/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

I'm an artist.

you already got your answer

Unreal Engine 4 hands down.

How do I keep a demo/free version of my game separate from the full version, but still keep modifications?
Basically I want the free version to be limited to a few levels and a few characters, and maybe some other limitations. But if I modify the player, enemies, levels, or add mechanics I want it to just work on both the free and full versions with minimal work.

I was walking down the road reading a book, and I stepped on a banana, and I slipped and fell, and the woman tried to catch me and she also fell, and she was wearing a skirt and I hadn't zipped up my pants and it just so happened that way, I didn't really cheat on you, not really.

Rpgmaker MV and Java.

I was in the last 2 and I want there to be more progress before I enter another and people are probably tired of seeing it anyway so it kind of works out

It says right there in the main page
>Publish your games on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, BlackBerry and HTML5, all with the same code base.

Gamemaker, Godot, Unity, Unreal

Updated meme-genre schedule for the next few years:

2017
>Multiplayer Battle Royales
>Souls-likes
>Proc-gen shmups

2018
>Mystery RPGs
>Neo-RTS
>Third Person Puzzlers

2019
>DROD-likes
>Reverse MOBAs
>Text-parser adventure games

2020
>Traffic Control sims
>Open world rhythm games
>First Person Punchers

Better start work now if you want to be ahead of the curve.

if demo
{
levelMax = 2
}

This one's pretty alright:
amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Design-Practice-Wordware-Developers-Library/1556229127

In the end though it always comes down to:
>does this feature fit your game?
>is its inclusion fun/entertaining/enjoyable

Talking of which:
strawpoll.com/s27yrg4

I'm pretty surprised by the results so far.
Of course it comes down to the specific game, but even in RPGs regular inventory management pretty unpopular.

I-i liked it in Arx Fatalis ;_;

>this generates a metagame where people try to beat the game with 2 level limitation
>it's more popular than the actual game
>nobody even knows there's a paid version

I'm actually surprised that people seem to think that
>"You are overloaded and can't move"
is as annoying as a regular slot based system.

>demo becomes full version after five minutes of tinkering with cheat engine

I haven't posted a single game since DD1 so I'm just being consistent about that.

Due to the nature of different platforms you still have to test it on the various platforms / fix a few small things here and there.

PC/Linux/OSX/Android are perfectly fine. Dunno about iOS. HTML5 exporting is complete dogshit, though

weight-based inventory is the worst shit
here's my objective personal opinion fact:

tetris > slot > weight

unlimited is on a league of its own since it's such a fundamental change to the game and can't be compared

How accepted are patreons for game developers?

Would you look down on me if I put a "Support this project" button into the main menu of my demo? (not specifically for DD but in general)

Is it better than having some shitty kickstarter?

I'm polishing very important mechanics.
I seriously need to focus on making levels and I can't for some reason

I don't have an issue with people shilling their patreons but I don't think it works for most games. It works for youtube because they can release content on a weekly/monthly basis but a game dev might go months to years without releasing a game. People tend to get bored and drop their funding quickly.

There are definitely exceptions like Yanderesim so maybe I'm completely wrong.

Making games is completely incompatible with the patreon monetization scheme of monthly payments but people do it anyway
It's actually more profitable to not release your game and keep dangling the progress carrot forever with stupid art updates instead of actually working on the game, that's what porndevs do.

Yanderedev is more of a youtuber than a game developer t b h

Alright thanks

What if my game isn't up to scratch on demo day?
I feel like bad press would be worse than no press.

I see how you assholes treat Bokube

Critical outlook on your game isn't bad press.

The point of demo day is to get feedback on how much your game sucks and to give you clues on how you can improve it, it's not for marketing.

Think of it as free playtesting.

There will be people who will criticize you no matter how good you are.

There will actually probably be more people who will criticize you the better you are.

Don't rob yourself of opportunities for growth with the excuse that "it's not good enough yet."

>yanderedev can't even stop his camera from clipping like crazy

youtube.com/watch?time_continue=27&v=zuAlYiYxHtc

How incompetent can you be?

Demo Day isn't a press release. It's where people put their work in progress games, and get feedback.

>I see how you assholes treat Bokube
If a few shitposters make you think the whole thread is full assholes then maybe Veeky Forums isn't for you.

If you want positive feedback, you came to the wrong neighbourhood

For that matter if you want feedback at all this is a bad place. I post progress because I am autistic and 70% of the time I don't even get replies. People are too busy memeing. Plus, I'd like to think it means I'm not doing anything obviously wrong to be called out

Anyway this is a shithole but where else is there to go

>b-bokube
how's your first week at /agdg/

If I complete the C++ and Java courses on SoloLearn will I have enough basic understanding to start making a game?

Don't bother with java

It'll help but that's a wrong perspective/way to view it. More than anything you need to just like make game. Then you get experience and get better.

Just start making games now even. A course will help if you've done literally nothing but imo it's better to do mini tutorials over full courses and learn how to connect them and how things work. IE do practical work right away

So come up with a simple game and make it. If you don't know where to start, google getting started. Then think of what the first thing you need is. Probably a character and a way to control it. So find some tutorials that go over that stuff.

Being ready to make a game isn't an on/off state that'll switch after doing a course. You either make game or you don't.

>2013/2014 AGDG smash bros featuring your game character will never be made

What is the point in living?

>Open world rhythm games
That's a big leap from where the rhythm genre currently is, Patapon is still the only game that managed to implement rhythm in a way that doesn't just feel like a DDR mod on top of a regular turn-based RPG.

sounds a little too masturbatory imo

you could make a better smash clone by forgoing this place

frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-complexity-fallacy.html

gaining attention outside this place

Made a new item thingy.

Sounds good to me, would you recommend using an engine to begin with or just do what I can with an IDE and move onto Engine later on?

>Fuck Gamebryo.
This. I get that Bethesda has done a lot of work on it and improved its visuals but the games made with it always have the same problems with horrible glitches, floaty movement and ass animations.
They really need to get rid of that piece of shit and move on to something new.

nighty night knight

5 days ago it was looking pretty good for me. I thought I might make it for demoday.
I haven't coded since 5 days ago. Now it's not looking so good anymore.

looks fun

the exclamation point in the text box looks pretty bad

Couple of new things to post about:

- I made health and armor pickups of varying sizes, which was not too difficult. Ammo pickups are next.

- The weapon hotbar now goes away after a couple seconds, at which point it resets what weapon the key press will swap to.

- Shotguns have a more even spread now and a clearly defined cone.

- The player has maximum health, maximum armor, and maximum ammo (which is shown when you use a weapon that has ammo).

Also, the player's pistols have infinite ammo but need to be reloaded when they run out, but I don't have an animation for it yet so there's nothing to show off.

why the hell do bethesda games need NPCs off screen to do shit like voiceovers. how can they not just play a dang audio file wtf is even going on

Because it's an ancient engine and probably no one currently at Bethesda really understands its core to improve it, it's probably a spaghetti nightmare that breaks at the slightest change so they just decided to say fuck it and do stupid workarounds instead.

Yeah it's really annoying, I got to figure out how to edit fonts later but for now it can stay.

Thanks!

Some "genius" programmer early in development designed the voice system (and probably subtitles too) to be tied to the NPC objects. Once it's been established, it's hard to change when the designers are already doing it a specific way.

Tool development

>why the hell do bethesda games need NPCs off screen to do shit like voiceovers.
whoa there, are you questioning object oriented programming? how can you have a voice without a speaker? that's insanity.

You're like me when I get into an endless loop of refining and tweaking game feel when there's no game yet and then when I actually get around to making gameplay, I have to re-tweak everything all over again and throw out features that made no sense for what I ended up going with.

I've been at spending the nights at the hospital the whole month. Couldn't dev at all.

>tfw they didnt even release the source

I'm just focusing on one system at a time, and the shooting itself seems like a good place to start. Next is enemies, then level design.

bring a laptop

guns have already been shooting since your first post

proceed to next step

Making the player able to switch guns is the next step. And now that's done! Now I am making pickups to refill the player's ammo, which is part of the shooting.

>proceed to next step

that hits hard yo

Guns are done, show us some enemy progress today

That poor man is going to die, I need to stop the bleeding. But I need to fix this fucking bug first or I won't make it in time for Demo Day.

>if I bleed, no time for demo day
>if I dev for demo day, no time for bleeding
genius

>his game has the premade engine look

This image should be the permanent OP pic. It will never stop being relevant. See

but he's right, one of the best things you can do is get an artist knowledgeable with your engine and tell him to make your shit look less unnamed.bmp

I could make a post saying
>the sky is not blue
and attach a picture of a frog. That wouldn't make it not a shitpost.

FUCK ART

>but he's right
Anons really need to stop backing themselves up like this. It's fucking embarrassing.

...

but he's right

t. not samefag sorry

this user is right

this person who is not myself shares an opinion with me that is objective reality, and not myself

not him btw

fuckable art is best art

players are the worst part of gamedev
making concessions for the lowest common denominator continues to be a terrible mistake

I think weight systems can be good but games like Skyrim have you carry so many fucking items that instead of making meaningful choices about what to carry you have to constantly figure out what garbage you have is the most worthless and shave just as little off as you can in order to pick up the next slightly less worthless garbage.

Don't you want to be a real game developer

...

sorry not sorry

Don't pretend you know, nodev.

An old coworker once told me something really important one day when I was bitching about customers using our super simple website the wrong way. He said 'You must understand that the average IQ is 100, and almost 50% of people are below that'

Don't be frustrated when people don't understand what seems simple to you, they are probably legitimately dumb.

...

This actually

>main gameplay is about going the straight forward path of violence
>suddenly an incognito section
>hurr players didn't know how to do a thing they had been taught not to do by all previous missions

this sorta thing is an example of poor planning or more precisely, a decision in plan which didn't have a proper reason
if they actually tried to pair their planned bulletpoints with "why? for what purpose? does it mesh with existing stuff?" then it would have been apparent right away that revisions have to be made to this mission

I need to reach these kids.

its a sane decision tho
>be low health
>no way to heal
>to progress, have to get that thing in the bottom of the pool
>can't finish the quest because cannot retrieve the final item without drowning

Am I touching kids?

what the fuck even was that, was it a reference to something? I didn't get it at all