archived-game-design

[fathom jetty]

https://answers.unity.com/questions/11093/modifying-terrain-height-under-a-gameobject-at-run.html here is some info on doing that to the terrain, doesn't look too simple, but I guess it works

[night gust]

Yeah

[fathom jetty]

doing it in a shader won't change the collision, you'd have to do some more magic to make that happen, no clue on how

[night gust]

Alright thanks

And the link you sent was VERY helpful, thanks

[fathom jetty]

cool, there are more out there too, good luck

[night gust]

Thanks

[lofty lake]

When setting up a UI for my player, where should I put the canvas?
Should it be its' own entity or should I put it in my Player GameObject (which is a prefab)?

[reef vale]

About canvas, I think it depends. I always have put it (or them) to root. I think if your canvas changes based on player gameobject then I would think putting it to gameobject itself, otherwise its very convenient to have it sitting in the scene already. Then its easy to point objects of GUI from scripts.

[serene sphinx]

Does unity have the capability to have destroyable map objects? like the more i shoot a pillar the more damaged it looks with chunks taken out of it etc

[fathom jetty]

not directly, but there are ways of doing that with smart gameobject setup and some scripting, and there is even some mesh slicing setups out there

[ionic remnant]

guys ive made a basic monster which is basically a big eyeball and ive set it up so it shoots beams. But for some reason the beams are aimed up and not towards where its looking. Where the spawn for the bullet should be

[fathom jetty]

#💻┃code-beginner would be better for that question @ionic remnant

[ionic remnant]

oopsie i thought i was in that one :P....

My mistake

Forgot i clicked on this chat earlier

[serene sphinx]

@fathom jetty Ah cool, so it is possible, thats all that i need to go heavily looking for info 🙂 thanks

[versed osprey]

does someone know a easy 3d modelling engine?

[elfin siren]

easy is relative but I would recommend Blender

[cold onyx]

Blender is now a running gag...

[versed osprey]

I tried Blender its medium level. Im installing Cinema 4D

[cold onyx]

🤨

Well, enjoy your time with Cinema 4D

🙂

[versed osprey]

thanks 🙂

[cold onyx]

Let me know once you have returned to Blender.

🍿 🕵️ 🍿

[versed osprey]

How long does it even take to learn Blender?

[cold onyx]

Same time as other apps.

A few weeks.
And then a few years.

[versed osprey]

Im making a horror game started today, I need to make a enemy 😛

Looks like I can finish the game only if I can use Blender

[cold onyx]

It really comes down to what your art direction is going to be.

You can use Blender for everything 3D/texture related.

Anims.

Rigging.

3D sculpting

It does it all and it is now a really good app

But for texturing, I would recommend to get Substance Designer/Substance Painter.

Unless... you are going for flat colors

I personally dont want to waste my time texturing props.

[pliant sierra]

is that a new skin for the TF2 scout or what

[shell stirrup]

Can some people lemme know how this diagram looks right now?

Other than the main not being completely central xD

Oh you know what, I need to specify that the idle/walk can switch states if either is true

[tame spire]

How I can improve this empty room? I want to add more 3d effect or something to it

[elfin siren]

How on earth is anyone supposed to answer that without more info Data? What is the room, what is the game. If you want to add 3D effects then add them

[tame spire]

nvm, sorry

Im not good at talking... Im not good at almost anything ._.

[cold onyx]

@pliant sierra
You see a scout.
I see a MMA fighter with a a backpack ready to parkour through the city.

[fluid epoch]

Maybe u can add some chairs in a corner or smt, add plants and lights. Mirrors paintings...

(@tame spire)

[tame spire]

I want some how, to recreate this, but the scene is not in a cave, is in a building, and i dont know what i should add to the walls, and ground

like details

Some plants and some posters and light is a good idea, but the ground look terrible

in that image are the rocks that make the ground look awsome

[fluid epoch]

Idk, make the floor wood planks and maybe if you want a lot of detail make the walls white and rough

[tame spire]

I has thinking about this but idk..

[fluid epoch]

?

[tame spire]

is way to harder drawing this with the mouse...

i want to design the walls or a special room like in the photo

with some vents, fans, wires and stuff

[fluid epoch]

But why not

[tame spire]

i dont have a drawing tablet

[fluid epoch]

So?

[tame spire]

can you come up with an idea with what i can replace this stones? for an modern building oc

it just look bad without something there

[fluid epoch]

Maybe a floor like this?

[tame spire]

not bad

[elfin siren]

metal panels and stuff, vents, grates

[tame spire]

i have tried this but it doesnt look good

[elfin siren]

have paving slabs and lines on the roads and stuff

[tame spire]

this is good also

[elfin siren]

if it doesn't look good then keep going until it does

get a reference picture and try to recreate it

[tame spire]

btw, should i make the outlines smaller?

or other color?

[fathom jetty]

do a catwalk with a rail in the foreground, some machinery in the background

[elfin siren]

This stuff isn't easy- there's a reason why professional artists exist

[tame spire]

im good to draw in rl, in digital art no..

[elfin siren]

or if you're really struggling to make it look the way you want look into getting some free assets

[tame spire]

im gonna try all

does this.. 2d-3d perspective art has a special name or something?

[elfin siren]

3/4 is a bit more angled than that. if the character sprites are flat on the it's 2D

[tame spire]

oh

thanks

[fresh granite]

this is the error

[thin sky]

oh wait i think this may have been wrong place for a post mb!

[silk drift]

i need a idea what game i should make

[fathom jetty]

what scope level? mobile or not?

[silk drift]

Not mobile pc

[fathom jetty]

what scope?

[silk drift]

not that complex

maybe 2d or 3d

[elfin siren]

Is this your first game?

[fathom jetty]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zLwa4bztWs&t=362s I like this video, it shows how a simple idea with some clever design can get you a long ways

[silk drift]

@elfin siren Its my 2nd game

But my first game was terrible

[fathom jetty]

what was your first game?

[silk drift]

adventure game the physics was not good

sry for saying the thing wrong

[fathom jetty]

why not just make it better? or do you not like the design in retrospect?

[silk drift]

i just dont like the game i want to start from scratch

[elfin siren]

what sort of games do you like? you second game should still be small- make one awesome Sonic level, something like that. Make it reallt well with tight mechanics, just one level and then move on to the next thing

[silk drift]

I like both shooting games and adventure games

[elfin siren]

so pick on of those and make one really good level for it

[silk drift]

I'll try

[elfin siren]

don't scope for anything you ca't finish in a month at most

[silk drift]

but i dont know if it should be 3d or 2d

[elfin siren]

2D

it's your second game get 2D down first then move up to 3D when you know the code and the physics and how stuff works

[silk drift]

Ok thank you

[loud slate]

Hey, idk if it's the right channel, but how would a climbing system like AC be done? Raycasts and (Vector)math or..?
Just need to get pushed in the right direction, I obviously don't want a full guide or tutorial or something, just the very basic concept behind it

[elfin siren]

probably raycasts I'd imagine, then IK would be used to make sure the hands and feet connected to the surface properly

[loud slate]

Ok thx for the hint, I also had some IK stuff for the animations in mind but I'm firstly going to prototype it with a cube 😂

Also I thought about procedural animations or physics based animations, if that term even exists

But I think raycasting is the way to go

[shell stirrup]

So for my State Machine, I currently have two different states that will be capable of transitioning to a "stunned" state, whose sole purpose is to pause, stunned for an amount of time, then jump into the "getting up" state and returning to the Main state to see what it should do next. My question is: For sitting in my Stunned state, should I just tell it to immediately run a Coroutine that waits for "stunnedTime" time before switching Stunned to false and diving into the "getting up" state?

[ebon swift]

I don't exactly understand you question

Stunned state should wait for some time because this is what this state is for

"before switching Stunned to false"
Why would you switch something boolean here?

[gaunt merlin]

Since there is no #level-design channel, do you use any software to plan out your levels?

[dense talon]

@gaunt merlin I use a flowchart system just using draw.io.
I write in each bubble what I want to happen or what the user should experience and make a complex mess of it to understand where things get connected.
But if it's just a normal filler level I just free paint in my tilemap inside Unity...trial and error.

[north echo]

@gaunt merlin Trello is a great planning system. It's just online

[gaunt merlin]

I was talking more of planning the level and the player experience as @dense talon said. I don't think i can use Trello for that

But thanks for the suggestions!

[versed osprey]

hello! I want to make a material in Krita which resolution do I need (height and width)

[cold onyx]

Where can i get the UV Coordinates material?

[tame spire]

Is pixel art easier than normal art? (I dont got a graphic tablet, so I need to use the mouse)

[pliant sierra]

pixel art can be much harder

[iron roost]

Can someone give me an example of audio design document?

[fluid epoch]

any idea what animal ai should have?
i have that it runs away for people and attacks people but is there something else that needs to be added?

[cold onyx]

Hey people

[cold onyx]

you should take the time to learn 3D art

While most people go like.. F that. I'll do 2D games

And then you can makes games in 3D that no one else can

because they didnt take the time to learn how to do it

Leverage your skillset

Build your skillset

[cold onyx]

I actually personally find most 3D art easier to do then 2D.

[cold onyx]

I agree

[flat atlas]

@fluid epoch For animals you'd probably want some roaming for them, grazing (if they're a herbivore), interaction with other animals are also really cool (Be it a carnivore actively hunting herbivores, bucks fighting, or rabbits playing, it adds a huge amount of depth), if there are day and night cycles you could have sleeping/nesting for them.

[slate cosmos]

same about 3D art

but in the end, I just find doing 3D art more fun 🙂

[snow crest]

How would you explain the relationship between shaders, textures, UV maps, materials and sprites? I'm fine reading up on the details, but getting confused by how there things relate.

[fluid epoch]

great idea, ill make sure to add that

[old moon]

@snow crest There is proably a better description of it out there but maybe this helps you:
Shaders: A programm that runs on the GPU that defines what should be renderd.
Textures: images / bitmaps that can be used by shaders as a data source to determind how somting that is renderd should look.
UV map: UV maps are 2D cordinates (range 0-1) that are saved into a meshes / model , they are mostly used for determening where on a mesh a specific part of a texture should be used.
Materials: They are a description of what shader to use and what all the exposed propertys of the shader should be filled with (like a texture or color for example)
Sprites: In unity sprites are images with some additional data / tools that help to use them in a 2D / User interface envrirement.

[snow crest]

Thanks @old moon . That's really helpful!

[lilac fjord]

Does anyone know how to activate the dots on the faces for blender?

):

[flat atlas]

I believe they activate when you switch the view to wireframe, doesn't it?

Also, might be a better question for #🔀┃art-asset-workflow

[spare quail]

Can someone help me with Unity 3D?

[lone wolf]

Yes? @spare quail

[spare quail]

So I started making a 3D game a few days ago, never used Unity or blender before however. Right now I just need a couple questions answered so....

(And these will be about making a level design

[lone wolf]

Sure

[spare quail]

So let's say I wanted a bridge in my level that goes up, across and back down. Do I make the full bridge in blender, drop it in the scene and then add some box colliders...orrrr do I make each part seperate and still have seperate box colliders...ORRRRR do I make the bridge as 1 and have the collider as one custom collider...?

[lone wolf]

If you don't want the bridge to be extensible, I advise you doing it entirely in Blender yes. Concerning colliders, I'm not that aware of them, I would have done them in Blender if this is a complex model

[spare quail]

I can make colliders in Blender?

Everything I've done thus far has been, learn to make a human model in blender, rig it with the armature, animate a running motion, get that into unity, then in unity I learnt to have my capsule player run around up ramps and jump, with the human model (the enemy) chasing him using Unity's NavMesh

Is it more efficient to make the colliders in Blender?

[snow crest]

@spare quail I'd be making the colliders in Unity, I'm pretty inexperienced though. Maybe the best argument for rookies like ourselves would be that colliders made in Unity definitely work in Unity. No faffing about trying to figure out what particular bit of the tech. stack broke.

If it's a simple structure, have you looked at ProBuilder for the mesh?

[spare quail]

@snow crest Well I've only been using blender (very new still) and I think I'll create the model there and the colliders in Unity. Though another question is how would I go about making a building? Like do I make all the walls seperately I take it orrrrr...?

[regal swan]

It depends how complex the geometry is. You cna make a collider in blender but it would just be a mesh thats simplified and you add a meshcollider in unity with that geometry instead of the model for the bridge

[spare quail]

Well atm I'm basing my game of CodZombies and looking at their maps, they don't have any complex colliders, just ramps and plains it seems

[regal swan]

so a ropebridge can be simplified to a box with an open top side and a bend xd

fair enough, for the buildings it depends btw

[spare quail]

What do you mean/

[regal swan]

if they use the same elements, you may want to separate.
If they are completely different you'd just manually make em

[spare quail]

Do you have experience in bledner and mind answering a different question btw?

[regal swan]

I use 3dmax, but I can try

[spare quail]

Well I did ask in 3D but basically let's say I wanted to make a building

like a house

Do I make all the walls and everything (stairs, roofs etc) seperately and then put them together in unity

or Do I make all of that as one big model to put in

Then fill it with smaller models like tables, lamps etc

[regal swan]

entirely up to you. if your houses are similar, you can make the parts and make the houses in unity.
if they are all unique you would need to make them manually

if your geometries are nowhere near like each other, there is no point in making it modular. It wont work

[spare quail]

Not quite sure what you mean by the last line

Though I get the rest very useful

[regal swan]

what are you not sure about, I can probably rephrase it

[spare quail]

"if your geometries are nowhere near like each other, there is no point in making it modular. It wont work"

[regal swan]

have you decided on designs for the houses?

[spare quail]

No not right now, though they will be very different

Hvave you every played cod zombies?

[regal swan]

no I hate cod

but i know what it is

[spare quail]

cannot blame you that's why I'm making my own thing lmao

And well the maps would have to have different houses because otherwise it would be a boring map to play on

[regal swan]

you are trying to outdo Activision? xD

[spare quail]

jesus god no xD

My game doesn't even have zombies

it's just the best way of describing it - a horde based game I guess

[regal swan]

mhmm

I would honestly get some gameplay and itterate your lvel design before making the actual meshes

are you familiar with "gray-boxing"?

[spare quail]

I'm guessing you just have your level but all the materials are grey and untextured

[cold onyx]

Can't you create a level that builds itself?

[regal swan]

you have basic geometry, cubes and rough shapes. to get the flow f the game right

[cold onyx]

If it's not too much trouble or the world has too many features

[spare quail]

I'm still annoyed I can't build a game that builds itself

[regal swan]

when you are sure the flow feels good, you make your models

[cold onyx]

You shouldn't 3d model a "world" it will be a data chunk and horrendous for checking

[spare quail]

Yeah I will absolutely do that @regal swan, I'm just planning it out now and want to knkow if it's realistic of me to be thinking about realistic materials or more of a Unturned art style

[regal swan]

what do you mean you shouldnt model a world xD

[spare quail]

@cold onyx What do you mean? Like create every house and road and everything as one bledner model? xD

I'm not doing that lmao

[cold onyx]

How procedural is your world

[spare quail]

null

[cold onyx]

It sounded like that Haha

[spare quail]

it's not a world

it's a small map

[cold onyx]

Ok

[regal swan]

make the meshes you need and ad em into the scene. build your level out of that. pretty sure thats what we were talking about

[cold onyx]

However for building other maps or levels you need a degree of buildability

meshes > level pieces > level

sometimes you even get meshes > level piece pieces > level pieces > level

Imagine!

[spare quail]

Yeah I will do that I just wanna know if I should build my map keeping in mind that it will have realistic-ish materials or more cartoon block colours, since that would change the way I build the map

[cold onyx]

Hm

[regal swan]

I mean, thats not something we can answer. thats a preference you have to choose

[spare quail]

Nah I don't mean which would be better, I'd obviously rather realistic, I'm just asking if it's something that's not like insanely difficult

Would I be able to learn in a decent time frame (weeks)

[regal swan]

I mean, learn it yes

but its quite a lot of work to make full PBR textures. which is todays standard for realism

[cold onyx]

Depends on your target platform and style

[spare quail]

PC

[cold onyx]

You can find hybrids or middle-grounds. Which is what it's all about!

[spare quail]

not very realistic or anything for sure

I'll leave that to AAA companies and people with talent lmao

[regal swan]

shaders can do some rly nice stuff to make your game unique (look at borderlands)

[spare quail]

Yeah that's true

or even minecraft xD

[regal swan]

yeah no

[spare quail]

You're only lying to yourself now

[regal swan]

I DONT PLAY MINECRAFT, WHAT ARE YOU SAYING...

xD

i also dont have an rtx card and use shaders

[spare quail]

lmao well this has been very helpful for sure guys

I'll do some further research and start modelling soon!

[regal swan]

dont spend too much time modelling and forget about level design 😄

seen taht happen before lol

[spare quail]

Yeah I'm going to design the level before anything else, likely going to be some kind of factory with tesla coils about

[cold onyx]

I wonder how many of you use pen and paper

even to visualise something simple you can't see in your head

I don't do it enough myself.

[spare quail]

How simple are we talking...

[regal swan]

I have a wacom, I do that in Photoshop

same thing rly

[cold onyx]

is there any resources on how to do game balance well? I'm doing a real time rpg with pvp and have about 8 skills at any given time. Wondering how devs go to do inital balancing

[flat atlas]

I'm no pro, but just throw in what you think sounds fun and play with it with your friends. See what seems totally overpowered and then balance it.

Once your alpha players seem content with the balance, get some beta players to play, see what they find and if they manage to dig up mechanic abuse and such.

[versed osprey]

Where do you guys make textures? Like grass, door, wood?

[flat atlas]

That might be a more appropriate question for #🔀┃art-asset-workflow or #archived-art-asset-showcase (Depending on what style you want).

@versed osprey

[versed osprey]

ok

[cold onyx]

balance isnt that hard

you need to understand constraints/range

if you go beyond a certain amount of damage or area of effect or speed etc

you need to define the hard limits

AWP in Counter Strike is off limit
they still did it

Halo 2 was full of OP power weapons

you need to define if you are fair or casual

are you going for quality
or popularity

ice world and dust 2 werent great maps
but they were popular

[dense talon]

@cold onyx Defining what is balanced and what is not is the problematic part.
Saying "balance isn't hard" is very ignorant though.
Most PvP games nowadays that is not completely equal when it comes to mechanics between the opponents have that issue, every single patch basically.
When they don't have new content, it's balance and bug fixes.
It has almost become a norm nowadays and it's what keeps games lively.

Just look at league of legends for example. They got 148 different characters ATM with different skill sets and their whole company is built of making more characters and having a "rotating meta" that changes each major patch because of "balance changes".

If you design a game with many characters and have a view that all champions should be equal in every single settings, then balancing gets extremely hard. But if you instead create a game with knowing that it will never be completely balanced but instead enjoy the game even with the flaws in account, it can still be a hell of a good game.

I don't think a single season of WoW PvP has been balanced in my opinion, but it was still fun to me when I played it. The best way to do balancing in my experience is playtesting with people not experienced with the game itself who may be stuck in a certain way of thinking.

[cold onyx]

I dont think you realize how live games use patches as marketing tool.

it doesnt take years to balance a game

doesnt take months either

but you do need to see how the game plays out at all skill levels.

many times we ve seen game studios release a patch that mage game balance much worse or one that completely changed the essence of the original game

[dense talon]

@cold onyx I would love to hear your thoughts on how you would balance Diablo 3 for PvP as an example.

Or maybe even something with less skills, like Overwatch.

[flat atlas]

Balancing kind of depends on what game you're making. If you're making WoW, for example, you NEED to have a huge emphasis on balancing all of the classes because no one wants to sink 20hrs into leveling a character only to find that they're not in the meta right now. They struggle at times with it, for sure, and there are always meta classes, but the others can be viable at the same time.
It's a little different with games like LoL where a person really has no investment in a character outside of skins and experience, so when the meta shifts, they can find another character to play with a similar playstyle that is in the meta. That way, they can be way more loose and fast with their balancing.

[dense talon]

It took WoW years to come up with a somewhat good balance, and now less people like the game and started playing classic instead, which is an imbalanced mess.

[flat atlas]

Everyone I've spoken to who are still playing Classic are playing meta classes. BUT, those people were familiar with WoW before classic was released and already knew what classes were good from the getgo. I can't really speak to brand new players to wow and what they play or how likely a new player is to keep playing after accidentally rolling a "bad" class.

I played an enhancement shaman through Legion where for pvp they were basically useless until the veeeery end where we got a buff. I was dissuaded from playing as much as I might have because it was the class that I really enjoyed (playstyle wise), but its numbers were just not up to snuff.

[dense talon]

Same here, really enjoyed enhancement shaman in WOTLK, but I had all classes in max level, so the crazy changes didn't affect me too much, I just switched to what was better since WoW couldn't get balance right. Which I nowadays understand is hella hard to do. But Chris here seem to think it's so easy, so want to hear what his method of dealing with a lot of variables in skill system based fighters are.

Even rocket league is not 100% balanced even though all the cars have the same speed and handling since they have different collision boxes, making some cars better at certain tasks, and some cars you can only get by spending moneh~~

[flat atlas]

oof, the most powerful video game weapon

the credit card

[dense talon]

I think I've even sometimes gotten cars by being a subscriber to Amazon Prime TV

[flat atlas]

(Idk if you play currently, but) WoW balance is really awkward right now in pvp. Ttk is really, really slow, so fights just drag on for ages. You can't really pop in and burst an unaware enemy down anymore. Even after popping all your cds they just don't die. That put utility based classes/specs into a really weird spot because after their burst is over, they have no sustain. High sustain classes are insanely str0nk like Death Knights and Paladins because they can just whack away with no major burst, but since they can't die, they can just sustain for a whole fight.

[dense talon]

yeah, it has never been a balanced game and never will be :p

according to my view of balance.

Pong however, balanced AF

[flat atlas]

I don't think it's really possible to balance a game like that simply because of the diversity. Not without making every class identical (Which is what they've tried to do and that's why their playerbase is creeping down).

[dense talon]

Yeah, which is why I mentioned the whole meta thing in my long post, they try to make "balance changes" or claim to, but in reality they are just switching up the meta for the competitive players

[flat atlas]

The few technical classes left are either looked at as totally OP or totally useless. Like Feral Druid where you have to understand the ins and outs of the class to kill another player, you can't just keyboard smash them.

New players say this class is shit

While veterans clean shop with it

But noobs see the pros and go "I can do that!" and then they can't and the whole class gets a reputation for being crap because of the players using it.

I think that's a HUGE part of balancing any game/class/ability. The technicality of it

How hard is it to understand and execute well. Because if it's complicated, most people won't understand it and the class will be dubbed as crap

[cold onyx]

I'll let you meditate on what I meant by "define the range"

[flat atlas]

Off topic, but I like that when I say your name aloud it sounds like Crispy

[soft dagger]

Hey guys What's usually the process for finding a new game idea?

[cold onyx]

Ive been unmasked

[soft dagger]

I mean how do you come up with new game ideas

Cause I'm looking for a game which is for mobile platforms and it's going to be in management genre

Mostly simulation and stuff

[cold onyx]

it is a creative process
it is messy

[soft dagger]

Hi Chris

Yeah I know I'm stuck in one

[cold onyx]

Designer A wants to make a ninja game
he ends up with Tenchu 2

Designer B wants to make a ninja game
he ends up with Shadow warrior 2

Designer C wamts to make a ninja game
Ends up with Mark of the Ninja

[soft dagger]

haha lol true

[cunning flame]

admittedly a "ninja" game is a quite broad

it's a good point to show how unscientific just getting ideas is though

[soft dagger]

Have you guys played mini metro?

It's a great mobile game about managing and making lines of subway

I'm looking for ideas to give the player the same feeling

[cunning flame]

mini metro is quite minimalistic in both style and mechanics

If you wish to copy the style you might have your answer for a management game right there

[cold onyx]

Personnally, whenever I design games. I take multiple things into account from...

What are currently the current trends? what is selling and... what is NOT? Nobody wants to make a game that wont be played. Wasting months or years of your life.

What kind of games I want gamers to experience? What kind of world will they explore? what kind of mechanics? what kind of emotions should it involve? Etc.

What has been done before? What can we learn from the past?

Etc

And also how can we make a great game FAST.

Games arent pretty pictures. They need to look good in motion.

[cunning flame]

right.

@soft dagger specifically wanted a process to get new game ideas

though

[cold onyx]

Depends. Do you want the indie approach or the AAA one?

lol

[soft dagger]

Of course AAA lolz

[cunning flame]

well, let's ask no?

oh, you work in a team?

[soft dagger]

Yes I'm in a team but it's an indie team

I was joking about the AAA btw

[cold onyx]

some people just jump into unity and improvise

throwing ideas at the wall and keep what works

[cunning flame]

shouldn't that be a sure way to give your game identity crisis?

[soft dagger]

And yes chris I think I did take account for the marketability side of the project and that's why i chose this genre with the minimalistic approach

[cunning flame]

oh!

right

game ideas.

[soft dagger]

I think a game like this might have some chance to sell

[cunning flame]

quick tips

[cold onyx]

Trends are powerful

fortnite at first was perceived as a bad 5/10 game

then they added battle royale
it was free

and it exploded

[cunning flame]

that ignores the general applicability of battle royale though?

[soft dagger]

If i'm being honest me and my team used to be making hyper casual games and we had no problem finding and implementing our ideas because they were easy to prototype and easy to fail but now we're trying to make a premium game and we're not exactly sure what a good prototype or an idea is for a game like that

[cunning flame]

that's fixable

let's break down some useful questions to ask the project first

what's the price point?

[soft dagger]

It's been 2 weeks and we have not done any coding and as a programmer that frustrates me a lot

what's the price point?
@cunning flame smth about 4 or 5 bucks

[cunning flame]

hmm

prices influence player expectation significantly and by association the amount of work needed to deliver a "good" game

4 or 5 bucks is a decent snack bite

A game I bought recently for that price pulled a solid 10 hours of fun and left me overall satisfied with the experience

said game is in essence a glorified ant terrarium but I digress

we have the price. So know we need to decide a premise

which you have

a management game in the vein of Mini Metro

[soft dagger]

yes exactly

we've got another game to look too

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.infinity.traffix&hl=en

[cunning flame]

ooh this one I haven't played

[soft dagger]

It has a simple mechanic a minimal art and its fun to play

[cunning flame]

the trailer is funny to me for personal reasons though.

[soft dagger]

really

[cunning flame]

when I was little I was convinced there had to be a person to turn the lights green

[soft dagger]

cool

ha now in this game you are "the person" lol

[cunning flame]

like a literal person sitting at a desk deciding when the stoplights turn green

yea!

[soft dagger]

yes that's basically the whole mechanic

it just needs some timing and taping on the lights

[cunning flame]

back to the game design, mini metro is composed completely out of basic geometric shapes

Traffix could also easily be represented with similar shapes but they chose that top down 3D look instead

although it is of note the cars are all boxy and in the middle of gameplay most people will perceive them as squares

now.

what is a process that can be represented using simple shapes

mini metro is...well, a subway network. With box carts representing the metros, stations represented by shapes, lines represented by...you get the idea

the objective of Mini Metro is moving things around, which is easy to show with simple colors

you can argue it's actually easier to do so the simpler the representation is

if we use transportation, we have options from bus networks to airports. As they too are easy to represent under these parameters

other management options include but are probably not limited to factory lines (see Factorio but stripped to it's basic component. Laying belts from some sort of item spawner to an input to either win the level or make the item into something else)

although as I sit here there are more far off options

race cars going around a track can easily be represented using basic shapes

hell you could most likely make a h-

actually that is a good idea. A hospital

people are represented by circle and sick people are colored circles based on ailment perhaps?

[soft dagger]

hmm Factorio I haven't played that one I should try it

[cunning flame]

Factorio's really complicated as a whole but only because of emergence

individual mechanics are easy to understand, like watering a plant

taking care of a plant can be quite hard but watering in itself is neither hard to do or understand

factorio's like that

[soft dagger]

Yes you're right about making real jobs and turning actual systems in our every day life into a game is some thing possible but the problem is finding a good mechanic and a good system to get the player engaged

[cunning flame]

ah! But you must notice that's not an idea problem

one could make an interesting game about watching grass grow would they try hard enough

[soft dagger]

You can easily have ideas for the basic mechanic but making that a system and creating a flow or loop is the challenge

[cunning flame]

correct.

[soft dagger]

If you have other games like this

please mention them

they'll help a lot

[cunning flame]

have you considered tetris?

[cold onyx]

brush your teeth game

🍿 🕵 🍿

[soft dagger]

hhmm cool but how?

[cold onyx]

🙅 never

[cunning flame]

manage hygiene products and make the brushing work like Surgeon Simulator

A+ tier streamer bait

my personal idea?

building a hospital but it's tetris

[soft dagger]

this is getting interesting...

[cunning flame]

sick people come in a doorway and you have rooms with attributes

what you call them is...a little irrelevant

Pharmacy for people with the flu

let's say "green circles"

xray for red circles (fractures)

etc etc

[cold onyx]

arh
Ill stick to FPS games.

🤣

[cunning flame]

but the catch is that rooms are randomly handed to you

are in shapes that would belong in tetris

each room treats so many people at a time

but if they take too long to REACH a room they leave

assuming they pathfind from the doorway to the nearest free room

from there you just add spanners in the player's plans

maybe rooms can be entered only from designated doorways and blocks can be rotated

maybe the hospital has a restrictive amount of space so not only do you have to wrestle with the pathfinding AI you have to decide what to demolish to drop the Intensive Care Unit for the people that just arrived

although my pitch could theoretically end up quite hectic unless some ideas are added or modified to slow the pace

[soft dagger]

I didn't get what the player is actually doing?

[cunning flame]

dropping rooms

click on the sidebar, drag to the lot and then place

maybe rotate it to connect it properly to the rest of the hospital

the indents in the loop appear when the player can't just...

actually

another possible development path is instead of having the player just be given rooms of various shapes and then told to figure it out

he could have a limited assortment of rooms with well defined characteristics

(X-ray Machine is L shaped, Pharmacy's a T block)

and given how real emergency services work, the sick people could come in waves

but rather than it being tower defense, the player needs to make quick decision on how the setup the hospital to reduce waiting time

[soft dagger]

hmm that's actually very cool but I don't get how people (circles) can go to a room which is basically under another room which we've just dropped

[cunning flame]

oh right

I am an idiot after all

I was thinking top down

not like, actual tetris

[soft dagger]

I think every patient have some time in some room and will leave the room

eventually

[cunning flame]

that's a good idea

and the player's objective is to minimize the amount of rooms the patient has to go through to receive treatment

and the "ailment" could just be a counter to how many rooms the patient can hop before dying

green circle with the flu can go across the hospital to the pharmacy

stab wounds die in 3 rooms

[soft dagger]

hmm also there could be traffic handeling if multiple patients was are coming to the hospital

[cunning flame]

patients are ferried on stretchers and the players need to direct flow?

[soft dagger]

Idk i just can't imagine how the hallways would look like if there are some

[cunning flame]

white blocks

with grey edges

mini metro remember?

wait hang on

give me like 5 minutes

[soft dagger]

take your time

[cunning flame]

calling my art skills hot garbage is an understatement but hear me out

[tame sapphire]

i can help with design if you want

[soft dagger]

aaaw now i get it

that's actually a great idea @cunning flame

Thank you

[cunning flame]

it's really no problem, this is how I occupy myself

too bad I'm bad at everything else entailing game making

[soft dagger]

I think I need to put some time in developing that idea

[cunning flame]

if you want traffic mechanics

you could create some sort of "flow" from a doorway tile from which the stretchers come from

and shapes like a T bloc or a "+" could have rotatable arrows in their centers

when the stretcher has a treatment room next to it, it enters it instead of keeping going on the line

[soft dagger]

sorry i gotta go but will catch up with you later

[cunning flame]

see you around

happy to help

[deft violet]

pls guys can some1 help me with a tilemap issue?

[cold onyx]

not really game design related

GAME DESIGN
- Find a market for the game
- Find the right platforms for your game
- Design the game for that market
- Why should you make such game? Why does it matter?
- Estimate production time and budget
- Game controls
- Gameplay
- Camera handling
- Enemy design
- Combat design
- AI design
- Pickups
- Collectibles
- Unlockables
- Game systems
- Level structure
- Game menus
- Lore
- Etc.

[jovial frigate]

I have an issue I'm trying to wrap my head around... I'm wanting to create a game where the player moves on a pre-defined path. I have some spline Assets. I can make the player move along a spline, But I want the character to jump, duck, do a flip, slow down, speed up, stop for a moment, fight a combat, etc, while on that path. How in the world would I go about that? The spline assets lets me set events when reaching nodes, but for designing several (or dozens) of levels, that's going to be a LOT of events to tweak and set. Can someone point me in the right direction? And for reference, one game that has movement like I'm talking about is Johnny Trigger

[pliant sierra]

you could make the character follow the spline path in only two dimensions and leave the third dimension for player input on jump/duck/flip. And you'd change speed on the plane somehow

[tepid sparrow]

Or if the follow-spline functionality needs to use all three axis, you could add a parent object that follows the spline and then control the players localposition within that parent.

[cold onyx]

@cold onyx I don't get the "list" it seems like a brain storm thing

Though it's pretty full, I'd want to break that down and expand on some things

but otherwise, ok.

[cold onyx]

I'm not sure why it looks like a brainstorm to you. But I know I didnt want to make a long comment.

⚡ GAME DESIGN

BUSINESS
- Find a market for the game
- Find the right platforms for your game
- Design the game for that market
- Why should you make such game? Why does it matter?
- Estimate production time and budget

GAMEPLAY
- Game controls
- Gameplay
- Camera handling
- Enemy design
- Combat design
- AI design
- Pickups
- Collectibles
- Unlockables
- Game systems

GAME LEVELS
- Level structure
- Objectives
- Replayability
- How will you save the game?

MENUS
- Player statistics
- Loadouts
- Skill trees
- Game settings
- Etc.

ABOUT THE GAME WORLD
- Lore
- Character backstory
- Location backstory
- Etc.

[cold onyx]

If you guys want to create an AI in the game you could use the breadcrumb assest https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/ai/breadcrumb-ai-18364

i didn't make though

[cold onyx]

Anyone here can help with making a Cape?
With cloth material in unity

[versed osprey]

How do I put color in blender on a cube?

If i put color in Texture paint and than go to object mode the color goes away

[versed osprey]

Does this look like a Speed camera? I am new to blender btw

[tepid sparrow]

@versed osprey I think i does, but be sure the scale is correct. Right now it looks like it might be too low, or a very big box compared to a car. You could also move the pole underneath the center. That way it looks more balanced.

[pastel jackal]

anybody got a card game idea
i want to start a new project

[tawdry patio]

depends on what kind of card game u want to do

@pastel jackal

[versed osprey]

how do I know that if I import a blend file in unity that it has the correct size?

[tawdry patio]

wut

[rich mesa]

Hi, I'm working on a tutorial on cloning Helix Jump, but I hit a block... The core gameplay is working but I'm trying to figure out about levels... they have like 1000 levels? Are they programmatically generated or they kind of hand craft them then use some RNG? What I'm trying to figure out is the length of the helix and the qty of platforms/type of platforms per level

[stuck glade]

hey bois n girls i have a question
you know how there is daily challenges for artists like inktober, and im pretty sure you can also think of something for programmers to make an algorithm that counts a certain way or activates and deactivates itself or whatever
what would the game design equivalent be?

[hearty valley]

you mean like gamejams?

[stuck glade]

thats not daily tho but thats pretty close: - monthly projects

[hearty valley]

i guess thats true, its the closest thing that came to mind to something like inktober

[stuck glade]

yea me too. I guess you could try taking a board/card game everyday and dissect it, reason with its rules add new ones?

[rich mesa]

game mechanics day?

[hearty valley]

you could do like pick a certain game design topic/focus point etc and every day for a month you pick 1 game and then you go in depth on that specific topic each day.

not sure how you would call it tho to make it catchy 😛

[stuck glade]

hahah ye lmao :p

[hearty valley]

maybe there is like a 'rapid prototype month' or something, but those often go a bit futher than just the design etc

[stuck glade]

DesignDvelve December 👉 😎 👉

[drifting valve]

what is better 1or2?
option 1. should i merge arms and gun in to 1 mesh and armature in blender, then make animation and then export to unity as 1?
option 2. or if i import in unity as seperate obj - hands with animation and gun win animation and set them in one place everything will be fine ?
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/285639647567282179/669925969150083103/unknown.png

[jovial frigate]

Hello friends. I have a situation that I can't figure out... I'm using CorgiEngine. I know there are a ton of great developers here, so please have a read and let me know if you have any approaches I haven't thought of.

My Goal: 2D Platformer where the Player moves through the level automatically, but also naturally. Jumps over pits. Wall Jump/Climbs. Etc. I want the Player's movement through the level to be Automatic, but the Player's weapon is controlled by the player.

Assets: I've just started using CorgiEngine for my 2d Platformer setup. I also have Bolt and a few others.

Main Problem: I can't figure out a way to combine AI movement and Player Input with CorgiEngine controllers. Before using CorgiEngine, I tried doing this the following ways:

1. Using Timeline and just brute-force keyframing the player all the way through the level. This was messy and just didn't look good, probably because i'm not a great animator. This would also make level generation very complex.
2. Building a path system, or using a spline asset to move the player through the level. This also sorta works, but unless the Spline asset easily allows natural pauses, speed adjustments, and more, it just doesn't look right.

If you had to move a character through a 2D Platformer level using AI or some other method, how would you go about it?

[regal swan]

@jovial frigate to move a character through a 2D level I would just push them forward and raycast in front of them at angles so I know where they are going and if they need to jump or whatever. just push the character forward simulating movement.

Kinda like how a TAS would figure out its path (but thats a topic for #archived-machine-learning probably)

[versed osprey]

is there anyway i can make the camera move in blender like in unity?

[jovial frigate]

@regal swan Thanks

[versed osprey]

how to make transparent material in blender?

[primal crystal]

Can anyone help me with exporting with tiled and supertiled2unity?

I exported to the assets of unity

but its asking me for a tsx file and when i exported it i dont know where to get the tsx file from

[cold onyx]

Nothing really game-design in here

[dense talon]

People tend to ignore the fact that this channel is under the Art & Creative category.

[hearty valley]

yah this channel shouldn't really be used to ask unity questions more like questions about your concept and game right 😄

[cold onyx]

Most people don't know what Game Design means and confuse it with Game Development in general.

It's just amusing, but over time... might feel a bit irritating too

[wind trench]

Hi everybody, I was wondering if anyone could help me out with a scripting struggle, I'm kind of new to unity and I was just wondering what it means when an object reference is not set to an instance of an object?

[lilac shoal]

@wind trench try in #💻┃code-beginner, with the error details

[wind trench]

@lilac shoal I appreciate the tip 😂

[dapper star]

How much programming is needed?

I ask because I'm majoring in Computer Science.

[analog dew]

hello everyone, I have a problem. I am making a little 2d game and everytime I switch directions my player will teleport the opposite direction and wont turn on its axis, any help

[ebon swift]

@dapper star // In Unity? That depends. Usually it might be a lot to build good base for the game.
But on the bright side, C# is really easy to use

[cold onyx]

Any1 know how to change axies in blender?
the x y z

[regal swan]

does anyone have any resources for writing a story / npc? im kinda stumped on my writing on where to start

[drifting valve]

does anyone knows how to stop rigidbody to stick to the non-rigid wall when u move in to it? 😦

[cold onyx]

@cold onyx you shouldn't. It's best to get used to them or you will screw up your blend files. You can export them on a different xyz axis without issue, however, for programs like Unity.

[flat atlas]

@analog dew #💻┃code-beginner is probably the best place to ask that question.

@cold onyx #🔀┃art-asset-workflow will definitely be able to answer that. I don't recall off the top of my head, though and can't open up Blender at work.

[hearty valley]

@analog dew how are you changing directions? In 2d you can often flip the scale to -1 to flip the direction of a sprite.

[flat atlas]

@regal swan What kind of resources are you looking for? When I do character sheets for my writing I follow a pretty simple outline that I whipped up myself. I can share if that's along the lines of what you're after.

If you want a way to keep everything in line and structured, I've heard that world anvil is really good, but haven't messed with it personally.

[regal swan]

its more as in, how do you write an idea into a story, and make it interesting. tho i am aware of how vague that sounds

@flat atlas if you could give me your outline document I am pretty sure I can use it a bit. adapt it into an own style perhaps.

if you are offering, I dont mind accepting 😄

any help on getting my story better is something I am interested in. The dream is to someday make a game with dark souls level lore. though thats a ways away from happening with my current writing skills

[hearty valley]

write a book first and then base your game on your book

[regal swan]

or go to reddit and ask people on r/nosleep

xD

actually

ACTUALLY

why not ask them lol

[flat atlas]

Continuing from our private conversation about world design:
The biggest aspects to consider and have fleshed before diving into lore are

1. a working magic system if you're going to incorporate one into your story. Superpowers, sci-fi elements that don't exist in the real world, or flat out wizards are all "magic". Basically anything that characters can do that's made up. You want to know the limits of your magic system like the back of your hand. What's possible an what's not and why they are/aren't possible. The magic system will impact your world in a MASSIVE way even if it's subtle magic and it should be at the forefront of most of your design decisions.
   If 90% of character can teleport but they still choose to ride horses everywhere, that doesn't gel with the story unless there's a very specific reason/restriction in place. You don't have to tell the readers why things are possible or not, but you need to know for your own design. It always throws me in a game when a boss does some uber powerful attack at a whim in a cutscene, and then when you fight him he doesn't do it. Like in WoW where some bosses will freeze armies in time for extended monologues, but when you face them they don't do anything nearly as impressive and just die.

2. Your setting(s). Future, past, or something totally different. You'll want to know how large your world is (could be a single city, could be a whole world, could be a universe), the cultures inside it, the political climate, and the economical situation. This helps feed into character motivations later on when you start designing them. Or, if you're starting with a character, your character's motivations can shape how you design the setting.
   For instance: Protag is poor, thus lives in a poor area, thus this area in this city is poor, why is it poor, are all of the people there poor, how do those in poverty feel about it, is this common in the state/city, how widespread is it?

So much can be drawn from simple details that seem mundane but should be known before diving into the story. Wouldn't it be weird for a character to be proclaimed as poor, yet they live in a home, dilapidated it may be, in a very wealthy neighborhood surrounded by rich people?

You'd spend more time explaining why they are the exception than actually telling your story. So unless it's a key aspect of the story, just put them in the setting that fits them.

3. The point of your story. You want to boil your story down into something that is easily digested. High Concept is a term that is thrown around a lot in writing and it means a plot or story that is easily communicable. Usually in one sentence if you're talking to a publisher. Super complicated and intricate storylines can be entertaining, but most of the time readers/players will become confused or lose sight of the end goal of the whole thing.
   In my current book, I can boil it down to "Naive protag, desperate to save his friends, takes on more responsibility than he anticipated to stop an enemy far more powerful than he expects."
   As long as I keep this concept in mind, it's very easy to keep my story on track and I can design my world around it.

From there, I know that I can't make my character strong immediately, he has to be naive, so he makes some mistakes, learns, grows. It also means that I have to make the enemy something formidable, so I have to give them awesome power (within the constraints of my magic system).

I know a lot of people will say that the story element outweighs the world mechanics aspect, but I disagree. You want a general idea in your head about your story when you start, but a straightforward story, something like Skyrim, can be infinitely confusing if the world it is set in is confusing.

(Not saying skyrim's world is confusing, just stating that the story is simplistic in nature).

I think those are the biggest things to work on initially @regal swan. I'll add on any others I think of if they come to me.

[regal swan]

I just got wall of texted. thx xD

[flat atlas]

My bad lol

[lilac shoal]

What moderators think on changing the channel name f.e. to game-design-theory to avoid some of these code-related questions?

[flat atlas]

I think that might be a good idea, Serge.

[solemn trail]

A theory channel would be nice... and reading that... motivates me ... nya

[flat atlas]

Who would be the appropriate moderator to contact to discuss it?

[lilac shoal]

Maybe @hard fog ?

[regal swan]

that or #531949462411804679

[flat atlas]

Made a post down there 👍

[lilac shoal]

Thanks @flat atlas !

[flat atlas]

Npnp

[untold jasper]

How would you guys classify this game? It's a Minecraft looking dungeon escape game. Not so much combat, it will probably have puzzle elements in the future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6JYGypYnmU&feature=youtu.be

[cold onyx]

Any1 using blender here can help me out ?

[cold onyx]

I use Blender : )

@cold onyx

@cold onyx

finaly some1 😄

I have an object which is set in the wrong X Y Z axies

can you teach me how to fix it?

i have blender

Can you screenshot?

Sure

@cold onyx

The blue one needs to forward not red one

to be*

Hmm is this in Blender right? Or is that Unity

Its unity

[astral robin]

anyone know if you can make curves in unity?

[cold onyx]

When exporting models from Blender you have options on which axies should face forward and up, maybe try to export again?

Yup

But i dk how to do it

When export it you need to put Y axies up

Saw ppl doing it

When exporting fbx you have options on the right hand side under transform

if you don't see settings click "n" in the export window

Natho

can i give you the ob ject>

and you can try?

cuz its not working with me

Note that Unity's xyz is not the same as Blender's, Blender's z is up and Unity's y is up

Means you will just need to rotate your objects in Unity

[drifting valve]

how just simulate forward few frames of rigid body physics after jump until you hit the ground and player take movement controls again?

[lilac shoal]

@drifting valve #💻┃code-beginner or #⚛️┃physics
You could turn off kinematic and turn on gravity and then listen for collision with ground

[drifting valve]

hmm ill try thanks

@lilac shoal problem is im trying to do it like this and my player is rigidbody

[lilac shoal]

@drifting valve this channel is more about game design, narrative and game mechanics in general

[drifting valve]

ops

general code?

[lilac shoal]

Yes

[cold onyx]

Any1 uses blender can help me out?

[hard fog]

@cold onyx #🔀┃art-asset-workflow Don't ask to ask.

[regal swan]

@hard fog maybe should add that to #📖┃code-of-conduct? its a pretty common thing to see around the server

[hard fog]

That would have to involve people actually reading it. 👀 But, yea, that would be a good idea.

[regal swan]

@hard fog I forgot if you guys are doing that, but you could not let people post as long as they dont have a role, and put it at the bottom of the conduct so they HAVE to read it

[hard fog]

That's already how it works. But you can work out how it works just by observing #502893580512395264

[regal swan]

maybe assign a default role to new users so they cant see the other channels in general (not sure again if thats how you do that either, been too long since i checked)

@hard fog

Im also pretty sure im overstepping my bounds tagging you constantly for this.

especially in the wrong channel, this should be in #531949462411804679, should I post there instead?

[hard fog]

That would be more appropriate, yes.

[regal swan]

I figured, appologies. I will move my suggestion there right away

[hearty valley]

i guess its up to us to just police people a bit more when they ask stuff in the wrong place

[cold onyx]

hi, Im sorry if is not for gamedesign. I have a problem with OC, after calculating and setting an object as occluder, I get green lines behind the objects anyway and smaller objects are rendered even if they should not. What am I doing wrong?

[cold onyx]

Do you guys make UI in raster or vector graphics?

[astral robin]

@cold onyx is that a plain floor or you got a sand texture?

[flat atlas]

@cold onyx peeps over in #🔀┃art-asset-workflow might be able to help you out with that. I don't think you'll get much here.

[dense talon]

@cold onyx PNG!

[cold onyx]

@flat atlas i already tried. 🙂 a few days back

@astral robin floor is terrain

[dapper star]

Does blender uses C++?

[median oar]

no

[cold onyx]

...

@median oar
How do you think they develop and add features to Blender?

C/C++

[cold onyx]

How do you approach class restriction in an RPG sense? For example if you decide to select archer class then you can't equip long swords etc

[median oar]

i thought it was python?

[ocean comet]

Totally not #archived-game-design related and should either be in #497872469911404564 or #🔀┃art-asset-workflow

[vestal jetty]

why are my trees so small when i use the unity terrain tools when the prefabs themselves aren't, only when I use the terrain tool

[flat atlas]

@cold onyx Are you asking for other ways to restrict class specific weapons?

You could do restrictions through abilities. So say you've got 10 abilities on your character, 7 of them ONLY work with a sword while the others are basically utility. A player CAN equip and use a bow, they just can't utilize any of their abilities

So if you've got your archer who has two abilities, snapshot and snipe, both require a bow. If they equip a longsword, they can swing it and hit things, but they will lose access to their abilities and thus most of their damage

You could also get creative and link abilities to weapons, so that the player's class changes depending on the weapon they're using. They can level each combat style independently and have their ability determined by that. If you want classes, you could incorporate this style and just give a boost to the style(s) that corresponds with the class.

IE, a ranger with a sword will never be as effective as a warrior with a sword, but they can still be proficient.

[dapper jay]

hello all! i was wondering if you could help / point me in the right direction. i'm trying to figure out the best way to put together a weapon system for a fps. i made a few different weapons with different stats (no reloading). how would I go about assigning specific types of ammo to each weapon? right now I have ammoCurrent and ammoMax but they're all sharing the same ammo. i wanted to separate it out - shels, slugs, rockets, etc. thank you.

[small kite]

Why not just make AmmoA AmmoB, etc?

@dapper jay Just like you make generic ammo, if you copy it into a new one called ammoA instead of ammo, and then pick ammoA and make x gun lower ammoA ammo instead of generic ammo

[dapper jay]

@small kite ty!! i'll give that a shot

[cold onyx]

I’m currently doing a school project on game design where I have to interview someone who works a lot in the game design industry, if anyone would like to help out send me a dm!

[humble igloo]

@marble cave

[lofty walrus]

I’m looking for devs for a high quality survival type server

Not server

I meant game

f sake

[ornate idol]

What would be some good gameplay mechanics in an environment/evolution sim? I'm thinking simple terrain modifications.. Like, make a planet then see what grows.. but what can be gameplay while "see what grows" happens?

[ashen cape]

plantable plants

desease creator

colored acording to their stats

like red for strengh

blue for imunity

green for fertility

and mix the collors together

why is my spelling so terrible today

[spring quest]

For my shooter game, should my secondary pistol be accurate or have slight spread compared to other guns

[dense talon]

@ornate idol One fun thing I like to have in my simulators is random events. Think of Plague Inc (it's not exactly the best example of a simulator, but hear me out). In Plauge Inc you play an idle game and when you add upgrades things change and your disease spread differently. This alone is a great thing. But sometimes random messages pop up, like news flashes and such that keep you entertained. One thing I've thought of often when playing it is that those events that randomly pop up based of the simulation gave you options, like different paths to take with your bacteria or virus.

For your type of game it could be that if the planet got into the stage where there are plants and animals, what you could do is set an event saying for example "The water is getting harder to come by, what path do you wish your mammals to take to combat this?". And then they get an option for like wings/legs and this affects the simulation process slightly or majorly depending on the options taken.

[lilac shoal]

@ornate idol it may be fun if player could affect the genes (think Game of Life and genetic algorithms) of plants and animals and see how new populations become more or less fit to the planet. That could also play along with random events like meteors, floods and other disasters.

[ornate idol]

ooooh those sounds really brilliant! maybe instead of having set species like mammals and plants, let the evolution sim do that itself, have a "plant like" and an "animal like" but be able to become those plants and animals maybe be able to play as said creature (sort of like spore) and be able to compete with the other simulated species...

or maybe make the sim a true sim where a player can determine rate of mutation and actually be able to add types of mutation... no clue how I'd code that though

"sensory organs" in nature include photosensitivity, heat, sound, smell, whiskers, eyes, magnetic field, gravity etc etc... I'd need parameters for each... like sound sensitivity would be determined by location of ear holes and body chunk stuff that allows it to reflect ... into the ear hole.. I think I'm being a bit too ambitious

[lilac shoal]

@ornate idol yeah maybe start with simple genomes and small set of parameters like amount of required food, speed of reproduction, movement patterns. And use mutations and crossingover for evolution.

[tribal temple]

Does anyone want to test my simple game? msg me if so

[flat atlas]

Do you have any details available besides "simple"?

[tribal temple]

it is a 2d game for mobile. its my first game. i can send the simmer.io link if you want to see it

[flat atlas]

Ah okay. I don't do mobile, but thank you all the same 🙂

[tribal temple]

okay gotchu

[dense talon]

"Do you guys not have phones?!"

[flat atlas]

https://tenor.com/view/angry-little-girl-annoyed-cute-gif-13212490

[cold onyx]

just because you have something doesnt mean it is great

I like to design games for mobile games companies.

But I would never play mobile games otherwise.

[neat wind]

Hello fellow programmers! I just downloaded unity and i want to make a game but I've no idea what to do! I was wondering If anyone is willing to help me with learning the basics! In the past I've used construct 2 to make games and I know a little python

[hard fog]

@neat wind Do not spam multiple channels.

[cold onyx]

⭐ Looking for one 3D artist to help us finish a Action Role playing game project.
The foundation of the work is finish and built. Just need a bit more work and polishing and. Very very promising project with great
potential. It will be worth your while. DM me for much more info. ! ! ⭐ Rev Share (genre : fantasy , medieval)

[hard hatch]

Hi guys, so..... I made a mobile game an year and got a few friends to play it, they did give me some advice but I still wasnt convinced that my game was good enough.... I had this consistent feeling that people didnt want to play my game... although I just wanted to get more feedback from people and that I can make better mechanics and improve my game. I tried posting on several discord channels so that maybe people and actually play the game however no one actually downloaded it or played it. What I think is that maybe my game isn't good enough just even good enough so that people might want to check it out, is there any way that I can just get people to play test my game without being annoyed by some random guy asking people to download their game XD

[dense talon]

Send it out on beta to google playstore and you can give people access to your beta builds. @hard hatch

[hard hatch]

I dont understand if the game is already free and downloadable via play store... how will the beta to google play store help me any better ?

[dense talon]

oh, didn't know that was the case. @hard hatch

It's not easy to market a game tbh and a lot of friends might not give you honest opinions.

In most cases it costs more to market the game than to make it in my experience.

There are some guys asking around to playtest games in different channels here.
#archived-works-in-progress is really good for trying to find someone to play it and give honest feedback.

[hard hatch]

Yeah I figured that out, but still beats it to see when people dont play just for the purpose to play it.... I guess would have to pay for it 😛

[finite otter]

When it comes to top down shooters, how do you balance the view field the players have? Especially with angles cameras? I want both players to be able to spot each other at the same time without giving anyone an advantage despite aspect ratio and positioning.

[tardy tendon]

I'm working on a top down 4 players couch game where the action take place in a, lets say squared arena, with verticality, do you guys have a reference of a camera on that kind of game who track and keep (or atleast try to keep) all 4 players in the screen at anytime, an rotate around the arena and adapt his angle depending on which one is the best one. In short words an adaptative Camera AI that rotate around the level trying to give the best angles at anytime.

Here is my V1 one page document if that can help you projecting yourself

https://gyazo.com/e3e59a1bd2ad17a18e97ed40a958666b

[dense talon]

@tardy tendon I'll just tell you straight up first that I do not enjoy playing games with an adaptive camera like that, it's usually very messy and you can abuse the camera mechanics to win games in some cases.

You can use math to calculate the distance you need to get all players within the frame. As long as you have a max value, this is usually fine so the camera don't pan out to display out of game areas. You can get this done in like 10 minutes.

Personally I prefer cameras that display the entire static width for a vertical map and instead adapts to only the center between all characters on the vertical axis.

But this is all up to you. 🙂

I don't really approve of Brackeys tutorials and think he takes a bit of shortcuts, but he does have a video of multiple target cameras that show you the basics of it.

[tardy tendon]

thanks mate

[dense talon]

I don't get what you mean with the rotation of the camera, but you can easily make it follow the rotation of the level by just having a reference of the levels rotation in the camera script

[tardy tendon]

will look at brackeys tutorial

I mean that the camera will always focus the arena, but turn around it in a circle

like it was on rail

a circle one that is in the air

[dense talon]

oooh, 3D?

[tardy tendon]

yes

https://i.imgur.com/qPqlKud.jpg

[dense talon]

You might want to read up on Cinemachine...they have like "rails" or paths you can attach the camera to.

[tardy tendon]

the arenas will not be as vertical but you can get the idea

Yea I heard about that plugin

[dense talon]

I think it might be best to do it with pure code though, cinemachine is more like programmable paths for cutscenes I think.

Someone might know more about this

[tardy tendon]

yea thats what I heard

I have my programmers so they will probably want to do it anyway

Just not sure how to tackle the camera in order to make the game great

looks like a challenging camera for sure

[dense talon]

the tricky part is that since you will have a height aspect of the map, some objects might be in the way and if you make the camera spin too much, you might actually confuse the players more than help them

[tardy tendon]

ye :/

[dense talon]

What could be a better way is maybe make the objects more transparent if you are behind them instead of spinning the camera around

[tardy tendon]

Yea I thought about xray thing

or circle that make meshes disapear like sims

[dense talon]

yep

Spinning the camera may also confuse the hell out of players since their controls might keep the same directions and such

[tardy tendon]

maybe if I limit the movement of the camera to like only a 1/3 of a circle it will not cause problem

[dense talon]

especially if it's couch coop

[tardy tendon]

and will be like the middle solution

yea

I fear the confusion even more its a very fast paced gameplay

[dense talon]

I would personally probably work on the transparent mesh circle and keep the camera to zooming in and out only

[tardy tendon]

ok

[dense talon]

if the camera spins around but the controls stay the same it can be very confusing ^^;

[tardy tendon]

I thought about glass materials too

if we could somewhat see through wall

[dense talon]

yeah, I bet the programmers know what to do as long as they get the proper direction of what you want them to achieve

[tardy tendon]

I hope they will do

but im not 100% sure right now how to handle it

We're going to iterate anyway

but I try to preshot the future problems we are going to get

I think im gonna start with a static camera

like you said

and see if it works or not

[dense talon]

just make some versions and have people testing it out. 🙂

[pale holly]

i would like to buy low poly cars from the asset store. some resemble real cars. can I still use it?

[sharp bay]

I have a question:
What type of an aiming system would be better for a mobile version of hopscotch?
-A system where you flick to throw or
-A system where you time your aiming, before timing your power of your throw with a single press.

@pale holly If it's from the asset store, I suppose that you could buy it, since licenses are usually taken care of by the person making said models.

[pale holly]

do i have a guarantee that no automaker accuses me because the design looks copied?

@sharp bay I think swiping in the direction is more interactive?

[sharp bay]

If the automaker files a complaint, it's usually on the person selling such models, at worst, you would have a notice to change your 3d model to avoid lawsuit.

Mind if I look on the place where you found the 3d model?

[sharp bay]

@pale holly

[pale holly]

does that always come with a complaint asking for the change? by then does that cost money? I've only been looking around so far. I am also considering placing orders with Fiverr. what do you think about it

[sharp bay]

It doesn't cost money, usually it's just a warning and nothing more, but when that happens, you better make the changes quickly (if you have already published the game), lest you'll be fined, or worse.

[flat atlas]

This question might be better placed in #💻┃unity-talk, @cold onyx

this board is more for game design theory/discussion rather than specific mechanics in the process.

[regal swan]

@cold onyx you can just drag em into the object in the hierarchy tho

[cold onyx]

@regal swan Mh thats a little annoying ._.

[spice herald]

[Mobile] Heyy, im almost done with my game but im quite unsatisfied with my Shop UI (The way its build). Could someone DM me? I'd send him a screen and it would be great to get some tips or games which i can get insperation from ^^

[storm swift]

hi guys im very new to unity and was wondering if some one could help with these errors i have been getting

[flat atlas]

Try in #💻┃code-beginner for errors/code related issues.

[cold onyx]

@tawny nest
Wrong channel. You might be confusing Game Development at large with Game Design.

Game design is just designing the game, essentially, on paper. Ideas, concepts, prototyping. Systems, etc

Lore

It's not about art

[tawny nest]

@cold onyx
I see, would the 2D channel better for this?

[cold onyx]

Yes

[dense talon]

@tawny nest Considering the errors showing up there I would recommend to learn coding basics as C# first before you start fiddling in scripts.

[gusty tiger]

Hi

[visual jungle]

is it better to tell the player object to update a ui object (youtube's prefered method), or store the data in a different object, and tell the ui object to update itself?

[sharp bay]

I have a question:
What type of an aiming system would be better for a mobile version of hopscotch?
-A system where you flick to throw or
-A system where you time your aiming, before timing your power of your throw with a single press.

[dense talon]

@sharp bay Depends, do you want the player to have an easier time to score or not?
the flick method of throwing is more straightforward and fast, but also prone to more misses (pokemon go) or you can let the player adjust power and angle with a drag back away from where they are shooting (A lot of archer apps do this). This results in more control the more help and stats you give the player. For casual games I prefer the flick method, but it gets boring so quickly. The power and angle method is also viable and often used for those endless launch and bounce games.(personal favorite is Burrito Bison: Launcha Libre)

The drag back and aim I find is the most accurate and quickest, but this is very much up to the person playing ^^;

[flat atlas]

The only mobile game I play is pokemon go, but I have played plenty of crush the castle style games back when flash games were hot, so keep that in mind with this opinion.

I think the flick to throw system feels more natural than the aim and power system. What you lack in baseline control you make up for in pure skill/aptitude at the game. You can also play with the throwing system like they do in pokemon with their curveball throws.
If the game is ONLY about throwing, or totally based around it, I would say that the flick to throw might get old faster, but if it is just one of the mechanics in a greater game then it's the way to go. Again, like in pokemon go where catching pokemon is important, but only accounts for like 25% of your time on the app.

[tulip tree]

thinking how I should allow my game to be linear and replayable

3D castlevanina/Ninja Gaiden styl gme

like the NES titles

[grand musk]

Why not both, like the messenger

[limber dome]

Does anyone know any resources for vector and matrix math for gaming ? what can they be used for etc ?

[flat atlas]

@signal bronze #💻┃unity-talk might be a better place to ask about that.

@limber dome #💻┃code-beginner or #💻┃unity-talk should be able to send you in the right direction 🙂

@tulip tree Could do a ng+ style system where your enemies and items change with each successive play through. Add score/time challenges and achievements to missions so that players will want to replay to get a good score. Have plenty of hidden collectibles and easter eggs through the levels. Add a little dose of RNG in places where different items drop from different bosses or chests so each playthrough is a little different. Offer various playstyles through classes, weapon types, stat choices, etc etc, so that you can do an "All mage run" or a "Spears only run". I personally love specialty challenge runs in various games (With this you would just have to make sure that the different playstyles are unique enough that they feel different to the player without having blatantly dominant styles).

[tulip tree]

great idea I was planning to make the game rather hard to where the player needs to master it

but I also was thinking of making the game have a player pic a level

[flat atlas]

A dishonored style level system could be cool, where you progress in a linear fashion but you can jump back and do levels over again

Also a dishonored selling point, multiple ways of completing any given mission

[shell stirrup]

Is this channel new or am I just forgetful af

[flat atlas]

It's been here for a while lol

[versed osprey]

So I am working on a game in Unity and wanted to make this Cashier Machine for my game. I started with it not a long time ago. Does this look like a cashier machine or not?

[hollow sequoia]

@versed osprey you mean a cash register? If so, it does

[kind spindle]

Yeah it does

maybe add some buttons

[versed osprey]

Thanks!

[tulip tree]

hmm I might just do paths in the levels

simluar to Castlevania 3 on the NES

or Metal Slug 3

[drifting valve]

does anyone here use bolt?

[visual jungle]

I've taken on the idea that the player shouldn't know anything about himself

[cold onyx]

how do you prototype the map?

i want to extrude faces

[visual jungle]

use probuilder

unity package manager > probuilder

[vapid musk]

Los-Angeles based gamedev company RAV3, Inc. looking for ️📌 Level-Designer 📌 to modify and optimize the game level for the MMO VR project Elysium VR!

Send your resume and portfolio to [e-mail] or Telegram: https://t.me/onccno

#Jobs #LevelDesign #LevelDesigner #LevelDesigner #Unity3D #Level_Designer #GameDev #Unity

[regal swan]

#🔀┃art-asset-workflow @lone garden

[lone garden]

thanks

[regal swan]

When designing a world, do you start by defining the characters and their interaction with the world. or start with a story and base the world around that

[lilac shoal]

@regal swan hmm, I think I heard this question a few times already
In my case the story builds around the world its in, and interaction goes within the world limits/rules following and defining the story

[regal swan]

I have a few characters I am working on defining after making the general world and mechanics. but im struggling to get a good grasp on the entire thing as a whole. my story and character feel fragmented and unrelated

[flat atlas]

I think there are three key aspects that are equally important to a successful project but a person can start from any point. World/Mechanics, Story, and Characters. You can start from any one of these points and develop the other aspects around it. It just depends on what comes to you first when you get your inspiration to start your project.

When I wrote my book, I started with an idea for world/mechanics, and then developed a story, and finally developed characters to fit into the story.

I'm also working on a sci-fi miniseries where the story came first, then the characters, and finally the world.

In my opinion, starting with the world/mechanics is the way to go if you don't have any strong feelings toward one aspect or another since it will dramatically impact every other aspect of the project.

[flat atlas]

You guys can still talk about it, it's just my opinion 😭

[regal swan]

not many people know good game design 👀

[flat atlas]

pew pew shots fired

[sleek pumice]

Think of games you really like. What's the first thing you think of? Is it a unique combat mechanic? A character you fell in love with? A world that kept you hooked? Whatever it is, there's likely a specific tag you store that game in your head under. Find that one thing in your own design that hooks you and is why you want to make it in the first place, and build a game around it.

If your parts feel fragmented and unrelated, redesign them to center around that thing, keep it in focus

Example, latest God of War. I think of fun and deep combat system. But really I'm remembering the axe, first. And I know Sony Santa Monica spent years tweaking and perfecting that one system. They designed encounters and enemy behaviors around it. The other weapons are based on that system.

It also has an engaging story, great visuals, etc, but lots of games do. I don't categorize it in my head on those.

@regal swan That's my take at least :P

[regal swan]

I was reading "a world that kept you hooked" and my brain instantly went to dark souls

[sleek pumice]

Exactly. You already think of games you love this way. So your real challenge is to come up with a new one. Then organize everything else around it.

Imo, bland games that flop try to have everything for everyone. Giants of the industry have one unique hook and play it up to the max, at the cost of other possibilities

Dark Souls has a couple things but really they're all aspects of the one same thing

[regal swan]

which is exactly why we should not try to make an mmo. the market is just saturated as it is

[sleek pumice]

The world is bleak and unforgiving, which is reflected right down to methodical combat and limited resources

[regal swan]

WoW, BDO are the first coming to mind

[sleek pumice]

If you were an unkillable brawler in Dark Souls, who cares if the world seems bleak.

Instead, you have to fear even the smallest foot soldier. Everything can kill you easily

[regal swan]

yes I distinctly remember playing code vein a few weeks ago. and i was not paying attention because I thought an enemy had no importance

than i got oneshotted

[sleek pumice]

It's a tough balance to strike for games like that. The motto is "tough but fair"

Anything can kill you, but enemies shouldn't feel "cheap" in their power

But yeah, imagine DS combat and resource scarcity in a bright cartoony world. It'd feel super out of place

Find the hook, build around it

[regal swan]

what i want for my current game idea is an rpg, but I want the player to be a part of the world. without being the center of it, while still keeping it interesting.
Thats the idea I have. But I have been writing on it for a while now and now that I am trying to fit everything together its feeling like it falls a bit flat on character design

[sleek pumice]

Look at Destiny then. It's multiplayer but all dialog and cutscenes and storyline assume there's lots of guardians but it's you specifically who've accomplished all the feats.

Everyone's a team but you're a star player

Sort of a "great job everyone" but also "we couldn't have done it without you"

One handy way of organizing storylines is dividing them into beats.

Story beats are highlights of specific events.

If there's a main questline, divide it into parts based on specific areas/activities/challenges.

Then you can tie your character progression and development into each beat

If your assistant pig-keeper eventually becomes king, you've got a lot of beats inbetween that need to happen

[regal swan]

that reminds me of lordvessel + 4 lords kinda thing (im relating it all back to games I know)

[sleek pumice]

Just remember, everything's been done and every story's been written. Not entirely true, but true enough to avoid falling into the writer's trap of "this is too derivative"

Doesn't mean a variation has no value or isn't fun or interesting

[regal swan]

Yeah, I have found my idea coming in various other games. But I do have some mixed stuff and different application that should make it different

[sleek pumice]

Find your hook(s), write and design around them, make it something you enjoy, and others probably will

[regal swan]

that sounds like a plan, I am going to get to writing right away. keeping this advice in mind

[sleek pumice]

Cool, have fun!

[regal swan]

As you seem quite knowledgeable. Do you use any specific tool for world building and design? Or just plain old pen and paper?

@sleek pumice also @flat atlas this might be something you are interested in reading 😄

[sleek pumice]

Well, I used to be one of those people who think better with pen and paper for roughing out ideas, but these days I prefer digital tools. Still simple ones though

Mostly Markdown documents and card-based project systems, like Trello

That way it's still mostly text, but with formatting, tags, links

[regal swan]

I ve been using a google drive with documents and a trello, so about the same

[sleek pumice]

My career is IT, and I've used card-based systems for over a decade, so I'm very familiar with it

Tags are your friend. So are attaching related cards

[regal swan]

same, I work in software for the past 6 months since I graduated, but im trying to make a game to hopefuilly get my name out there and get a company to acknowledge me in the industry

best case scenario kickstart my carreer that way, but im well aware that is very optimistic

[sleek pumice]

I've got a bit of a lead on you, I'm an old man Been at this over 20 years now. But I've been into gaming/design for longer than that

[regal swan]

I want to make a game that stands out, not just another one in the bunch

thats all I want to do 😄 if it makes me any money, thats second to having fun developing and playing my creation

[sleek pumice]

Sounds like a good goal

[cold onyx]

What's the best way to handle this scenario with nav agents. I click on a Unit and order it to a water source, what's the best way to make it stop next to the 'edge' of the water source so I can begin doing a drinking animation..

I've thought about raycasts from the front aiming downward - but that assumes the AI is already looking at it for it to work. (The blue is the water of course). The white lines are a path with a small white circle at the end near the water edge on where to stop.

[cold onyx]

You see my biggest problem with the raycast method mentioned is this - lets say my unit is at the the bottom location of the water just sitting there, I order it to drink the water - but because the turning speed is slow - it sweeps around (depending how small the water is) it may just keep circling the water source, or go to an area a bit further away than you were wanting because of the lack of turn speed...... Yeah I could turn it up, and for some animals in the game this would work, but not all animals turn on a dime.

[sleek pumice]

Any reason you can't use a collision mesh around the water and check a radius around the unit?

[cold onyx]

I might have to go that route.. I was moreso trying to think of a scalable solution that just - worked.... If it was a perfect circle I'd just do distance checks.. A collision mesh would mean I need to account for rivers, non-circular ponds/lakes, etc and would be quite a bit of work (which I'll do if I find no way to do this). But also I want to do procedural worlds as well which would require more an automated way once I get my own A* path finding set up.

I do have an idea I'm going to try though

It's actually pretty brilliant

Fire a raycast on mouseDown... Get the direction between player and click location. Fire a ray between that position and player (ignoring x and z rotations) and get the hit point it returns and make that the standing position 🙂

This assumes of course there's no island between you and click source though - not a perfect solution, but I can just make no small islands lol

[sleek pumice]

lol

[cold onyx]

Thanks mate. Your little hint had my neurons firing on ideas 🙂

[sleek pumice]

Np!

[flat atlas]

Here's a little thought I had and thought it might be a fun conversation.

One thing that turns me off from trying an older game is the cascade of information I'm expected to know before taking part in any group content. World of Warcraft, for example. You are expected to understand boss mechanics when walking into a raid or know the correct pathing/skips for dungeons. If you don't, you get kicked or have people raging at you (and then they kick you). Aside from lucking out and finding another player willing to teach you as you go, you're left with watching 60+min guides on youtube for a single boss.

Is this as much of a turnoff for you guys as it is for me or do you just accept it as part of the multiplayer experience? Do you feel that mechanics could be implemented in a way that the player can figure them out as they go? Should bosses use mechanics introduced previously in the world/encounters so that players already understand them when they reach the boss?

Thoughts and opinions appreciated.

[regal swan]

It really depends, communities are very different. on MMO style games there is a certain boss pattern and learning curve. I used to play Vindictus, which came out in Korea with updates far before we got em. Which got a lot of people already making and reading guides for the best strategy...

It boils down to making boss patterns readable. Which can be an issue in some games

[flat atlas]

Is it the developer's fault or the playerbase's fault when things like pathing become so ingrained that anyone diverging from the agreed upon path is immediately kicked without question, from even the lowest level content.

In WoW's dungeons, particularly in current expansion, there are so many pack skips and paths for every dungeon and if you don't know exactly how to do them, you pull an extra pack and they boot you.

One dungeon could take you 2hrs of homework to get a baseline understanding of skips and pathing.

[regal swan]

that is a community issue, the devs cant rly do much about that

[flat atlas]

not to mention boss and mob mechanics on top of it

[regal swan]

players in MMO's, especially with a raid concept are very competitive. people want to optimize everything and gain the most results in the least amount of time. If someone doesnt do that like they want it, that becomes an issue for them as they are wasting time in their eyes

I know this because of the warframe mindset when it comes to hunting eidolons, or the ranked mentality in league of legends. similar issues arise

[flat atlas]

Is it the dev's responsibility to understand that and make choices according to it?

[regal swan]

I would say to some extent. they cant babysit the playerbase, but they should try and make choices in the best interest of the player and not bully the new people joining in on the new content at a later time

[flat atlas]

My main issue is when the mechanics you're expected to know are so subtle or specific or difficult to figure out (before you get 1shot) that you can't learn the game by playing the game. You have to use 3rd party assets

And the community pulls it all the way down to the most base level content that you should be learning in.

There are 4 raid difficulty levels for players in WoW.

Looking For Raid (LFR) < Normal < Heroic < Mythic

You will be kicked from an lfr raid, the most base level of that content, for dying or not doing enough damage while learning mechanics

I don't know if I would consider it a form of gatekeeping, but it feels like gatekeeping at times lol

[regal swan]

on mmo I play I dont rly have that issue, since I am a sologrinder and was one of the top of the server xD

[flat atlas]

The intent is obviously for the players to work their way up in difficulty while learning new mechanics with each difficulty

but players will gatekeep at the lowest difficulty level

[regal swan]

gatekeeping is a real problem in MMOs

that much is clear

but do the devs spend their time tailoring to new players, or make content for people that are lategame. power creep is also a thing you need to be careful with

[flat atlas]

I bring this up because I recently started playing Destiny 2 and while looking at some content creators to kind of get a feel for the game, 100% of them said "You have to look up guides before going into a strike or raid"

and I was like oh great, WoW 2.0

the exact thing I'm getting away from

I think a simple solution is to introduce mechanics used by bosses far earlier in the content

Have random mobs use boss abilities and have the player slowly acclimate to them. Then when they hit a boss and he uses "MORTAL STRIKE" or whatever generic name they give his attack, the players know immediately "This will apply a bleed on me and I need to cleanse it asap"

[regal swan]

you cant rly have content distributed that way, because that will feel mechanics of the mmo bosses feel stale

[flat atlas]

You can switch them up and make them behave in interesting or unique ways, but the player will immediately know the concept behind the attacks/actions

[regal swan]

its a matter of making a boss unique, and attacks are based on design. re-using designs has a negative impact on player experience

[flat atlas]

but for base entry level content?

Give the boss a small arsenal of attacks/mechanics the player knows already and then one or two big attacks that are totally new that they have to figure out on the fly. Then you bump up a difficulty level, take away a few generic attacks and add in a few more unique attacks. Bump up a level, do the same, until the boss is using a totally unique toolkit at the highest cutting edge level

So LFR will have generic attacks with a couple of specialtie; Normal will have half specialties, half generic; Heroic will be majority specialties with a few generics thrown in; and finally mythic will be a totally unique bossfight with his own moveset

That way you can go into LFR with the only prerequisite being that you've played the game

Normal will require you to understand the mechanics introduced in lfr

and so on

[regal swan]

I can see what you are getting at. you are more about bosses having different tiers than different bosses

bosses are still unique, but they have different levels of difficulty for the players that want it

[flat atlas]

I'm a fan of games allowing players to complete all content regardless of skill level.

So being able to clear a whole raid with two braincells bouncing around in your head is available

[regal swan]

so you dont like dark souls' single difficulty gameplay?

[flat atlas]

But if you want a challenge and the better rewards that come with it, you can bump up the difficulty and push harder

Yes and no. I don't like that in my mmos and think it's a bad model for them

[regal swan]

ok fair, thats a great distinction

[flat atlas]

Either it's too hard for 50% of players or it's labeled a game for 10 year olds because it's so easy.

If you want to build a game with a single, high difficulty, all the power to you, but I think you're excluding a huge audience if you're looking to create a multiplayer game with a perpetual playerbase.

It is, of course, a lot more work to build a game up that way, but I feel it would be a solid model to follow going forward with multiplayer pve content.

[regal swan]

I 100% agree with that vision. and the caveats that come with it

[raven hatch]

@flat atlas from my understanding WoW difficulty is tiered and bosses do more on higher difficulties. A lot of the raid content is based off the idea you have friends or use a guild to learn from. You don’t need to waste time watching videos if you are playing with people who want you to get better - for you and their sake of getting farther into the content. LFR soul purpose is to give people a taste of unorganized raids and the greed for almost good enough gear for the real stuff you do when your guild is on. If you want to experience fun multiplayer you need to surround yourself with like minded people.

I like the idea of foreshadowing bosses in other enemies. I think that is a great idea for things like an effect such as poison. So the player can go “ok got poisoned” now “ I can fix that” like I know how to do because of that little poison guy who got me on the way here.

We want our players to feel like the things they learn serve a greater purpose or will come in handy at that tension filled moment.

I also agree that we don’t want every boss to have a doppelgänger either. The lack of freshness or displacement from the environment can start to occur. I mean have the big boss dude rip something out of the ground no one has seen before because he ca ya know

[regal swan]

I do kinda like it the other way around where each boss has a set amount of moves, they have those moves and introduce them all which makes them unique to that boss. Having recurring attacks might make bosses feel generic and repetitive...

[raven hatch]

Yea it really comes down to having a great animation “tell” that the player can see

Like he make the big sweeping attack. Then takes a long breath

[regal swan]

Iudex gundyr

[raven hatch]

Bam smack him

[regal swan]

I keep bringing up dark souls in terms of game design. but bosses generally are rly hard, but fair enough once you know what they do

[raven hatch]

Yea plus that is a game built around the dying model

[regal swan]

it is yes.

[raven hatch]

Dying is important lol

[regal swan]

dying is also not very impactful

yes, you die. but nothing is rly lost

[raven hatch]

Unless you dangle all the time the player has spent build up currency and throw away progress

That’s the idea

[regal swan]

I mean there are enough checkpoints in the game that most people are fine

the way i think about a game like dark souls is an RPG rhythm game

[raven hatch]

To me it’s like a new castle Anita

Castlevania

[regal swan]

autocorrect? xD

[raven hatch]

Yea lol

I feel like it has really good combat system that’s what is the selling point for me. Play sword and shield without using much ranged attack you really get to see that rhythm when multiple enemies appear on you at once

[regal swan]

Yeh, I agree

[raven hatch]

I think that is one issue with multiplayer for me. The combat from a boss has to be exciting for all player types. Usually that means different player classes. So then your boss has to cater to that and it loses the one on one feel for your specific build at the time.

[regal swan]

I mean, again dark souls: Spear of the church

[raven hatch]

What is the dark souls referenced fight explaining? I checked it out so it’s like a big giant who then becomes 3 enemies 1 of each player class I’m guessing. I haven’t played 3

thats an example of an amalgam boss for sure lol. a bad one in your opinion? Lol it’s like the designer said “here is the ai good luck “ boss now I’m off to do something else. Maybe sleep on his keyboard ?

[regal swan]

@raven hatch that boss is a big dude that summons an actual player to be the boss

once you beat the boss you get an item, that item allows you to become a boss. its also a convenant. so when you get 10 kills you get a little stronger and if you win 30 times you get even more

[raven hatch]

Ha that’s awesome. Great incentive

[regal swan]

storytelling and exposition based on environment is the way to go with games imo

having a covenant item, that makes you a boss. and it has lore about it

oh boy

[raven hatch]

Exposition really can setup deep history with little explanation, I like subtle things that the environment can tell you because the player figured it out on his own and the idea is we want the player to feel like they are learning. As soon as you stop wanting to learn you drop the controller.

that can help a more “detective“ style player keep playing because they just want to figure out what it all means lol

[regal swan]

thing is, thats a serious skill and hard to get rigth as an artist and level designer. but if done right. its absolutely beautiful

[signal rapids]

I dont understand... someone wants to help
my app can make transactions but not receiving information from the IOTA tangle... (mac)
in the unity engine it works perfectly
but not as standalone

whyyy???

all and everything works exept that rrestsharp

[flat atlas]

@signal rapids #💻┃code-beginner might be a better place to start with that question. This isn't really the board for it.

@raven hatch I get that that's how it's intended, and that's kind of my point. It's supposed to work that way, but the community, by no fault of their own, has corrupted it.
In your opinion, should a developer plan on that outcome and design accordingly to account for it? Or are you happy with the system as you described it?

[raven hatch]

I think in online multiplayer it’s important to let the players control who they play with. If the majority doesn’t want you there you should go. LFR is this odd place for all kinds of specific player types. The lone gunman will end up there to see what it’s like to raid (this seems to be where you fall in) or the pvp dude will be there for pvp gear drops. It’s a mashup and with that comes very different player attitudes. If we tried to make LFR great for the lone gunman type who now decides they want to work on the end game content then they are in for a huge surprise. The end game content of raids does not and never will cater to them. That’s what pvp is for. If you want to have all the experiences then it’s up to the player to build for them. If the player refuses to learn to not stand in the fire or use their attack rotations then they are not doing it right and need to learn somewhere. I get that LFR is where you would think this. But honestly you can’t teach all the different classes their role each fight every time you play. So what you end up with is a bunch of “masters” who don’t want to be slowed down by the new guys and don’t want to teach them either. It’s very cut throat due to human nature and people wanting to go through the actions of their mastery vs watching others get there who will slow their progress down.

So short answer is there is always two sides to a coin and players are on both sides. I think LFR serves a purpose but because of human nature to live in the mastery we will always have an issue for new players showing up in the masters arena and them being like get outa here. lol.

Also when I think about it more.(haven’t played wow in years). LFR has like half the mechanic for the bosses and besides taking all the things away and having a hp bar that goes down only there really isn’t much the designer can do. You have to remember that The bosses are built for the raiders and then dumbed down for the content/gear hungry players who don’t want to do the work of finding friends/guild to play with. Like it wouldn’t be fair to guilds if LFR players got all the juicy content first with little effort. That’s why they pay their monthly fee. To be fed new content in their mastery.

[hollow tartan]

how do i fix a model to the player

[cold onyx]

@hollow tartan Dont post the same question across multiple channels

[flat atlas]

I see what you're saying @raven hatch. My position wasn't really "Make players play with people they don't want to" it was more of trying to give the players the tools they need to succeed IN the game in the form of gameplay rather than just defaulting to "You need to go watch a guide before even loading into the lowest level of this content".

I'll give an example, a boss in the Nighthold raid in the previous expansion of WoW that I remember because it was so frustrating on lfr and normal difficulty because it had a mechanic where when you get a debuff placed on you (at random), you become a form of plague bearer and need to stand near other people with the debuff or else on certain ticks, everyone around you would take damage. It was a baseline mechanic for the boss and was on all difficulty levels and had no graphic tells except for the debuff showing up on your debuff bar.
My parties wiped SO many times because people either didn't understand what the debuff was or didn't notice they had it while trying to maintain their rotation and avoid other mechanics. People who understood the mechanic would get angry and leave or flame the people wiping us instead of explaining it to the confused players.

Had this mechanic been introduced earlier in questing content or something like that, it wouldn't have been nearly as deadly because a player would know, when I have this debuff and I see this icon, it means I need to stay away from allies or it kills them and me

The mechanic is equally challenging, but more people will understand it going into the encounter

[raven hatch]

Agree that sound like a hard one for LFR. I think they should have just lowered the damage it did to other players. It’s LFR after all not the guild run. Sometimes when the content is brand new in WoW they don’t catch all that stuff. Plus your LFR members may have not had rare enough equipment yet. And of course the masters didn’t want to teach they were there to improve their gear score and that’s it.

Yea that human bomb mechanic has failed quite a bit in giving a readable tell. I feel like they go a bit overboard making new spells/pictures for damage over time icons. They should be a better ui for that. And yea what a fun quest mechanic the human bomb could be. That would be fun!

[flat atlas]

In my mind, I could imagine the dev incorporating the more complicated abilities into the game before the boss, so quests and world monsters and such. Then in the boss encounter, tweak them so they're a little different for the boss, but not so much that the player won't recognize it. Then throw in some easier to figure out mechanics totally unique to the boss, big, telegraphed smashes and such

And then on Heroic and Mythic, throw in all the complex, twisted mechanics you want for organized groups to figure out.

Because I know there is a part of the community who likes that aspect of the game

[weary thicket]

Amazing that such a basic mechanic is now considered outside of regular experience

I mean, that exact mechanic has been used before a good bit; Thaddius was probably my favorite version

[obtuse talon]

Hello, I would like to openly ask for concise opinions on Equipment Slots on RPGs. I'm trying to envision how to design one, accounting for opinions given here as to why some design choices might be better than others. (In specific, the game I'm toying with might be a turn based RPG.)

What I mean by Equipment Slots is the idea that each Character has a series of items within their possession, and within those items, there are Equipment Items, with each item occupying specific slots. I have seen 3 general approaches.

Approach 1: Minimal Slots. Games where equipment is more cosmetic than anything else, such as Super Mario Odyssey or Duck Game, do this. Usually a swappable head is enough, with perhaps an extra one for "the current equipped weapon" considered. This approach, while simple, not always shines in a more complex game.

Approach 2: Traditional, more limited slots. Dragon Quest IX for example, allows for a Weapon Slot, a Shield Slot, a Head Slot, a Armor (Torso) Slot, a Glove/Hands Slot, a Legs/Pants Slot, a Footwear Slot, and a singular Accesory Slot (for other things like rings or rosaries/necklaces). This approach makes items feel very consistent and set in stone, bringing players an almost inmediate sense of complexity, while keeping the actual logic quite simple to manage.

Approach 3: The "Many Slots" approach. The one game that seems to have really gotten into allowing the player character to manage their equipment in a slightly more free manner is Fallout 4 (I believe Fallout 76 does the same too, on the account of the engine being shared). In there, pieces of equipment also require a slot, but many cover more than one slot, and there's a considerable number of them. For example, you might find a shirt that will cover your torso and arms, keeping your legs free, or find a hazmat suit that will cover every available slot at once so you can enjoy its particular statistics.

What are your thoughts on this?

[dense talon]

@obtuse talon I have played many games through my years and TBH, I don't give a cent if one item takes up more space or not. I just do the math anyways. I mean, if you are planning to have two-handed/one-handed weapons in the game, it's literally required to have one item take up two slots. so you have the functionality there already. Add a bionic armor that covers the shirt and both arms for all I care, as long as it has appropriate stats to cover all those slots by itself.

One gripe I have with the people who usually do this "Many Slots" version is that the "coat" might have different total stats than the "pants + shirt" combo, that's just mean to people who like their muscular male dude to wear a dress in to combat when the shirt and pants combo just has better total stats...

[obtuse talon]

Well I expected a few more responses but talking to friends of mine about the same thing seems to point out that it doesn't really matter that much to them either as long as the overall design of the equippable items is fine.

Thanks for the input.

[flat atlas]

Heya @obtuse talon! I like a gear system where the gear pieces feel meaningful. Beyond that, I don't mind how many slots there are or how they are handled. I want my character to A) Feel more powerful after an upgrade or B) Play differently after swapping out items.
That being said, keeping it simple with limited slots makes it way easier to understand as a newcomer and allows you to make each gear piece feel unique. So I would say a Head slot, body slot, leg slot, weapon slots 1 & 2, and maybe a necklace or gloves slot would be my go-to. That gives you Four-ish slots to play with for armor and two slots for weapons.

I've been playing Destiny 2 lately and I really like their gear layout/system, but the gear itself is pretty lackluster and half the time I just take whatever looks coolest as long as it doesn't sacrifice a big item level. I've been told that at the high end you need to min/max your gear, but so far I haven't experienced a need to do so.

[cold onyx]

I like the idea of fighting a boss multiple times to receive different items. Goes easy on the modelling expense too

But like in normal FPS games you find the same monsters throughout different levels... but a boss would be harder to kill, but reuse it

[worthy perch]

Anyone here?

[flat atlas]

Yeah man, what's up?

huh, won't let me ping for some reason

oh he left lmfao

[cold onyx]

left 4 dead had mini mosses

multiple

[dense talon]

@cold onyx I mean, just look at borderlands, packed with bosses and people run them over and over again in different difficulty. One trick to make it more varied is to unlock different AI patterns with the difficult level.

[cold onyx]

adding more than 1 ability to borderlands would be a good start

😂

[dense talon]

hm?

[flat atlas]

I started playing Destiny 2 a few weeks ago, and most of the bosses I've encountered follow a similar pattern to what we were discussing above. When you run into a new boss or miniboss, you can assume what he's going to do based on what race of alien he is. Fallen Captains (bosses) have a grenade launcher or sniper most of the time like their Vandal (minion) counterparts, they have a shield and the color denotes the element you need to shoot it with, and they will charge the player with swords if they get into melee distance, just like their minions would. The difference comes in with the damage they do, their size/model, their movement and movement speed (they will retreat when their shield is broken or look for an advantageous spot to shoot the player from). They can also take on some random attributes of their race, so Fallen can go invisible or leap really far.

But most of the time the emphasis isn't on the boss itself, the emphasis is on surviving the horde that is usually surrounding it, dealing with environmental threats, or trying to complete a puzzle or objective during the fight.

Last night I ran a strike (dungeon) with a friend and the primary boss mechanic was that the enemy has an impenetrable shield and you have to go shoot the shield generator before you can damage it. You have to do that while dodging/fighting the horde, avoiding the boss's big attacks, and avoiding environmental damage.

They introduced that mechanic earlier in the game, making you shoot the same generators to reveal parts of the map.

So you immediately know when you run in that those things need to be exploded

[remote topaz]

idk if this is a good place to ask