/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

Looks good m8, especially the shadows/filter. The music sounds nice too.

>>17930

Don't suppose you've got a midi of that track?

Everything is so bright it almost seems like the whole lighting system is pointless.

>>17959

I still have much tweaking to do on the light.

I'll probably tone down the ambient light and torch light intensities a little bit, but I don't want to keep the normal light level too dark.

But still, there are going to be stage modifiers, and a couple of them make the stage darker.

One will take down the ambient light almost to zero, and the other one will do the same AND unlit all the torches as well.

>>17954

I'm the anon OP mentioned was doing the music. I made it in Famitracker, a program used to create 8bit music.

The song you hear there is placeholder and I'm working on a final ruins theme that will be more metroid-like.

If you really want a file of the music, I can post a .wav somewhere.

>>17995

A midi is better because then I could actually look at the note placement and shit.

>>17996

Unfortunately famitracker doesn't export to midi. I can post a link to the .ftm, which you can open in famitracker yourself if you want.

>>17929

Cool looking game anon.

But why isn't the protagonist a cute girl?

>>17999

Because the protagonist is still using placeholder art.

But it still won't be a cute girl.

>>17997

Well I'm awful at using Famitracker.

I found this VST though, and it seems to work well (I've never fiddled with VST instrument settings before, but I figured it out quickly enough)

http://www.mattmontag.com/projects-page/nintendo-vst

Anyways, the chip looks like it relies on you setting up a good sounding instrument. Are you able to easily share what sorts of configurations you did with those ITT? I don't really know what I'm doing here and also sorry for hijacking the thread but whatever, free bumps~

>>18003

So instruments in famitracker are determined by the person who makes the song.

At around the 26 second mark of the OP's webm the song switches gears. I basically made a similar melody but with a different instrument.

The new instrument starts in full volume but quickly decays, giving a piano-like effect. To highlight this, I also made each note quickly switch from a 25% pulse to a 50% pulse, resulting in the string pluck effect you hear.

>>18131

I'm not quite sure randomization in levels is good anymore because it never makes interesting levels to play, rather than making the levels manually.

>>18132

For randomization to work, there has to be potential for interplay between the various elements of the level. It works better with 4X or TBT games because large parts of the level are relevant at any particular time. On the other end of the spectrum is stuff like BOI where only one random generated element (the type of room you're currently in) is relevant at a time, and the randomization is basically pointless.

>>18134

I had the idea of doing large handmade levels but randomly connected to each other for a long time. However, I still don't know if this helps for replayability. Wouldn't just a big non randomized well made map be better than anything? If you randomly connect big sets of pieces maybe you have to alter every set to work well when connected, therefore no originality.

>>18132

>>18134

>>18138

Been thinking about this myself. Random/procedural levels are like an empty satisfaction: sounds good, popular buzzword, makes it sound highly replayable, but the environments are never as engaging as they would be with some planning. As a player you feel like you're forever searching hoping to find something interesting but it never appears because it can't. Need some way to, once in a while, have something rare be awaiting you.

>>18143

I was thinking about this for months but I couldn't come up with a good solution that make randomly generated levels an incredible experience. If someone has good examples of games that make randomly generated levels an actual great experience I am interested.

>>18138

>I had the idea of doing large handmade levels but randomly connected to each other for a long time. However, I still don't know if this helps for replayability.

I don't think it would. Each level would play out the same every time you went through it, no matter what came before or after. The only unpredictable parts would be at the seams between them.

Basically, for random generation to mean something, you'd need to have several random generated segments on screen at any given time. One thing to keep in mind is you can randomize more than just the layout, e.g. they types of monsters you'd encounter, or environmental effects like fog/darkness/flooding. That could force the player to come up with a new tactics even though the layout remains the same.

>>18145

>they types of monsters you'd encounter, or environmental effects like fog/darkness/flooding

I know, but the thing is, you wouldn't know if it's fun or not because you didn't test that out yet. This is what's interesting, that in a hand made world you can test everything, how the actual player will feel when he plays the game, but with random generation you get different situations with untested fun.

>>18168

>You have game that has infinite gameplay! You will never get bored thanks to the world being entirely different and lively each time you play, buy it now!

I think the best thing is a handmade campaign with a procedural mode as another option.

I agree with the idea that proc-generated is only relevant with multiple elements on the screen, like that Maze of Fortune game - anybody head of that? I think its being develeloped by a fellow 8channer -is supposed to be.

OP Here.

As I told you, levels will have variations, but it's not entirely random.

Think of it like that, I make a level with a fixed, non-random base layout. Then, I place a bunch of traps (many more than a normal balanced level would usually have), and the same for enemy spawners.

Then, the randomizer comes in place. From all those like, 30 different traps and objects I set for the level, it randomizes a different combination of 10 to 15 objects, for example. Same thing for enemies, except in a more controlled manner so harder enemies don't show up too often too soon in the game.

Then, it randomizes an environment effect or modifier (or none). You could have a dark room, a room with twice as many traps than average, a room where monsters deal double the damage, or have twice the health, or drop twice the treasure, etc. etc.

If I have enough time and resources, even the tileset could be randomized, so the level looks entirely different (even if it plays the same).

As you see, levels are still gonna be hand-made, not procedural. But they are still gonna have so many random elements included into them, you will never play the same game twice, and you'll always need to pay attention to your surroundings, because even when in a room that is familiar it can still surprise you.

It's cool seeing JasonEm's little guy running around in a game. I always liked that sprite.

>>18180

This shit made me get cloudberry kingdom.

that game is bretty fun

>>17929

How did you make this?

>>18220

Looking pretty neat there

>>18220

Looks neat but I would recommend turning down the intensity of some of the shadows. They kind of look weird at parts, especially the rotating cube platform thing.

>>20739

Meaning "What engine and programming language did you use?" please respond.

>>21444

Or library for that matter

>>18220

Looks pretty polished, but there is something about the physics that bugs me. Movement isn't force-based, right? The player doesn't seem to have any inertia at all and can change direction without any delay, but at the same time I can't help but feel jumps feel floaty.

How does the game play if you add more gravity and jump strength? Or how does it play if you add inertia?