Game Creation/Design Catch All

So can you export stuff you make in the $19 version and use it in Unity? The way they have the feature checklist set up on the various buying options confused my little mind.

That is a trick question because I have to make something worth exporting first. But yes, though I haven't confirmed it actually works, there are exports for Unity, Unreal, and FBX.

Is there any interest in something like Coding Game? It’s not game design, specifically, but it’s using gaming pedagogically. And may be helpful in some way?

Plus there are a few Goodjers in there, like Mixolyde.

That looks way cooler than traditional code learning game sites.
Have you tried it yet? How is it?

fangblackbone wrote:

That looks way cooler than traditional code learning game sites.
Have you tried it yet? How is it?

I love the challenges personally, I haven't gotten into the bot competitions mainly because the languages I like to use aren't the best supported (and I'm a chicken :P). Overall, I really like how they've done things on there.

athros wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

That looks way cooler than traditional code learning game sites.
Have you tried it yet? How is it?

I love the challenges personally, I haven't gotten into the bot competitions mainly because the languages I like to use aren't the best supported (and I'm a chicken :P). Overall, I really like how they've done things on there.

I'll check out the link later but is this an evolution of the old P-Robot thing we used to do in the late 80s? We would code "robots" in PASCAL and battle them against each other. I think a C-Robot came out after that - the same thing but in C instead of PASCAL. Fun stuff, for sure.

-BEP

muraii wrote:

Is there any interest in something like Coding Game? It’s not game design, specifically, but it’s using gaming pedagogically. And may be helpful in some way?

Plus there are a few Goodjers in there, like Mixolyde.

I checked it out a while back but fell off of it pretty quickly. I think my issue was that I am sort of between levels where most of the easy stuff was too easy but the medium stuff was often over my head.

Seems I did too, since it said "Welcome back!" when I tried to log in.

The solo stuff looks neat but very tuned towards beginners... though it might still be good for experienced programmers who need to skill up on an unfamiliar language?

fenomas wrote:

Seems I did too, since it said "Welcome back!" when I tried to log in.

The solo stuff looks neat but very tuned towards beginners... though it might still be good for experienced programmers who need to skill up on an unfamiliar language?

That's one of the reasons I still go there all the time - engineer comes to me with "I want to use X!" As an ops guy, I want to go mess with it a bit to see what it looks like. Since CodinGame has most languages I go there and learnxinyminutes.com to get the quick primer.

fangblackbone wrote:

That looks way cooler than traditional code learning game sites.
Have you tried it yet? How is it?

I set up an account and then have done nothing ever. It’s on my @somedaymaybe list, along with that Minecraft idea. ;P

Apparently I have an account on that coding game site too. I think it came up here about 37 weeks ago, judging by the number of unread weekly challenges I have in my inbox. I think the easy challenges are at my level. I did notice that a large number of people (as in tens of thousands) have completed the first easy challenges, but a much smaller number have completed the easy challenges in the bottom of the group (like a couple hundred).

And Learnxinyminutes looks really helpful!

Last night I re-started this massive C# Unity course to see if I can make it through the whole thing. In my previous two attempts, I made it about a quarter of the way before wandering off.

It was interesting to revisit the content now. When I first tried the course I had zero experience in Unity, and everything was new. Sometimes I feel like I'm not learning much game dev stuff, but coming back to the course now, two years later, I found that I was able to just blow through the first unit with no problem. Looking ahead, it looks like I already understand a good amount of the content. It's rewarding to realize that I'm making progress, even if at times it doesn't feel that way.

There's some good stuff in the Humble 8-Bit Pixel Game Dev Bundle if anyone's interested.

Bleh. It is only assets and no tools in that bundle

fangblackbone wrote:

Bleh. It is only assets and no tools in that bundle :(

Great for prototyping

halfwaywrong wrote:

There's some good stuff in the Humble 8-Bit Pixel Game Dev Bundle if anyone's interested.

Cool, thanks for sharing that. I picked it up. There is a ton of art in there. It'll be super helpful for pixel-based games and prototyping, yes.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Sometimes I feel like I'm not learning much game dev stuff, but coming back to the course now, two years later, I found that I was able to just blow through the first unit with no problem. Looking ahead, it looks like I already understand a good amount of the content. It's rewarding to realize that I'm making progress, even if at times it doesn't feel that way.

I love that feeling – I think it's really important to keep all your old sketches, half-abandoned projects, anything you worked on when you were doing a course. When you have imposter syndrome or you feel stuck and listless, it's such a great motivator to look back and realise that even if it feels like you're standing still, you've come soooo far.

True dat!

Building a simple text adventure in the C# Unity course. Learning some good stuff about scriptable objects. I might actually try to finish this adventure for a couple of days instead of plowing on with the course.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/sSWITMo.png)

Bursaar wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Sometimes I feel like I'm not learning much game dev stuff, but coming back to the course now, two years later, I found that I was able to just blow through the first unit with no problem. Looking ahead, it looks like I already understand a good amount of the content. It's rewarding to realize that I'm making progress, even if at times it doesn't feel that way.

I love that feeling – I think it's really important to keep all your old sketches, half-abandoned projects, anything you worked on when you were doing a course. When you have imposter syndrome or you feel stuck and listless, it's such a great motivator to look back and realise that even if it feels like you're standing still, you've come soooo far.

My efforts at this have been pretty sporadic. I'll work on stuff for a month, then drift away and restart, then work again for a bit, then drift, etc. That's probably why I've often felt like Sisyphus pushing the rock up a hill. But somewhere in the past couple of years some of the fundamentals apparently stuck, so yeah, it does feel pretty good.

It's also felt really good to come back to gamedev over the past week or so, with the aim of doing more than I have in the past. It's created a better sense of momentum, which only makes it easier to keep going. I'm having quite a bit of fun now too, which is the main reason I've tried to pick up the hobby.

It's amazing how much harder (but more rewarding) it is to do something when you're not following along with a tutorial. I decided to try to complete that simple text adventure, and realized I wanted to add Health Points and Time Remaining status variables to the game. Following along with any sort of tutorial I probably could have done it in about 10 minutes, but it took me about an hour to do on my own. I've got it working now, though, so yeah, go me.

Next up I'd like to try to add a simple inventory system. So if you have a flashlight, for example, a different option might pop up in the game. I *think* I've got an idea how I might do that, but we'll see. It quickly gets complicated.

Holy cow! Has anyone seen Surforge texturing? Why isn't this a standalone program?

Also Archimatix is kinda specific but is blowing away Maya, Max, Blender, Lightwave, etc. when it comes to procedural mesh generation. For some reason, self intersecting stuff is painful in those programs but a breeze in Archimatrix:

That spaceship looks awesome.

Are you working on upping your 3D design skills? Seems like every day you find two new cool engines.

Finding what 3D design program to use is harder than choosing a game engine.
I've narrowed down my workflow and I hope to have something to show soon.

I also stumbled upon this. Check out the demos for inventory, stats, cameras, behaviors:
https://gamecreator.io/

fangblackbone wrote:

Finding what 3D design program to use is harder than choosing a game engine.
I've narrowed down my workflow and I hope to have something to show soon.

I also stumbled upon this. Check out the demos for inventory, stats, cameras, behaviors:
https://gamecreator.io/

Interesting. Have you spent much time browsing the Unity Asset Store as well? I can easily be on there for an hour and it feels like 5 minutes.

Yes. I had largely avoided the Asset Store because I didn't want to be flooded with content and terrain generators. I am more interested in tools to create it and I have no problems making terrain.
But with a little bit of googling, I found my way back to the asset store and found a ton of great tools.

fangblackbone wrote:

Yes. I had largely avoided the Asset Store because I didn't want to be flooded with content and terrain generators. I am more interested in tools to create it and I have no problems making terrain.
But with a little bit of googling, I found my way back to the asset store and found a ton of great tools.

One of the things I want to do more of is explore the Asset Store for assets that do specific things in a game, like the one you linked to, for stats, quests, dialog, inventory, etc.

I've been watching a few YouTube videos where the designers mention that the first thing they do is look for something that does what you want rather than try to build it yourself, and then they'll pull in a script from github or download an asset from the store to provide some functionality in their game.

I definitely don't think like that yet.

Whew. I got a simple inventory system half working in that text adventure game. Actions can add and remove inventory items, and the inventory correctly displays on the screen. I feel like everything is stuck together with duct tape and paper clips, but it's working.

Next step is to add custom choice options if you have a particular inventory item.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/tR1oP5i.png)

Nice work on that!

I have to admit that I am not that guy either that looks if someone else has already done it and add it in like a puzzle piece. However, that Game Creator set of modules will allow me to set up things like the banter between the main character and her guide much easier. Which will lend itself towards making it more robust with less effort.

Plus I cut a lot of things out of development to keep the scope small. My levels were going to be alive but not have much interactivity and the interactivity was going to be borderline too simple. But I watched the quick videos on how to work with triggers and it is much more in line with how I have used triggers in the industry in the past. So the level of interactivity is going to go up and I can see a path towards much bigger events and leveling up the puzzles. (still not going to be Myst style but not brain dead either)

Another thing is solves for me is how I am going to handle save games, which was a big concern. But now at the least, I can set up the story missions and perhaps the plot points in between as quests with Game Creator. So that you can replay any quest you have "unlocked" by completing it. There is also the option to "reset all" quests so that you can replay from the beginning.

I did not want to deal with stats at all. This is despite how much I love them and how they enhance any adventure. I am making a point of not having fighting in my game but the stats system from Game Creator will make collecting more robust and fun and it will provide currency for things like puzzles, reputation and base building/progression.

The Game Creator behavior module will be interesting to explore. I think it may be beneficial in simple things like helpers that follow you or "dragging" objects you have collected for puzzles.

Oh and I forgot camera motors. I was planning on not messing with the camera but seeing how simple it is to switch and specifically the "rail" camera motor has me jazzed to add cinematic moments. These sorts of things can add zip especially at end of level events.

Thanks!

I definitely think it's a positive thing to be looking for assets and tools to allow me to focus more on designing the gaming experience rather than building functionality to design the gaming experience. So yeah, it's definitely something I want to start doing more of.

I spent some time upgrading the look of the text adventure engine. Otherwise known as "avoiding the harder work of figuring out how to trigger various scenes depending on what's in inventory".

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/cNKkmVv.png)

After much trial and error and then one good idea that I should have thought of much sooner, I think I've got conditional screens working for searches. So if you search an area that has an item, you'll find it and it'll get added to your inventory. If you search the same area again, it'll tell you that there is now nothing to find.

I think I can mostly reverse engineer the process to consume items, but I still have to figure out how to get conditional choices to display. So if you are in an area where you can use a flashlight and you have a flashlight, an additional choice shows up to use the flashlight. If you don't have a flashlight, you shouldn't get an option to use it.

I think item consumption should be the last thing I need to add, then I can start building the story.

Challenge accepted!

Nice progress, keep it up!