hi want to be friends
Yes?
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Ask @ZackBellGames
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How did you do the INK character animations?
I used a concept called numeric springing. You can read more about it, here: http://allenchou.net/2015/04/game-math-precise-control-over-numeric-springing/
With that, I use the springing on the top two corners of the character (in relation to the player velocity).
With that, I use the springing on the top two corners of the character (in relation to the player velocity).
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Cole Knapp
You said you need a business bank account (preferably LLC) to gain profits via Steam. Will a DBA bank account work too?
I would assume so? You can easily email a Valve employee and ask. All of the info is available on the Steamworks page(s). They have a Q&A for payment and tax info.
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Cole Knapp
Related users
I was always curious on your age and when you moved out (of parents place) to live independently.
I recently turned 24! Second part is a little tricky, when I was in the music industry (17-19ish), I was independent. When I started game stuff, I relied on my family in one way or another (rent and/or help here and there). I am independent again though; not quite sure how long it has been.
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Cole Knapp
Hey Zack! I'm still a little new to game creation, and constantly find myself restarting projects as I get better at coding, so my question is, is it better to finish a game knowing the code you write can be written better? Or do you take the time to rework code etc. Leaving some games unfinished.
It depends on your goals. If gamedev is what pays the bills, finish your games. Use an engine, write working code > clean code, and ship the thing. You will quickly find your adequate clean->efficient code tolerance. Some people can't stand ugly/hacky code and some people don't think it matters for small (<8 month projects). I tend to agree with that.
If your goal is learning, do whatever shows the most progress in terms of "how many things am I capable of making/maintaining".
If your goal is learning, do whatever shows the most progress in terms of "how many things am I capable of making/maintaining".
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Cole Knapp
What kind of music, if any, do you like listening to while programming?
I think I've had this question before. I used to listen to game soundtracks because I would prefer anything without lyrics (Mechanarium, Fez, Shovel Knight, and Undertale are staples). Often I listen to progressive rock/metal without lyrics (Buckethead, Animals As Leaders, etc). Lately though, I've just been putting on a Top Charts Pop playlist and not really paying much attention to it, haha.
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Dont Stop
Cole Knapp
[GM:S] In a RPG when implementing NOT action combat in overworld, but turn-based or DDR thingy minigame combat etc. would you recommend to pause the game and draw/create all the battle screen stuff on top, or make rooms persistent and have a separate room for battles to warp to and back again?
I would definitely deactivate all objects in the overworld, spawn the encounter objects, clean up, and reactivate the overworld. That is what I am doing with Fara.
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Cole Knapp
Gonçalo Henriques
If you had to choose a ('normal') job other than gamedev, what would it be?
This one is easy! I was a professional drummer before gamedev. I'd return to that in a heartbeat.
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Cole Knapp
I saw your twitter post about Fara create code and I'm wondering what are those _components[ ] I'm seeing for the first time? And why do you initialize scripts like spell collisions and animation ends there? How are those components used? I've been using GM for a while but all of this is new to me.
The components are my weird GM adaption of component-based design (rather than using a hierarchy with a lot of inheritance trees). Every frame, the Entity Parent object iterates through an array of components and updates variables pertaining to them if the object has those elements set to true. If they are false, those variables are never initialized.
In short, it lets me just set component[FRICTION] to true, rather than having to remember that objects that use friction need friction, frictionDefault, frictionWhileInjured, frictionWhileDying, etc, etc. Hopefully that makes sense!
The same goes for the scripts for the most part! The Entity Parent Step Event will say something like:
if (_scrWalk != SCRIPT_NULL) execute_script(_scrWalk);
Almost all enemies call a default walk script that tells them how to wander aimlessly and pathfind towards the player when necessary.
In short, it lets me just set component[FRICTION] to true, rather than having to remember that objects that use friction need friction, frictionDefault, frictionWhileInjured, frictionWhileDying, etc, etc. Hopefully that makes sense!
The same goes for the scripts for the most part! The Entity Parent Step Event will say something like:
if (_scrWalk != SCRIPT_NULL) execute_script(_scrWalk);
Almost all enemies call a default walk script that tells them how to wander aimlessly and pathfind towards the player when necessary.
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James
Are there any legal action required when establishing your game's title? And is an LLC 100% required to start selling a game? Thanks
You don't HAVE to take any legal action for protecting your game. By declaring that you're working on a game, sharing it publicly, etc, you are essentially doing the same thing as claiming the IP. As for LLC stuff, you just need a company bank account of some kind (doesn't have to be LLC, though that is simplest) to operate on Steam. They will not pay out to personal bank accounts.
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Cole Knapp
James
Albatross Soup
How do you handle fps drops in Game Maker? I want the room_speed to be 60, but I don't like the idea of the game running in slow motion on low end hardware. Do you just set the room_speed to something lower (like 30) or do you do something else?
I always lock at 30fps. I don't care for the crowd who complains about it. I play and enjoy my games (and other peoples' games) at 30 without being bothered in the slightest.
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James
I'm trying to make my 2d player look good when he moves, without animating him. By that I mean like slightly stretching and squishing his sprite up and down as he moves. What do you think would be best way of doing it? Skewing? y and xscale? But how? Do you have any source to look at?
It depends on the sprite/style. Check out the early build(s) of Kerfuffle for some examples. You can rotate the player slightly in the direction they're moving (or skew in a similar manner). Springing the x/y scale is always good for impacts (jumping, landing, etc).
I don't have any source lying around, but I always recommend the Numeric Springing articles by Allen Chou of Naughty Dog.
I don't have any source lying around, but I always recommend the Numeric Springing articles by Allen Chou of Naughty Dog.
Lets say 1,000 unique people viewed your game (through any media platform). What would be the usual conversion rate into sales? And what would be that 'ideal' impression to sale %?
Steam for example, promises something like ~1,000,000 views during your launch window feature page whatever thing (that sentence got sloppy, fast). During that period, some games (AAA, for example) can reach 50K units, while smaller, lesser known indie games could have only a few dozen sales. A metric like this would be pretty silly. It would be wrong to just aim for the median there.
Views aside, my tiny goal for INK was 5K units (total). I had no idea what to expect. I think INK ended up doubling that number within the first week of sales (yay).
Probably not the answer that you were looking for, but it's all I've got, at the moment. Look at some of the more complex Steam Spy metrics if you're curious.
Views aside, my tiny goal for INK was 5K units (total). I had no idea what to expect. I think INK ended up doubling that number within the first week of sales (yay).
Probably not the answer that you were looking for, but it's all I've got, at the moment. Look at some of the more complex Steam Spy metrics if you're curious.
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Cole Knapp
Which animals scare you most? Why?
Definitely a Polgato. It's literally a giant jellyfish with a cat head. You can find it in the second area of Fara & The Eye of Darkness.
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Cole Knapp
Do you have a favorite knock knock joke? Tell it!
*knock knock*
who's there?
question of the day
question of the day who?!
ask.fm's question of the day is a fucking annoying notification
who's there?
question of the day
question of the day who?!
ask.fm's question of the day is a fucking annoying notification
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Cole Knapp
James
Ryuzac
Hi! Do u will public again free ink project in yoyo market? I would like know how it works internally and some things about it. And don't worry, i never copy code or projects.
Email me.
What is Fara about? Is there a new special mechanic? I find that if I come up with a short story that I want to build a game out of, it's difficult and I begin to hate the idea because maybe one of my mechanics may be the same/similar. What's your take on similaritys like this in games?
Fara is about the relationships between the members of a large, demon family. It is fairly deep, but purposely left open to the player to fill in quite a few gaps. As for "special mechanic", there isn't much that's completely new or fresh. For the most part, I just put a few concepts together that I hadn't seen in the same place before, and then organically things tend to twist and change a bit.
I have never wanted to create a project that was story first. Maybe that's your problem? INK was all mechanics. Fara was, too. Our next game is, too. The game is almost always playable prior to any of us even mentioning a plot or a character.
As for similarities, that is unavoidable. For the most part, we're all using the same source material (other games). If you want your games to be more unique, absorb other mediums (go outside, have hobbies outside of games, etc).
I have never wanted to create a project that was story first. Maybe that's your problem? INK was all mechanics. Fara was, too. Our next game is, too. The game is almost always playable prior to any of us even mentioning a plot or a character.
As for similarities, that is unavoidable. For the most part, we're all using the same source material (other games). If you want your games to be more unique, absorb other mediums (go outside, have hobbies outside of games, etc).
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James
Somehow it didn't occur to me to mess around with bm_subtract. XD I guess you can ignore the first half of that last question, though I am curious if you know of a way to do the opposite and make a sprite start invisible and then reveal parts of it.
I suppose the trick here is that you aren't actually going to be starting with something invisible and revealing it. You're going to be drawing the whole sprite and deciding which parts to hide.
I'd start by looking at how I made INK work, if you haven't. Email me? You're likely going to need an extended blend mode. In INK, I use draw_set_blend_mode(7, 6). I always forget the names of those two constants (7, 6). In short, it will only draw color to a pixel that already contains color (with a visible alpha channel). If you were to draw a circle (then swap blend modes), then draw an overlapping circle, it would only draw the overlapping portion of the second circle.
Let me know if I need to make an example, myself.
I'd start by looking at how I made INK work, if you haven't. Email me? You're likely going to need an extended blend mode. In INK, I use draw_set_blend_mode(7, 6). I always forget the names of those two constants (7, 6). In short, it will only draw color to a pixel that already contains color (with a visible alpha channel). If you were to draw a circle (then swap blend modes), then draw an overlapping circle, it would only draw the overlapping portion of the second circle.
Let me know if I need to make an example, myself.
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Ryuzac
And another one, roughly how did you split up the three months you spent working on INK? What parts took the most time? Programming, level design, polish, marketing...? Really enjoying playing INK by the way, it's a great game!
I would say that only five weeks or so were actually spent working on INK. Twelve weeks was just the complete time frame from concept to Steam launch.
In three weeks I had released INK onto itch.io. To me, the game was complete at that point. After a week or so of downloads/interest, enough people convinced me to put INK up on Steam Greenlight. I didn't work on INK much during this period (17 days until Greenlit, I believe). At this point it had been roughly six and a half weeks. From there I worked part time (probably less than twenty hours a week) for about a month. That left me two weeks for Steam setup (store page, banking, tax stuff, etc) and marketing.
The programming portion took me a day or less. The game was fully functional within four hours of concept. The only code added after that point was Steam integration and boss AI. I'd say the biggest time sinks were the Steam-specific stuff and my inconsistent vision. I wasn't sure if the game needed "more". I tried multiplayer, open-world gameplay, and a few other additions before scrapping most of them.
In three weeks I had released INK onto itch.io. To me, the game was complete at that point. After a week or so of downloads/interest, enough people convinced me to put INK up on Steam Greenlight. I didn't work on INK much during this period (17 days until Greenlit, I believe). At this point it had been roughly six and a half weeks. From there I worked part time (probably less than twenty hours a week) for about a month. That left me two weeks for Steam setup (store page, banking, tax stuff, etc) and marketing.
The programming portion took me a day or less. The game was fully functional within four hours of concept. The only code added after that point was Steam integration and boss AI. I'd say the biggest time sinks were the Steam-specific stuff and my inconsistent vision. I wasn't sure if the game needed "more". I tried multiplayer, open-world gameplay, and a few other additions before scrapping most of them.
Do you have any tips on level design? More specifically the level design in INK and how you progress the levels' difficulty and teach new mechanics?
Hmm, there are a few questions in there. With INK, I started with VERY simple tutorial levels. The idea is to introduce ONE mechanic at a time. Seriously, just ONE.
1) Move
2) Jump
3) Double Jump
4) Wall Jump
Boom, done. That covers all of the game's core mechanics. As for level design in general, I tend to follow a lot of the "rules" that Edmund McMillen uses (or seems to use). The idea is similar to the tutorial: introduce a single idea at a time. I'll try to break this down into bullet points...
1) Introduce ONE idea at a time (spikes).
2) Remove distractions when introducing ideas (no moving platforms while introducing spikes)
3) Use that idea in multiple ways (spikes on floor, walls, and/or ceiling).
4) Combine new idea with old idea(s) (spike-covered moving platforms).
That's the general flow of things. Also remember that level length is a decent variable to play with. Where in the process above would you try a simple spike level that is a bit longer? I usually decrease level length as I combine mechanics. The spike/platform level would be super short. Then I would try it again, but longer (but maybe "easier", technically).
I also like revisiting levels and adding new mechanics to them. A wall jump corridor can be revisited later if you add homing turrets to the walls.
1) Move
2) Jump
3) Double Jump
4) Wall Jump
Boom, done. That covers all of the game's core mechanics. As for level design in general, I tend to follow a lot of the "rules" that Edmund McMillen uses (or seems to use). The idea is similar to the tutorial: introduce a single idea at a time. I'll try to break this down into bullet points...
1) Introduce ONE idea at a time (spikes).
2) Remove distractions when introducing ideas (no moving platforms while introducing spikes)
3) Use that idea in multiple ways (spikes on floor, walls, and/or ceiling).
4) Combine new idea with old idea(s) (spike-covered moving platforms).
That's the general flow of things. Also remember that level length is a decent variable to play with. Where in the process above would you try a simple spike level that is a bit longer? I usually decrease level length as I combine mechanics. The spike/platform level would be super short. Then I would try it again, but longer (but maybe "easier", technically).
I also like revisiting levels and adding new mechanics to them. A wall jump corridor can be revisited later if you add homing turrets to the walls.
What's the absolute best vacation you can imagine?
Hyrule Kingdom with Spaceboy Games and our boy, Link.
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James
What's the process for releasing a Game Maker game on Steam? Do you have to have the Steam version of GM to do it?
There is no Steam-specific export module for GMS. Once you get Greenlit (or have another resource for getting Steam approval), you should download the Steam API. There is a tab in the GMS settings for linking to the Steam API. From there you'll have access to Steam-specific features like pulling leader board data or sending achievement status updates.
You really just export to your desire platforms (PC, Mac, and/or Linux) and upload that/those build(s) to Steam, yourself.
You really just export to your desire platforms (PC, Mac, and/or Linux) and upload that/those build(s) to Steam, yourself.
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Marcelo Gonçalves
Ryuzac
Justin McDaniel
Where can I find people, who will join on my journey to the game development heaven? :)
Some people would say that independent game development is suicide. Assuming you don't mean that heaven, I met my entire team via Twitter. Make cool stuff and people will notice. There's no magic sauce.
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MisterTtocS
James
Zack, do you have any ideas for a future game after Fara, similar to how you had the idea for Fara while working on Ink?
Yes! Our new studio, Spaceboy Games, has 3-4 projects lined up after Fara. We don't necessarily have an order yet, but we certainly know what's next!
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James
Hey zack! So what do you recommend to someone who only code on gamemaker to improve the coding abilities and not be an "architech" coder? :)
The answer for a question like this will always be determined by your goals. I'll give you an answer that I would have given my former self.
Let's say that your goals are to use Game Maker commercially, make 2D games, and expand the amount of polish and effects that you have available on your Game Maker tool belt.
If you don't know your programming basics, then start there. You can't do anything fancy unless you have a solid understanding of conditional statements, loops, variables, scope, and some math knowledge (trigonometry, mostly). You should also be comfortable with arrays and some other introductory data structures.
From there, I would start building a game. But this time, I would be very picky and almost over-the-top with the mechanics that I'd like to include. If it's cool, put it on your to-do list. When you don't know how to do something: GOOGLE IT AND/OR ASK FOR HELP. That is the secret sauce. Really, that's it. The key is not getting overwhelmed and throwing in the towel. If you think shaders are cool, read about them. Download all of the examples and ACTUALLY STUDY THE CODE. I can't tell you how many times a person has purchased an asset pack from me and then emailed me asking the simplest question that was answered with common sense and/or was mentioned in comments within the code.
In my case, I had several big hurdles that I surpassed over time that had heavy impact on the way that my projects look/work:
1) Expanding my knowledge of trig. lengthdir_x/y() will be everywhere. This should be your simplest task. This was hard for me when I started and now I am calculating grenade trajectories in 3D space.
2) Surface manipulation. By default, Game Maker draws sprites to the application_surface. Learn when and why you'd want to draw things elsewhere. Hint: Persistent effects, tile (non-object) destruction/manipulation, and full-screen shaders.
3) Blend modes. By default, Game Maker draws sprites using bm_normal. Mess with the others and see what kind of results you can find. Combine this with surface manipulation and you can create lighting, shadows, and much more.
4) Shaders. By default, Game Maker draws sprites using a Pass -Through shader. If you open a new shader file, it will create a Pass-Through as a default template. Change some values and see what happens. With shaders you can warp the screen with ripples and shockwaves. You can also manipulate colors with grayscale or palette swaps.
Let's say that your goals are to use Game Maker commercially, make 2D games, and expand the amount of polish and effects that you have available on your Game Maker tool belt.
If you don't know your programming basics, then start there. You can't do anything fancy unless you have a solid understanding of conditional statements, loops, variables, scope, and some math knowledge (trigonometry, mostly). You should also be comfortable with arrays and some other introductory data structures.
From there, I would start building a game. But this time, I would be very picky and almost over-the-top with the mechanics that I'd like to include. If it's cool, put it on your to-do list. When you don't know how to do something: GOOGLE IT AND/OR ASK FOR HELP. That is the secret sauce. Really, that's it. The key is not getting overwhelmed and throwing in the towel. If you think shaders are cool, read about them. Download all of the examples and ACTUALLY STUDY THE CODE. I can't tell you how many times a person has purchased an asset pack from me and then emailed me asking the simplest question that was answered with common sense and/or was mentioned in comments within the code.
In my case, I had several big hurdles that I surpassed over time that had heavy impact on the way that my projects look/work:
1) Expanding my knowledge of trig. lengthdir_x/y() will be everywhere. This should be your simplest task. This was hard for me when I started and now I am calculating grenade trajectories in 3D space.
2) Surface manipulation. By default, Game Maker draws sprites to the application_surface. Learn when and why you'd want to draw things elsewhere. Hint: Persistent effects, tile (non-object) destruction/manipulation, and full-screen shaders.
3) Blend modes. By default, Game Maker draws sprites using bm_normal. Mess with the others and see what kind of results you can find. Combine this with surface manipulation and you can create lighting, shadows, and much more.
4) Shaders. By default, Game Maker draws sprites using a Pass -Through shader. If you open a new shader file, it will create a Pass-Through as a default template. Change some values and see what happens. With shaders you can warp the screen with ripples and shockwaves. You can also manipulate colors with grayscale or palette swaps.
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Marcelo Gonçalves
Chris
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