#(it's a tutorial series on godot)

[itshomobirb]

watched a 20 min part 1/20 tutorial video like woohoo okay that's enough work for today, pack it in boys, we're going home for the day

#borbtalks #this post is my attempt at mentally rewarding myself for pacing #like yeah i would love to watch the next 5 videos & overload my brain bc im so excited. #but i wanna continue working on it tomorrow. if i use up all my energy tonight ill need several days to recover = no working on it for a bit #life works better when i only do a lil bit each day. not sprint - do nothing to recover - sprint - do nothing - etc. that just = burnout #(it's a tutorial series on godot)

[undeadswarm]

Just dropped Part 1 of our animation tutorial series! Dive into #Mixamo animation, #Blender prep, and get ready for #Godot. Perfect for game devs eager to level up!

#Mixamo #Blender #Godot #Gamedev #indie game dev #3d animation #Tutorial Series #Godot tutorial #Youtube

[buginacup]

Does anyone have any recommendations for Godot tutorial resources that focus on structure/project organization? I think I can wrap my head around stuff like "Scenes" sometimes being Player objects etc, but it's hard to know how to organize stuff like managers, levels, etc without a lot of trial and error.

I'd really rather not follow a tutorial series that operates from first principles - I'm honestly surprised there aren't many "Godot for GMS2 developers" type tutorials. I don't have enough time to re-learn what a function is but I would like to get more familiar with Godot.

#gamedev #indie game dev #godot #game maker #text

[kcamberart]

what are some good learning resources or advice for folks who wanna know how to do low poly 3d stuff in blender? i personally really wanna one make some stuff to maybe use in godot and your work is very cool to look at!

Thank you! For starting out with Blender, I really recommend giving Cherylynn Lima's YouTube channel a look-through. Specifically, this series on making low poly characters from scratch. It's made in an older version of the program, but it's one of the first video tutorials I ever followed along with back when I first started using Blender, and it's extremely beginner-friendly.

#ask #asks #tutorial #tutorials

[blubberquark]

New Year's Resolutions

Hey everybody. It's a new year. Happy New Year!

Gamedev Blogging

Last year I have fallen behind on posting gamedev stuff. It's mostly because there is no good way to format code listings in the new editor. So this year, I am not even going to try eith gamedev tutorials on tumblr. I might post them elsewhere and just link them. I have already taken a look at Cohost, but It doesn't have the features I need. Wouldn't it be cook if you could post pico-8 carts on cohost? Or source code listings? Or LaTeX? I might as well write the HTML by hand and host it somewhere. But that won't be the focus of this blog in 2024.

Instead I'm going to do more tumblr posting about game design, just less on the code side. It will be more on the screenshot side. First thing will be about my 2023 Game Of The Year. It will probably surprise you. I did not expect it to be this good. You can also expect something about some of my old prototypes. Over the years I have started and abandoned game prototypes after either concluding that the idea won't work and can't be made to work, or after learning what I needed to learn. What did I learn? Wait and find out!

Computer Litaracy

I'll also attempt to write more about general computing and "computer literacy" topics. I have two particular "series" or "categories" in mind already. Almost Good: Technologies that sound great when you hear abut them, but that don't work as well as you might think when you try them out. Harmful Assumptions About Computing: Non-technical people often have surprising ideas about how computers work. As a technically inclined person, you don't even realise how far these unspoken assumptions about computers can reach.

Usability of computers and software seems to have gotten worse rather than better in many aspects, while computers have become entrenched in every workplace, our private lives, and in our interactions with corporations and government services. Computer literacy has also become worse in certain ways, and I think I know some reasons why.

There will also be some posts about forum moderation and community management. It's rather basic and common-sense stuff, but I want to spell it out.

Actual Game Development

I am going to release a puzzle game in 2024. You will be able to buy it for money. You can hold me to it. This is my biggest New Year's Resolution.

I will continue to work on two games of mine. One will be the game I just mentioned. The other is Wyst. I put the project on ice because I was running out of inspiration for a while, but I think I am sufficiently inspired now. I will pick it up again and add two more worlds to the game, and get it into a "complete" state. I'll also have to do a whole lot of playtesting. This may be the last time I touch Unity3d.

I will try out two new engines and write one or two proof-of-concept games in each of them, maybe something really simple like "Flappy Bird", and one game jam "warm-up" thing, with the scope of a Ludum Dare compo game. Maybe that means I'll write Tetris or Pong multiple times. I probably won't put the "Pong in Godot" on itch.io page next to a "Pong in Raylib" and "Pong in Bevy", but I'll just put the code on my GitHub. The goal is to have more options for a game jam, so I can decide to use Godot if it is a better fit for the jam topic.

In the past, I have always reached for PyGame by default, because Python is the language that has flask and Django and sqlalchemy and numpy and pyTorch, and because I mostly want to make games in 2D. I want to get out of my comfort zone. In addition to the general-purpose game engines, I will try to develop something in bitsy, AGS, twine, pico-8 or Ren'Py. I want to force myself to try a different genre this way. Maybe I'll make an archaeologist dating simulator.

All in all, this means I will so significant work on two existing projects, revisit some old failed prototypes to do a postmortem, I'll write at least six new prototypes, and two new jam games, plus some genre/narrative experiments. That's a lot already. So here's an anti-resolution: I won't even try to develop any of my new prototypes into full releases. I will only work on existing projects from 2023 or before if I develop anything into playable demo versions or full games. I won't get sidetracked by the next Ludum Dare game, I promise. After the jam is over, I'll put down the project, at least until 2025.

#gamedev #game development #indiedev #happy new year 2024 #new years resolutions

[fearcrowz]

My advice for if you ever do decide to turn Knell into a game; look for the pros and cons for video game engines and learn to program and code.

Because while yes, both Unity and Unreal 5 are popular on the indie scene, both engines are built differently from each other with different demographics in mind and different programming and coding needed to learn to use one or the other.

Then there's engines like Godot, RPGMaker series, GameMaker, and so many more.

Also, there are a lot of programming and coding tutorials on YouTube and a bunch of books on the subjects at both Thriftbook stores and Amazon.

Good luck.

Ah yes, I know! I have a bit of knowledge, not a lot, but I was going to use RPG maker when I had a good computer. ^^ I knew basic coding (i need to learn a lot more) and I did do research and looked into it. Sadly with how my adhd brain works, when it gets overwhelming I tend to drop it and find something else to do and I just never got back to doing it before my computer fried TT There's a lot of work to it all for sure! I have the drawing and music skills, I just need to learn the computer skills and hope I'm not too boomer for them.

Thank you for the tips they do help! And I will look into the other engines too! It's mainly just for fun and prolly never for a profit or anything pff--

#fearasks

[blazehedgehog]

Is it possible to make a game like Sonic 3 today within the deadlines it had back then? Pixel art, physics and all.

Why wouldn't it be?

It was the third game in the series. They already had a very strong idea of what they were trying to do with the character, they already had proven technology under them that they could easily extend and upgrade. They had been doing this on Sonic for three years already, and some of the people had been working for Sega even longer than that.

These were talented, experienced people. Professionals. Having the prior knowledge to be able to say, "if we do X, then we get Y" allowed them to work quickly and efficiently.

So I would compare it to, say, what I did with OverBite. OverBite was a game I made for a Clickteam Fusion Game Jam in 2016. We had from like, September 30th or even the 29th up to October 31st to make an entire game. It came out to something like 33 days.

So I made this game where you play as Dracula. I wrote all the code, designed all the mechanics, made all of the sprites, and built all of the levels. Alone. By myself. A single person. The only other person to help me with anything was my old friend Malcolm Brown, who handed me some music.

I had JUST bought Clickteam Fusion 2.5 on Steam, which means it had 0 hours of usage registered. I used it to make OverBite, which means I could track exactly how many hours I spent working on the game, and though I don't remember the exact total, I remember after doing the math it ended up shaking out to between 9 to 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 33 days. It was more than 300 hours total.

Again. For one person. I'm not saying it's the greatest game ever made. The level design in particular was extremely last second -- literally, I was down to the last day, only really had finished the gameplay engine, so I cobbled together four levels in a few hours and put it up seconds before the deadline at midnight. But the point is that I had worked in Clickteam Fusion for a decade and a half and could execute on my needs very well. I knew the software and the process like the back of my hand.

Now imagine having two people like that. Or five. Or ten. "300 hours of work in one month" suddenly turns into 3000 hours in one month. Using tech they already have, and proven gameplay concepts they have a lot of familiarity with.

It still wasn't easy, mind you. But the concepts that made it work back then not only still work today, they probably work even better because you aren't fighting to squeeze things down into such limited hardware. Like, the entire reason a game jam can even exist as a concept at all is because at a certain level of development, things are just easier now.

A game jam in 1994 is an impossible concept to think of because the tools had to be so super specialized to an incredibly narrow kind of work environment. You had to be a genius computer scientist to get something like Sonic the Hedgehog to function, never mind how much money it would cost to get something like a development kit.

Today, literally anyone can pick up a copy of Godot or Unreal 5, watch a few Youtube tutorials, and make a game from their bedroom with consumer tools. And those tools are faster, easier, and more intuitive to work with than anything that came before. It cannot be understated what a huge concept that is, and how that used to be totally impossible 15-20 years ago.

(And before some British dude rolls up like "yeah well you could always do that with the amiga" -- that's true, but it's also still different, and the fact that you can just give Microsoft $20 to unlock "Developer Mode" on an Xbox and start pushing Unity and Unreal games you develop on your PC to a console is still mindblowing in context.)

And it trickles down, too. If you know the conversion process, you can use these nice amazing modern tools to make proper retro games that run on real retro hardware.

All of this is to say that just because it's easier doesn't mean it should be done. OverBite absolutely slaughtered me. 11 hours of game development a day, 7 days a week, for almost five solid weeks was deeply unhealthy, physically and mentally. I haven't come close to finishing any game project, ever, since OverBite. It fried me.

And on Sonic Team's side, Sonic 3 was so massively stressful for them that they quit making Sonic games for almost half a decade. Crunch time development like that hurts in many ways, both visible and (mostly) invisible.

But yes, it could still absolutely be done.

#questions #Anonymous #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team #overbite #gamedev #indie #sonic 3

[mint-silver]

Heya! I was wondering, for Absolutely No Reason In Particular, how did you make that one game for Loverboy (before he got killed /j) a while back? Like, what program were you using? 👀

Hi! :D The program I used is called Godot! if it helps you, I believe this was the playlist I was using to help me learn - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9FzW-m48fn2jlBu_0DRh7PvAt-GULEmd (some things may be a bit outdated due to newer versions, it's been a bit since i watched so i can't properly recall much) though definitely search on your own if you feel up to it - you might find a better tutorial or wanna make something that isn't a 2d platformer XD EDIT: another series that may help (with 2d platformers) is this one! It's also much newer! I believe this is the one that was really useful when I was making Loverboy Propaganda Game https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9FzW-m48fn16W1Sz5bhTd1ArQQv4f-Cm

#mint's rambling #dimonds456 #rip loverboy 2023 #if only he could've won :( #(lighthearted)

[tyravenholme]

Remaking my First Game

A long time ago, when I exploring game development, I made a little game called Blastwave. Simple schmup like shooter where you shot asteroids and ships that came from the top of the screen and you were locked at the bottom only able to move left and right. It was small, it was fun, it was simple, and it took me a few days to make.

I've wanted to remake it many times and make it better, and now that I've finally figured out what I want to do and am getting myself back into game dev, I think remaking it is a good way to push myself to further my skills and also learn new things, especially since I'm using a different engine.

To give you an idea of how long ago this was, I made my game in Game Maker Studio 2 when it didn't have a free download option. Now I'm using Godot and am enjoying myself thoroughly with the program, learning the various systems and doing my best to commit all of it to memory (Just gotta repeat, look over what I've done before, and just figure stuff out) Oh, the gimmick I added to this because it was something I learned from a tutorial series was a screen wipe weapon called a "blastwave", it basically destroyed everything on screen to give you more breathing room. Tutorial series I watched at the time didn't teach me that, I had to figure it out myself, and that was the fun part of that project. I want to recreate that same weapon, but this time tie it's usage to the player's shields/energy -- before, the player had a health bar and a separate blastwave charge meter. I think by combining the two elements, it'll make for some interesting strategies during gameplay as while your energy does recharge over time, using it too frequently will cause you to lose all your charge, and if you reach zero charge, you explode in a nuclear bomb.

It's gonna be a dumb little game that I'll upload to itch.io when I finish it, but it's gonna be worth the experience and time as I'll be learning some other things as well, including how to make my own music in Fami Studio (A SNES/Famicon chiptune music making program that's free)

#game dev #game development #indie dev #indie game development #indie game

[clownstho]

Taken Home.

Keep in mind that this is video of an incomplete video game. It's a project I'm making for myself, for fun, and there's no guarantee of a full release. Never say never, but I'm just playing with paper dolls and making art.

I still have a lot to do, and I haven't shown off my Enemy AI development in this video. This is just a tour of the house, kind of like my last video.

Way more details under the cut.

Godot 4

I started development in Godot 3.5, so I took the time to upgrade to Godot 4. I'm glad I did, just for the tilemap updates alone. I regret nothing.

The Intro

I've done a lot of drawing in my time. I have NOT done a lot of animation or video direction. That's kind of crazy, considering how prominent video and animation is, and the deep influence animation had on me, but I just never felt the need to learn how to animate. Now I'm just doing my best placeholders about it. Here are the various audio credits for the Intro. I love citing my sources.

Walking On Dead Grass, Edelhanie https://freesound.org/people/Edelhanie/

Buzzing, Electric Lamp, A, InspectorJ https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ

Crickets FreeThinkerAnon https://freesound.org/people/Freethin...

Sinfonia da Caccia in G-major Orchestra: Capella Istropolitana Conductor: Frantisek Vajnar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRq9a...

The Main Menu I slapped it together! It's got a credits section and everything. I made it utilizing Heartbeast's HeartPlatform series. HeartBeast has been one of my most referenced devs. All of their tutorials are thoroughly useful, and I've referenced his materials all through out making this project, not just here. Godot 4 Tutorial - Heart Platformer P10 - Start Menu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TIPV...

State of The Game All the scenes of the game are made. There is a high likelihood that the dimensions get tweaked or modified, but for the most part, the game shouldn't be getting much bigger from a scenes perspective. The maps themselves are subject to changes to account for game play development. Object interaction is in place. Thanks to DashNothing and their Interaction tutorial. Interact With Objects in Godot 4 | Let's Godot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajCra... Dialogue handling is accomplished using the Dialogue Manager plug in. Dialogue Manager Github https://github.com/nathanhoad/godot_d...

Gameplay Now that interaction and dialogue are in place, I can implement key items. Once Key Items are in place, I can assess the Enemy AI again and address gameplay as a whole. I want this to feel like a Spy Vs. Spy situation, so we'll see how I accomplish that (Because I have no idea as per usual :3). Also I think I want there to be a big fight at the end. You know. For the Mess.

If you are reading this, thank you for your time!

#thoth.art #godot 4 #indiegamedev #video games #Just a silly little horror game that I work on occasionally #programming only started making sense to me this year and even still I'm spending most of my time on research #not to mention the look! i'm still working out visuals #so this is a big learning experiment! #Lets see where it takes us #Youtube

[weazeltech]

he's free to roam the gray void (only 2 hours a day tho, can't let him be too free).

Finished the rigging and was able to import him into godot without much of a problem. This is going to be a tutorial series on tower defense games.

#godot engine #blender #gamedev

[sweetjijisama]

Procrastination my beloved...

When you procrastinate drawing the last chapter of your manga by learning how to knit and how to use the godot engine for video games... you do a whole tutorial series that takes several hours to complete...and then you realize that you have to design the outfits for the new chapter and its for a lot of characters so you just play stardew valley and watch tokyo mew mew all day instead... :' )

Also me: wanting really to paint but suddenly not after 3minutes ._.

#just me things #what is my life #cant be productive today eh #procrastination

[beesbeesbees]

Various things

I’ve once again been falling into the trap of feeling like I need to have something meaningful to say to update here. Like some kind of grand moral to my parables. But there’s just... not always going to be that. My life and my attempts to work on a hobby project are not like, a series of stories for consumption.

So it might be kind of boring but I wanted to talk a bit about what I’ve been doing.

The aforementioned artboard has been getting some big expansions. I added a lot more stuff and organized it.

I’ve been thinking more about what the NPCs in the game will look like. Because there will inevitably be NPCs - to interact with, buy from, etc.

Been getting closer to nailing down the art style. I have a pretty good sense of what I want the girls’ outfits to look like.

Speaking of outfits, feature creep has unfortunately hit me and I am intent on making a dress-up segment where you can dress up your girls. Not only will it give bonuses to various stats, it will help differentiate the girls from each other. And also it’s cute and fun and I want it. Princess Maker and Long Live The Queen both have cute little outfits you can have your daughter wear and I grew up with dress-up games.

Watching more coding tutorials. Struggling to fully comprehend signals and their implementation. Played around with them some more in Godot. I watched this tutorial, this one, and this one as well.

That last one is terrifying because it was saying something about signals only communicating with each other if they’re a child/parent of each other which, I didn’t know, and seems bad? Maybe I misunderstood it?? Question mark??

Something something I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it and also rewatch the video until it sinks into my head.

A lot of fleshing out little details here and there, just thinking about various logistics and nailing things down.

So here’s some things I can share.

I was having trouble kind of putting together in my head an image of what the game’s architecture would look like and how the signals would talk to each other, so I came up with this rough idea using MasterPlan (not a software you need by any means but something I had on hand which worked well for the purpose). I haven’t tried implementing the bulk of this but it helped me kind of think about it better having all of the ideas outside of my head.

When trying to figure out how it would all interconnect, I kept wanting to have something kind of like sticky notes that I could drag around and attach to each other with string like some sort of fucked up gamedev conspiracy wall. This is the second best thing, I think.

And some concept art I did for some outfits:

The colors are very not final, and the colors in the second are specifically for visual contrast.

My notes on outfit design. Basically, an emphasis on the child characters being children and not even remotely sexualizable. This might seem weirdly common-sense to write down, but unfortunately I am painfully aware that certain games in this genre in the past have been... designed, to some extent, for sexual gratification. Including, regretfully, Princess Maker 2 (one of the primary inspirations). There’s horny shit in there like your daughter being able to wear skimpy stuff, work at adult establishments once she gets older, increase her bust size, et cetera. Yeah! It’s nasty! Also the unsettlingly common tendency in newer works to sexualize young or young-looking characters, have them wearing very skimpy things, et cetera. Something something Fate Grand Order.

I abhor this (as anyone with good sense would, I’d hope) and so everything in the game is being carefully planned to discourage that as much as possible. Of course, pedophiles will exist no matter what you do, and some may even prefer the characters to look more childlike. But my goal is to make the game as anti-horny and Wholesome as possible. I’m taking the things that made me love Princess Maker 2 as a child, amplifying and remixing them, while cutting out the things that I find gross.

Some screenshots from my notes where I took a bunch of games from the same or similar genres (Tokimeki Memorial, Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side, Princess Maker 2, Cute Bite, Long Live The Queen) and wrote down their stats as well as what raises/drops them. You can see where I inserted screenshots from GameFAQS guides, lol.

I wanted to get a sense of how long it takes to increase stats, how often they’re decreased, how many stats there are, et cetera. Generally just getting a feel for what I did or didn’t like in a game and what I might like to incorporate into my own. I’m thinking 8 or 9 stats for my game so far, including that old classic, Stress. More stats can be fun, but considering we’re going to be raising 3 girls at once, the simpler the better. I might drop it even further, to something like 6 or 7 - we’ll see.

Here’s what I have down in my notes:

I’m pretty set on “Booksmarts”, “Stamina” (meant to represent physical strength), “Creativity”, and “Style”. These feel like pretty good pillars that can create a variety of diverse endings. Less certain on Fighting and Magic, though since it’s taking place in a magical universe it’d be nice to have. Affection I’m not really sure how to handle and it’s kind of a backburner thing. “Evil” would be fun, though I’m not really sure what would increase it yet. I also don’t want to copy PM2 too closely...

That’s it for this post. There’s other little things here and there. I think one of the most important things I’ve learned is to do small steps every day - and I mean REALLY small steps. If you don’t feel up to working on it, don’t, but try to think of one new idea and write it down. And inspiration and come from anywhere. I was reading a manga I liked, it had some nice classical outfits, so I took a picture and stuck it in the reference sheet.

Oh yeah, here’s that. It’s gotten fucking huge, hahaha.

#ppposts #art direction #concept #scope #godot engine

[sensualcoder-dev]

Project Updates - 5/7/24

Looks like it's time for my bi-yearly "remember this blog exists and post an update"! 😄It's been another few months of off and on work due to my day job and other life things going on, but still trying to chip away at things.

More on the individual projects under the cut~

libtcod tutorials

Since my first crack at writing up the C++ tutorials for libtcod, I've mostly been trying to decide what I want to show for them. Part of the feedback I received on the first tutorial was that it didn't have a clear audience, whether it was for beginners to programming or to more advanced developers. I've gone back and forth on this, and I think I've settled on making it more accessible to newer programmers, though that does mean I have some reworking to do. On the upside, I was able to fairly easily change the code on the early tutorials to account for newer versions of libtcod.

I have also been working through reimplementing later tutorials. Most recently worked on the fourth tutorial, where I decided to introduce an event handling system using double dispatch (specifically using the way outlined in this blog post). This approach is a bit complex to implement and describe since it uses certain template patterns, but overall it should allow for the rest of the tutorials to easily add functionality by simply adding events and new event handlers. Actually implementing it took a couple of days of trial and error due to a lot of factors (mostly trying to understand how it all worked myself), but now it's in a good state and pretty easily extendable! Explaining it in the tutorial, however, will be a different story 😅

OpenHomeworld

This is mostly still in the rough design phase still. Most of the tinkering I've done has been around loading and listing the Bigfile contents, and optimizations around that. I'm tempted to start working on a GUI archive tool to display items as well as insert and extract files from the Bigfile, though I'm not sure if I want to make something in Qt or try my hand at making a plugin for Godot. The Qt tool would probably end up being pretty simple and just show a list of files like how 7zip or WinRAR work, which itself would be just a UI around a command line tool, really. If I tried creating a Godot plugin, I'd also want to handle viewing and editing the files extracted from the Bigfile, too, and that would probably also require implementing the way to handle the Homeworld texture, mesh, script, and other files that have their own format internally. The Godot option is tempting, since I would want to have some sort of editor for the project at some point, but I'll probably keep is simple at this point and just make some small command line utilities. Options, though!

At the same time, I've been playing with the source port of the original game and trying my hand at updating the build system to CMake. This has gone mostly smoothly, except for one snag that I have yet to figure out a good way to handle. You see, the old Homeworld source code is written in C, but the game levels were created in a scripting language that the Relic devs used called KAS (which I think stands for Kick-Ass Scripts lol). Essentially these KAS files would get converted into C code and compiled into the main game executable, and the way the game is built with Makefiles makes it pretty easy to hook in calls to the utility programs to convert these files. In all my messing around, though, I have not been able to successfully replicate that process using CMake. I might need to specify all of the mission files explicitly to have them build and link properly, but I worry I'll end up running into a situation where the build will fail due to things being run out of order in multi-threaded builds (which is already a problem with the source port process though). Analysis continues...

Metal Max Redux - GBC game project

In my last devlog, I mentioned that I was interested in making a game based on a series of obscure JRPGs. The Metal Max/Metal Saga games are ones that I found last year and fell in love with, so much so that I wanted to create a game based off them. The first game in the series was an NES game that was never released in North America, but has a wonderful fan translation patch that I was playing through, but have not actually completed quite yet. It's a fun little RPG where you can drive tanks around a post-apocalyptic world fighting monsters, and has a pretty open structure to it, not unlike the first Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy.

Last year I also came across GB Studio, a free and open source all-included editor for creating GameBoy and GameBoy Color games from scratch, and this gave me a great idea: since I was a huge fan of the GBC port of Dragon Quest I+II, I thought I would make a similar port of Metal Max. So Metal Max Redux was born!

I'm still mostly in the beginning stages with this project still, but I've created a basic mock-up of overworld movement and triggering random battles. The random battle system took a while to puzzle out, and at one point I thought I was going to have to extend the engine that GB Studio uses, but I was able to make it work using a step counter attached to an invisible player object that seems to work well enough. Next steps will probably be analyzing how the NES battle code worked, so I'll be looking at lots of assembly. Fun times! 😄

Free City-States - lewd city management game

Finally, a project to earn my screenname 😄 I really enjoy city builder and management games like the Caesar series and Dwarf Fortress, and within the last few years games like Crusader Kings and Stellaris.

A while back, I was starting to help out with a project called Free Cities Reborn, itself a reimagining of an HTML game called Free Cities, a lewd management game with some city building aspects. I couldn't continue with FCR after a while due to some growing reservations about the content and focus of the game which extends somewhat to the original too, since its core gameplay is around the raising, training, and sale of sex slaves. It's a fun indulgence, if somewhat of a guilty pleasure, and it's certainly not the first game that's concerned with the subject matter, but I still felt weird contributing to a project where it was so focused on that. But at the same time I started to think about creating my own spin on the core ideas, and creating my own lewd game in general.

So that's how Free City-States came to be envisioned. The core game concept in my mind is more akin to Crusader Kings and Stellaris than to Caesar and Dwarf Fortress, but focused on the management of a fantasy city-state. I've created a small mock-up in Godot as my first real foray into that game engine so far, and hoping to continue chipping away at it as the concept becomes more fleshed out 😊

Wow, this ended up way longer than I thought it would, and this doesn't even cover all the small ideas and tinkerings I've been working on! Putting it down into words, I guess I really did do a lot between the last post and this one 😅 Hopefully future posts will be a little shorter, but this was a fun way to reflect on the things that I'm working on. I think I'll try to make fortnightly updates if I can, going forward.

#sc dev #programming #my projects #long post #so many irons in so many fires

[darennkeller]

Devolver, one of the most renowned indie game publishers in the world, reached out to me and played my game.

In this devlog, I'll talk about:

How I connected with Devolver.

The details of our conversation.

The valuable feedback they provided and how it led to game improvements.

What's next for my game.

DISCLAIMER: I do have the approval from Devolver to share this.

How Did I Get in Touch with Devolver?

I've been talking with various publishers for months now. Typically, they discover my game through my presence on Twitter, Reddit, or directly on Steam during online events and contact me directly by mail. Noticing this growing interest, I decided to take the initiative and contact my favorite publishers myself, just to see what might happen.

But to do this, I needed a Pitch Deck. This document is a concise presentation of your game and your plans for it, including details like release dates, budget, target audience, and more. Fortunately, Devolver shares a tutorial on creating an effective pitch deck right on their contact page. I read it and essentially followed the guidelines to craft my own.

I sent out the pitch deck and then... I waited. I didn't have particularly high expectations; it felt a bit like tossing a message in a bottle into the sea.

Three weeks later, I received my first rejection from ChuckleFish. At that point, I somewhat resigned myself to not hearing back from anyone and moved on. But just a week later, Devolver got in touch! Specifically, it was Clara from their marketing team who've read my pitch deck and already noticed the game before during the Steam Next Fest.

How Did the Conversation Go?

Clara told me that my initial release date was too soon for them. She actually contacted me to establish connections for future projects, as she had developed a genuine fondness for Lueur. I wasn't particularly fixed on the release date, so we discussed the possibility of launching the game in 2025. During our conversation, Clara presented me with a series of questions:

If you were to create your dream game, what would the budget be, and what features would you want to include in the final game?

Are you considering simultaneous releases on consoles and/or mobile devices?

What kind of outsourcing, contracting, or additional staffing would you require?

Which game engine are you currently using?

How long do you anticipate the average player will spend in Lueur to reach completion?

The question about the game engine had an interesting twist. I mentioned that I use Godot, highlighting the complete control I have over the engine without depending on another company. Remarkably, one week later, Unity altered its pricing structure, causing quite a stir in the game development community.

Answering these questions in detail took time, you can find my complete responses here.

I also took the opportunity to ask a few questions to Clara, which lead to very interesting information about how Devolver works.

How do you see my game fitting into your portfolio?

We’re continually exploring new ideas, regardless of genre, but first it has to be fun. The reason we take our time to review pitches so rigorously is to really understand the game and determine if our strengths are the best fit to help you sell it. So I’ll get back to you on that! We also have to evaluate the logistics, such as staff and resource availability in your proposed timelines, so you get maximum support from us, which means sometimes it's not just about the fit.

Have you already collaborated with solo developers before? How did it go?

We absolutely love working with small teams, and indeed have launched several projects with solo developers. Some examples are Inscryption, My Friend Pedro, and Bleak Sword and Pepper Grinder is another one upcoming.

What kind of support can I expect throughout the development and publishing process?

We essentially aim to do everything needed to support our devs being able to comfortably make their game, which typically includes funding, marketing, and production assistance at a minimum. We have load s of capabilities and expertise in many fields that we’re excited to leverage in whatever combination makes the most sense for your game. It’s a collaborative effort!

How does your team approach generating visibility and excitement around new releases?

We really try to play to each game’s individual strengths and listen to both our devs and our audience when it comes to marketing the games we publish. We’re fairly strategic and have some stellar in-house talent, as well as a host of partners for expanded capabilities. This will be a much bigger conversation throughout any partnership.

How involved would your team be in the development process? I value creative freedom and would like to know how we can work together to maintain the integrity of my game.

You’re the game-making genius. Our job is to help you get it out the door and into as many players’ hands as possible when it’s ready. We do have insight, experience, and passion, however, so feedback is always on the table if you want it.

Could you give me a sense of how collaboration between your team and me as a solo developer would work?

We endeavor to collaborate on every beat and give you final say, particularly on the big decisions. It’s no different than with a team.* We want you to have confidence in our partnership.

Her responses left a very positive impression. Did any of her answers strongly resonate with you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, I'm really interested in knowing what you think about them.

Following our initial conversation, I sent Devolver a new version of the game for their team to review, and the waiting game began. Two weeks later, I received their feedback about my game.

Feedback about the Game

Let's dive into their feedback and see how I improved my game thanks to them. You might want to check out the video to visually understand the changes in the game.

The Day-skipping for resources felt tedious.

This is true. Initially, Lueur was designed to be played in real-time. However, casual and more relaxed players found the timer stressful. So, I introduced a new game mode, which is entirely turn-based. This mode has been well-received, but it did not feel natural that time is stopped and you have to manually skip days. To resolve this, I decided to take a different approach. Now the game is always in real-time, but you can pause and fast-forward time instead of skipping days. Mechanically, it remains the same, but the player's experience is vastly smoother and even more immersive. Players now have full control over how time passes instead of the game enforcing constant pause.

The visual style didn’t grab.

I plan to retain the low-rez pixel art style due to my limited drawing skills. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean I can't make it look better. Some of my sprites are clearly placeholders and will need to be updated. I've already overhauled the sprites for the darkness storms, which play a crucial role in the game's atmosphere. The result is quite ominous and I like it. Moreover, I've introduced a weather system, which does not impact gameplay yet, but greatly changes the game's mood and breaks the visual monotony.

The mini-games were fun, and there was hope for more.

I'm really happy about this feedback, because the mini-games are definitely a risky design choice in a strategy game, and a few testers really hated it hard. But overall, it s very appreciated. My plan is to progressively introduce more and more mini-games with each level.

The moral choices were surprising and cool.

I'll be expanding on the events and their choices with each level. I'm currently working on implementing a priority system to add an element of randomness and ensure that players don't encounter the same events too frequently.

What's Next?

So, did Devolver eventually decide to work with me on Lueur? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

We’ve taken a deeper dive into the build and your dream game notes over these past couple weeks and there was more back and forth than usual. In the end, we couldn’t quite come to a consensus to move forward to next steps at this time. However, Lueur resonated with quite a few of us (particularly the tabletop gamers), which is a much better sign than most projects that make it to this step.

So... It's disappointing that things didn't work out, and I would have been thrilled to collaborate with them. However, I'm immensely grateful for the opportunity, and I take pride in the fact that my small solo project captured the attention of such a renown publisher. Their feedback has been invaluable in enhancing my game, and perhaps, who knows, they might have a change of heart in the future.

As for right now, I actually just signed a publisher last week! But that's for another devlog. Feel free to watch the video version. If you'd like to embark with my on this indie journey, don't forget to subscribe!

I hope it was a nice read, see you next time everyone!

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[alconteh]

I'm back live on Twitch and it is day 3 of me learning Godot (on stream)!

I've really been enjoying going through this tutorial series so far so come through and chat, chill, laugh, lurk and work along with me while I get further into it!

TWITCH LINK

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