#gamedev blog

[dreamyfreakout]

i made this movable/physics-y cage ball thing in this image by building it in tiles, and then using a greenscreen background and then i touched up the screenshot and removed the bg in clip studio and reimported it in the game (a collider wouldn't work on it originally, it was like overloading the game lol)

[applefablegames]

Returning to this blog as a record of my progress for a new game practice. It will be called Book Enchanter. in short, a young book mage and her cat spirit travels around places. I started to write the concept story this November for the Nanoreno challenge.

So far; more progress on my game story concept writing! Next I'll also be exploring pixel art designs and movement

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

With the end of season two comes a second redraw!

[Nov 2022] [June 2023] [June 2024]

[devsgames]

I'm sorry but for people who cheer on mass game industry layoffs because they think it's some kind of upheaval that is going to "topple the AAA industry" or "teach them a lesson": I hate to break it to you but AAA studios have a metric shitload of money and despite what their press releases say, they really aren't hurting as much as they'd have you think right now. Thousands of jobs lost is a temporary setback to them; if it was actually a last resort move they wouldn't have all simultaneously put themselves in a position where they had to do it in the first place. These studios have been around for decades and will continue to be around, and they will continue to operate just as they have for the last thirty years because they have huge vaults and no morals. They aren't learning a lesson from this because most of them saw it coming but would never admit that.

Know who is being permanently impacted by games layoffs?

It's the indie studio making sick ass games you'll never get to play because they laid everyone off when a publisher tried to save money by pulling all their funding. The hundreds of workers who woke up one morning and found out they suddenly have no job to put food on the table for their children. The international workers who were let go from the job that supplies their visa that helps them stay in the country. The thousands of students who now have to compete over a pool of a dozen job openings, who will work in studios where all the senior staff and leadership who would normally be there to help mentor them into their roles were fired. The disabled workers who now no longer have health or insurance coverage for their survival. The workers who didn't get laid off but survived to see all their friends and coworkers lose their livelihoods for completely arbitrary reasons and whose morale has all but been completely obliterated. The workers in the Global South working for outsourcing companies who were relying on cancelled projects from AAA studios to put food on their tables.

So whenever you're inclined to assume that the suffering of workers is somehow teaching rich people a lesson, remember that no, it doesn't actually and almost never will. All it does is teach thousands of talented workers in the video game industry that games were never - and will never - be worth it.

[akabaka-dev]

Aka has been noodling on concept characters for SFL 3

Meet Nan'si and Yan'si, the Twin Blasphemers🕯👯‍♂️🕯

Based on Nug and Yeb, the spawn of Shub and Yog-sogoth and parent(s) of Cthulu

"As for little Nug and Yeb (only ten feet in diameter when in their average form), they are a bit destructive sometimes, though it's only a playful, good-natured roughness. I like to have the little fellows about (even though they sometimes do dissolve visitors and passersby, and cause occasional troublesome enquiries), for they are basically very friendly and companionable"

- HP Lovecraft

[necroticspider]

Hi everyone. I've just created this page. Here are some screenshots from the game i am making in Godot.

Wishlist Dungeons of Blood and Dream on Steam

[kcamberart]

A random assortment of major characters from my current project! Can't show off everyone because spoilers, but you'll see them when you see them.

[obligatory demo link here]

[toucansafari]

just binged all of blooming panic and drew my faves, nakedtoaster and xyx (is it any surprise that i like the pink megane?)

last doodle also features npcs from my own games

[darren-douglas]

Little Astro Bot looked a whole lot different in the beginning!

I just added more early Astro concept art to my website https://darrendouglasart.com/

[gothbingarbage]

Welcome, purveyors of the Goth.

We are Goth Bin Garbage, and we're about to unveil a glimpse into the abyssal world we've been conjuring over these past few months.

Prepare to enter a realm of shadows and intrigue with our upcoming point-and-click adventure, featuring the Gothic cast from @chemicalsushiart's haunting series, Freakshow 13. Dive into the horrible and mundane existence of Liraz Blackpool as she navigates through haunting locations and grapples with enigmatic puzzles that she doesn't want to do.

Our dumpster of creators, including @orbitaldot, @shoppncart, and @vitimesthree, have been slaving away at the arts to bring this vision to life. Care to tread this unholy path with us? Follow us on the path to the dreadful day this trash releases... We'll meet you in the abyss, if you dare. ⚰️🌑

[magic-yard-of-pidrav]

[Fading Runes] The second pre-prototype of my game is finished.

Fading Runes is a strategic and creativity-based tower defense game, influenced by roguelites!

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

The game will make you struggle into solving a huge crysis in a world shaped by the magic of the runes. Please consider to follow if you like roguelite, towerdefense, and creativity centered games; there are a lot of runes to be drawn!

(dev. notes: this preprototype was aimed to create and test a machine learning model to correctly guess the rune drawn by the players, it can still be improved since it has an accuracy of 97.3%, but probably I could expand the training set as the game gains some funding!) = (translated to not Dev: this preprototype is smarter then an half-blind 🪨 at guessing runes, but still is not good as a 3 years old 👶)

[twoconfusedgamedevs]

I've been feeling super un-motivated to make pixel art recently, but here's some 10-minute twinkling star art -M

[glugslove]

since adding area of effect spells i now need to add unique logic for if two areas overlap

Here an area with FIRE and an area with ICE combine to create the WATER effect where they overlap

[agatedragongames]

Shuriken trail particles

[devsgames]

HOT GAMEDEVS DON'T GATEKEEP

Inspired by this post by @midwinterhunt, here's a compilation of all the game dev resources I have come across, most of which I use fairly frequently. Most of these are free, some are paid but fairly cheap. Feel free to add your own resources. ✌���

Important reminder: When using basically any works or programs someone else created in your games, make sure you thoroughly understand the licenses and terms it has been shared with. If you don't know what the terms are, reach out to the resource and ask. Don't be lazy about this; it's not only dishonest but it can come back to bite you.

Engines

Unity - Best suited for mobile and multi-platform.

Unreal - Tailored for shooters and high-fidelity experiences.

PICO-8 - Virtual console for simple games

Godot - Open source and free!

GameMaker - Good for 2D games

Bitsy - Great little engine for making simple games and experiences

Construct - Never used but have heard nice things

Scratch - If you've never coded before, this is the best place to start. Great for young devs and those who want to get their feet wet.

Adventure Game Studio - Best suited for adventure games

RPG Maker - Best suited for top-down classic JRPG style games

Twine - Text-centric games like Interactive Fiction

Assets

OpenGameArt - Many assets, various licenses, and plenty of CC0 content.

Unity Store - For Unity only. Some free.

Unreal Store - For Unreal only. Some free.

Godot Asset Library

Jean Moreno's Toon Effects - Some of the best effects available on the Unity store. Unity only but I've used them in basically every project.

Steamworks.net C# Wrapper For Unity - Unity only C# wrapper for integrating Steam compatibility to your game

Itch.io - Plenty of free art assets and game dev resources

Kenney - Kenney makes tons of open-source assets for devs to use.

Art

Mixamo - Generates rigs for your humanoid models and lets you apply a library of free humanoid animations to them. Super helpful for prototyping. Adobe.

Blender - Free, open source and fully featured 3D program.

XNormal - Free offline normal map generator

Normal Map Online - Free online normal map generator

Crocotile - Cheap tool for building 3D models from sprite sheets

MagicaVoxel - Free voxel modelling tool

Piskel - Free online sprite drawing tool

Aesprite - Paid sprite drawing tool

TurboSquid - Not always great quality, but can be good source of free placeholders.

Textures.com - Limited texture downloads per day but free for personal use.

Pexels - Free stock photo resource. Most are free for commercial use. Check licenses.

Clipstudio - Good for illustration or graphic design. One time payment.

GIMP - Image editing program a-la Photoshop. Free.

Audio

Audacity - Free and fully-featured DAW/audio editor.

sfx.me - Free 8-bit synth-style sound effect generator for games.

CastingCallClub - Easy forum to find amateur voice talent for your project (p.s.: you should pay them).

FreeSound.org - Free sounds, searchable by license. A go-to for my audio needs.

Incompetech - Royalty-free music by Kevin McLeod.

Scott Buckley Music - Royalty free with conditions. Generally more on the cinematic side of things but very good stuff!

SoundCloud - 'Search -> By Track -> Filter: Use Commercially' leads to songs posted with allowance of commercial use. Always reach out to the artist to understand their terms and confirm that it's okay to use with your project.

Project Planning

Keymailer - Handy for mailing keys to influencers (don't expect a lot of traction unless you're paying for some of the features though).

Trello - Kanban board. Great for organizing tasks, managing bugs, etc. Free.

Notion - Private text and wiki page editor. Good for project organization, note taking, and fleshing out ideas. Free.

Obsidian - Alternative to Notion, with similar features.

Miro - Free whiteboard for organizing thoughts, images, brainstorming, etc.

Wave - Free Bookkeeping site. Great for keeping finances organized.

[akabaka-dev]

Chromatose is kicking up 👀 Red Arc is done, and now in beta for KS backers and backerkit patrons ^_^

As soon as I can find a minute b/w my day job and other stuff, I'm going to do a meet the characters series :)

If you liked the writing and characters of Sucker for Love, you'll love Chromatose ❤️ if you liked SfL for the sexy monsters, it's just sexy ppl 💁‍♂️💁‍♂️ sorry, monster fuckers- it's only heartbreak and redemption in this tale

Wishlist here! Check out the demo!