Agdg - Amateur Game Development General

Progress!
The main loop of the game (receive mission, get items, sacrifice them) is complete at last.
There are still a few minor things to fix and tweak
(and a lot of content to add) but the game is mostly complete.

...

oh my

what happens when it goes at the highest speed?

I suck at chara design

It's perfectly reasonable as long as the world is completely empty

Nothing really, I have not yet taken physics into consideration. However you can do this

character design is not too hard, you take a normal person, tweak a little the proportions to emphasize certain characteristics (ie : strong man = big muscles).
Once you've done that, you put on clothes that fit their job and personality.

Now someone please explain me how you're supposed to design mechanical stuff without being an engineer

déja-vu !

itch.io/jam/a-game-by-its-cover-2017

...

OH SHIT

youtube.com/watch?v=dv13gl0a-FA

NANI?!

What happens if the tracks diverge while that's happening?

>see post
>see this reply
>think, "oh shit don't tell me"
>open webm
HE ACTUALLY DID IT
THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN

So i spent the last week learning python because everyone said it was stupid easy and now I've downloaded Godot and I have no idea what I'm doing

I would pay for a high-speed train drifting game

I think I'm gonna add a locomotive as a secret "car" in my game because of that meme

MULTI TRACK DRIFTING!!!

DO RIFT TOOO

m-masaka!

Never learned python, but learning programming takes more than a week.

Where do I purchase this?

Here's a mech I made for my imaginary game

please make a game with it, it looks really cool

What happens if you try to multi-track drift but the tracks are too far apart?

When I switch the track between wheels, very bad things happen. The entie thing basically falls apart. I'm gonna have to put some safeguards for that.

If your game isn't successful, become the western version of him.

CryEngine is looking outdated these days. Only thing it has going for it still is the beautiful water.

Yeah that's normal.
Basically you need to understand the fundamental parts of programming, like variables, functions, loops, etc. These are more or less the same in any language and any engine. This is why people recommend Python, it's really easy to learn.
With Godot, or any engine, you'll need to also learn how the engine itself works. Follow some tutorials and look at the official Godot demos. That should help you. Don't be discouraged, it takes a long time to learn to get good at programming and gamedev.

I love it, user. Did you have a tumblr? I would like to follow your progress

was there any fanart/group pictures made for d16?

Actually I misunderstood what you said. This is what happens, it gives you an idea how it works.
Nice, I really like your art style user.

Hi everyone.

I'm a composer looking for some work. If you're looking for someone to do an OST please consider looking at my previous work, thanks!

soundcloud.com/user-447188939/sets/demirs-soundtrack-reel

Wtf your game looks weird. Did you change the car?

That's what I was wondering but the other one is interesting too. You have the UE physics, can you just make it fall off the track when the trucks diverge?

So the bogies are constrained to the track and the train sits exactly in the middle of them? Cool. Will it support Jacob's bogies like pic related?
I like trains.

youtube.com/watch?v=B6WiT29xUkI&t=9m29s

this is exactly everything I've ever wanted, thank you

yes, I'm changing all the textures to this hd-ish style

I think I've got a decent handle on the programming stuff, I just have no idea how the engine works or how I'd even begin to make any type of game. I'll look up some Godot tutorials when I have the time

damn brah good shit

imma follow you

>Vlastní hm
>Služební h
Based czechdevs. Wyg?

Thanks!

If it's the synthwave stuff you're interested in, you can search for "Virtual Vice - Off Duty" on YouTube or bandcamp and my shit should pop up.

That album was a soundtrack written for serpentza's YouTube channel :)

>tfw too poor to hire people
>tfw still several years from working because uni

I sure as fuck hope my efforts pay off in the long run

how'd you make "Retro/Future/80's 01 City Limits"?

ive been dabbling with this type of sound myself but it doesn't come out as good as that

im def hearing a drum machine and synths

which vsts? or actual gear?

pleas hier me I am better composister from india very good
here is very good music
clyp.it/04fuubpo

Speaking of music
how the FUC do I learn how to music? I can do every other aspect of gamedev at least moderately well, but music is impossible.

thanks
My tumblr is squaredev.tumblr.com but I never posted this game on there.
I'm making this game for the Game By Its Cover Jam with ludomyth.

music theory.
there should be a "how to X" for every aspect of gamedev in the OP.

learningmusic.ableton.com/

I used the TAL-U-NO-LX synth for 90% of the synths on that album. There's actually a preset pack made by some prominent synthwave artists, I'm sure you'd be able to find it if you google it.

For drums, I mostly used one hit samples. You can use something like addictive drums but I feel that you don't have as much control over the samples.

A lot of it is the mixing and master or lack of. It depends what you're going for. My synthwave's production is pretty modern sounding, I wasn't trying to make it sound old or anything.

This video really helped with the mixing/mastering

youtube.com/watch?v=3YaADkM5vFQ

Another thing that really helps is using a "wow and flutter" vst. If you add a tiny bit of that to your synths, it will give them that old VHS wobble sound.

The rest of it is up to your creativity ;)

Another one.
I'll name them for now trash girl and jock girl.

Music theory is pretentious bullshit though. It provides no real help.

If you need mecha references, this is the folder for you
mega.nz/#F!IEYy1LCC!Ki5UX5in9qRTU6WOUHiR3w

How many musical instruments do you own?

Start here.

This is hands down the best tutorial series I've found for music theory. He breaks down everything you need to know into little videos.

daveconservatoire.org

Find a DAW that you want to learn then spend a few days learning the interface. I'd recommend going straight into something intense like Ableton. It may take a while to learn, but you'll never have to switch DAW. Lot's of people start on lesser known DAW's and end up having to switch down the line. It happened to me and I didn't realize how limiting some other DAW's are.

Then I'd start working on composing some melodies and make some chords to go with them. Figure out how drumming works.

Then finally I'd learn about the mixing and mastering. This can range from a few plugins on your mastering chain to going completely ham and spending a month mixing and mastering one track. It really depends on how polished of a sound you're going for.

wat i thought the retro style was part of the appeal

great stuff bud

>pentatonic and inversions in "advanced"
eh

Fuck off with your garbage opinions, music theory gives a clear rundown on what works, what doesn't, and why. It's a book of general rules, not a "follow exactly those steps to become chopin"

>Then finally I'd learn about the mixing and mastering. This can range from a few plugins on your mastering chain to going completely ham and spending a month mixing and mastering one track. It really depends on how polished of a sound you're going for.

Earlet here. Why do people think mixing and mastering is so hard? Isn't it just adjusting the volume of each instrument? Why does that take more than 10 minutes?

You are dumb.

Do you use physical hardware? I'm thinking of getting some kind of midi controller like a keyboard for fucking around with music, but I'm not sure if it's something that will actually help or if I'm just blaming my tools.

i got actual really good synth and decent level midi controller

buy a fucking real synth or a insanely CHEAP midi controller

im talking sub 40 dollars here

wasted like 200 on this shitty akai mpk225

was able to shop around and scored actual sythns for 380 and 20$

you see the problem with the mpk225 is that not all the expensive knobs and shit are NOT actually mapped to anything in your daw so you gotta dig around and shit

i have not been able to get the ARP button to work on any VST with it so its practically trash for me

plug and play > all

Not that user, but a midi keyboard won't make a world of difference if you have trouble with writing/composing itself - that's where learning some music theory would be helpful, as other anons stated.

I find that its more about your samples/plugins and how you use them, but that being said, I can't play a keyboard to save my life so I just piano roll for composition.

soundcloud.com/jasozz/hg2d-intro-concept

>Isn't it just adjusting the volume of each instrument? Why does that take more than 10 minutes?
Mixing is basically fitting every sound so they don't overlap and create a mess of sound, by adjusting the various frequencies of them.
It's hard because it's not necessarily intuitive, worse when you're unexperienced.
On top of that you've gotta balance the effects like compression, reverb, delay, and you've gotta make sure every sound "fits" within the same aesthetic.

Can't speak about MIDI controllers but having both a guitar and a bass really help with finding out melodies and also "what's playable". Playing them helped me get a sense of phrasing and melodies.

Hello fellow Czechfag.
No idea, I have literally spent 5 minutes researching trains, which is a mistake I guess. I am really not sure what I'm going to do with this, how much realism I will go for.

Also you almost got it, each wheel is calculated separately, the bogie is averaged between each pair and lastly the carriage on top.

Ya I can make the train fall off when its parts get too far apart. But the drifting is really a side effect, I just wanted to have nice looking wheels that stick to the track correctly.

Is there something like GDC or ACM for music? One thing that annoys me about creative fields is that artists are generally very closed source. They don't really talk about their pioneered techniques outside of their little cliques of friends, and they don't have the infrastructure for a mass discussion. That means that the only way to learn is to follow tutorials by people who by definition suck at their subject - if someone was good at music they'd be raking in cash from a radio hit rather than doing music tutorials on YouTube. Engineering fields tend to be more open to discussion, with people at the top of the field sharing their knowledge with people who are lower down.

>if someone was good at music they'd be raking in cash from a radio hit
That's not at all how the music industry works.

Mixing and mastering means something different to each person.

Generally speaking, for the mixing process you'd want to add or remove frequencies from each instrument track, change the volumes and do things like compressing.

Mastering is more about making your track louder. If you have a shitty mix (instruments are clashing because they're occupying the same space, something is too loud in the mix, the drums and bass are muddy) then all mastering will do is amplify those shitty aspects.

A typical mastering chain might include things like mutliband compressors, equalizers, limiters, etc, etc.

As a general rule of thumb, each individual mastering plugin shouldn't make a huge audible difference, but altogether they'll make a huge difference.

honestly if you are decent at music you can make money nowadays

it's still retro, I just felt the old style looked bad. it actually looked good on the 3D model itself, when seen in 3D, but rendered to a sprite it produced a lot of artifacts. it still does, but a little less now

there's a big difference between making a radio hit and making minimum living wage with music. most of the accessible money is in teaching and live gigs, not records.

Just buy yourself a cheap 49 key midi keyboard and maybe a cheap set of monitoring headphones/speakers.

You really don't need much to start producing music. Later on down the line you can grab a guitar interface and a few different instruments, but they're really not necessary at all, especially in video game music.

Half the time you can get away with guitar plugins.

also it looks more like the real thing now

that's a pretty hefty collection of pictures but I don't get how that can help learning how to design mechas. I get that it can be kinda summarized into "big shapes with sci fi details that almost take the shape of a human", but the actual process of it is still a complete mystery to me.
And I've been trying to design mecha since before that jam

How?

youtube.

youtube is the best resource we all have.

you can blow up like justin beiber if you got the chops and looks

I really prefer the top one. The bottom one looks so gummy and ill defined.

Working on a system where random powerups are spawned when you hit an enemy. So 15% chance that a single unit of health will be created. Trying to think of other powerups I would want.

Maybe a small chance of a "star" from mario? You become invincible for a short time, and move faster.

Other ideas?

I'm the guy that's been posted my Soundcloud and advice to other users.

There are a few ways to make money these days. First would be starting a bandcamp page and selling your music. You can expand to cassettes and CD's which can be quite profitable.

Next you can produce tracks for YouTubers. Pretty profitable and you can negotiate your payments (per click, monthly, etc, etc).

Another way is to use a service like Distrokid. Distrokid is awesome. For something like $20 a year, they'll upload all your music to Itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google Play, etc, etc. Any online store you can think of, your music will be there.

A lot of people also spend their whole day making generic beats or "like songs". A like song is when a producer makes a beat in the style of someone else, say for example "Dr. Dre like beat" or "Drake like beat". You can usually get $20 or $30 per track providing you aren't producing dogshit.

>monitoring headphones/speakers.
I've never understood why these are necessary. The people who are ultimately going to listen to the track will be using consumer quality headphones, so what's the point in studio quality gear?

brought into studio gear meme

it's a meme and your 100% right

It's because each users audio system will have different biases. Some will have bass boosts built in, others will have too much treble. Some will have too much mid, etc, etc.

In order to combat all these weird biases from commercial speakers, a producer would want to use the most unbiased speakers possible with absolutely no EQ'ing built into the speakers. When you make music on a completely flat speakers/headphones, you're ensuring it will sound the best on every system.

Obviously if everyone in the world was using the exact same pair of speakers, you could just produce on those.

did you relegate your global attack timer to easier difficulties

Because the people who actually understand sound will nitpick the shit out of your game otherwise.

ok, but where are the games?

I'm not a music guy, but I'm guessing it's the same reason we work with 8k textures while authoring content then downsample. It's better to scale down and lose data than to scale up and have to invent data.

I can see potential here. Drifting like this could eventually slide you into another, perpendicular track, and now you have to figure out how to get your wagon back and finish the level.

shud clarify btw that im not that guy and just felt like ranting about gear