#GameDevJourney

[teharrarose]

I don't even know how to start this so...

#StoryTime

About a year and a half, two years ago, I played this videogame called Boyfriend Dungeon. It was my first intro, other than mobile games, of what a hybrid visual novel was. From there, liking that game so much, I dived into Piofoire Fated Memories. A contact I had at a local GameStop saved for me Piofoire 1926 saying he knew I would love it. I quickly found out it was the sequel and purchased and read the first one.

I fell in love. I fell in love with falling in love with anime men, I fell in love with the story, and I fell in love with otome visual novels. From there, I've branched out reading all sorts of visual novels and loving them. The choose your own adventure aspect of these games allow me to fully immerse myself and feel as if I'm the character in the game dealing with whatever fake drama there is...it scratches itches for me that real life can't and I was obsessed.

But my journey didn't just end there at reading them. The more I read, the more the bard within me reminded me that I went to college for Creative Writing and I knew I could also, potentially, write one of these kinds of stories. So, I started planning a huge visual novel story world and characters and plot... and I have a huge project in the works.

When that happens, I talk about it. Let's jump ahead a bit...

So, I started talking about developing my own video games, visual novels more specifically. My brother in june surprised me with training courses to learn godot, and I was already learning RenPy so it was actually happening! I was learning different engines to learn different ways to make video games and visual novels.

It's now July 25th and here is my Game Dev update....

I found out what game jams were and knowing I would love the motivation they provide, so I started participating in them.

My first jam I wrote The Witch's Grasp.

It placed #176/1116 entries and in categories it placed 5th in story!

My second jam I wrote Blind Love and got an artist to help me design two of the characters.... It placed 2nd Overall and won us $200!

I am just so humbled. I knew I could do this physically, mentally, but I truly didn't think I would turn heads as I have seemed to begun to do so! I'm so excited with it only being my second month, I can only get better at my craft from here.

I might work on trying to teach myself to draw again.

I really need to have an artist on call lol but that isn't possible. I'll have to be my own artist... oof. LOL That might be a bit rough, I haven't drawn in years and I was always an amateur at that.... but that's my biggest drawback right now. Two months, you guys....

Can you find what you're supposed to be doing, truthfully, that quickly?

[ezzybrownmedia]

A Journey into PC Game Development 🎮

Are you ready to dive into the thrilling universe of PC game development? Buckle up, because this ride promises to be a rollercoaster of creativity and innovation. In this article, we'll explore the exciting world of game development, from ideation to the final product. So, grab your virtual toolkit and let's get started!

What is PC Game Development?

PC game development is the art of crafting interactive and engaging games specifically designed for personal computers. It involves a blend of coding, design, and storytelling to create an immersive gaming experience. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a curious newbie, the possibilities in this realm are as vast as the digital landscapes you can create. Read More… Read the full article

[thealchemyofgamecreation]

Inside Hakan’s War Manager: Design Log – Building the World (III)

I'm on a journey of designing our game world in Hakan's War Manager, and here's another log for you. Some might say I'm making the game too big, but trust me, it's ALL necessary! #GameDesign #HakansWarManager #ObaGames

Expanding the Game World – Ranks, Control, and Simulation Greetings, once again! Let’s dive deeper into the world of “Hakan’s War Manager.” Last time, I introduced the concept of ranks and progression; today, we’ll explore a more detailed and complex view of the game world because, well, why not? The Game Gets Bigger and Bigger As previously mentioned, players can climb the ranks, with nine…

[gailrin]

Day one Game Development Journey.

Learning to setup basic controls; click to move, keyboard, and camera. Used the top down template which came with the click to move already available, but not the other controller options I want.

Took forever to figure out why keyboard movement was not working until I clicked to move first.

This fixed everything.

I have absolutely zero clue to what I'm doing.

Update, I figured out how to set the view port as active through the project settings.

Additional Edit: I have more of these adventure learning posts hidden on my blog or posted as private, just testing the waters to see how comfortable I feel posting my progress in public.

[chuacheart]

Es maravilloso ver como un pequeño proyecto que empezó batiendo sus alas de colibrí, va ascendiendo en altura hasta imaginarnos que pudiera alcanzar a un cóndor de Los Andes. Esta es la foto de la primera presentación en público que hice este jueves pasado en Las Naves sobre @Pixel_Powa y Bremen Hot Strings, arropado por @panreyes entre el público y demás excelentes ponentes. Agradezco como salir en los escenarios de open mic de comedia me ha ayudado a ganar confianza cogiendo el micro, sobre-exponerme delante de decenas de personas, soltar algún "chistecito que hizo agua"... y en fin, ofrecer algo bueno que pensamos que tenemos. PD: Por favor, no toméis en cuenta que salgo justo delante de la diapo en la que sale el "bigotitos", pero es la foto que hay. ^_^u . . . . #indiedev #indiedevs #presentacion #lasnaves #valencia #GODOT #gamingcomunity #gamedev #gameart #gameplay #viodegames #gamedesign #gamelore #gamemarketing #gametesting #gamedevlife #gamedevjourney #indiegamestudio #indiegamecommunity #indiegamejunkie #indiegamemarketing #supportindiegames #gamingindustry #gameindustryjobs https://www.instagram.com/p/CpkvzPBtZao/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 50 (Covid-19 Edition)

Project Star Beasts Devlog #5 (Indie Sci Fi Horror Game) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=984yOiyAFLU

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 49 (Covid-19 Edition)

I have posted a few Project Star Beasts devlogs on Youtube, you can check those out using the below links. Please like and subscribe!

Project Star Beasts : 2D Sci Fi Survival Horror (lighting test, no audio)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrUqux0gwWs

Project Star Beasts Devlog #2 (Indie Sci Fi Horror Game)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxf1OWtvx-I&t=11s

Project Star Beasts Devlog #3 (Indie Sci Fi Horror Game)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eloWPVSJmRA&t=10s

Project Star Beasts Devlog #4 (Indie Sci Fi Horror Game)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDUOocIneek

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 47

I have been MIA for almost a year now, fortunately I found my way back to the light :) I got really busy with work and I had very little time to devote to part time game development.

Now I have a bit of a dilemma, Super Ninja Ball Dash was green lit a few months ago and prior to it being green lit I have been working on a new gamedev project, something totally different from my platformer. I’m torn between starting again with Super Ninja Ball Dash or continuing to work on my new project.

I strongly believe that because I have all this new creative juices flowing I should continue to work on the new project. The new game that I am currently working on is a sci fi pixel art horror game and I will be post some artwork soon.

I will put Super Ninja Ball Dash on the back burner for now, as I plan to use an entirely different platformer framework which I found on the Unity Asset Store, and I will scrap all of my custom code which I took a year to write. Due to this gargantuan undertaking I will work on my new project first then I will come back to Super Ninja Ball Dash.

Please stay tuned.

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 46

Thank you for all the support. Super Ninja Ball Dash has been greenlit on Steam Greenlight :)  I know I’m a little late, however as the saying goes “it’s better late than never”

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 41

Steam Greenlight failure and renewed enthusiasm!

My last blog post was approximately 4 months ago when I did a post-mortem on Super Ninja Ball Dash on Steam Greenlight, It has been a very interesting journey to get to this point.

The biggest reason why I have disappeared, was due to starting a new job with long hours and 6 days a week of work. The new job took some time to get used to initially, hence I haven’t been very active. I did start working on the game again with whatever free time I could muster and I always try to put in at least 1-1.5 hours of game design daily and a little bit more on my off day.

Now, back to Super Ninja Ball Dash, that is of course the essence of my Game Dev Journey and the reason why I started this blog in the first place.

As you can see by the screen caps of my most recent Steam Greenlight analytics page, the game is doing very poorly or should I say It did very poorly, as now it has almost complete stopped getting any visitors.

In my 149 days on Steam Greenlight I have a received a total of 789 visitors of which 138 voted ‘YES’, that brings it to a 22% ‘YES’ to ‘NO’ vote ratio. Additionally, I gained 8 followers and the game is currently at 20% to the Top 100 Steam Greenlight games. 

Lastly, 90% of the visitors/votes I received in the first 3-5 days on Steam Greenlight.

I cannot see the game getting Greenlit ever with the data mentioned above, hence I have decided to relaunch my Steam Greenlight campaign soon. In order to avoid the same fate as my first Greenlight attempt, I made some significant changes to the game, by adding many new features and by making exciting gameplay improvements.

In my next blog I will discuss in more detail, what changes I have made to the game, why I have decided to make said changes and also why I think these features will make for a more engaging gameplay experience. Lastly, I will also discuss what effect I am expecting these features to have on my next Steam Greenlight campaign.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No.40 : Super Ninja Ball Dash Steam Greenlight Post-mortem

This will be a multifaceted blog on the status of Super Ninja Ball Dash on Steam Greenlight, in addition to some conclusions that I have made thus far.

I started my Steam Greenlight campaign on 27th April and in the first 2 days, I was able to get mostly positive feedback on the game with the only exception being the following:

- Game being a mobile port

- Someone disliked the GUI

- Someone complained that the clouds in the background are static

Other than those comments above, it’s been all positive.

The first 2 days I got a 94/295 YES/NO vote ratio and I was 11% to the top 100 and the top 100 is basically the sweet spot where you are almost guaranteed to be Greenlit. These stats was quite disappointing however, I knew that most people will probably dislike my game, as you can’t please everyone right? Day 5 my YES/NO vote ratio was 108/394 and I was still stuck at 11% to the top 100, at this point my daily page visits went down to a crawl.

I was a late and missed the first 2-3 day traffic spike, however I was able to put together a demo of the game, my last attempt to positively impact my YES/NO vote ratio. I put the game on both Itch.io and Gamejolt. I figured if people can play the game then, they might be convinced of how fun Super Ninja Ball Dash is and hopefully vote YES instead of NO. Based on my overall stats the demos didn’t have any effect on my campaign, most probably due to me missing the first 2-3 day traffic spike. This also helped me realize a painful truth, which I will elaborate on more below,

You can try the demo of Super Ninja Ball Dash on PC, MAC and Linux using either one of these links. I would love some feedback :)

https://jamaldolleygames.itch.io/super-ninja-ball-dash-demo

http://gamejolt.com/games/super-ninja-ball-dash/145571

Today I checked my stats again, that’s after 16 days of being on Greenlight and my votes did not change much, I’m at 115/433 YES/NO votes and I climbed to 17% of the way to the top 100. This I'm assuming is due to games ranked higher than mine being Greenlit recently, this is only speculation though.

To put it bluntly those stats for lack of a better word suck! Some game got 600+ YES votes in the first day of Greenlight and i’m still stuck below 200. It’s not all doom and gloom though and I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

As Super Ninja Ball Dash is a completely overhauled version of the mobile version Ninja Ball Dash, I thought that the 2 months + worth of graphical upgrades, gameplay enhancements and overall polish would be enough to get me through Steam Greenlight, this was not the case. 

I know it’s possible to get your game Greenlit even if the game is not in the top 100, as some devs who got Greenlit at 64% of the way to the top 100. My first Greenlight campaign was an amazing learning experience even though I ultimately feel that it has been a failure. After thinking about how I will proceed with my Greenlight campaign, I realized that I have 2 options.

Option1:

Ride it out with my current Greenlight campaign and wait, with the hope of eventually getting Greenlight by the Steam Overlords, how long this will take if ever it will happen is impossible to determine.

Option 2:

Restart my Greenlight campaign and throw away all my current progress. This would ultimately end with the same result, if I do not make some significant changes to Super Ninja Ball Dash. 

I now know that the graphics of my game is pleasing, people like the music and some people liked the gameplay. I do believe that the biggest thing contributing to my negative YES/NO vote ratio was the overall gameplay and the presentation of the gameplay in the trailers and gameplay videos.

I have decided to go with option 2, ironically I decided that only today. The ironic thing is the that today I have finally completed all of the bug fixing and polish, which means that Super Ninja Ball Dash is official done with development and ready for launch.

I have decided to make significant gameplay improvements, in order to make the gameplay look faster and more varied, this will ultimately require a lot more work however, I feel that it’s better than just sitting and waiting for something that might not even happen.

This will be my last attempt to make something of Super Ninja Ball Dash and I’m pretty excited about it! Please stay tuned for future blogs!

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 39

I was finally able to make an Itch.io account, after thinking about if for some time now. I realized that having a working demo of my game could have potentially added to some “YES” votes on my Steam Greenlight campaign for Super Ninja Ball Dash. As a result I decided to upload my game demo to Itch.io. It’s probably too late now as my game is on Greenlight for 4 days now, which means I missed the huge 2-3 day spike in traffic.

I am however still looking forward to getting the demo into the hands of gamers, in order to get some feedback on their experience. The demo is pretty polished and as far as I am aware, it has no serious bugs that could ruin the game.

I am actually planning to release the full game on Itch.io at some point in the near future, while my Steam Greenlight campaign is ongoing.

You can download the demo of Super Ninja Ball Dash on Mac, Windows and Linux using the link below. Please let me know what you think of the game demo.

https://jamaldolleygames.itch.io/super-ninja-ball-dash-demo

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 37

I have to admit, I'm not really following a structured game design document while working on any of my games thus far, hence I'm jumping around between the different game design aspects i.e. pixel art, animations, coding etc. A good portion of this week was used to finish my pending art work, specifically the backgrounds.

The original Ninja Ball Dash on mobile only had 2 static backgrounds attached to the camera, basically one for each world, that’s a whopping 20 levels with the same background :( My goal with Super Ninja Ball Dash on PC was to noticeably increase the overall visuals of the game by adding an extra background image for each world, making it a total of 4 distinctive backgrounds. Each of the 4 backgrounds will have a specific visual tone, this in addition to the various hills, trees, mountains, icebergs and clouds that make up my parallax scrolling scenery, should hopefully add nice visual variety and make each area feel unique.

Creating background images is probably my weakest area of pixel art. I have never been good at perspectives and landscapes however, I think I did okay thus far in creating the backgrounds and I have definitely learned a lot since I first started work on this project a few years ago.

I will probably create another blog today, as I am finally planning to start my Steam Greenlight campaign. I have to admit I'm kind nervous and excited!

Please let me know your thoughts.

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 36

Before you can sell your game on Steam, independent game developers need to showcase their games on Steam Greenlight and the Steam users get to vote for their favorite games. If your game gets ranked high enough in the pool of Steam Greenlight games primarily based on “Yes” votes, in addition to some other metrics, you will eventually be able to sell your game on Steam.

A few blogs ago I mentioned some important aspects of a game’s Steam Greenlight campaign and for anyone who have missed that blog, I will go over those points below.

- Having a awesome trailer, showing tons of gameplay - Pics showcasing various gameplay functions and unique enviroments/locations - Amazing branding image to attract as many Steam users to your page as possible

In this blog I would like to discuss the Steam Greenlight branding image or Icon. It is the first impression that your game will make to potential new voters. Your Icon will basically be on a grid layout amongst many other Greenlight games all of which will be fighting for attention, hence having a high quality gif or Icon would hopefully make it easier for your game to stand out amongst the crowd. Please use the below link to see what I am refering to.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/browse/?browsefilter=mostrecent&appid=765&browsesort=mostrecent

While doing a bit of research on how to go about creating said high quality gif, It became aparant that there are usually many, and sometimes complicated steps to follow. I eventually ended up using a few combined tutorials to create what I wanted, below I will give you an overview of the process that I used to create my gif.

I started by making a few very short gameplay clips of Super Ninja Ball Dash, using Quicktime’s screen recording function on my Mac. I then opened up the gameplay clips in iMovie to edit the most important sections that I wanted to use in my gif. Once I was done doing that, I exported the video file from iMove.

I ended up with 4 seconds of gameplay footage and because I exported the file at 60fps, which was a mistake on my part, as more frames = a bigger file size and you are limited to only 2mb. I then opened up Quicktime and played the movie frame by frame, capturing the individual frames with the Mac screencapture function, the total frames ended up being 270 which is way to much for a gif. I then copied every second frame into Gimp (art editing/creation software), even at 135 frames it was still too much and the result was a huge 15.7 mb gif. I had to get the file size down to 2mb! I cropped and rescaled the images inside Gimp to reduce the file size which got me to just under 2mb. Then I only had to export the file as an animation and viola, a pretty cool looking gif!

All in all im pretty happy with how it turned out and all things considered it’s not that difficult to create a high quality gif, once you’ve gone through the process atleast once.

Please let me know, what you think of the gif.

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 34

Another 2+ weeks of continued tinkering on Super Ninja Ball Dash has come and gone. I initially planned to start my Steam Greenlight campaign at the end of March, however due to missing a few milestones, I had to postpone the start of the campaign to sometime later in April.

Many blogs that I have read suggested that its best that you have your game in a polished state to showcase it in your greenlight trailer. This is due to the trailer being considered the most important part of your the Greenlight campaign. Furthermore great looking pics, showcasing various aspects of your game's functions and locations, in additon to an intriguing branding image also attributes to getting those all important "Yes" votes.

What took the most time over the last 2+ weeks, was bug fixing and gameplay tweaks. The OCD in me couldn't leave those bugs alone, "I had to get them all" or rather fix them all.

In addition to bug fixing, I was also able to complete the main background images for both World 1 and World 2 (please see the attached pics for the before and after background art). I still have another 2 background images pending for both worlds, however the ones that I have completed would be enough for the Greenlight trailer. I also implemented 4 new enemy variations.

I was able to accomplish quite a bit since my last blog post. I'll definitely try to blog more regularly moving forwards.

Please let me know your thoughts!

[jamaldolleygames]

Game Dev Journey No. 33

I've been working hard on updating my mobile game for the Steam Greenlight campaign. I know what you must be thinking right now, "...another terrible mobile port on Greenlight!”. Let me explain why I believe Ninja Ball Dash is even better suited for PC than mobile.

I consider myself a hardcore gamer at heart and by hardcore I mean I play console and PC games religiously and a wide variety of different genres from JRPGs, WRPG’s, FPS, Action Adventures, Platformers to one of my favorite genres Survival Horrors. It was only natural that I aspired to make a game suited for that type of audience.

Obviously with the boom of mobile gaming, in addition to the low barrier of entry to develop for mobiles, got me on the band wagon as an indie dev. I have always considered PC gaming in the top echelon of gaming culture, which is basically the reason why I thought it to be too daunting to even attempt to make a proper PC game.

For the "uninitiated" Ninja Ball Dash is a retro inspired 2D, physics puzzle, platformer where you try to push a ball to the flag in every level.

Now going back to why I believe Ninja Ball Dash is better suited for PC. I basically designed Ninja Ball Dash with hardcore mobile gamers in mind i.e. the difficulty ramps up very fast, you dont have any health, a timer continuously counts down, the puzzles get really challenging in the late game and the levels are designed for fast reflexes ( this I had to tone down due to feedback that the game was too difficult to play). These were all by design as I, wanted the gamer to feel a sense of accomplishment whenever they were able to complete a challenging level.

Ninja Ball Dash didn’t find the audience on mobile that I have always hoped for and until recently I considered it to be history.

The main reason why I decided to update Ninja Ball Dash for Steam was due to a conversation I had with my brother. His complete and utter hatred for mobile gaming, actually convinced me to consider doing Steam, I would like to add though, that I still don't share his disdain for mobile :) After lots of research I started to seriously consider PC as a potential market for my game. Long story short, I am now working on Super Ninja Ball Dash for my Steam Greenlight campaign, which I'm hoping to launch in a week.

I did however feel that Super Ninja Ball Dash required a graphical upgrade to stand apart from the Microsoft Paint games currently available on there, not that I believe the game looked bad to begin with, I just feel certain areas could be improved upon. Over the last 2 weeks I have created about 50% more art assets, I basically overhauled the entire World 2 which has 20 levels, in addition to other minor graphical tweaks and upgrades.

Both attached pics are World 2 of Ninja Ball Dash, the brownish level has the updated pixel art, you will notice the icebergs in the background (I have yet to add clouds/additional details to the background image) are setup to parallax scroll as you move left or right adding a nice sense of depth while the original World 2 level only had a static background image that is moving with player.

I will also be enhancing the gameplay in some areas. 

I'm looking forward to sharing more details on the progress of the game, before the launch of the Steam Greenlight campaign.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions!