GameDevBlog

New Year's Resolution

My New Year's resolution is to play more videogames. What about you?

Seriously! My days go to work and being a dad, my evenings go to watching TV with my wife, and the queue of games I want to play has been stacking up and up. I manage to get in some tabletop roleplaying every week, by scheduling it ... and I guess that's what I'm going to have to do to catch up on my videogame backlog. Schedule a night of the week for some official videogame time. I worry a little that making it a regimen will take the fun out, but hopefully if I'm not having fun I'll just move on to the next game. I've got a lot on the list...

In other news, we're back from Ashland, Oregon, where my parents' internet was pretty sketchy - (what kind of internet would you get for a place where you only live a month or two out of the year?) - hence the lack of updating. But over the holidays, got in some co-op Portal 2, Lego Harry Potter, and King of Tokyo. (And some Frog Fractions this morning! Forget GTA, Frog Fractions is the true omni-game.) What did y'all play?

Happy Holidays!

Details for you developers out there: This uses the ats Snow Suite by Lars Steerhoff - procedural snowy ground and trees - and it's free! Really awesome. It also uses Soft Snow by Unlock Software - instant snow for only $2. The framerate is sketchy because I did everything on my crappy laptop, since I'm away at my folks. Recorded with Bandicam. The whole thing - finding the plugins, creating the scene, recording, editing the movie - took about two hours.

#indiexmas

Here's my recommendations for #indiexmas. Great games I played last year.

And one of the great things about indie games is their developers are reachable. So I'm going to include the twitter handles of at least one developer for each game.

They Bleed Pixels - lovingly crafted pixel art by Miguel Sternberg AKA @spookysquid - and hella tight platforming / beating gameplay - with just one attack button. 

Resonance - my favorite graphic adventure since Tim Schafer quit Lucasarts, designed by @VinceTwelve. I wrote more about it here.

And has it been a while since you've played Desktop Dungeons? Technically will be a game of 2013, but why not check out what they've done lately - I recommend starting with a fresh save, otherwise things might be weird, and you might need to re-learn some stuff anyway. Desktop Dungeons is my "Oh boy, I've got 20 minutes to myself, I can play a round of this!" game. Danny Day aka @dislekcia; Marc Luck aka @aequitasZA; and Rodain Joubert aka @RodainJoubert.

#indiexmas was Alex Amsel's idea. Happy holidays, y'all.

Unity Mecanim And You

Trying out Unity's new Mecanim animation system? Seeing an annoying jitter on your character, like they're flipping between two frames? Put your camera code in FixedUpdate instead of Update or LateUpdate. Took me all day to figure that out. If game development was like this every day I'd quit.

The award-winning sixty second shooter Deluxe!

That's right, sixty second shooter Deluxe has won Playstation.Blog's Playstation Mobile Game Of The Year Gold award.

I wonder what sort of sales bump this news might get. All I can do is check the number of reviews that the game's gotten. It's been a while since I've checked, unfortunately, and although it's gone up a few since I last checked, no way to tell if that's in response to this news.

I am expecting my first month's sales data any day now...

Water 4 in Unity Pro 4

There were a couple pieces of very different art that inspired New Atlantis. This one by Michael Corriero:

I looked at the detail of that water, the waves, the foam, the reflections of the buildings, the way the foam interacts with the buildings, and thought, "We won't be able to come anywhere near that with our resources." But I loved it. And then there was this one:

Love the colors and shapes there.

I was thinking the water would end up much closer to the latter, but just discovered Unity 4's new Water 4, and after messing around with it a bit, realized I could get in the ballpark of the look I was going for. It looked very bumpy-shiny-mirrory-CG at first, but I killed the specular highlights, lowered the reflections, and-most importantly-replaced their foam with the cartoon foam I was using. (Paid $10 for that foam! That's a material percentage of the project's budget so far! Since I haven't actually had to pay for Unity Pro yet...) Now that's in the ballpark of what I'm looking for - some of the colors and cartoonyness of the Futurama scene merged with the paintedness of Corriero's piece:

Thank you Unity!

And for more of Michael Corriero's work, check out:

www.mikecorriero.com

https://www.facebook.com/Creature.Artist

http://www.youtube.com/user/MikeCorriero?feature=mhee 

Mistakes To Avoid When Going From Corporate To Indie: Being 'Proactive' Considered Harmful

I heard this definition of 'Proactive' once: fire erupts in the office. The reactive worker grabs a fire extinguisher and puts it out, but the proactive worker has already installed a sprinkler system. (The retroactive worker simply does nothing and says, "I told you we should install a sprinkler system." Jerk.) 

If that's really how to define 'proactive', then it sounds good on the surface. You're always prepared for every eventuality. If we look closer, though, we realize that the proactive worker seems to always be engaged in risk management. They install sprinkler systems, they buy insurance, they consult their lawyers, they file the proper paperwork, they get permission, they look before they leap. All of this takes a lot of time and money. If one of those bad eventualities happens, you're glad you were prepared, but I'm thinking it's quite possible that the expense in risk-avoidance ends up being higher than the expense of having to put out that fire that erupts once in a while. Talking expected value here.

Coming from a corporate background, we were very risk-avoidant at Torpex. We limited our liability. We consulted lawyers. We had E&O insurance. We made everyone sign NDA's. We operated in stealth mode. We didn't show Schizoid to people because, "What if they clone it?" We often refused to pitch games to publishers because, "We can only pull back the curtain once, you know." We didn't share with other indies how our games were selling. 

So we succesfully avoided some worst-case scenarios--this is the only clone of Schizoid I know of (but would anyone have cloned it anyway?)--but who knows how many opportunities we passed up? Opportunities to network - opportunities to find clients - opportunities to build our social networks - opportunities to raise awareness - opportunities to earn favor and respect. And how much did we spend, in time and money, on the legal stuff and insurance and fear and anxiety in general?

So I've mostly been trying the opposite approach this time. I've signed contracts without consulting lawyers; I've done jams with no agreements about who-owns-what in place; I've never made anyone sign an nda; I've announced games after working on them just a few days; I've put up trailers showing incomplete work. When problems arise - like somebody complaining about the way the water looks in the trailer - I fix them, maybe. (I'll show y'all that tomorrow.)

(I do have an offsite backup, though. Losing my work is a worst-case-scenario too grim to fathom.)

I didn't even have a separate bank account for the company until I needed one to get paid.

Is this sounding familiar? It's being agile, isn't it? Maybe it's not just good for software development. Time will tell...

So, yeah. I don't like being proactive. Not if it means risk management. I like showing initiative.

By the way - I'm running out of ideas for the Corporate to Indie Mistakes thing. Anybody care to share some juicy mistakes?

And please Like Happion Labs on Facebook, y'all.

Unity Editor Script For Replacing Shaders

We're still casting about for a consistent look for Energy Hook - one that's inexpensive but cool. I've been leaning towards fairly flat-shaded on most things because flat-shaded has a "I meant to do that" sort of look to it - where if you texture then you can easily have inconsistent or insufficient texel density or inconsistent art styles on the different textures -  but it's probably too abstract. More surface detail looks like we're giving it more care and helps with the sensation of motion - when you're running along a flat-shaded floor it's kind of hard to tell how fast you're moving.

So here's some before and after from what I've done this weekend. These beige tiled buildings will probably go away soon anyway, but in the meantime...

Before.

After.

Which one do you like better?

Playing around with the look has meant changing shaders on a bunch of materials at the same time, and I made life easier on myself with this editor script, which takes all the shaders of a given name in the scene and changes them to another. 

/*
This file is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.

Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or
distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled
binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any
means.

In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors
of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the
software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit
of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and
successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of
relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this
software under copyright law.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

For more information, please refer to 
*/
using UnityEngine;

using UnityEditor;

using System.Collections;

// ReplaceShader 

 

public class ReplaceShader : ScriptableWizard
{

	public Shader oldShader;
	public Shader newShader;
	
	[MenuItem("Custom/Replace Shader")]

	static void CreateWizard ()
	{

		ScriptableWizard .DisplayWizard  ("Replace Shader", "ReplaceShader");


	}

	void OnWizardCreate ()
	{

		//Transform[] Replaces;

		//Replaces = Replace.GetComponentsInChildren();
		Renderer[] renderers = GameObject.FindSceneObjectsOfType (typeof(Renderer)) as Renderer[];
		foreach (var renderer in renderers) {
			foreach (Material m in renderer.sharedMaterials) {
				if (m.shader == oldShader) {
					m.shader = newShader;
					Debug.Log (m.name);
				}
			}

		}
		  

	}

 

}

Call it "ReplaceShader.cs", put it in your \Assets\Editor folder, and use at your own risk - back up your stuff first. It'll mess up all your materials just like magic.

Backer Upgrades

So, nobody having come up with a better idea, we'll be giving away "Backer Upgrades" on the Facebook page over the next several weeks up until the Kickstarter launches.

Like most, the Kickstarter is going to have a few levels of virtual rewards - you get the game when it ships (let's call that 'gamma'); you get early access, to the beta ('beta'); you get early-early access, to the alpha ('alpha'); and you get some kind of extra something that we haven't figured out yet ... cheats unlocked just for you, A+ gear, or something like that ('alpha plus').

If you have a backer upgrade, whatever level you back at, you'll be promoted to the next level. Gamma becomes beta; beta becomes alpha; alpha becomes alpha plus. 

So - we win, because you still have to back at some level and help fund the game at least a bit. And you win - because you get better stuff.

Like us on Facebook for a chance to win one.

Dynamic Field of View

Choosing a Field of View for a game is tricky - basically a trade off between 'how good it looks' and 'how much the player can see.'  

Unless your player is sitting really close to the monitor or television, the typical field of view computer games used to use (often around 90) - doesn't look right. It looks like a fisheye lens. I think Halo was the first game I noticed that dramatically narrowed the field of view, not only fixing the perspective but giving it a more filmic look. Characters look taller and more heroic. When the field of view is narrower, things you're looking at look wider-and-taller, which is great for feelings of verticality and height. If you're falling or strafing, it feels like you're falling or strafing fast, as those large surfaces move past you. (But if you're moving forwards, away from the camera, it feels like you're moving not-so-fast.)

The problem with a narrow field of view is you can't see what's around you. Humans have almost 180 degrees of peripheral vision, and in real life have great situational awareness. When you narrow the field to 50 degrees or so (I think what Halo is around), it's like wearing blinders. And makes the games harder to play.

Spider-Man 2 had a very wide field-of-view, and always looked fish-eyed. But we needed it to play. Because you can move so fast and erratically, we had to keep the FOV wide so you could see as much as possible of what was around you.

So. Dynamic field of view. The first game I remember doing this was Burnout. When you go faster, the field of view widens, and it gives you this sense of extra acceleration and speed. So I did it for Energy Hook and it's the best of both worlds - that filmic heroic buildings-are-tall-I'm-really-high-up feeling for when you're walking around on buildings (or falling off of them), good peripheral vision for when you're swinging around and need it, and that extra sense of speed and acceleration to boot.

@JakubKoziol recorded this footage for us because the framerate starts to suck on my Mac when recording. And @RodeoClownII was the one who talked me into doing Wolfire-style voice-over on these things. (It's really time consuming - I kept doing more takes. I'm not going to try so hard next time.)

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