This guy is like: "Could you make my game for me please?" in the comments

Dissapoint

I think for all the good that stack exchange is doing it's also doing harm by pushing devs to laziness

Not me!

Meh, people will always be lazy

Just don't feed them =p

Chat's quiet today!

It's been quiet for a couple of weeks, actually.

Quiet today than usual :(

Yeah

Are you working on anything atm @AlexandreVaillancourt ?

@ShaunWild Not a game; I'm trying a couple of different architectures to see if there is much of a difference in performance or ease of use; and to try to twist my brain.

Ahh cool

My game is still a screensaver atm

The goal is to have the same end result, but with three different approaches.

I'm hoping to get tank creation done by this week

Cool !

I hate that word lol

But thanks

I have a design flaw in my game

Each component of a tank is it's own entity

I want to be able to drag components off tanks

and drag them on

When you drag them on or off the circuit components update on that tank

Na actually

Ignore me, I just realised it makes semantic sense

twitter.com/ossia/status/588389121053200385/photo/1

This chat room is good for rubber-ducking, sometimes :p

Literally just rubber ducked

I'm gonna buy one

I can buy 60 tiny rubber ducks for £4

Should I

@PearsonArtPhoto Yep :P

@ShaunWild Nah, keep your money for something that's worth it ;)

I'll just do it in this chat isntead then haha

Yep :P

Will make a rubber duck app, make millions.

Already exists

Proof of concept already exists. Making millions now guaranteed!

rubberduckdebugging.com/cyberduck

play.google.com/store/apps/…

Maybe I'll make it a bit more generic, not just limited to programming. Hmmm...

Could be a fun side project.

Maybe I could find 57 answers I downvoted and undo the dowvote to get 10k rep?

You can't change your vote after a period of time.

I downloaded unity last night! I have a little game concept to work on.

Oh my god I just my first ever starred message

I feel accepted

@doppelgreener Good luck!

Thank you!

Anything you want to share yet?

De nada

Nothing started, just some ideas. Stuff was downloading and installing overnight and now I am at work. But first thing I'm gonna make is a li'l voxel playground thingy, which is a completely 100% original concept donut steel

Have you much experience?

With unity

I also have an idea which I think will go viral if I can implement it well. Gonna probably take a year or so at this rate though...

@PearsonArtPhoto unless there has been an edit, I think.

Correct.

I don't know if Unity is the best way to do voxel stuff, but...

Well, in any case, good luck!

Is there a name for the point where you have wrote enough code in a game for it to be finally playable

@ShaunWild None whatsoever. I'm very comfortable with C#, but I have never used Unity. Will be doing some tutorials.

@doppelgreener you'll have no problem, that engine is a breeze

At least for me, everything just made sense

Sweet.

Especially fi you're familiar with mainstream concepts like components

I'm familiar, though was never sure how to lay them out exactly when creating a thing in XNA a few years ago

Who was it who said that you have a List of each component type

Cos that's such a good idea, I can't believe I never thought of that

@ShaunWild that is called the "first playable" milestone, sometimes. that sometimes marks the end of "pre-alpha" and the start of "alpha".

("sometimes" because how you mark your milestones is personal to each project)

Also sometimes called the Minimal Viable Product, but sometimes that means a point further down the path.

MVP is what I had stuck on my tongue, First Playable soudns more applicable fior game dev though

@ShaunWild Minimal Viable Product is generally something that you can sell.

Ooohh

Right, key word there being viable -- specifically, viable on the market.

Start -> First Playable (Alpha) -> MVP (Beta) -> Release (Release)

I might do that

That seems sensible

Typically you'll have a definition of "complete" and of "minimum viable" so that you understand what you need to progress towards, and so that you also understand what is wasting time or not

And depending on the nature of the game, it could never be 'complete'.

But you could have the next iteration complete.

MMOs work like that.

I'd like to make a game like that haha

Well as long as it the sales can sustain development, and development can sustain sales, go for it!

That's probably not worded correctly though... :P

@AlexandreVaillancourt Let's immoritlaize that

If development is sustaining your sales and sales are sustaining your development, keep developing!

Meh

Yeah, that!

> Code freeze is the stage when new code is no longer added to the game and only bugs are being corrected. Code freeze occurs three to four months before code release. -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development#Code_freeze

This is a strange and seemingly non-frozen definition of code freeze...

I don't like it :(

I would call it a feature freeze, but...

Ah, that's because they're talking about a feature freeze (no new features, only refinement/bugfix/etc) but calling it a code freeze.

@PearsonArtPhoto Yeah

Total code freeze in games is rare, and even rarer today.

To me code freeze has always been...

For me, most of my programming experience has been with systems not exposed to the public. A Code freeze means that I'm using my code for the intended purpose, and it needs to be a stable version.

Code stops, everything is being prepared for release, nobody can change anything even to try to fix things in case something breaks.

yay I had surprise work come up on me weeeeee finally did some stuff

We also use "feature freeze" for that..

@JohnHamilton Nice!

I hope some more stuff comes my way, I want my "trial period of 2 months" to be noticable by my superiors :D

Yeah; if you don't have anything to do, you can't show your value :P

How smart would it be to make your game free, or much cheaper at first release?

I want my game to be like £5 when it's up and running, but maybe like .99p at launch

That's not how it usually goes, you put it expensive at launch and have rebates once in a while.

But if it's cheap then it's likely to attract users

If I build a player base of 1000 people, then put the price up

Would be awesome

That's 4k that will not be in your pockets :P

Not neccesarily

consider that Minecraft only put their price up from $10 -> $20 or whatever it was once they hit a feature milestone, not once they hit a population milestone

Also, low price / free / PWYW is a marketing technique, not a sales technique.

Make the game fun so that people are willing to pay 5$ for it!

^

People might be afraid to try it though

@AlexandreVaillancourt yes this.

What will be the distribution platform?

Steam at first

@ShaunWild You can use itch.io to give people a limited amount of keys for a cheaper price, like how kickstarter stuff do with early bird discounts etc

You can have some features for free, and some features that will be available only to people who buy it...

@ShaunWild If I'm comfortable enough to try and purchase a game, whether it's 99p vs £5 makes no difference to me. (In fact, £5 is a bit more reassuring that the author thinks it has some value.) The difference of £4 isn't going to convince me to try it when I wouldn't otherwise.

Why would you sell for 99p on Steam anyway..?

that's an app store price. Go for £5+

Well that's why I asked you guys haha

Now I'll sell it for £25

I don't know if you can have a 'demo' version on Steam.. otherwise, you have to make your game fun and you have to market it right, I guess, so that it 'sells itself'..

Yeah don't do it (pricing really low on launch) on steam, but try to price it well

if you aim too high no one will buy

if you go too low your profits will be hurt

I like the itch.io idea

@AlexandreVaillancourt you definitely can have a demo version on steam and you definitely should if you're able to

@JohnHamilton Nice, I did not know!

A friend of mine at EA said demo versions don't increase sales.

Ye, maybe a free demo

he's pretty high up, so he has access to the data

although with all the refund systems, people don't care much for demos of low price games (10€ or lower for example)

With only one gamemode

@Almo What's the point, then?

EA doesn't do demos, do they?

EA has always had HUGE demos

that's the problem

they stopped at some point

people don't even download if it's a demo

since it's usually 30gb+ nowadays with AAA titles

we're in a specific segment of the population

@JohnHamilton Oh, right, that's one of the ways to go!

we love demos

you'd want data from a broader segment before deciding it's a good idea.

if it works so well, why don't more people do it?

I suspect even in markets where it makes sense, the impact isn't huge or you'd see more of them

since it's pretty easy for people to get their "demo experience" on youtube these days, it doesn't really make any difference

@Almo I'd wonder about the applicability of that data source to other developers.

more niche and obscure games which wouldn't have youtube coverage all that much, would benefit from demos tho

nicher and obscure games are often supported by small rabit communities. I'm still not convinced.

EA develops stuff like Mass Effect, and they're selling at an enormous scale. Everyone has already made up their minds whether they're buying the next ME or not well before it comes out, and many of the rest make up their mind by hearsay & videos on youtube.

@doppelgreener like I said, EA demos became huge and the last time I downloaded a demo from them was when it was a file like 5gb. I said never again, since it's a 30 min experience and you might have to wait 5-6 hrs for that

I had a free demo for Cognizer mainly because it was mobile, and I wanted to be able to point people to the demo without the hassle of them having to find it and open it on their phone.

I'm not convinced it's made much of a difference.

I didn't call it a demo though

it's just "The Web Version" or "The Free Version" when it was still a paid app.

locked content = demo

I know

I'll just message PewDiePie

these days EA is still making demos, just a different way

and he'll review it for me

cognizer web doesn't have "locked features"

calling it open betas and stuff

@ShaunWild If you're making a multiplayer game where you want people to bring their friends on, don't forget to provide something along the lines of a 2-copy or 4-copy package deal. I've picked up those packages frequently; I bought a 4-copy package for a game when it was on sale when I didn't know yet who I'd give the 3rd and 4th copies to.

it has "missing features" partially because I couldn't fit all the music into a 50 MB app on Kongregate.

Necropolis doesn't have a multi-pack which is disappointing :(

@doppelgreener Ye for definite.

@Almo you do realize Battlefield games sell as much as they do because they're doing "closed and open betas" right? Which are pretty much demos of the actual game.

I'm gonna make a sub reddit for it too

reddit.com/r/TankEngineer

all go subscribe

Or else

dunno my password, might join when I'm at home :p

send me a message on reddit @CrazyIvanTR

Sent

@JohnHamilton those are not demos

and i want proof that they sell "because" they're doing betas.

Here's your proof, 6 of my friends were going "I'm not going to buy the next one." and after they played the beta they went "OH MY GOD THIS WAS AMAZING! It was buggy as hell but IT WAS AMAZING" and they bought it. That's enough data for me.

This is for BF1.

anecdotal evidence

they made at least 6 sales they wouldn't otherwise make

we're talking about a game with hundreds of thousands of sales

6 is nothing

could be selection bias

6 is a lot in my friend circle

it's not proof

I have like 20

6 sales

£30

^ that

2 hours of decent pay

it's not nothing

it's nothing

1 pesron is worth .3h of time

you don't base marketing decisions on what "my 6 friends did"

I've spent about 40 consecutive hours so far I think

So I need about 160 sales so far

okay look, you're going on about how your "friend" is "high up" in the industry and how he "knows data we don't" then why not just ask him if they raise sales or not? you said demos don't increase sales and that's why EA is not doing them anymore, then it stands to reason that EA is still doing betas precisely because they increase sales, no?

Betas do A LOT more than increase sales.

Remember I work in the industry, too. Betas are for ironing out problems in the game before official release.

not EA betas from the evidence of the last 3 battlefield games

Demos suck, beta's f**k

depending on the development team's style, it might also be for getting feedback on the game itself to tune things better.

they didn't fix any bugs after the open beta

Like LoL's PBE test environment.

so the open beta is just a demo

You are assigning agency where you have no proof of it.

I'm talking about 1 week prior to release open betas

what are you going to fix in 1 week?

That can be to test server load issues.

then they would call is server stress test as they used to

If you get 100k users for the first time and the servers die under the load, you gotta fix that.

There are tons of different possible things they're looking for in betas.

they don't, they use vague terms like betas and alphas because people who have no experience can't tell the difference

That's incorrect.

Is it though?

yes

What's different a week after the so called "open beta" of BF1

come on, just tell me one bug they fixed

I've been working in the game industry since 2000, I've seen teams using "alpha" and "beta" in different ways. But they do not use them as "vague terms because nobody knows what they mean"

EA does that and uses it for marketing pretty well

Proof please.

I can't prove anything to you, I'm not an executive of EA... Be reasonable.

and then look at them at launch

the bugs are there, and there are no patch notes released in between those dates.

I'm saying I work with people in the industry and I have never heard of someone using the term "beta" as you say they do.

you can't call your game a beta if it's on its way to launch...

I agree with John

i agree with myself

@JohnHamilton They may have been testing content related stuff; I don't know the game, but they could be doing AB testing with stuff like bullet damage value, shield, tweaking maps, fixing major bugs..

but on topics unrelated to this conversation

you're looking into a black box from the outside and assigning intention and motivation where you have no proof of it

doppel stop this

ok sory

@AlexandreVaillancourt they could be but there's no way to know if they never release a patch note after the open beta

you are causing me a frighten

I have some view from the inside of the black box at other studios, and I've not seen what you're saying happens.

they do release patch notes between the closed betas

no fright pls

You will be

but not before the open beta or after

When you get blacklisted

From the Tank Engineer servers

oh no

noooooooooooo

nooooooooooooooo.com

@JohnHamilton Well they could be doing that, not telling stuff :P

nicememe.com

@AlexandreVaillancourt come on which dev wouldn't be proud of the tons of bugs they fixed and improvements they made (especially since they release patch notes prior to closed beta releases).

but suddenly, they're all silent before and after the open beta

they talk about how great their game is and how they're fixing ALL the bugs (which there are a TON of and it's impossible to fix all those in a week).

it's not surprising that they fail to fix bugs that were in the open beta, before the release, consistently.

I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas all around; I don't know the content of the patch notes before the beta, nor before the game was released, so I can't tell.

What actually is itch.io

Is it another platform

website where you can sell your games

also has discovery features for users

`Can I pay someone to just go through my game with me and redesign the entire ui from programmer art to something nice looking

@ShaunWild You can pay someone to do mostly anything you want :P You have to find the right person, and offer the right amount of money!

^

@ShaunWild You're looking for a user experience designer.

@JoshPetrie noice

A load of questions closed because of that.

Or 'thanks' to that, actually.

Oh fancy

@JoshPetrie I wrote the answer for the post we were both discussing in. I am not real good at making formatting look nice. Any suggestions? The post looks visually ugly to me. Probably just being picky. gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/141922/…

oh and thanks for approving the edits. I might've been slightly off the mark but at least now it's so... abusive with the terminology. Still not perfect but I suppose the question is a little unclear so whatever.

(I know the answer isn't quite complete but it takes a lot of code to get truly functional data structures in game maker. Conveniently, they chose the only one I haven't had a chance to completely implement over the years.)

Did one of you guys downvote the post?

Guys, anyone worked with IronPython before?

I'm pretty confused right now, the official webpage says, that the latest announcement is IronPython 2.7, but they released IronPython 3 on girhub

Did they stop upgrading the website?

@JoshPetrie you seemed invested in the post as a whole so I chose to update you on the progress in answering it and whatnot. Plus, I thought maybe you knew of a nicer way to format that many tiny code pieces. Some are only one line.

sorry if I misunderstood your intentions. :-)

ah ok

fair enough

thanks

@JoshPetrie is there a way to see a list of game maker related questions? Seems like data structure related things are asked a lot and that happens to be one of my... specialities. :-)

Also, it seems like a lot of the data structure questions have pretty much the same answer of "you need to write your own allocator or accept that the built in features are broken", but... I'm not entirely sure if that is fair to really give the same answer to that many questions. Some are specific things, but the heart of the issue is all the same: pointers are broken and one has to implement everything from scratch.

I just don't feel comfortable giving that many questions essentially a rewritten carbon copy of the same thing. :/

yeah but then how do we go about answering them?

do we close them as duplicates?

you miss the problem altogether

game maker has two bugs which make the built in functionality for data structures completely unusable. The only other option is to write an allocator

the questions aren't too broad though

some are asking "how do I make a grid of tiles" or something like that

fair enough

but then how do we answer the questions?

@JoshPetrie you don't do a lot of programming, do you?

fair enough, but you've never used game maker really have you?

imagine a language where pointers are broken

they shuffle periodically

...

I'm asking how to answer questions when the nature of the questions require them to have the same answer.

Should I post about this over on meta?

:p

@JoshPetrie the answer cannot stand on their own as in order to do what they require they have to write about 1000 lines of code... even though it's something as simple as a linked list.

or a tree or <insert data structure here>

that's why I'm asking if maybe we should close them or maybe start a room to maybe idk... get an idea of just how many questions are like this? Or maybe discuss how to handle this sort of thing on meta? I mean, the questions themselves at the surface aren't complex but the problem is that there is no known official or large resource for handling this issue. Only reason I have a workaround is because I absolutely refused to accept the broken built-in versions.

To be a bit clearer would asking about these questions be allowed on meta?

I mean, i believe you. It just means that the issue is a bit more complex than just "close and walk away"

fair enough. thanks.

Yeah, I definitely intend to.

And some are more subtle in that they need particular data structures but at the heart they all have the issue of needing "allocation" which isn't built into game maker or in any well-known library.

@JoshPetrie I'm trying to do 2 things, both of which are so small, making a python compiler and byte-code interpreter would take longer than those combined

I'm first trying to make a tool, that'll help me teach python, by essentially writing a wrapper for MonoGame

The other is a python based entity component system

@Tyyppi_77 I was primarily referring to the obvious inexperience with game maker. Ironically it is not at all useful to beginners. Variables are disabled in drag and drop unless you find a hidden setting. Pointer routinely shuffle. Data structures disappear from memory whenever you save or load. In a nutshell, one has to jump through a lot of hoops to get anything resembling a non-array list.

@JoshPetrie In case it wasn't clear, I was saying that the code I'd have to write to answer those questions would almost always be the same functions. I don't have a link I could send them to. Well... without making my own resource somewhere and then having to be concerned about the issues of advertisement and whatnot. Atm, I'm just concerned about answering the questions while limiting the bugs.

Because I hate PyGame, it's a strange mix between low and high level

And teaching C# to people, who presumably never programmed before would be overkill

i don't see why C# would be overkill and Python wouldn't be

they're both just programming languages

the hard part's learning the programming concepts at all

python and C# both rank as really good beginner languages for me

Because it's object oriented

Yes, python is OO too, but it's not necessary

Also, Python is higher level