#dev help

[holyschnitzel]

Hey...... I want to make a visual novel like yours....... Can you tell me what program or engine you use and some advice? I currently don't know how to start

sure! like most developers, we use the Ren'Py engine because it's completely free and there's a friendly online community to help you with any questions or problems! here's the latest version of the launcher that you can download: Ren'Py 8.2.3

simply read all the instructions to install everything correctly.

learning the basics of coding, like how to display text and images on the screen, isn't difficult. you can pick it up in just 5 minutes ^^

my advice would be to just start writing your story first. after all, you'll have to copy paste the entire text into the engine anyway, and right now you don't have anything to work with.

so first think about what kind of story you want to tell and who the characters are. brainstorm, take notes and create the first outline for each chapter. I highly recommend writing in chapters to help you keep a better overview of what happens in each part of the story ^^

oh, and start small. don’t plan for anything grand or epic, or you’ll set yourself up for failure. a short story serves the purpose of learning and discovering what you can do in Ren'Py much better :)

I wish you good luck with your project. I hope to hear from you again!

if you have any further questions, pls don't hesitate to ask <3

[pinkuboa]

The Yume Nikki Fangame Inspiration Folder 2 is here! 

(+ the 2015 original version!)

Apparently the original Yume Nikki Screenshot folder was more useful than I thought.  So, I ended up making another one & reuploading the first one for some help to all those out there looking to make a fangame (or just like looking at other people’s pixel art).

What this is is just a giant folder with a bunch of little folders filled with screenshots of various fangames, sorted by world type.  Most of these aren’t the entire fangame as that’s a bit hard to capture, but instead a taste of a few different worlds.  There’s also some gifs from @yumegifi in addition to stillshots of games!  The quality varies from fangame to fangame, but even the fangames that aren’t the best are good to know about so you don’t make the same mapping mistakes as they did.   Fangames in this pack include:

Minus 1/Minus Ichi/-1

.flow

Akuma

Corallo

Debris

Dream Syndrome

Farewell

Gem Planet

Gnosis

June Exhibit

Lcd Dem

The Looking Glass

Lull Away

Me

Mong Jung Mon/Dream in Dream

Mortalis

Our Crazy Dream

NostAlgic

Outotsu Yume

Tsukumono Yume

Ultra Violet

Umbra

UnRequited

Uotamusosu

Withers

Veins

Yume Doodle

Yuque (v.02)

All of these games are at their most recent version as of 1/30/19, except Yuque as I took screenshots of it before 0.03 was released.  Feel free to reupload the screenshots to the wiki or use them on your blog or what have you as well c:

[bleetdev]

A person asked: I need to make an RPG maker game fast for my senior thesis. Should I do parallax mapping or tilesets?

Both types of map creations have their benefits and disadvantages.

Parallax mapping:

+ Just draw a picture of the background + No need to figure out how to make tiles + You can make a lot of environments quickly + You can make animations with them + Good for large open spaces, clear pathways, and aesthetic environments

- If your pictures are sloppy, it shows - If your pictures don’t line up with the tiles, it’s hard to block off places a character shouldn’t walk like walls and water - Your world might feel less 3d, since you won’t be able to walk behind obstacles like houses and trees - Bad for dense environments you can wander in with a lot of objects like cities and forests

Tile sets:

+ Tiles can be animated (like water) automatically + Your game feels more clean with properly designed tiles + You can do a lot of cool stuff with tiling to make environments feel more 3d + It’s easy to copy and paste environments and edit them + Tiles can add to the overall style of a game + Tiles can be made to be walkable, unwalkable, or walked behind

- Learning how to match patterns is tough - Limited color palette and tile amount per set - It takes a lot of time to design things like forests properly

Overall, if you’re on a time limit, I recommend parallax mapping because it will get the job done quicker. But if you want a polished look, be careful. A lot can be done with either, and the best way is to mix and match where convenient, but it’s all up to you!

[vortex-parallax]

How to Fight Procrastination in Gamedev: Advice from an Expert Procrastinator

Last winter I wrote a post about motivation on my Russian dev blog. I decided to translate it now, since I think it was pretty good. Also, it's about time I make some devhelp content for this blog, rather than just reblogging from other people.

I have a lot of trouble with procrastination and unmotivation when it comes to gam mak, as someone with ADHD and a busy university schedule as well. These are things I personally do to try and fight it. 

✍️ Advice from a superhuman gamedev friend: try to identify the problem and act accordingly. Don't know what to do with Location X? Brainstorm it, sketch out some ideas, make concept art. No time/energy/motivation to make graphics right now? You can go write out dialogues or event something. Don't like Location Y, or maybe it seems redundant? Go ahead and delete it without mercy. :D

✍️ Make a list of everything you need to do. The more detailed, the better - at least for me. Subheadings help. You won't jump on top of a mountain in one push, but little steps will slowly bring you to the top c: Here’s a piece of my demo checklist. Crossing things out has never felt so good.

✍️ Another thing that is useful to do is to write out your progress. It may be hard to estimate, but useful to track how you're doing! I can't seem to do an overall estimate for my game, so I just wrote it out by level like this. (Also 2/5 is 40%, I know. I’m bad at maths, okay?)

✍️ Get inspired! Play some other games; watch, read or listen to something new. Some people prefer to take everything from their own head (which isn't even quite true), but I am more inclined to absorbing as much information as possible. I live off inspiration from all kinds of things. 

✍️ Share your work! Getting feedback from players is incredibly motivating. All those likes, comments, impressions, fanart even... It makes me really happy and makes me want to keep going, because it's not just for me anymore, someone actually enjoys it! (So for fans: don't be afraid to give feedback to authors, feed us~)  ✍️ Oversharing isn't good, however. It's a psychological thing - if you talk about your plans too much, your brain may feel like they have already been fulfilled and you don't need to do much else. So I am careful about what I share. That's why I don't post too much about my game's plot besides the demo.

✍️ Take a break! Seriously, just put it aside for a day. Don't think about your project, do anything you want. It might clear your mind and bring the inspiration back.

✍️ Watch a cute anime about Overcoming Hardships and Achieving Goals, or just listen to some music from it... Yes, this is the final point of my post because it really does help me. My favourites for this are Love Live! and Little Witch Academia. You might have something else that motivates you. (Please do share, or give recs for similar cute things as well :>)

And this concludes my advice. Feel free to add to this post if there's anything that helps you!

[rukomura-games]

Got any tips for entering next year's pixel horror jam?

Hello Anon!I do happen to have a few tips for you! Here they are as follows:

Since this is a jam (and iirc this year’s PHJ is going to be shorter), you would want to keep your game scope simple and small. You don’t have to make a full game either! A demo can work just fine and is widely accepted. Don’t be afraid to drop out either! It’s meant to be a learning experience, not a marathon!

Because of time constraints like in point 1, having a general outline of your game is crucial! You don’t want to jump into game making right away, or you’ll have more difficulties in managing your time and make the game feel more cohesive.Since pre-planning is allowed, I’d suggest you start brainstorming general ideas and mechanics from now!

If you get stuck on something, just work on something else, even if you happen to be stuck creative-wise: new ideas always come naturally and forcing yourself to think of one can be harmful (or time-consuming).

You may want to have a general To-Do list so you can keep yourself motivated and see the progress you’re making!

If you plan of recruiting people, be prepared to work alone or do a bit of everything by yourself; while there will be people who may be looking for team members themselves, they may either drop out because of real life issues or any other reason. Don’t be afraid of using free resources! You may also want to show what you can do since people don’t like to be ordered around and do all the work.

Be prepared for a burn-out for working too much!I experienced this myself while working on my demo (although… I did set a deadline for myself one month before the actual end of the jam). I still don’t feel motivated or strong enough to open my project again and for the time being, I’m focusing on other games and general personal work. If you ever feel like you need a break, it’s totally fine to take one! Be nice to yourself.

Don’t be afraid of speaking to other devs and participants! A very important lesson I’ve learned in 2017 was that sharing what you do with others and check on their works to be inspirational to you can help you grow a lot as a dev and as a person, too! I feel I have improved so much and met many wonderful people after forcing myself to interact more. Since the PHJ will probably have a discord server this year too, you may want to try and join it! Even if you feel uncomfortable at first, just ease yourself slowly and maybe… you can try sharing your projects and ideas bit by bit?

This is all I have to say for now! If any of my fellow friends and devs have more tips for the PHJ or jams in general, you can reply to this post as well so the anon will get more answers from different perspectives!

I hope I was of help, in the end it is more of a list of tips for jams in general, but after all, the PHJ isn’t that different from the average jams!

[anxious-fox-spirit]

so like

i have a bunch of game ideas and games i was writing out and trying to create but i have a question to ask about how it all works?

How do i make my game known so that people will play it? I dont want to go to youtube channels and ask someone popular to play since i’d feel bad for asking and because the people i would have in mind to play it might get messages like that a lot..

also, how do i get the game to be known by me and only me? (unless i get help with things in the game, obviously ill credit them too) like, is there a chance someone might try to steal the game act like they made it and get all the fame and popularity from it?.. 

I hope someone can answer my questions! It be really helpful to know before i start on a large project that i could possibly not ever finish if i know that it could be possibly stolen in some way or no one will never know about it.

thank you!!

[pureicegames]

The Steam Greenlight Situation + Advice

There are many mixed opinions about what’s happened with steam greenlight. Although Allegrezza Harmony will never ever be on steam, I feel like I should talk about it since I go to college to make video games and this could be helpful to other game devs out there.

In case you haven’t heard, Steam is now requiring a fee before submitting your game to Steam Greenlight. It costs $100 and all proceeds go to Penny Arcade’s charity: Child’s Play. 

Although a lot of things make it through Steam Greenlight, not everything does. It would suck to pay the money and not have your game greenlit. However, this is being done to prevent what’s happened to Steam ever since Steam Greenlight first premiered:

(A lot of us agree that Bloody Boobs is the straw that broke the camel’s back)

If you don’t know what shovelware is, it’s basically a game that was quickly made with zero quality or effort put into it. Remember those bad movie adaptation games for consoles? That’s also shovelware.

With steam, there’s no big higherups to look at it. It’s just a bunch of people who don’t have money riding on the game giving it a thumbs up to sell. Because of there being no risks in submitting to Steam Greenlight, it became the prime target to submit shovelware to.

That’s why this had to happen. The lack of video game quality control once led to a video game market crash and thank goodness that valve did their best to stop this before this shovelware problem got even worse.

If this all of a sudden makes you worry about the quality of the game that you want to sell, here’s a bit of advice:

- Perform multiple QA (Quality Assurance) tests. Set up a Google Form and get feedback. Do this as soon as possible. It would really suck to complete your game, then find out that players hate your main system. Find out what needs fixing. It’s done in the industry and you should never feel ashamed for doing it too.

- Make it look unique. I know that most of the other game devs that follow Allegrezza Harmony are working with RPG Maker. If you are making a game that’s meant to be sold, try to avoid the default tilessets and characters that come with your engine. Even people who don’t use the engine are starting to recognize the default graphics. I’ll do a masterpost of good resources that allow for commercial use someday in the future.

- Ask other devs for advice. There’s no shame in asking others to look at your work and give thoughts. We are creating entertainment after all.

You shouldn’t worry about this $100 fee. You only have to pay it once and not only is it going to a good cause, it is also helping cut down on shovelware. 

It’s still easier than submitted to kickstarter.

[pinkuboa]

This is a small PSA. For people that avoid working on their games, one thing to examine is your software. If you're using something complex and intimidating and it's keeping you from getting things done there's no shame in finding better software that's easier for you to use. I just did and I've gone from procrastinating because I was overwhelmed (I THOUGHT I was just lazy) to making a lot of progress easily. There's no shame in doing what feels best for you, including in game dev!

This is a very good PSA