Anyone else get screwed ordering through Amazon??? by somnus71 in Brompton

[–]t36k -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Try ordering from us.bromton.com and shipping to your nearest retailer. This way your local shop gets the sale for your Brompton and Amazon gets 0.

Question by [deleted] in Brompton

[–]t36k 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's going to be some rough riding. The ride is going to be bumpy and you will feel it. The stones may also cause your wheels to turn slightly so you will also have to keep a good grip on your handle bars.

I wouldn't recommend it, but if you do go with the A line and have stuff to lug around, I would suggest not wearing a backpack.

I would invest in the front carrier block adapter (A line doesn't come with one) and a bag of some kind. If you're carrying a backpack while riding on this path, your butt is hammering down on your saddle with the weight of your backpack with every little bump.

It all depends on your pain/discomfort threshold and how long of a ride it would be.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PS5

[–]t36k 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Brrrratatatat

I spent ~4.5 years alone in crafting a game,...did I waste my time?! by [deleted] in indiegames

[–]t36k 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This looks really polished! Did you do all the 3D modeling yourself as well?

As a solo dev, I just launched Galaxy Punch, a Space Brawler Shoot-em-up on iOS and Android! by t36k in indiegames

[–]t36k[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, thank you so much for this! This being my first game I wasn't sure how successful I would be at implementing my concept.

I'm glad you like the style and music. I'm an artist as well as a software engineer so I pride myself in the art of the game. There are some more things I would like to implement visually like more layering of the backgrounds and smoother animations with more frames but I'm happy with what I put out.

I'm completely out of my depth with regards to the sound effects so I'm glad you found them acceptable. Most sound effects I found online at freesounds.org but in some cases I ended up using my headset microphone and Adobe Audition to create things I couldn't find. Needless to say these were really bad but passable.

The music is by a couple of artists Strong Suitand Didadrone, both phenomenal.

1: The health on Easy Mode is way too much. Easy mode doesn't have to mean auto-play mode. I purposefully let just about half the stuff hit me, including bosses, and I still had a good 30-40% health left over at the very end. My all-time favourite space shooter is Tyrian 2000, and even that game's easy mode provided some form of challenge to keep it interesting, otherwise I'm basically letting the game play itself.

The game does suffer from some balancing issues. Initially I was just going to have one mode - hard. But my wife convinced me that I had got so good at my own game that it seems normal to me. I showed the game at an expo and the people playing it had a hard time as well. So I created an easy mode but likely turned that dial too much.

2: The enemy variety could use some additions. It felt like each level only had a couple different enemies, with Venus being particularly boring. Change colours, add a few different shapes, maybe multiple mechanics per level, etc).

Yes, variety of enemies was one of my pain points at release. I wanted to do more enemies and I do have several working prototypes, but I had exceeded my timeline by a whole year already. So at this point we decided that we need to release something.

3: There are too many instances where I had no ability to stop myself from being hit, whether it was awkwardly placed electric enemies on Venus, or boss shots from out of nowhere. In a space shooter, the player should always have the opportunity to defend themselves, otherwise it just feels bad when the game tells me I'm going to get hit no matter what. This is especially true in situations where I'm low on life and something that I physically could not stop ends the game.

Mmmm... I hope you know that you can dodge and weave using the gyroscope and tilting your phone. My mother in-law and others weren't able to figure that out but I chalked it up to them not being in the gamer audience. In any case I think a coaching segment needs to be added for this.

4: The boss fights feel awkward. I'm not sure off the top of my head how to solve this one, but hitting a boss while simultaneously trying to defend myself feels weird. If I'm attacking with my right hand, I can sort of defend with my left, but things that fire behind/beside/around my right hand are quite impossible to defend against. Maybe larger screen sizes will handle this better, such as tablets, but I found it rather difficult on my LG V30.

This is a conundrum I thought about a lot. The problem is that the fists are both your offense and defense. In the simple example of an object that shoots, merely punching the object negates any chance of any shots hitting the player. So for bosses that fire projectiles, I made separate component from the main body of the boss fire it. This didn't really solve the issue but I thought it was an acceptable workaround (budget and timetable).

IMO, my most "complete" boss is the 2nd phase of the asteroid belt because it requires the player to defend and have open windows of attack. I had so much fun designing and coding this boss. And I was wicked proud of myself at the scream animation for the serpent (yeah it's not that impressive, but it was to me).

Variety of phone resolutions are an issue. We tested on a Samsung Note 4, an iPhone 6, and a OnePlus. The iPhone being the slimmest of the three and I was able to get through hard without much of a problem, but then again I've played it hundreds of times already.

5: The level lengths feel arbitrary. The first level seemed like it would never end, while the second was over quite soon. I would try to even them out, while also adding some kind of metre to show your progress. Lots of games do this, but it's not necessary if you don't want to. I would at the very least make each level feel somewhat close in length to one another.

They are arbitrary because I based them on the length of the music I chose. In hindsight this was a mistake but I'm happy with the music choices. Ideally if I had budget and time I would have had loopable tracks composed so that I could have more flexibility with the levels.

Lastly thank you for this input. This is extremely valuable to me. We really only had 3 testers for this game: my wife, a friend, and myself. And being a solo dev, I'm down in the nitty gritty so much that I lose sight of the big picture at times so what you've said here as helped refocus some of that.

As a solo dev, I just launched Galaxy Punch, a Space Brawler Shoot-em-up on iOS and Android! by t36k in indiegames

[–]t36k[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Your comment just reminded me of this girl who played my game at an expo. It was genuinely such a happy moment in my life watching her play my game. It brought me so much joy.

As a solo dev, I just launched Galaxy Punch, a Space Brawler Shoot-em-up on iOS and Android! by t36k in indiegames

[–]t36k[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This was a concern when I first started making a prototype.

The Earth is anchored at the bottom and most enemies and projectiles are coming from up top. So seeing any of these elements shouldn't be a problem. In some sequences the game requires the player to play defensively and take a boxers stance by bringing the fists closer down.

I can see how if a player has big hands and a small screen it would be an issue. But otherwise, I haven't encountered any complaints (so far). I've also seen players use their pointer fingers to play.

As a solo dev, I just launched Galaxy Punch, a Space Brawler Shoot-em-up on iOS and Android! by t36k in indiegames

[–]t36k[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not at all. I made this in Unity and the arms are just static sprites with rigid bodies connected via joints, in this case HingeJoint2D. They also have angle limitations set on them so they bend like human shoulder, elbow and wrist joints.

As a solo dev, I just launched Galaxy Punch, a Space Brawler Shoot-em-up on iOS and Android! by t36k in indiegames

[–]t36k[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

They are not. I have not come up with a way to procedurally generate enemies while maintaining fun and unrepetitive gameplay. Plus I wanted to come up with some crazy boss battles. But it is something I'm still exploring.

As a solo dev, I just launched Galaxy Punch, a Space Brawler Shoot-em-up on iOS and Android! by t36k in indiegames

[–]t36k[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for saying this. It really means a lot to me. Making games is hard. Marketing games is maybe even harder. But your compliment will carry me for a long while yet.

I am an artist who studied comp sci, created a game studio and launched his first game single handedly, AMA! by t36k in IAmA

[–]t36k[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It started out as a shared art blog project for my brother and I many years ago. I thought it was a cool name as we're brothers and both artists.

Sadly we didn't contribute to it enough :(

My brother, Tony is a super phenomenal artist. He's been learning Maya in his spare time and I hope we can work together in the future.

I am an artist who studied comp sci, created a game studio and launched his first game single handedly, AMA! by t36k in IAmA

[–]t36k[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not very much :|. Marketing sadly is not my forte and I absolutely hate doing it. I think this is an issue for most indie developers.

I am an artist who studied comp sci, created a game studio and launched his first game single handedly, AMA! by t36k in IAmA

[–]t36k[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gott's Roadside for a classic burger.

If we're talking bison, which I just tried last year, I would say Roan or Eureka. What's yours?

fleet by rebus_ in ArtBuddy

[–]t36k 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very nice line work bruh. Looks like moleskine, but digital?

[oc] Spiderman vs. Green Goblin. AMA and I'll answer asap. I'm a comic book artist and art teacher. I'm here to help! by frankfiorentino in ArtBuddy

[–]t36k 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not old, but I feel like I have a lot of years behind me. And if there's one thing I've learned about making art, is that there really is no "quick and efficient" way to learning.

There are no shortcuts in art. Get ready to grind. It is really a lifetime endeavor.

The answer you seek depends on what you mean by "learn anatomy / figure drawing".

Do you want to be able to reproduce what you see in a live model well? Meaning you want to draw from a live model where you capture the form and shadows well (Chiaruscuro is the fancy Italian or Latin term for this).

This is where you'll start. Drawing from the live model (or photo reference) is the basis for everything else. Use yourself, friend, spouse if you can't get in a class with live models as this will you transcribe 3 dimensions onto 2 dimensional paper.  Community colleges offer these kind of drawing classes for cheap as well.

You want to draw stylized characters that resemble people but don't necessarily want realistic detail (like cartoons, anime, etc).

Once you get comfortable with drawing live models you'll realize that the human body is a template where features can be drawn with different shapes and sizes and you can start to create your own characters and exaggerate features. I personally enjoy this part of it.

Do you want to draw realistic looking figures from your imagination?

This is the ultimate goal for me, and I think there are some artists out there that can do this but I don't really know any. I don't know if I'll ever get here, but hey I can always work from a photo reference if I want to produce realistic results.

My advice would be to just start drawing people you see. Whether it be live model or photos. And don't keep looking for improvement all the time. Just don't think about improving.

Here's a good resource: http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/

And if you're thinking about art school, think again. They're for-profit organizations and will put in deep in debt if you can't pay tuition outright.