Game Development

PearsonArtPhoto

00:28

So far I'm managing to stick to my game, while simply keeping a list of other games I'd like to do someday.

My list of other games is now up to I think 6...

Sie

00:39

@Almo How do I ask this as one question? You cannot answer the first one without considering the others. — Cyprian Guerra 1 hour ago

checkmate /saracasm

Sie

01:02

It's troubling see how many seem to think you can take down a game due to similar (or near exact mechanics): reddit.com/r/fivenightsatfreddys/comments/4lb1fe/…

Stephane Hockenhull

01:13

Depend on the country I guess. Not gonna happen in the USA tho.

Good ol' Karate Championship case

Chris McFarland

@PearsonArtPhoto Yeah I've got a couple other game ideas I'd like to explore. Future goals to pursue after finishing current goal :)

PearsonArtPhoto

Unfortunately I'm noticing my desire to keep going with my current project is going down with time...

Chris McFarland

Can always take a break
or just abandon, it's okay
just keep in mind you might end up feeling the same about a different project at some point

Stephane Hockenhull

Dev fatigue is a bitch

Sie

Take a break. If you keep on pushing yourself the longer the burnout gets.

Stephane Hockenhull

01:22

I prefer to do everything-but-the-game first. Keep the fun part for last.
Carrot on a stick.

Sie

I kind of forgot my whole world of paper theme lol. I'm going to have to redesign a few things. I'm thinking like walls made of cardboard, same for enemies, paper mache water, and paper lights. What do you guys think? Could look nice.

Stephane Hockenhull

Sounds highly flamable

Sie

I am working on sort of a story line. Maybe like a darker purpose behind all the cute paper stuff?

I don't know. I guess not every game needs a big intricate story behind it.

Stephane Hockenhull

Like this?

Sie

Sort of but maybe less color vomit.

Stephane Hockenhull

01:25

The story in Project S-11 was very intricate

Aliens are attacking, go kill them.

Sie

@StephaneHockenhull Check out the bottom of this blog post. That is the first level. I'm going for a theme similar to that.

Stephane Hockenhull

And big thumb up at the end.

Sie

Of the album? Oh that is the vertex being stretched out. Eventually I need to make it a bit less ugly. Kind of like the way World of Goo does it when you reach your limit.

Stephane Hockenhull

No, I meant Prj S-11's storyline

That's an interesting concept

Sie

ah.

Stephane Hockenhull

01:32

making bridges by stretching cubes...

Sie

More to it than just that. There are puzzles where you build rafts, create tools, and all sorts of machines.

Stephane Hockenhull

neat

Dave

04:03

does any one know if a nav mesh is a good choice for tablets/phones compared to using a standard grid for performance and stuff?

Chris McFarland

It's probably fine for fast hardware

Dave

i can't work out if its beneficial over a grid system

never done a nav mesh before

Sie

What do you want the AI to do?

Dave

its not AI in this case the user clicks to go to a specific place think like most MOBAs

Almo

so pathfinding, really

Dave

04:18

yeah

but because the floor plan is a bunch of rooms

Almo

you got terrain effects like slow in swamp fast on roads?

Dave

its kinda complicated because each room has its own grid collisions but they don't know where they are in the world if that makes sense

if you think of the sims

Almo

sounds like the doors are off-mesh links

Sie

I personally use Breadcrumbs AI which offers dynamic path finding (no navmesh required). It's older and no longer being updated. However it offers way points, jumping, edge avoidance and a few other things.

Dave

whats that mean ? @Almo

Almo

04:19

nav meshes cover contiguous bodies of ground

if there's a gap, like a river, agents cant path over it

but if there's a bridge, you can make it an off-mesh link

Dave

well it is technically a continous floor, seperated by walls and doors

Almo

tells agent he can get from one mesh to the other by going to the link

I implemented that for Unity 3.5

Dave

so you think itll be easier if i go to the nav mesh route rather than a grid ?

Almo

was working for a small company contracted to help unity with recast/detour implementation

which engine you using

Dave

unity

Almo

04:21

probably nav mesh then

I'm not that well-informed about it htough

Dave

does games like league use grid or nav?

it feels like grid to me but spells don't seem to be grid locked of which involve moving position

Sie

Why would they need to be?

Dave

such as flash you can go any where it doesn't round you to the nearest grid

well it has to know if your on a collision tile etc

so i presume it uses nav mesh

cos i would see no point in a huge grid at that point

ah its a nav mesh

just googled it :P

Almo

@Dave LoL looks like nav to me

Dave

yeh it is

reading their blog

Sie

04:27

Speaking of LoL I wonder if they ever updated some of that "coded as minions" shit.

I remember learning how Jarvans ult was actually a bunch of re-skinned minions lol.

Dave

can a nav mesh be changed on the fly or is it static? wondering if something like a locked door to prevent room access causes issues with a nav mesh

Sie

I think you can add exceptions but I'm pretty sure you can't (or at least not without a ton of head ache) make the nav mesh update in real time.

Almo

last I heard, much is still re-skinned minions

like anivia's wall

Sie

Is that too really? I wonder why they are being so lazy about it.

Almo

you work with what you have

much of the game was built prior to it being huge

Dave

04:29

the current game mode is dull

Almo

based on the framework of the W3 mod

Dave

"definately not dominion"

Almo

I played tons of dominion

Dave

more like "definitely dull"

Almo

I liked it

Sie

04:29

It's not like it's such a huge task. Generate a wall that blocks player movements and then disappear on a cd timer.

Dave

i prefer ascension

or urf :P

Almo

@Sie you have not worked in a video game company's production code, if you say something like that

Chris McFarland

@Dave If you ever hit a wall with Unity's navmesh stuff, try Aron Granberg's A* plugin: arongranberg.com/astar free version has worked well for me before

Sie

@Almo I haven't. It just sounds like LoL's code base must be quite the rats nest.

Almo

it was

they've complained about it on their dev blog

Dave

04:31

ive got my own a* code already using heap stuff

Almo

they're doing massive cleanups

Chris McFarland

ah yup

Dave

i was going to implement multi threading for it

but lost motivation xD

Almo

engineering.riotgames.com/news/…

read that

very interesting

Sie

@Almo I get the feeling they didn't think LoL would take off as big as it did. Perhaps thats where some of their issues stem from.

Almo

04:32

even if they did, they didn't have the money to fund super-careful development at the start

Sie

Ya. Now they are probably just doing it as they go and don't see the point in rewriting everything just yet.

Almo

but they're rewriting things in chunks

they have an ongoing userbase of 67 million monthly users

Dave

League have had plenty time to update it xD

Almo

cannot break the game temporarily to fix things

Dave

and enough money too

Almo

04:33

again sounds like something you'd say having not worked on real games in a production environment

I'm not trying to be insulting deliberately

Chris McFarland

games are hard

Almo

but these things really look different from the inside

Dave

theres no feature thats so flawed that you couldn't overhaul it

just don't release it until its heavily tested

Sie

I'm a filthy casual. You caught me @Almo. :P.

Almo

:D

Chris McFarland

04:35

I tried Valve's Dota 2 Vulkan implementation last night on a few games, runs smooth as butter

Almo

@Dave you haven't seen production code man. Like Sony "players cannot change username because of how our DB is built"

I believe that.

Sie

@Almo and I'm not even sure who that was aimed at. Dave was the one who said they've had plenty of time to update it not me lol.

Dave

and your saying that couldn't make a new db entirely, nothing is impossible its whether its worth the time and effort at all

plus they'd have to be super careful porting to a new db

but its not impossible

Almo

I'm saying that it's not worth it for that feature given the risk

Dave

well yeah it might not be worth it

Almo

04:36

PSN goes down for a day, they lose a ton of money

Dave

but time and money is not a valid excuse for riot now was my point

Sie

This is new. This is the most feisty I've ever seen Almo. Usually you're very laid back.

Almo

one of Ubisoft's big games had a patch to fix shit, but Sony charges to deliver patches, and they decided it wasn't worth it.

Dave

watch dogs?

Almo

no

though it might have had that problem

I just wasn't there anymore to know ;)

Dave

04:37

tbh i quite like the concept of charging for delivering patches

it forces them to not cut corners

Almo

I think the charge is for download bandwidth, though I could be wrong

Dave

probably yeh but it has a knock on effect that they have to think about fixing it before hand

Chris McFarland

for little devs making a mistake

Sie

One theme I've noticed with LoL is a lot of the champions are fun but you'll notice [especially nowadays] how similar a lot of champions are. Just with reskinned abilities and mixed values/placement.

Chris McFarland

would just not be financially feasible
Microsoft used to be like that for their Xbox 360 thing

Dave

04:38

@Sie don't change a winning formula i guess :P

Chris McFarland

until they got called out

Sie

It's been awhile since I've seen a truly unique champion.

Dave

Bard

pretty unique

Almo

^

Dave

im also totally shit at using his ult its shocking

im fairly sure 99% of my bard ults result in my team dying

Almo

04:39

tahliya seems different

Sie

Meh. Bard's kit is pretty cool but not terribly unique.

Q - Seen it.
W - Shroom with different effects.
E - Ok this one is pretty cool.
R - A bit different.

Almo

R is same as what

big huge long wall, she follows it

wall remains quite a long time

and is bigger than the size of the screen

Sie

What? I'm talking about Bard's kit.

Almo

bard's R is like nothing else. AOE untargetable?

includes towers

Sie

Zyra ult.

Almo

04:42

his healing thing has no end

you can still target stuff in zyra ult

that's a popup

bard ult targets don't exist

Sie

Oh it is? I thought it brings them towards the center.

Haven't seen her in awhile.

Almo

and his passive, the charms

so he wanders to get them.

few heroes are so encouraged to run all over the map

Sie

Sort of like Thresh's passive. I'm not trying to say it's bad they reuse this stuff (I mean it would be stupid not to) but I just find it interesting to see what is what.

Almo

one way you can tell bard is different is by looking at his learning curve on champion.gg

thresh passive comes from dying minons, so he has to be nearby for it to happen, and it just happens where the minions are

bard charms are scattered quite widely

tkausl

0

Q: What will happen if i sell my game that was made with a cracked engine

I have a cracked version of gamemaker studio cuz i cant afford 74$ for the pro cuz i am just 13. what will happen if i put my game on a website like gamejolt or even steam will something happen to me?

engine

Dave

04:45

Ashe is still my favourite, shes nothing fancy but shes still fun to play

Sie

@tkausl lol what a dumb ass

Almo

I like the ashe rework

very classy

more active

Sie

@Almo How big is the studio you work at anyway? I would like to still try to work in the industry but the big fish just seem so terrible.

Almo

about 200, I think

teams on the order of 5 to 30

Sie

Is that fairly big or is that average?

For a game development studio.

Dave

04:48

i used a trump quote in my response to that Q

i think it will help him

Sie

He's using GM he's already doomed sadly.

Chris McFarland

Why do you say that?

Dave

A GM ? what is that

Almo

@Sie hmm not sure

Dave

genetically modified?

Sie

04:49

I swear nobody in this room understand sarcasm.

Dave

course not we're programmers

Almo

ATD was 75, Ubisoft is 6000 worldwide or something, 2500 at MTL office. Gamesworks was 10, Grip was 5

Chris McFarland

The only thing we join together to shit on in here is Java

Dave

oh and the rest...

Chris McFarland

haha

Sie

04:50

@ChrisMcFarland and Unity occasionally.

Dave

unity is decent now

unity gives us lone devs the opportunity to make a living from games if we are lucky

Sie

@Almo Well do you like it? I'm perusing engineering currently but I'm not going to pigeon hole myself.

Dave

engineering.riotgames.com/sites/default/files/ashe-hexagon.gif i like this

Almo

I would prefer being creative director, or having a gameplay programming position

where I am, we don't ahve programmers that have super-specific roles like that

Sie

So what do you? Just whatever is up next or debugging or what?

Dave

04:53

i hear star citizen needs employees with their game

Almo

I build semi-large systems for the games at times, or UI implelemtation

Sie

The latter of that statement is giving me cancer just by reading it.

Dave

@Almo wouldn't want to do my elevator system by any chance :P

Sie

I hate anything UI with a passion.

Almo

hehehe I have too many of my own concepts that need to be done

crystal shuffle redo, lane blaster, clixxor mobile, match-m, strategy football (turn-based soccer)

Dave

04:55

oh i did a strategy football thing in javascript it was a browser game

Sie

I wish I had a employee just to do the grunt work. Like respawn systems, save systems, and all that other monotonous crap while I do the fun stuff.

> javascript

GET' EM BOYS!!!

Dave

problem was can't use real footballer names

EA has the sole rights the bastards

Sie

Just rename them or parody them.

Almo

fifa are the bastards who sold them the rights

it's one thing to ask for something like that, it's another to sell it.

Dave

i was using APIs on the players

so it was based on real matches

Almo

04:56

guess i better go sleep

it's 1 am

Dave

night

Sie

wait one more question please

Just curious. What type of state are game designers in? I'd imagine it's not very good or at least very limited.

Almo

really depends on the company and type of game

but they're not paid very well, as many game designers don't have technical skills like programming

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@Almo night!

Almo

if you can program, then they want you to program and not design becasue programmers are always in short supply

@AlexandreVaillancourt bye :)

Sie

04:59

That's a shame.

Dave

programmers are in short supply?

Sie

Anyway well ttyl night. @Almo

Dave

i guess its cos they ask for so much experience

that no one applies

Almo

it's because programmers who are willing to work for low game-industry wages and do OT are not as common as you might think

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Typically, game programmers get burned in the game industry 5 years after they start.

Sie

05:00

I've seen interns who seem ready to sell their solves to EA in a heart beat.

Poor bastards.

Alexandre Vaillancourt

These devs gtfo and find a job in other fields.

Dave

why to EA?

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Because of all the cool games they make

Dave

oh i thought it was more to do with how they were treated

Sie

@AlexandreVaillancourt Makes sense tbh. Make money doing something on the side and do the fun game dev in free time.

Dave

05:01

im still at university anyway :P

don't have to worry yet

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@Dave What do you intend to do after?

Dave

I want to go work at CERN

either on the ITER project or the LHC

Alexandre Vaillancourt

I don't have a clue what you're talking about :D

Dave

ITER is a nuclear fusion project

LHC is the machine that discovered the higgs boson not long ago

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Oh, ok, so it's not game dev :P

Dave

05:04

lol nah game dev is hobbie

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Hehe kk, no worries :)

Sie

0

Q: What will happen if i sell my game that was made with a cracked engine

I have a cracked version of gamemaker studio cuz i cant afford 74$ for the pro cuz i am just 13. what will happen if i put my game on a website like gamejolt or even steam will something happen to me?

engine

Dave

SpaceX is interesting but i kinda want to remain in europe

Sie

That guy just asked for the sake of arguing I guess lol.

Dave

if hes 13 isn't he underage for this site?

can a nav mesh be used even for modular maps?

for example if you swap sections of the layout around

or do they have to be static from the start

tkausl

05:14

this inflationary use of "cuz" pisses me off

tbh

Dave

its been around for a decade

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@Dave I think 13 is the minimum.

Dave

fair enough

Alexandre Vaillancourt

@Sie I don't think he has a way to understand that joke :P

@Dave FYI I don't think police will go visit him. Ever. It's not being illegal to use a cracked engine, it's just that it allows the owner of the company to take legal actions against him.

Dave

it is illegal to steal

legal action is more regarding if he makes a profit

on their cracked engine which is a second issue

but of course its impractical that they would storm his house

even in the western world its impractical

but maybe itll wake him up a bit :P plenty of good free engines out there if he googles

Alexandre Vaillancourt

05:21

He'll probably just receive a letter from a lawyer. In any case, I would try to avoid the unpleasant situation ;)

Dave

he won't get anything hes in Egypt

course theres no guarentee in the future laws improve, egypt co-operates with the west more, then hes in trouble if he made 100k on a game on a cracked engine

Alexandre Vaillancourt

No, he won't... but if game publishers get enough complaints from third parties, they'll simply ban game devs from these countries altogether :P

Dave

egypt might already be on that banned list for steam i dunno xD

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Yeah; but I can understand the struggle, being 13, not having a credit card, and not having money.

Dave

hes 13 he should learn to make games on it - but not distribute

at 13 does he even have a bank account of his own for steam to pay him xD

Alexandre Vaillancourt

05:24

Their way of thinking must be very different from yours and mine...

Yeah, not sure how they pay in this situation...

Steam credits?

Dave

if he just waits until hes older with a job $74 will not be an issue for him

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Does this even exist?

Dave

i assume its RPG Maker given that price

Alexandre Vaillancourt

gamemaker studio

tkausl

He had to pay steam dev somehow

Dave

05:26

i hope he didnt ask the same question on their own forums xD

tkausl

at least

steam greenlight access or how its called

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Ah, yeah, there is an entry fee there, right?

tkausl

yeah

100$ iirc

Sie

I don't pirate anymore but I wonder if Unity can tell if you use a pirated copy. I'd imagine there is some sort of ghost signature somewhere.

Alexandre Vaillancourt

That's not much if you want to make money; or you have a regular day job...

Dave

05:34

they can

on compile itll have your licence id some where and they can check it on their database

if you make 100k you can be sure they will check :P

though i think they might remove the licence one day

cry engine is royalty free in its entirely now so unity has competition should be interesting to see what occurs in the next few years

Alexandre Vaillancourt

But I read it was crappy :P

Dave

well, sleep time for me night all o/

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Night!

Dave

yeh it is crappy but in a few years of improvements etc who knows

Alexandre Vaillancourt

That's possible :)

Sie

05:38

What is crappy? That model? Why?

Alexandre Vaillancourt

No, I read Cry Engine was crappy.

Sie

Oh ya. I mean I hear it's not crappy but just a real PITA to use and it has other sorts of problems.

Alexandre Vaillancourt

It's funny all this stuff about game engines; I don't have a clue about them :P

Just read stuff here and there.... mainly here!

That alcohol is hitting hard :/

tkausl

Don't drink and dev

Sie

Mother of christ.

Alexandre Vaillancourt

05:47

No, it's borderline now :P

Sie

This ramen is killing me. It's so fucking nhot.

Alexandre Vaillancourt

I think ramen is one of the best crappy food. I ate so much of that when I was younger...

Sie

ramen is life

he says as he coughs hot smoke from this shit

Alexandre Vaillancourt

You'll re-consider when you get older :P

But yeah, ramen is life, for you, for now :) Enjoy it :)

Sie

How old are you if you don't mind me asking?

Alexandre Vaillancourt

05:50

Shit, I'm becoming an old fart :P

I'm 34 :P

Turning 35 this summer

Sie

Any mid or quarter life crisis yet?

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Not yet :P

I think ;)

tkausl

oh wow

I feel like I'm one of the youngest in here

I guess..

Alexandre Vaillancourt

I don't think it matters :P

Sie

It doesn't.

I'm 21. 22 in October.

Alexandre Vaillancourt

05:58

Once you're above the 21 yo threshold, really, you start forgetting your age :P

At least, it was that for me...

Going to bed now :) Night all! (@tkausl and morning to you hehe :P)

tkausl

Good night

Peter David Carter-Poulsen

09:04

gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=featured has a bounty ending in a half hour -- has a partial answer, just needs some code/pseudo-code

tkausl

> would you be so kind as write some type of sudo code?

Peter David Carter-Poulsen

it's beyond my abilities, unfortunately. I put a bounty on in because I'm only a beginner game dev -- at the moment I can barely do text-based web adventure

but there's 50 rep disappearing soon if people want to shoot for it

the correct form when asking someone to write pseudocode for your game is, of course, "Would you kindly?"

tkausl

09:22

I was laughing because of the "sudo"

For a long time I thought they say "sudo-code" when I was watching talks

Didn't understand what they're talking about

Peter David Carter-Poulsen

oh! I didn't even notice!

user@user:$ sudo <code>

Jon

11:42

Whoever wanted a 1080 fucken scalpers popping up on eBay

Raising the price significantly

Jon

12:00

do a ebay search, and look at how many

its disgusting

Pip

12:11

Wow yeah

EVGA and MSI and such will have theirs out soon so I really wouldn't bother at this point

I'm also waiting to see what comes with Polaris

Jon

13:11

Seriously best to wait and get 2 at that price

tkausl

13:45

0

Q: std::vector clears after every frame?

Not a question, but a bug I've been handling for a few days. Thought I'd share the solution since it was so obvious. The stack gets cleared after every function call. So if you are accessing a vector shorthand, do not use std::vector& variable, rather std::vector variable. //don't do this on a ...

engine architecture data-structure

am i wrong?

seriously, I can not reproduce this kind of behavior: cpp.sh/3j5q5

user92578

seems odd

tkausl

I'm pretty sure he has somewhere else a bug where he trashs the element of the vector and the non-ref variable just fixes it because it copies the whole vector every frame

He'll run into big performance issues..

user92578

yup

Ali.S

@tkausl so true...

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