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sord_n_bored · 2012-05-25T04:12:25.945692+00:00

Sure it's a change. Less bookkeeping.

underweargnome04 · 2012-05-25T00:57:38.510043+00:00

Why support evil in any form, be it greater or lesser?

Because Ralph Nader 2000.

bitdefuser · 2012-05-24T15:35:07.576112-07:00

This is a very good idea.

bitdefuser · 2012-05-24T22:34:49.007964+00:00

Scan it at the highest res you can, and then reduce those images for gameplay as a separate step. You don't want to have to go back to the paper media if you, say, want to have a close up of some artwork later during development.

Once it is scanned, work with the images at the largest size you will need them in the game (remember retina iPad is double-res), and then set the import settings for Unity to shrink them to the appropriate size for your device targets.

StarBarbershop · 1 day

Second the public schools. Bonus: lots of built-in volunteers, and the standards are low.

jjquave · 1 day

I sent you a review request for our app, Letter Writer Oceans.

Is this a new site? I haven't heard of it before, and I only see 13 apps in the reviews section. If so, good luck on your launch.

Is there an RSS feed of new reviews?

redwall_hp · 2 days

Thanks for the heads-up! Downloaded.

As an iOS developer, I was really pleased with this game. It has a really nice custom UI that really evokes the game's theme in a visually rich way and yet is still solidly functional and intuitive. It's a fun game, but also a nice case study for other game developers.

pytechd · 2 days

You could probably do a lot of automation by just having two chutes.

Make two chutes, each having access blocked by a floodgate hooked up to a lever. Make it so that when chute A is accessible, chute B is not, and vice versa. Then do the same thing at the bottom, only with the parity reversed.

That way, when chute A is accessible for dumping, chute B is accessible for hauling. Flip the lever, and the situation reverses.

You'll still risk trapping haulers behind floodgates, but at least you should never have a situation where dwarves are hauling to the same chute they are hauling from.

sortofagamedev · 4 days

If you can "do without" it, it's not "necessary", is it? "General purpose" or not.

Seriously, if your business can't survive if Flash goes away, you need to reconsider your business model rather than insulting developers who don't rely on it being there.

Flash is an optional tool you can use to deliver content, like many others. Use it when its strengths match your needs. But the moment it becomes necessary to you is the moment you tie your fortunes to the capricious whims of the Adobe executive team. Go ask some Adobe Director developers how that worked out for them.

sortofagamedev · 4 days

Maybe, but the policies Apple put in place were defensible based on their own merits, so it's really a moot point how Jobs felt about Adobe. If Microsoft makes the same decision as Apple, especially when Microsoft desperately needs to differentiate themselves from Apple in the mobile space, there's more to it than just Jobs wanting to stick it to Adobe.

sortofagamedev · 5 days

Plugins are necessary because...

Actually, the fact that plugins are being dropped from browsers left and right is damning evidence that plugins aren't necessary.

c0de517e · 5 days

I think you'd be better off focusing on one service and making it excellent, instead of trying to do everything and spread yourselves thin. Do one thing at a time, and make it awesome. A really good service for helping indie devs market their apps, for instance, would be worth paying for.

Also, if everything is free, and you don't take a cut of profits, what's your business model?

sortofagamedev · 5 days

since Apple has a vendetta against Adobe

Apple doesn't have a "vendetta against Adobe." They don't allow any plugins in mobile Safari, not just Adobe's, for performance and security reasons. For instance, you can't run Unity content in there, either. Also note that Adobe themselves have stopped developing the mobile Flash plugin, and Windows Phone has opted to follow Apple's policy of no plugins in mobile IE, so it's certainly not just Apple that's leading to the Flash plugin dying on mobile.

Plugins have always been a source of security holes and performance issues, so the move away from proprietary plugins in web browsers is actually a good thing for everyone (except perhaps Adobe, who have hung much of their business model on plugins being available). It does put developers who are Flash shops in a bit of a bind for obvious reasons, but ultimately, it will make for a better web experience overall.

That said, Flash is not going anywhere anytime soon. You can still deliver Flash content to mobile, just not in the browser. There are export options to native apps, which, while it means people can't just visit your web site to play your Flash game, it means you can publish your game in the various application stores (and thus get paid directly for your work instead of indirectly through ad networks, say), and it will also have better performance because it is a native app instead of sharing resources with the web browser or competing with, say, page scrolling for interpreting what swipes mean.

Personally, I think the biggest danger to Flash isn't HTML5. It's the shortsightedness and cluelessness of the Adobe executive team. Flash is fine technically as a platform, but if the guys holding the reins drive the wagon off a cliff, it doesn't matter how nice the wagon is.

cannedtomatoes · 5 days

This is what I thought. Doesn't this technically make a claw machine a gambling device? The distinction between "game of chance" and "game of skill" is what made pinball machines illegal and then legal again, wasn't it?

nootopian · 6 days

Just bought this today, after seeing it recommended elsewhere.

Within a minute of installing and launching it, it notified me of two missing retina images in my project. Nice.

XWolfHunter · 6 days

I can vouch for Unity and Cocos2D. Both are excellent. Cocos2D is closer-to-the-metal and requires you to code in Objective-C, but works more naturally in 2D. Unity is a 3D engine - simple enough to use for 2D because you can either use "billboards" and an orthogonal camera or the GUI system - but handles a lot more of the game-like stuff for free.

Both are good, both have responsive communities, and both are easily capable of creating a 2D RPG style game.

yajiv · 7 days

Well done. It's short, but solid, and handles very well. I particularly liked the mechanic in the middle where you have two people doing different things with the same controls - that could be milked for interesting gameplay later.

(I'm sorry your third friend didn't get to do anything!)

cheapshot · 8 days

Avadon: The Black Fortress and Avernum: Escape from the Pit are RPG's in the classic SpiderWeb style which have hours and hours of plot-based gameplay.

King of Dragon Pass is a game that is heavily story-based, but still randomized for pretty deep replayability. There is no grinding, and practically every turn involves a decision with important trade-offs. Very deep - deeper than it appears even after playing a while.

Also, I second the Monkey Island series and Waking Mars mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

tbear865 · 8 days

Sadly, I think the main downfall of this mechanic is knowing about it. While it's a neat idea, if you market your game with this idea, people will be playing the meta-game of trying to control what happens by the choices they make in-game, which in turn will take them out of the experience. If I were the developer, I'd hush up about the adaptive horror technology and how it works, and just code the thing up, and let players find out the hard way that the game seems to uncannily know what you're scared of. Having players post on message boards "How did it know what I was afraid of?" will just add to the creep value.

Zaemz · 8 days

It all depends on your goals. If you're looking to learn OpenGL, then making your own engine is a good thing, because it will force you to learn and understand the technology at a deep level.

If you're looking to make a game, then making your own engine is (can be) a bad thing, because you'll spend all your time on engine, no time on game, and eventually, you'll wind up with nothing to ship. Graphics engines save you from inventing an entire graphics engine - that's time you could be putting into gameplay instead.

There's nothing wrong with using existing game engines, just like there's nothing wrong with using existing languages, compilers, etc. It's just another layer of "let the experts focus on (whatever) and I'll focus on doing what I want to do." Of course, it comes with tradeoffs (your chosen engine may not support platform X or be slow at task Y), but that's true of choosing any technology. Pick a game engine that matches your goals, and you're good to go.

montyjack · 8 days

Like badsprite said, I think you answered your own question. For a project like this, doing what you enjoy (2D RPG's) and what you can feasibly finish (2D art assets) is going to trump doing something you like less for a longer period of time because it increases the probability you'll never finish. The number one barrier to indie games is not technical or market issues. It's the ability to finish the game. Anything you can do to cut down on development time and increase your long-term personal enthusiasm for your project is gold.

As to the market, I think the key is to make something you enjoy and love. There's enough of a "long tail" out there that if you love something, chances are, there are plenty of other people who will, too.

As for 2D RPG's in particular, I think you could do much worse than Ultima IV as a source of design inspiration. Yeah, there are a lot of people that will judge a game by its eye candy alone, but there are still large numbers of people playing ASCII-based roguelikes and MUDs, too, so clearly, graphics isn't everything. The key is to deliver something awesome along at least one axis of measure. If you make something excellent - excellent story, excellent gameplay, excellent world, whatever - there will be an audience which appreciates it. Don't worry too much about pleasing one audience if your strength lies in pleasing another. Instead, serve the audience you target wholeheartedly and completely; they are the ones who will buy your game and evangelize it to others of similar interests.

And finally, using Unity would indeed be a good way to hedge your bets. Develop the game in 2D using Unity, and make sure you abstract the game world view away from the model. Then you can swap in 3D if you discover you get the resources later and 2D just isn't cutting it.

Good luck.

GritGreyheart · 10 days

Well, even if it is a bandwidth thing, you should hire someone to make the plugin and let you publish and control the codebase, rather than rely on a third-party developer to be convinced to do it if it would be popular enough. Pay someone up front to make the plugin, and offer it yourself.

VurbStudios · 13 days

That's a lot to try to get into a trailer.

If I were you, I'd try to simplify it. Drop the dates, first of all - the concept is unfamiliar enough without having to remember dates for reference. Don't explain the particulars like the fact that he was put in a "sub dimension" or whatever - just draw out the main plot points. Gloss over all the technical stuff about what "they" had to do and tell the story from the perspective of the guy waking up. All he knows is that he was taken as a boy and dropped into a new place (and time). How does he feel about that? And how does he feel about having (deciding?) to be a hero, now? Get that emotional connection in there instead of just describing the events.

Here's a rough stab. I'm not 100% happy with it, but I hope it illustrates the sort of stuff I was talking about:

"They came for me when I was just a child. My mother - she gave me to them willingly, tried to calm me as they put me in the capsule. At the time, I cried. I was scared, and I didn't want to leave her. But now I understand.

"Where do you flee, when the end of days is upon you? Where can you go, when existence itself is drawing to a close? The only escape is to go back. Back in time.

"I am the sole survivor of Armageddon. I escaped it, mom, thanks to you. But I'm going to do more than just escape it. I'm going to stop it from ever happening again. I'm not just going to cheat time, mom. I'm going to break it.

SplinterOfChaos · 14 days

Well, Dwarf Fortress does some of the stuff you describe, namely, tracking both the form and the material of items. In fact, you can go in and look at how they do it - in the "raws", you can see how they put things together. Each item has an item type and a material, and when you make something out of something else, you can retain the material (and thus, all its properties like shear strength, mass, melting point, etc.) but change the shape (this, a bar of iron can become an iron shield).

Dwarf Fortress doesn't do your crafting idea, opting instead for workshops that do the transformation. But they do have a tree-like structure for defining creatures, so that the game knows that, say, the hand is connected to the arm is connected to the shoulder, and that these pieces contain tissue, bone, cartilage, or whatever.

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