I've never made games professionally before, but I want to start, and I'm not entirely sure if I meet the hardware requirements for the games I want to make. I have a ryzen 5 5600g CPU and an rx 6600. I know I'm ok in the GPU department, but the 5600g is roughly at the same performance level as the ryzen 5 3600. I've tried asking people in more hardware oriented subreddits, but they just benchmark games there, and I wanted results on specifically the game development side of things, with people that have experience in this. So for making a 2D side scroller parkour and combat-oriented game in either unity or godot, will a CPU with a ryzen 5 3600 level of performance be adequate?

I was doing some market research for my next game and came upon those two games:

• Vojo: price: 0.99$, released in march 2022, currently has 237 reviews.

• SIZIF: price: 0.99$, released in july 2023, currently has 13 reviews.

Both games are endless runners with a minimalistic style, they have the same features, are both the dev’s first game, have good reviews, and have very little coverage on youtube and other social medias.

So why do you think one has almost 20 times more reviews than the other? I am genuinely curious because it doesn’t really make any sense to me…

Hello yall, do artists make sprite tiles and make a map, or make one big map and import it ? I want to makena pixel art top down game and don't really know how to make the levels/rooms.

I love spending time on games but I can’t profit from them.

Actually, due to circumstances under my power I have challenge with making profit overall from my game development. So I just have to live in frugal kind of lifestyle. How do you cope with being indie poor?

You probably have seen those ads where the player's character shoots at enemies and objects on a 2D road. The player deliberately makes incorrect choices to entice you to play the game, but the ad is fake and the game is a pay-to-play base-building a la Clash of Clans.

So what are those ads? If I were to guess, they are games thrown together in 15 minutes in a game engine like Unity just to make the ad. Would I be correct?

Those of you that have been making music for their games on their own, how did you start? Did you study or emulate music you liked, or did you go straight to making your own tracks?

How do people usually go about getting the art done for indie projects when the art style is very particular? What I'm working on I have a very specific vision for, however I'm not made of money and I can't fork over cash to get every card drawn for even the proof of concept early test version, much less the whole game if it ever does take off.

Is this just a skill issue thing where I need to just get good enough to do it myself or are there intuitive ways to get around this issue?

Get ready to cringe cause im sure ain't nothin all that new;

So I was watching a playthrough of a game, Zomboid I believe? It looks interesting and I'm trying to figure out how to somewhat recreate pieces of it, mainly the 3d on 2d aspect!

Im currently assuming Unity will be my best bet.

My main question is what the difference is between using a 2D background/assets to 3D I'm assuming less strain overall?

Need some help picking the best UI inventory style. The game is a survival crafting game but not a horror or cute game. For me the UI is absolutely the hardest part to do.

https://ibb.co/HFM6v3z

I am a starting VFX creator and I’ve learnt most VFX tools in an engine and can use them pretty well. But I have a problem that my VFX usually has too much stuff, to little, to messy or to bright in which cases I have to usually redo the whole thing. Anyone has any resources/advice/guides on theoretical part of VFX creation?

Is there any free game engine even publishing game on steam is free and not want money from you?

Can you suggest any Love2D alternatives that rely on precise framerate rather than dt (i.e., where you can control the framerate and where instead of specifying speeds in pixels/second multiplied by dt you set a specific framerate and then specify speeds in pixels/frame)?

One engine that comes to mind is GameMaker (you set the desired framerate in settings, and there is no dt), but it doesn't work for me for other reasons: relies too much on UI rather than code, plus the built-in scripting language is way too lacking.

I use 2D game engines for creating animations, hence I need precise control over framerate (because it will be converted to gif animations). Not to mention that about 20-25 frames per second is optimal for my purposes, I don't need to run it on 60+ frames only to skip every other frame when converting to animation frames). Furthermore, I occasionally do some precise scientific animations, and those floating numbers that result from dt are just blowing my mind.

When I say "Love2D alternative", I mean an engine that heavily relies on code rather than UI, and has roughly the same overall logic (create-update-draw functions at the core, etc: for example, I tried Corona engine before, the logic was just too different and suboptimal for my purposes).

P.S. Yes, I'm aware that you can control framerate in Love2D through some makeshift methods, but it's probably just a bad convention to use an engine that's built around running on uncontrolled framerate for such purposes. If there exists an alternative that does what I need out of the box, why not use it?

Hello fellow game devs! I wanted to ask you a question about documentation. I think most of us are using the classics ones (Game Design Document & One page)

But I'm eager to know if you are using other documents like Game Concept Document, Technical Design Document, Game Feel Document, Wireframe, etc...)

From the solo indie dev to the big studio I'm curious to hear every point of view 😁

The keyboard is yours!

Hello, I was wondering what most of you would do as a solodeveloper when it comes to social media.

As an artist on twitter for example, I gain good following for personal artsy posts. Here on reddid I didn't post gamedev stuff or engaged only in gamedev. I do post in warhammer subs etc. And was wondering if I should create a separate acc only for gamedev/my indie game.

Any advice?

So as I wander aimlessly through the marketing wasteland, I find advice such as in the title, that I should find what my product (game) is solving for my audience, tell my customers about that solution and they will flock with interest to my product (game). But I can't help but think that games aren't solving any ones problems. Is there something I am missing about that kind of marketing? Does it not apply to games? or should I use my imagination and pretend like I'm solving some ones problem. Escape your girlfriends chatter for an hour...play my game. Good but not unique to my game. Solve this puzzle and feel a sense of accomplishment? Correct but actually useless. Immerse yourself into a tropical paradise? Nice relaxing but won't get much interest. Seems like whichever game you choose would be the same problem being solved...waste some time and join my distraction, play my game. That solves every ones problems. What am I missing here?

There are games that are obviously must play for any gamer, but particularly for video game devs, what are some games that should be played to gain a deeper understanding of video game development?

Goes into some really interesting detail on how they designed the jump for Psychonauts 2. Critical to get this right early on as level design is worked around it. They used a multi-phase jump arc that could be customized at each point.

https://www.doublefine.com/news/devin-article-raz-jump

I know there's entry level and internships but sometimes I wish you could just work under a game developer and just...assist.

Lots of people talk about how a degree in Design/Game design isn't completely necessary, though some sort of education is for sure. Not all colleges will teach you exactly what you need so in the end, so you'll have to learn most of the stuff on your own eventually.

I've never been the best in the structure of school systems but I learned that I do things best hands-on. I wish game studios had the time, energy, and ability to take on apprentices to learn the ways on the go.

Maybe this is just the newbie/inexperienced dreamer in me, but I think that would be really cool. It's less responsibility (in the sense of being thrown in the deep end) and more personal feedback/learning.

im making an engine right now (purely for fun, not to release a game) and i was wondering how it was for other people. what are some of the pros / cons? what were some challenges? how did you architect it? do you regret it?

im super interested to know!

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I'm developing a multiplayer game which the players have a 4 slot inventory. Somethings like the HP i keep just in the client side. The question is: should i keep the inventory in the client side as well or use it in server side?

I'm using blender and Godot. I was planning on having multiple different models that are the same shape, so they would have the same animations. But if I upload two different models with the same armature names will the names change? Will it effect coding?

My question for now is "can/should I name the bones the same thing" because I don't want to tediously rename 30 bones for each model. Also applies to meshes, materials​ etc, but I'm mostly wondering about the bones.

I am curious if any of the game devs here have looked at working in corporations and enterprises working on their applications and experiences for consumers and employees. Things like immersive training, virtual collaboration, metaverse type stuff?

And which game was it

Hello everyone,

I've been diving a little deeper into the architectural side of game dev as of late and I wanted to see what you think about the subject and my findings.

A little bit of context about me: I'm a mobile developer and I work on game dev as a hobby, mostly in short game jams. I just finished a prototype for a Metroidvania I'm working on and I want to turn it into a full project.

I'm looking at how to structure it as a larger project, here is what I'm leaning towards:

• PlayerState and GameState as Scriptable Objects so they can be read from multiple systems (UI, Sound, Enemies, GameManager)
• Thinking about using a DI or a ServiceLocator to provide these SOs - This is helpful for enemies created a runtime
• For the Unity Input System wrap it to have the key mappings centralized and remove some of Unity boilerplate - Helps with accidentally typing the wrong control name and makes it easier to replace if needed.
• Focus on composition for the Player character - PlayerMovement, PlayerAnimator, PlayerWeapons
• Inheritance for the enemies base class - Mostly a State Machine handler and player proximity detection

I'm wrapping my head about these and would love some insight:

• With composition for the PlayerCharacter I might need to reference the InputSystem in multiple places which feels wrong, too many dependencies on a single class.
• I have no idea how to properly handle sound, I usually centralize my sound in a SoundManager for mixing and controlling the number of sounds but I don't know if this works for larger projects.

I mostly want to structure it to avoid pitfalls when it comes to Sound, Animation, UI and Saving progress.

PlantUML with PlayerController:

https://imgur.com/a/eDOPtqV

.@startuml[Input Wrapper] --* [Unity Input System][PlayerController] ..> [Input Wrapper][PlayerController] --* [PlayerMovement][PlayerController] --* [PlayerWeapons][PlayerController] --* [PlayerJetpack][PlayerController] --* [PlayerAnimator][PlayerController] --> [PlayerState][PlayerJetpack] --* [Jetpack State][PlayerWeapons] --* [WeaponState][Enemies] ..> [PlayerState][Enemies] ..> [GameState][Enemies] --* [EnemyBase][Enemies] --* [EnemyAnimations][UI] ..> [PlayerState][UI] ..> [GameState][GameManager] ..> [Input Wrapper][GameManager] ..> [PlayerState][GameManager] --> [GameState]@enduml

PlayerUML with PlayerComposition:

https://imgur.com/a/ybua8tX

.@startuml[Input Wrapper] --* [Unity Input System][PlayerJetpack] --* [Jetpack State][PlayerJetpack] --> [PlayerAnimator][PlayerJetpack] ..> [Input Wrapper][PlayerWeapons] --* [WeaponState][PlayerWeapons] --> [PlayerState][PlayerWeapons] --> [PlayerAnimator][PlayerWeapons] ..> [Input Wrapper][PlayerMovement] --> [PlayerAnimator][PlayerMovement] ..> [Input Wrapper][PlayerMovement] --> [PlayerState][Enemies] ..> [PlayerState][Enemies] ..> [GameState][Enemies] --* [EnemyBase][Enemies] --* [EnemyAnimations][UI] ..> [PlayerState][UI] ..> [GameState][GameManager] ..> [Input Wrapper][GameManager] ..> [PlayerState][GameManager] --> [GameState]@enduml

Thank you

Hello, I’m building an online game using React Native. I have communication between players set up but the way it’s done can be confusing and may not be the right choice going forward. Right now I have React Native components like Player that connect to an instance of the player class. If the component is updated the component calls a function inside the player instance saying to broadcast an event. If an event is heard it looks for the player instance that sent out the broadcast, with the instance we call an update component function. I could probably take out the middle man class and directly have communication between events and components but mixing components and logic like that could be confusing too. There probably a handful of other ways to approach this, which way do you think is more scale able?

This is obviously super suggestive, but do others struggle with creating good UI compared to well executed gameplay mechanics and level design? Not sure if I just don’t have an eye for it but creating good UI is always a struggle. Any UI masters in this community, please share some useful tips if possible.

https://www.2dcon.net/what-to-do/independent-developers/

Minnesota's largest gaming event is accepting applications for indie developers. It's a great place to playtest and refine games, market finished games, grow your following, and network with other indies and professionals. Your game can also win awards like "Game of the Show" and be featured on the 2D Con website. Video games and tabletop games at any stage of development are welcome!

The deadline to apply is May 31st, and the convention takes place from August 23rd - 25th, 2023. We can only accept a limited number of applicants, so please put your best foot forward! The date you submit your application does not affect your chances of being selected. Alternatively, board games can also participate in our free Protospiel Playtest Area with any convention attendee badge!

Benefits
1,000’s of attendees to play your game
2 minute video of your game shown on the main stage
1 custom event for your game included in the main 2D Con schedule
Various panels to improve your game development skills and knowledge
Full access to the convention (boardgames, videogames, arcade games, events, etc)

FAQ

Q: What does it cost?
A: For $125 you get a 6ft x 8ft booth to present your game as well as a registration to the convention overall (Usually $55 each), or for $200 you get a 8ft x 12ft booth and 2 registrations.

Q: What is covered by the booth cost?
A: The booth cost provides dedicated table space and access to the entire convention for the duration of the weekend. You also have the option to sell products and merchandise from your table.

Q: What is provided?
A: Access to electricity and power strips, internet, tables and chairs will be provided.

Q: What do you need to bring?
A: Any technology / equipment that you need. ie. computers, monitors, controllers, etc.

Q: Can I leave my equipment at the venue overnight?
A: Yes. The Indie Island room will be locked at night and will be monitored at all times during the day. The Tabletop Terrace room does not lock, but will be closed off from attendees.

Q: How do I apply?
A: Use the form at https://2dcon.net/what-to-do/independent-developers/indie-dev-application/. We'll need to know a bit about you, your game, and any branding or social media links you'd like us to use.