/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

Where's that link that explains what happened to the agdg community after the exodus? About splitting into groups and whatnot?
I can't find it.

>>2742
Sounds like it, yeah.
>maybe weapon handling
So don't have weapon handling in that level.
>grapple would require new sprites and enemy reactions
If your enemies have a "getting hit" reaction you can simply reuse that sprite while they're being grappled or carried around.
>new enemy requires new sprite sheet, new mechanics (kind of have them thought up), new level design
All new things require new effort, and if you have the idea of the enemy mechanics already then that sounds easiest.

Just pick a direction and go. The last 10% is the hardest but you're now the most capable of getting through it.

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I went to an indie game expo last week and found nothing of value.
I don't know if this is because I have played far too many games, but I didn't see anything that was really new. Most games were just reinterpretations of already existing games. A lot were friendslop, a lot of horror games too, but nothing that made me say "this game is unlike anything I played before"
Some people said I was too cynical and that to pull off true innovation it'd require a lot of work, but if you were to take queues from old games you already have a lot to work with.
Even better if you can pinpoint the flaws those games have, and give them a spin

>>2765
>but nothing that made me say "this game is unlike anything I played before"
What's the last game that provoked that response from you?

>>2767
That is actually a good question
I guess I could say Ultrakill, but you get the ins and outs of a game like that after really learning the mechanics, otherwise it's just another shooter from the retro FPS fad.
Besides that, most of the latest games I played are derivative more than anything else. They're carried by story, setting and art direction more than anything mechanics wise
Maybe I was a bit judgemental

>>2765
local cons are mostly new devs aping previous successes and trying to build them on their own in a "monkey see monkey do" fashion. they might have one or two twists on an existing genre but nothing that really makes a game stand out. it's highly unlikely you'll find the next undertake or fnaf at some con in mobile, alabama or whereever you are.

>>2745
Gameplay:
- 3rd person melee combat with varying movesets: sword, knife, staff, hammer
- 1st person aiming and shooting, WHILE STATIONARY. used to interact with puzzle elements and strike weak points of enemies that would otherwise resist strikes.
- there must absolutely be the Halo 2 sword lunge as some kind of finishing move.
- I'd like there to be 1st person melee and shooting, perhaps with a 2-weapon system that allows guns and melee weapons to be used simultaneously, but it would be very unwieldy to combine tight action combat with long periods of isolated exploration.
- first-person aiming with mouselook also presents problems in balance and player disparity based on sensitivity and general awareness.

So there it all is. Any details or questions that jump out at you would be greatly appreciated so I can view it from different angles and keep up the creative pressure to do something with my ideas, even if I don't get to this point until many years from now once I actually know how to make and finish games.

I had been thinking how to balance the nature of a planet mostly made of metal and artificial resources with the gameplay in the same way that Halo 1 had subtle details about the Covenant in their weapons: elites used plasma rifles, which were hard to aim but had heavy damage; jackals had exclusively plasma pistols because they could use charge shots to strip Master Chief's shields; grunts used needlers (and whatever else was lying around) because grunts were bad at aiming and needed a weapon that could support the elites and jackals.

The notion of metal-eating rust beetles occurred to me, as well as the notion of harvesting their hives for "live ammo" like in Oddworld Stranger's Wrath. Perhaps having to manage the beetles' population in each hive and keeping it above a certain level lest the nest fall fallow and deprive the player of a refill point. Could be good, could be bad, dunno.

>>2743
>>2744
>>2745
>>2746
>>2747
I don't have any questions myself (being just a lurker). But I must say this is an impressive collection of ideas. GG.

>>2747
I don't know how you're organizing all of this but you might want to use some kind of note software. I use Trilium and structure everything like they're Wikipedia articles with names/events/etc. that all link back to each other.
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium/
You can also use OneNote if you're stuck in the M$ sphere, it's probably their last piece of software that hasn't gone to total shit.

>>2748
Thanks. I just wish I had the time and dedication to actually move forward on this kind of work. I feel very scatterbrained when I come home from my job and I only have a few hours to myself. I can write as easily as breathing but the very notion of representing things visually is like pulling teeth. I've made great progress sketching on my break but that just means I upgraded from elementary schooler to middle schooler.

>>2763
I just work in text files and sync everything with Mega since it's the easiest way for me. I've used note apps in the past, and while I find it useful in some contexts it did feel too awkward.

I should look into it, though. I have a lot of documents and info buried in .ODT files that I use in LibreOffice which should be more accessible.

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Few things happening.

Getting ready for (at long last) a new blog post on https://www.GigaMaidens.moe which goes over lore and introducing the main heroines of GigaMaidens as well as its setting.

Aside from that, I am still proceeding on modelling Drarin and drawing some art of Akina (a water-based superheroine whose magic comes out themed around bathroom fixtures). Currently looks like Drarin has a hime cut because I intend to make her hair a planar texture.

>>2751
That seems to be going p well, Anon. Can you show her wireframe please?

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Give her a tube top and the shortest shorts ever. Now she's starting to look sexy.

>>2752
Why do you want to see that?

>>2761
>Why do you want to see that?
Pretty traditional question between modelers. And since this is a game character, the mesh design is important to how the model will deform for animation. Simple as.

Finally, first new blogpost in a year! And finished this Akina drawing.

https://gigamaidens.moe/?p=432

>>2762
I'll post it later.

>>2676
ui could use some work, super not clear what anything would do.

it is cringe that most games have keybindings on the UI but they do that for a reason lol esp if its an abnormal control scheme.

>>2693
that is pretty cool, although if its UI i'd ask what sort of information are you trying to present to the player and what interactions are available?

>>2753
Wow very cool, you should show them t3d is still kicking and from my experience the best fps engine out there.
For specific genres or very odd stuff other engines might be more suitable, but i worked with many game engines over the years and t3d is just the best for anything 3d.
Heck maybe they might even joint the community, we need some fresh blood even if its only posters who show some enthusiasm.
>>2754
Which one are you referring to?
I might have screwed up the packaging process and accidentally omitted a package, you can probably fix it by adjusting the dependencies field in the *.module file in one of the subfolders inside the data folder relative from the top level.
You should be able to open the console with the tilde(the one bellow escape) for more info.
I will try to reupload a fixed version 
soon, it was a bit of a rushjob due to reasons, the assets should all be in there however, so its still useful.
The strategy aspect is subpar so far and you can play at as an fps too.
>>2755
I had a lot of personal problems recently and the recent future will be turbulent for me so i might have to slow down, but i wont give up.
So far there is almost nothing to see, but its a good start and it mostly comes down to filling in the blanks in the code and designing a world, but 

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Decided that the best course of action is to design the punching bag, if I can get to make hitting this satisfying that should make most of my game good to go.
Things I noticed from this:
>Add momentum to punches, since my character already moves forward while punching, enemies should move back too.
>Grab anim for the enemy could, for a while, just be a zoomed in sprite
>Enemies should have different friction depending on their weight
Overall, messing around with this should give me a much easier way to deal with what is missing from my game, just wishing I did a bit more. 
But its good progress!

>>2758
It was rad alert but ya im not a stratrgy gsme guy just saw t3d and.couldnt help but sperg out lol... i feel u on personal problems, SAME keep it up tho

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>>2638

I implemented a max-area circle generator >>1398

uint get_max_area_circle_indexcount_for_vertexcount (uint vertexcount) {
	return (vertexcount-2)*3; // vertcount-2 = number of triangles.
}
void build_max_area_circle (uint vertexcount, Vec2f* vertices, uint indexcount, u32* indices) {
	assert(vertcount >= 3);
	assert(indexcount == (vertexcount-2)*3);
	
	u32* ibuilder = temp_alloc(vertexcount*sizeof(u32));
	uint ibuilder_count = vertexcount;
	for (uint i=0; i<vertexcount; i++) {
		f32 angle = (MATH_PI * 2.0f * (f32)i) / (f32)vertexcount;
		vertices[i].x = cosf(angle);
		vertices[i].y = sinf(angle);

>>2680
Congrats Anon! Looks very cool tbh.

>The Method of Exhaustion
Based old Greek dudes used just this approach to accurately determine Pi.

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After 7 thousand years I'm working on things again, kind of. To start with, I made one of my program's UI DPI-aware (you can resize it).

I discovered that you can cache font glyphs and still get subpixel positions, so now my text rendering looks way more smooth without extra performance cost. On hindsight I was dumb for not thinking of it before: just cache different graphics at about 4-10 different subpixel positions, then use the closest one when drawing glyphs. Pic uses 8, though it's almost indistinguishable from 4.

There's still something odd about the transparency values from stb_truetype, the text looks faded out so I'm manipulating the pixels to make them a bit more opaque, but I think that might make the glyphs a bit uneven (for example the top of "C" looks thicker than the bottom, and the bottom of "w" looks too dense). Maybe I'm blending colors wrong, or maybe that's just how it is at this size.

I can't record videos because I'm on Linux now and my recording tool doesn't work, a static image will have to do.

>>2732
Congratz Anon, on both counts. GG.

>>2701
>plays animations and stuff only when the server says so
Shiggydiggy, do you realized how slow that would be? Keep your server side code small and simple as possible anon. You don't need a signal from a server just to play animation. A game server should be managing players connection, provide coordinate of players and monsters and spawn enamy monsters, That's it. Everything else is gameplay runs in computer of players side.

>>2702
Yup, agreed.

>>2703
>how slow that would be
When you attack an enemy in Runescape, you need to play 2 animations.
2 bytes = message ID
4 bytes = entity ID
1 byte = animation ID
This happens around once per second unless you use a particularly fast weapon, *2 since the enemy fights back. Of course you also need a message for the health modification.
2 bytes = message ID
4 bytes = entity ID
2 bytes = health modified
1 byte = some flags like whether to show a damage number (eating a potion would not show up but a healing spell would)
That's about 23 bytes of data for all of it combined.

This sentence is 26 bytes.

>>2703
>Shiggydiggy, do you realized how slow that would be? Keep your server side code small and simple as possible anon. You don't need a signal from a server just to play animation. A game server should be managing players connection, provide coordinate of players and monsters and spawn enamy monsters, That's it. Everything else is gameplay runs in computer of players side.
You're 100% retarded.

I've seen a couple neat games that have a lot more potential for improvement left, but the developer just calls it quits relatively "early". At least one of them stopped because they're making a sequel.

That got me thinking about post-release content, many games get seemingly infinite post-release updates, and that's seen as a good and even an expected thing. Games in the past basically never did this, instead they got sequels, or expansion packs that were often treated a bit like spinoffs.

So I wonder if instead of post-release content being a "good way to keep an audience", it's actually just robbing yourself of the opportunity to make and sell a sequel. People tend to get mad if the game doesn't get more content post-release, but as long as you don't leave it a broken mess, people will probably accept that a sequel is where the updates are, maybe even be more excited about it than they would about a content update. It's also a more economically reasonable plan for you as a developer. Of course some people just want free shit and get mad at anything other than infinite free content updates, there's no appeasing those anyway.

Apparently if you put the sequel into a Steam bundle with the previous game and then give the bundle a discount, if someone who already owns the first game buys it, they'll only have to pay for the second game but still get the discount for it. So it's kind of like a discount on the second game that only applies to owners of the first game.

>>2706
The model might make a little more sense for multiplayer games if the dev is worried about his last game competing with his new one, or if all he really has are incremental improvements. Then again, I guess it's probably also the current proliferation of game updaters that enables this business model.

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>>2572
Depends on what you're looking for. Immediate mode UIs for dev tools? More general game GUI libraries? A widget toolkit that isn't GTK+?
I have zero experience with doing GUIs in C myself (my only experience with the field is fucking around in Godot), but the Suckless.org guys recommend https://github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear as an immediate UI library. https://wiki.musl-libc.org/alternatives has a number of different recommendations, some of which look pretty cool, and I've heard good things about Tk. Perhaps someone else here could recommend you something else from his experience, but I figured I'd toss these at you in case any of them look like something you'd want to fuck around with.

>>2573
NTA. Nice post, Anon. Thanks for the information.

>>2572
If you want to do it yourself, making a simple immediate mode UI is very easy. Here's a pretty good article about it: https://www.dgtlgrove.com/p/ui-part-2-build-it-every-frame-immediate

It looks something like this:
struct Contex {
	Vec2i origin;
	Vec2i pos;
	Vec2i size;
	int row_height;
	int row_spacing;
};
void maybe_wrap_to_new_line (Context* context, int width) {
	if (context->pos.x + width > context->origin.x + context->size.width) {
		context->pos.x = context->origin.x;
		context->pos.y += context->row_height + context->row_spacing;

>>2575
That's good-looking code, Anon.

>>2572
If you want to do your own from scratch, Clay is a good reference and the author has a video explaining it works.

>>2238
This is him is you don't recognize the posting style: 
>>2236
>>2237

>>2238
>>2239
Thanks for the headsup, Anon. Yes, he's been abusing Trashchan for a few days now.

>>2238
I still find it baffling they refused to do anything about it.

>>2244
It's appreciated.

>>2247
>I still find it baffling they refused to do anything about it.
I remember seeing that guy in the zzz/v/ /agdg/ threads and his posts were promptly deleted almost every time they appeared. Did I miss something?
I figured those threads slowed down due to the autist posting his DA-tier scribbles of uncanny women.

MeriKuri, /agdg/!

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>>1587
Are you trying to invent cataclysm:dark days ahead?

>backpacks
Why not just make everything into a storage? All existing items have to be stored somewhere, and a lot of items are both storages and "items". So simply register every item, by ID/pointer into its storage space. On loading, recursively load all used storages, starting from "the world". 
Its actually important part of the interface. Depending on number of items/buttons, game might start lagging, if every button pressed checks every other button location against it. You will need to separate them into containers anyway. 
And with everything being a container of their own, you can have "hidden" part, where item stores materials its made of.  

>how to ID
You either use half assed system, or make a proper all encompassing item ID system. 
> I want to refer to the inventory by it's name
You dont mean, you literally search all existing items via std::string or something like that?

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>>1587
>>1588
>create_item()
>create_inventory() 
I just realized that the way I explained it doesn't make any sense because I left out context. Those functions in reality are create_iteminfo() and create_inventoryinfo().

The way my stuff is organized is that I have objects and infos. The info represents the object's type and has all the static information about it, like name and description and sprite, you only modify those at game startup. The object has per-object information, like how many items are in an item stack, they are actual objects that exist in the world.

Pic related are the actual, un-edited data structures for my items. What I'm talking about is creating an Iteminfo, and connecting the relevant Inventoryinfoid into it. I don't need or want to store the inventory info's string ID into the item info, I just want the numerical ID, but the item info may be created before the inventory info so the numerical ID wouldn't exist yet.

>Are you trying to invent cataclysm:dark days ahead?
Not sure what makes you think that.

Test.

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New bread.
>>1605
>>1605
>>1605

>>1587
You need a better vision of what your game should be about, what is it called?