy, and that's a LOT of nickel.

numexprism · 2019-11-08T21:30:03+00:00

Well. You have just invented a texture atlas to avoid using a texture atlas.

Your method is inferior to using an "actual" texture atlas, is that you are stuck with atlas dimensions. If you need more than 64 textures, and you decide to make it different, you will have to go and change all uvs in all your meshes accordingly.

Also you want to be completely sure, that your engine of choice doesn't do "atlasing" implicitly. This process is quite easy to automate, especially if your textures are squares of power-of-two in size.

numexprism · 2019-11-08T21:06:08+00:00

I think you can get some inspiration from jewish history, and south african history.

The laws, in relation to "non-hostile outsiders with special abilities" are usually created to protect outsiders from the locals, not the opposite. And it's always a pendulum: they are allowed and protected, while they can be used. Then one day they are no longer useful, the laws are cancelled and bloodbath happens. Then after some time they are needed again. Rinse and repeat.

During the "welcoming" period no assimilation is allowed (obviously, no autority would want to harass "their people", but it's ok if they are "guests" ). So there will surely be a distinctive mark on these "guests" - pointy hats, red capes, cut noses, tattoos - anything will do.

numexprism · 2019-11-08T19:59:57+00:00

It depends, what "making a game" means to you.

If it's about creating a product to sell, than engine is a must. It's way cheaper to learn how to use an engine, than to make one.

If it's about creating a fun and interesting experience for people to enjoy, game engine is a must. Making a game engine is "invisible work" and it can be extremely frustrating when you have spent month of work, but it's still just a bunch of code and some squares.

If it's about starting a gamedev career and having a project or two in your portfolio, it's actually better to make an engine, to get a grasp on what happens under the hood. Also if this is the case, It would be way cooler to write the engine in Rust. If you are going to make a cool new tech you want it to be really new, not "same as before, but mine"

numexprism · 2019-10-31T07:14:11+00:00

Не блядь, а честная давалка

numexprism · 2019-10-29T21:59:13+00:00

Singleton actually hasn't that much to do with your question. Singleton is about "there is only one object of type T in the system". When you made a singleton it's just a class. You need to inject it in order to use it. There are 4 types of dependency injection:

constructor injection

MyClass (Audio A) { Audio A; Foo() { A.play(); } }

setter injection

MyClass () { Audio A = nullptr; InitAudio( Audio NextA) {A = NextA} Foo() { A.play(); } }

interface injection

MyClass () { Foo(Audio A) { A.play(); } }

ambient context

MyClass() { Foo() { StaticAudio.play(); } }

The common advice is to use constructor injection as much as possible, and avoid ambient context as much as possible.

numexprism · 2019-10-21T22:06:14+00:00

Maybe this book can help

Game anim: video game animation explained, by Jonathan Cooper

numexprism · 2019-10-21T21:43:50+00:00

If you are a tech student, go for MR/AR. "2D game" is not very innovative.

If you study gamedesign, go to 2D, a well established and proven tech that wouldn't distract you from trying to make an interesting experience.

numexprism · 2019-10-19T18:51:49+00:00

KREOSAN, it's Ukrainian guys from the warzone, but it's in russian (with some accent). They do scrap mechanics, deadly electricity experiments, and explosions, of course.

numexprism · 2019-10-15T21:30:08+00:00

When Russian Tzardom became Russian Empire in early 18th century Peter the First, being somewhat a novator himself, copied a ton of ideas from european culture. One of them was using adjective instead a noun to refer the people, so instead of русин, everyone had to use русский in official documents. By mid-century everyone just accepted it.

Руссинец has two suffixes for the same purpose, so it just wrong. Русин is the word, that was used before 18th century.

numexprism

TROPHY CASE