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Post by steak on Jun 6, 2017 1:42:50 GMT
So, I've been spending all my free time (and money, it seems) working on attempting to make a game. I came into this with no experience in game creation (obviously), and I feel that I've gotten pretty good at level design, and running around in my level design. The issue that I keep coming back to, is that I have delusions of grandeur. I'm realizing that what I want to create is not very simple. I could very easily just throw a bunch of enemies into a beautiful map, and run around fighting them. But, in the end, what am I fighting them for? I'm a story junky, and I need to have story in a video game. I'm just having trouble figuring out how to get it in.
For instance, I have adventure creator, and while I understand that it is designed for making a non-fighting game, it seems like I should be able to join it together and make it work. I can get it to work with the invector controller, but that's about where that ends. I went through the tutorials for adventure creator, and understand how to build their tutorial levels. I would be able to use it to make my own game, but I would have to practically throw out all combat to do so. I just have no idea how to go about making the combat system of the invector controller function with anything else I'm intending to do. It seems that each time I try to implement something that could work, it breaks everything that I don't know how to fix, and end up restoring to a backup of my game. Each time I have to do that (which seems like every single night), I lose any progress I may have made into getting it working that night. And, then it takes like 30 minutes to restore to a backup.
So, now I'm in this conundrum where I can keep working on design, artwork, levels and maps, characters and animations (that I can't interact with, so they're just pretty things wandering around), and never really get into what I want to finally do with any of it.
Does anyone know of any forums where people want to discuss everything involved in making a game, or anything step by step that shows the details of anything? I'm not saying that here is bad, it's been great, and you guys are making some amazing things. But it feels like everyone has already figured out how to do their thing and just talk about improvements to the invector controller, and I just can't seem to get over that hump of doing anything out of the box. (and yes, I understand that these are the invector forums, so one should assume that it will be the invector controller that is discussed here.) There has to be something out there. I just feel that the tutorials that I find, show a single way of doing something. I was crazy excited when I saw the integration post for adventure creator, and ran out and bought it. Only to find that it really only uses the invector controller for locomotion only. (not to mention, the invector tutorials are all like 2 minutes long and blast through everything without showing the details. no offense intended. They just make me feel dumber for not understanding them.) I do these tutorials, and can grasp how to recreate them (including the 3 hour+ ones from adventure creator), but it doesn't help me to integrate any of them together. That's where I'm stuck... Being a one man team is a turd... I've got about 800 bucks of stuff bought from the asset stores, that I can't seem to get to play nice together. lol... I need a tutor :D I just need to understand how to integrate anything into this controller that will allow me to progress on something other than just level design. Even if it's just, "here's how you can interact with an NPC". That's all I need at this point. I just need something more than running into a dungeon and killing stuff. I just want an NPC to stop and go "Go in there and kill stuff", so I feel like I have a reason to go in there and kill stuff... ugh...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2017 2:45:10 GMT
I feel that same way, though I bought 3 things from asset store and Vstore, Invector on 2 assets and Forge on asset store, it would be great if they played together, I don't know how to integrate them, hopefully someday. But there are no tutorials on multiplayer integrations, am I hitting the nail on the mark? Or am I off topic?
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Post by uberwiggett on Jun 6, 2017 3:07:35 GMT
I've spent nearly all two decades making video games and I still can't code. But in your step by step guide, I'm intending on using shadex's magic system and tharindu's quest addons in a video series showing the step by step creation of a game using invector and the addons. Complete with story and end game conditions etc.
I haven't actually brought it up with them yet but I assume they'll be happy with it as it helps promote their addons too :P
Stick with it though, grandure isn't what's killing you, it's planning and time management. All the ideas I have when I'm at work are within reach of me even if I have to learn a bit, but my problem is not having a huge amount of time and when I do get computer time I spend it playing pubg because I am too tired to focus. I suggest you keep your grandure ideas, write them down somewherw like a text book, don't give them up even if you waste a week trying to figure out the scripts. Patience and perserverance will get you your game.
As for actual advice on building it, break parts down into achievable goals. I have 1600 items to create in the template, i have spent a night working on the icons, they are now all complete, so that is one job done. I've made two staves that shoot two different spells, they are done. I have like another 16 to go, but if I just focus on it bit by bit I will get there. One thing people are often surprised at is how much you can get done if you just sit there and do it, a lot of time is wasted trying to figure out better methods or trying to find shortcuts. I went from taking 15 minutes to get bed sheets folded with millimeter accuracy to under 3 minutes just by following the instructions.
Actually, you should try that, look online for some instructions on how to make your bed like a hotel or at very least hospital bed. Practice it for a week, try and get your timing down. After you're done, think about what you got stuck on and why you got stuck, were you being distracted because you were overthinking it? Were you sick of it and trying to find a shortcut?
I think after a week you might have better insight into how to pace yourself and build up your patience and confidence. Plus your bed will be made and it will feel great wheb you go to sleep later
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Post by uberwiggett on Jun 6, 2017 3:09:11 GMT
And also don't ever think "it can't be done", there are cleaners out there at hotels that can make a showroom ready bed in under 60 seconds!
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Post by steak on Jun 6, 2017 3:27:45 GMT
I think Uberwigget forgot he wasn't on the bed-making forums. ;)
But yes, I fully agree with you on not dumbing down the intent of what I'm trying to make. It sounds like I'm similar to you, in that I work all day, and then I come home and only have a limited amount of time to put towards this. I work all day, come home, run a few errands, get a little man into bed, and then I come downstairs and get back to working on Keeping Ever. My worry is, I'm spending all this time just creating maps, levels, animating characters, and making things look good. Then, it seems like each time I try to implement something to advance it to the next step, just importing a tool will break everything. For instance... last night I was just trying my damnedest to just get Adventure creator into my game. I was even fully planning on just getting it into the game, and then disabling every part of it... just so it would at least be in and ready for when I wanted to use it. But it just breaks everything. like, camera stuck in the floor... then I get that part fixed... now the camera won't rotate with the character... then if I get it to the point where I can mouse-over hotspots that I want to interact with characters or something... I just start punching, instead of selecting options. Everything I've tried to get it to do what I want it to do, just ends up breaking everything that I already had working, and then I'm back to reverting it all to a backup. Just frustrating.
At least if I come down here and keep working on level creation, I feel like I'm accomplishing something. Even if I am just only able to run around in it and fight a bunch of mobs. Looks beautiful, feels good, but isn't only what I'm going for... lol
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Post by shadex on Jun 6, 2017 8:28:53 GMT
First abandon all hope of using a giant mish mash of assets while expecting a highly unique, high quality game. It aint going to happen. When i started the game i am currently working on, i had gathered a quite a few assets. So i thought i would put UFPS with inventory Pro and Shooter AI. Seems like a pretty simple Item based FPS right? Well even though all 3 assets had integration, they never did actually integrate. The rule that has been working for me is if its an important system, or something relativly easy to code, do it myself, no matter how long it takes. I limit myself to 2-3 major systems max (TPC, an AI, and maybie a spawning system). Otherwise you spend all your time trying to get a few assets to actually work, instead of making the game. When i code stuff myself, i will integrate as little as humanly possible to any of these assets, because when they update, they break. The trick to making a game is the prototype. You want to make the most basic, barebones prototype you can that is fun to play. Get to that point as fast as you can. Once you have a fun prototype (for me it's just the melee system and my magic system) then starts the game making process of constantly thinking of new things to add, putting them in, and increasing that fun. It's what drives me the most right now to be honest. The other thing is your making a game. No reason it should be overwhelming, because you are in totally control. You are God, and if God says he doesn't want to add a new way to destroy a wall, who is the game to judge. For me the hardest thing was learning to build on the main system, instead of constantly creating levels, or messing with something i kept messing with. That way over time you have 1 big well tested system that works well together, and then the levels practicly build themselfs.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2017 11:20:39 GMT
shadex uberwiggett, I agree full heartedly, I think I put my game on to big of a scale, I tried focusing on multiplayer, but I couldn't really do much of that (with the asset I was using), instead of level creation (thought mechanics were important). And right now I'm literarily thinking how I could finish such a huge task. steak, if you take anything away with you from this thread, 1, do what uberwiggett shadex said about doing it in parts, and 2, don't make a large scale game quite yet, it might help a lot Thanks!
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Post by steak on Jun 6, 2017 13:23:07 GMT
Luckily, most of the money that I've spent on assets have been about 90 percent on design tools. So it's not like it goes to waste. They have all proven to be amazing for creating the world. The main thing that I see, is that while adventure creator is an incredibly robust tool, that's also it's downfall. It just does too much, and doesn't seem to be as modular as I would like.
In the end, I think I'm just going to go back to my original idea of getting the mechanics right, and cut-scenes for story elements. At least I know that will work. I just wanted it to feel a bit more alive, and provide more back-story/interactions/exploration/etc.
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Post by uberwiggett on Jun 6, 2017 14:25:04 GMT
Haha yeah the bed tangent seems a bit ofd but trust me it will work wonders. It's not about making you better at coding, it's about changing your perceptions and attitude. You look at the task and go "oh man I'm snowed under, it looks like such a massive task" but master the bed and you'll be like "oh man it's such a massive task, but if I stick at it, I'll achieve something."
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Post by shadex on Jun 6, 2017 18:35:36 GMT
Haha yeah the bed tangent seems a bit ofd but trust me it will work wonders. It's not about making you better at coding, it's about changing your perceptions and attitude. You look at the task and go "oh man I'm snowed under, it looks like such a massive task" but master the bed and you'll be like "oh man it's such a massive task, but if I stick at it, I'll achieve something." I couldn't agree more. The magic system was litterly the product of a change in that mentality. I was scared of coding, started coding, and though i'm still bad, i found that 90% of all code has an example on the internet, and there are usually 10 ways to do something. When you get passed that hump, it's a whole new game (pun intended).
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Post by shadex on Jun 6, 2017 18:46:21 GMT
Luckily, most of the money that I've spent on assets have been about 90 percent on design tools. So it's not like it goes to waste. They have all proven to be amazing for creating the world. The main thing that I see, is that while adventure creator is an incredibly robust tool, that's also it's downfall. It just does too much, and doesn't seem to be as modular as I would like. In the end, I think I'm just going to go back to my original idea of getting the mechanics right, and cut-scenes for story elements. At least I know that will work. I just wanted it to feel a bit more alive, and provide more back-story/interactions/exploration/etc. Honestly, making the game feel more "alive" isn't about coding or art, it's about sound effects and animations. For instance, record or get a sound recording of an enemy saying a few short words like "Die", "your mine" etc. Use the Sound by State in the animator and have it randomly shout out those words during some attacks. If you have random attacks setup, add a random attack where the enemy taunts the character (animation + sound). There is also a place for random idle animations as well. This will make the enemy feel more alive then any amount of coding. Remember the story of halo? They simple increased the health and damage of their enemy's, and the majority of people thought it was better AI. It's often the perception of alive that is important, so you only need a few noticeable things. Also one thing i gotta say about the story of your game.... Dialog and cutscenes are not the only way to tell a story. You can do a more effective job at telling the story through scenery then anything else. Say there is a room full of burned corpses, with some on wooden spikes, a ritual symbol on the ground and a devil like enemy. You know exactly what happened there. (witcher 3 werewolf cave) think of how many lines of dialog would you need to tell that story in cinematic form? Another way to look at it, is if you have a fullfilling combat system, and a situation where the player nearly dies, but gets the last strike in, defeating a hard enemy, that is the real story. Cause that player will repeat that story to his friends, if you ever heard someone describe something like that in a game, you know it sounds like they where in the fight.
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Post by tharindu on Jun 9, 2017 19:03:28 GMT
This is actually something I am really trying to address by building the quest system . A way for me to make my story and for someone to make theirs. Right now it works famously with Invector AI. My biggest worry is the time it's taking to release it. So much work :( The UI setup is heavily based on item manager's architecture, but even with that I had to go tooth and nail to modify it to get what I want and a lot more mods to make a functioning quets system. Look at the bloody source files . aaaaargh The programmer's approach My advise is not to waste time and money buying every asset out there. Buy what's necessary not every thing. The problem I see with nearly everyone is you buy 10 assets and expect a AAA game to pop out of them. That's not how it works. You'll need the 10 assets I am sure, but you'll also need to know the means to connect it, make things look visually appealing etc etc. For me personally it's about the learning and what you can gain out of it. Have smaller goals, try to get them each done but have the big picture in your head. If you're making your own game with no idea how to make one, I am sure this isn't your day job. So enjoy the ride, take it slow, enjoy the learning. Whatever people say, you really need to try to learn to do a bit of coding. It's really going to help. And there's a lot of resources out there. There's a bunch of Unity tutorials in Udemy done by a guy called Ben Tristem. If you're brand new to code, you really need to take that course. It's going for 10 bucks right now. Never buy a Udemy course for 200 bucks.
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