Tygrak's recent activity

  1. Comment on The man in room 117 – Andrey Shevelyov would rather live on the street than take antipsychotic medication. Should it be his decision to make? in ~health.mental

    Tygrak
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I feel like you are finding things there that they didnt write. They mainly wrote that they want public spaces to be safe for them and their children. They are talking about violent/destructive...

    I feel like you are finding things there that they didnt write. They mainly wrote that they want public spaces to be safe for them and their children. They are talking about violent/destructive people, which I am sure they dont think all mentally ill people are.

    14 votes
  2. Comment on Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (January 2024) in ~health.mental

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    Hey friend, I finished my studies quite recently and also had (more minor) problems with this extreme self punishing procrastination. You know, you passed aĺl the other exams before so you...

    Hey friend, I finished my studies quite recently and also had (more minor) problems with this extreme self punishing procrastination. You know, you passed aĺl the other exams before so you definitely aren’t unable to do it right? I get that now it has built up into a huge thing it’s hard, but in the end you just spend some time dŕilling, learning and its done forever. But I understand that its hard to just consider it to not be a big thing now. I have some things that I should do that I’ve been putting off for years and its now extremely hard to do them, just because how long I spent anxiously thinking about them.

    I believe in you, please at least give it a try!

    1 vote
  3. Comment on If you came into a lot of money, what would be the indulgent thing you would buy? in ~talk

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    Oh harps are so cool. I would probably buy a harp too if I had a ton of money! I don't currently have a harp, cause I'd be scared of how bad I'd be at it if I bought it considering how expensive...

    Oh harps are so cool. I would probably buy a harp too if I had a ton of money! I don't currently have a harp, cause I'd be scared of how bad I'd be at it if I bought it considering how expensive it is (I also don't really have room for it), I instead have a bad very cheap Chinese made 16-string lyre, which is still a very fun instrument, but most likely not anywhere close to how cool a harp would be.

    And of course I'd also hire a really good teacher that would actually force me to properly learn it. Actually I might hire a teacher for guitar too, I am fully self learned so I am sure that I could learn a lot if I had someone who'd teach me properly. For example, it would be nice to finally learn to read music notation (for harp it would probably be necessary).

    1 vote
  4. Comment on Do you ever "self filter" before making a post or comment and what is it based on? in ~talk

    Tygrak
    Link
    I definitely do. Especially on a website where I have an account which could be reasonably found by people I know in real life (like this one). I often start typing something out and then if I...

    I definitely do. Especially on a website where I have an account which could be reasonably found by people I know in real life (like this one). I often start typing something out and then if I realize it's too much in any way I rather not post it. I am not even really scared of someone using something I said 10 years ago as dirt on me (though that is also a part), I just don't want some of my coworkers or whoever knows which username I use online to find me posting some "cringe". It might just be me being dumb though.

  5. Comment on Steam Winter Sale 2023: Hidden gems in ~games

    Tygrak
    Link
    Omori -- I'd say this is my favorite (j)RPG game I ever played. It was released almost exactly 3 years ago and I still think it's a masterpiece. It's not really that niche nowadays, but still not...

    Omori -- I'd say this is my favorite (j)RPG game I ever played. It was released almost exactly 3 years ago and I still think it's a masterpiece. It's not really that niche nowadays, but still not as known as for example Undertale, which I'd say is also the most direct comparison. I won't say anything about it, it's best to know as little as possible about it, so if you like these kinds of RPGs definitely go play it!

    5 votes
  6. Comment on T minus Zero, or releasing a game on Steam in ~games

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    Oooh! Thanks for the report! That is strange, I'll take a look if I can figure out a way to automatically disable the right joystick on steam deck. I have an idea what could be causing it, when I...

    Oooh! Thanks for the report! That is strange, I'll take a look if I can figure out a way to automatically disable the right joystick on steam deck. I have an idea what could be causing it, when I was implementing the controller support I made it work with both joysticks since they aren't used for anything else anyway... but they both seem to work at full power there. I am not really sure how that would make it average it out on Steam Deck, so maybe it's something else though.

    3 votes
  7. Comment on T minus Zero, or releasing a game on Steam in ~games

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    When reading all the paperwork somewhere in there I saw that the payments for the sales get sent with a minimum of some amount -- I think it was 100 dollars(?), so to actually get any money I'll...

    What is the minimum threshold by the way? How does that work?

    When reading all the paperwork somewhere in there I saw that the payments for the sales get sent with a minimum of some amount -- I think it was 100 dollars(?), so to actually get any money I'll have to earn more than that. But I am now not fully sure where it is now, so I am not fully sure about the specifics.

    2 votes
  8. Comment on T minus Zero, or releasing a game on Steam in ~games

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    Hi! It's great to see more indie game devs here :). My Steam store page has been public for a bit over a week before release. I didn't really promote it or even talk about it anywhere, so I didn't...

    Hi! It's great to see more indie game devs here :).

    When did you create the steam page in relation to when you released the game? I’ve heard that it is important to create the steam page early in order to get as many wish lists as possible.

    My Steam store page has been public for a bit over a week before release. I didn't really promote it or even talk about it anywhere, so I didn't even get any wishlists before release AFAIK.

    How have you been marketing your game?

    Before launch I did basically nothing, I guess you could count me posting about my game for Timasomo, talking about it with my friends and on some Discord servers as marketing, but it wasn't really meant to be marketing. Today, after release I started sending codes for the game to some Youtubers/streamers who play roguelites that I know, I am trying to mainly choose people that like similar games to mine. I also sent out the game to 26 Steam curators, through Steam Connect (a thingy on Steamworks that allows you to send keys directly to curators), again trying to find ones that enjoy roguelites and indie games -- currently 2 seem to have accepted the code. I also tried to post about the game on the Godot Discord and on the Ludum Dare site (as it's originally a LD game). I'll be trying to spend more of today finding more Youtubers and other "influencers" who might be a good fit.

    Posting about the game on r/Godot is a good idea! I should do that too!

    How did you determine your price point?

    This is a pretty good, but hard question which I don't really have a good answer to. I felt like my game isn't that visually "impressive" compared to even other Indie games, it is also only ~3 months of work. I tried to look around at other indie games for inspiration. One of my overall inspirations for the game was "SNKRX", which the solo developer created in 1 month, and is sold for 3 dollars on Steam, and was a big success I'd say (has 4000 reviews on steam), so I somehow tried to make the pricing similar. I hope it's easier for people to decide to try out a small indie game by a no name developer if it costs just 5 dollars.

    Another thing to consider is regional pricing. Steam has some automatic regional pricing built in (basically the price is changed for people who are in other countries/use different currencies than the USD), that I left turned on. So for example in Russia the price is the equivalent of 2 dollars instead of 5 dollars. I think this could have some problems, but in the end I mostly just want people to play the game and I am not really expecting to make any real money from it, so I think it's a good choice to leave it enabled. Otherwise I also would also have to keep checking the prices in other currencies every once in a while to make sure the prices don't get too strange due to currency exchange rates.

    How did you determine required specs?

    I tried playing the game on the worst machines I could find, and it ran on all of them. There's a field where you can put additional comments, so I wrote there that I found the game to work on every modern machine, including on a 5+ year old notebook with only a integrated graphics card. I found that the renderer that I am using in Godot (compatibility) requires OpenGL 3.3, so I wrote that the game requires a GPU that supports minimum OpenGL 3.3. I left the recommended specs empty and filled in only the minimum specs as I saw many other indie games to do it the same way.

    How are sales going? So far I’ve made -$160 on my game so I’m curious how I compare to other indie devs.

    Currently I sold 4 copies which is the equivalent of 20 dollars (not counting the Steam fees, also to actually get any money I will have to sell enough to get under the minimum threshold :D).

    When your store page is up feel free to ping me with it, I'll definitely wishlist it!

    5 votes
  9. T minus Zero, or releasing a game on Steam

    Well, a few minutes ago I finally pushed the button, the game is released. So I wanted to write a short write up of some things that I had to do to release the game. I won't really talk about...

    Well, a few minutes ago I finally pushed the button, the game is released. So I wanted to write a short write up of some things that I had to do to release the game. I won't really talk about making the game itself too much, more about the part of actually releasing the game, if you are interested in more of that you can see my posts from Timasomo (1, 2, 3, 4, showcase).

    Steam

    I have already created many games in the past, I've been making games for more than 5 years, but always as a hobbyist. So I never experienced releasing a game on a platform like Steam. I have to say working with Steam and Steamworks is very pleasant and streamlined, but it is still much more complex than for example releasing a game on itch.io, which is what I did before for all my other games. I'll try to summarize how the process looks like.

    First, before you can even get on Steam, you have to register, fill out a ton of paperwork, wait some time for it to be manually approved. Afterwards, you have to pay the 100 dollars for Steam Direct. At this point you finally get a Steam app id, which you can use to start integrating Steam features into your game. For example, having achievements, Steam cloud integration (so the saves get synced between devices), leaderboards and potentially more, especially if you are making a multiplayer game. To make my game I am using Godot, and I found a C# library called Facepunch.Steamworks which made this all quite easy, I'd definitely recommend it if you are using Unity or Godot with C# and want to release your game on Steam.

    Before releasing a game on Steam you also have to finish everything on a gigantic checklist, including things like: uploading 10 various header, capsule and other images which are used on the store page and Steam library. An icon for the game. What are the minimum requirements required to run the game, whether the game has adult content, whether it supports controllers, how much the game will cost, screenshots, a trailer, there are just so many things to do! And when you complete parts of this checklist you have to have your game go through manual reviews. Each review could take about 3 days to get done. I failed one review first so I had to resubmit it too and wait again. Let me tell you, if you plan to release a game on Steam, reserve at least a month to do it, and start going through the reviews as soon as possible -- actually I think there even is a minimum of a month before you can release the game from the day you get an app id.

    Trailer

    Creating a good trailer is super hard. I am not a video creator/editor at all, but luckily I at least own a solid program for creating videos -- Vegas 14 pro, that I got for super cheap in some Humble bundle about 8 or something years ago, so I at least had a good start there. I ended up with not that complex of a project and Vegas still kept crashing when rendering, so I am not sure if I'd recommend it though.

    The hardest thing for a trailer is deciding what to put in it for me. I know that a trailer should be super short, should showcase how the gameplay looks, what are the features and so on, but when I got to actually making it, it was still super hard to decide what to put there. How do I even start? I watched a ton of other indie game trailers to get some inspiration and that also didn't help that much. There are some trailers which are really just gameplay, some trailers which are actually just incredible with editing I could never do as a pleb... So I started with something that I know a bit more. I created a very short music track, and decided that I will just edit the trailer to fit the music.

    The music track basically splits the trailer into 4/5 very short sections:

    • Basic gameplay, how the game looks when you start playing it
    • Explaining the roguelite part of the game, selecting spells and items
    • More complex gameplay, how some combinations of spells and items can look later in a run
    • List of features
    • Special bonus ending section showing a "Legendary" spell, which should show how insane spells can get, followed by the logo of the game

    I think the trailer ended up being not too bad, but I still had some feedback that it isn't flashy enough. And it's true, but I am not really sure how to improve it easily. When watching the Vampire Survivors trailer for example I can see that they did a much better job: it's so much more dynamic, the music really pumps you up, it's overall better edited, it has cool transitions, camera movement and so on.

    End

    Releasing a game on Steam was a great experience. I learned so much! I basically made this game over weekends and evenings, since I also have a job. To try maintain my productivity I tried to do at least some work on the game every single day. I have to say that towards the end I started losing some steam (haha), some days scrambling to do at least something late in the evening before I went to sleep. But, if at least someone plays the game I think I want to keep updating it more, I still do really like the game!

    Thanks for reading! Feel free to ask me anything about the game, or the game dev process, or about anything basically haha.

    Here's the Steam store page, the game costs 5 dollars, I'd love it if you checked it out. If you want to play the game but can't afford it PM me and I'll send you a key for the game (at least once I get the keys I requested -- did you know that Steam has to approve the creation of keys manually? Edit: the keys are now ready)
    https://store.steampowered.com/app/2682910/The_Spellswapper/

    45 votes
  10. Comment on Timasomo 2023: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    Thank you for the nice words, kfwyre! It means a lot! And great to hear it works on Linux!

    Thank you for the nice words, kfwyre! It means a lot!

    And great to hear it works on Linux!

    3 votes
  11. Comment on Timasomo 2023: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    Nice job! I tried the game and it worked starting from the .bat file. I managed to win, but it actually wasn't that easy for me :D -- it took me a gargantuan 735 weeks to do it. It was pretty cool...

    Nice job! I tried the game and it worked starting from the .bat file. I managed to win, but it actually wasn't that easy for me :D -- it took me a gargantuan 735 weeks to do it. It was pretty cool having to balance everything at the same time!

    The screen flickering between every redraw wasn't a big deal but it still would have been nice to not have it happen -- usually it is enough to just move the console cursor to the start of the screen so that doesn't happen, might be an easy fix, but I never worked in Haxe so I can't be sure! How is working with Haxe, by the way? The radical crossplatformness sounds really nice to me!

    Great job making the game overall!

    (tiny thing, the link to the video is not working currently. I also somehow had the amount of grain I had overflow into the negatives once, not sure how that happen but, after a few weeks I had -2 million grain or something like that :D)

    4 votes
  12. Comment on Timasomo 2023: The Showcase in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link
    The Spellswapper A roguelite game -- it's a bit like a tower defense game, but you are the single tower. or like Vampire Survivors, but instead of only moving and not shooting, you only shoot and...
    • Exemplary

    The Spellswapper

    A roguelite game -- it's a bit like a tower defense game, but you are the single tower. or like Vampire Survivors, but instead of only moving and not shooting, you only shoot and don't move.

    You can play the game on itch.io (use the password timasomo), or you can watch a video of some gameplay I recorded today on Youtube.

    I first started making the game in the last Ludum Dare a bit over a month ago. Afterwards thanks to Timasomo I worked on the game for the whole duration, making at least some progress every single day! I am super happy with how productive I was on the game.

    The itch.io version here is most likely the last version I'll put up for a while now, at least until I have a demo on Steam (if I'll do that). I'll probably also take down the itch.io page in about a week, just so I don't have to worry about mainlining that page.

    I secretly hoped I'd fully finish the game by the end of the Timasomo and have it up on Steam. Sadly, it's not fully done, but I did manage to go through the process of becoming a Steam partner and I do have the game running on Steam now! So I am fully invested in releasing this thing for real! Working with Steam is pretty cool -- I spent a solid part of this last week integrating my game with it. I never did stuff with Steamworks by myself before and I learned a lot already, even if the game flops I think this is some very valuable experience that I can put on my CV. I even have some achievements setup for the game already! It feels cool to have achievements from my own game on my steam account haha.

    All in all, I am just very happy with what I managed to do. And as always, I'd like to thank @kfwyre for running Timasomo -- participating really helped push me to do all of this!

    17 votes
  13. Comment on Timasomo 2023: Final Updates in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link
    First, before I begin, here's a link to the current version of the game: itch.io link -- to access the page you might need to use the password timasomo. (If you play the game please let me know...

    First, before I begin, here's a link to the current version of the game: itch.io link -- to access the page you might need to use the password timasomo. (If you play the game please let me know what you think! anything that confused you, that you liked, or disliked -- all feedback is useful!) This time I did manage to record a video of gameplay, so if you'd just like to see how the game looks you can see a full run in this Youtube video.


    The last full week of Timasomo! I had another nice week, at the start of the week I was still a bit sick, and also I was at work a bit longer than the usual week, but I still feel like I did a lot.

    Most of the stuff I can think of now that I worked on this week, was a lot of quality of life features that were necessary to do at some point. I added some stuff based on the feedback from @TemulentTeatotaler (thank you!) -- optional damage numbers (togglable in the settings), spell indicators while auto casting (also togglable in the settings), new enemies that encourage the player to prioritize them -- one that shields enemies, and another that speeds up enemies. Also, I added saves, so you can now quit your run while playing it and continue it later -- I was putting it off, because I felt the runs are not that long (taking only ~20 minutes), but it's definitely a thing that should be in the game so I am happy I did it. Oh, and you can now access the settings during gameplay, also a pretty necessary feature that I didn't have before. And of course I added more content -- I added a new character, also added some uniqueness to the characters by making them have some small buffs, added some more items, and a spell (or spells, not sure). I really need to do more balancing too, for that I'll have to try recruit some of my friends to play the game, because my perception of the games difficulty is now extremely biased after playing the game so much.

    I think my productivity did drop since the first week, but not catastrophically. Out of interest I took at the amounts of git commits I made: the first week was 34 commits, the second week 27 commits, the third week 24 commits, and this week so far 17 commits. Of course the number of commits isn't exactly proportional to the amount of work, but I think it's safe to say I am at least somewhat running out of steam.

    Speaking of steam -- that's the main thing I really want to decide now. Do I push and release the game before the end of the next week? Or do I just keep working on the game. I think there hopefully aren't that many things that I'd need to do to release the game on Steam, I took a very short look and I would need to compile Godot from source, but I think I would be able to manage that quite quick, and afterward I would just need to setup the Steam store page and stuff like that. The main question is whether I want to get more content and polish in. As an example that's relevant to Steam -- I'd definitely like to have some achievements for the game, which I would have to setup. I am still deciding, but I think it's likely that I won't have the game released and done by next week.

    7 votes
  14. Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 3 Updates in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    I actually already fixed the ascensions slider always having 10 notches even if you didn't unlock the ascensions yet -- yeah that was confusing haha.

    I actually already fixed the ascensions slider always having 10 notches even if you didn't unlock the ascensions yet -- yeah that was confusing haha.

    2 votes
  15. Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 3 Updates in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    Thanks for playing and for the great feedback, really really appreciate it! QOL Definitely should be an option, agreed! That's a good idea, I'll have to think about how I can do that Yep, that's a...

    Thanks for playing and for the great feedback, really really appreciate it!

    QOL

    Floating damage numbers

    Definitely should be an option, agreed!

    When you select a spell you could give a preview, something like moving the dialogue to the right and spawning a targeted dummy enemy auto targeted on the side.

    That's a good idea, I'll have to think about how I can do that

    An option to have the manual guiding line shown during auto targetting (if applicable)

    Yep, that's a good idea, I'll add always showing that as an option when auto casting is on.

    Select an enemy to target it, using its location instead of the cursor.

    I don't want the game to completely play itself so I think I am not adding this, I want the player to feel like they are still doing something. Not that there's anything wrong with autobattlers, I do love them.

    Gameplay

    The difficulty always felt really low? Maybe an option to "Rush" waves or otherwise accelerate them?
    Saw the "Ascension" but not sure what adds to it, if not getting past 20.

    The ascensions are based on the ascensions in Slay the spire -- they are basically modifiers that make the run harder -- stuff like variant spells are rarer, enemies have more health, enemies spawn quicker, etc -- currently there are 10 of them. Beating the game on ascension 0 unlocks ascension 1, beating the game on ascension 1 unlocks ascension 2 etc. I am mainly trying to balance the game around beating the game -- which is currently beating wave 20 and not endless mode. I would like ascension 0 (the game when you play for the first time) to be easy, so most players win on their first or second run, and the ascensions afterwards to be where players can get really challenged.

    Targeting was mostly choosing the nearest or sometimes densest. Some variety in strategy based on everything going on would help keep it fresh, like enemies that aren't meant to be harmed or which benefit others on screen if they die first

    Agreed! Enemies that buff other enemies sounds good and interesting, but I will have to really make sure that they stand out and are very noticeable.

    Might be nice to have the next spell deterministic? Guessing currently it's random excluding the current. Repeating 1-4 would let players get a bit of fluency.

    It is mostly deterministic -- it's a bit similar to how tetris works, basically what I'd call "4 bag" -- you always get the 4 spells you have shuffled up, and when you cast all of them you get a new bag of 4. That also means that you can get the same spell twice in a row, but maximum once every 4 spells. I am not sure if I want to change this. Initially the system worked as you describe but I think I like the current system more as it adds more variety and you have to pay more attention.

    The forced selection of a spell and threshold of 3 for an element felt off. Ignoring things like 4 of a type items, it felt like you just had a dump slot, and pivoting to something different was penalized.
    If it ever did become relevant it wouldn't be satisfying to have a run end because the "build" I'd spent time on was destroyed by chance.

    I think synergies being triggered for having a 3 of a kind won't get changed, from the options (2, 3 and 4) it feels like the most interesting one to me. Quite often I feel like the run is pulling me in a few different directions which makes the choices interesting -- do I get rid of my wind synergy which is currently made up of only common non-variant spells to get this strong variant spell? Do I maximize the amount of "explosive" spells which an item I have encourages, or do I aim to keep my synergy instead? Do I use my skip right now, risking that I won't be able to keep my item active at the final wave, but being able to keep a strong spell? Often I try to hoard my skips to make sure that I will be able to use them on the last few waves, but this way I miss out on the best spells being more common, which is also an interesting dilemma! (this isn't documented anywhere, but the further into the run you go, the better the chances are to get variant spells and rare spells)

    Once again, thanks for playing the game and writing out the amazing feedback! I'll try to implement as much of it as possible by next week.

    2 votes
  16. Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 3 Updates in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link
    First, before I begin, here's a link to the current version of the game: itch.io link -- to access the page you will need to use the password timasomo. (If you play the game please let me know...

    First, before I begin, here's a link to the current version of the game: itch.io link -- to access the page you will need to use the password timasomo. (If you play the game please let me know what you think! anything that confused you, that you liked, or disliked -- all feedback is useful!)


    I wanted to record another video to show how the game currently looks, and I recorded a whole run, but afterwards I found out that I didn't set up the screen region properly in OBS so part of the game was cut off... oops. I might try recording another run later, if I do I will post it here.

    Still quite productive. I did manage to add another music track, which was the one goal I mentioned last week, so now during the run you don't have to listen to the same thing song for most of the run. After some feedback from lou and my friend I added an option to auto cast spells -- you can now hold shift and you will instantly cast spells when they get charged, or press T which will toggle auto casting until you turn it off again. I added daily runs to the game -- this is a run that should be basically the same for everyone who tries it on the given day, similar to what most roguelites have. I added a run history window where you can see the results of your previous runs. The game now also has 3 characters instead of one. I am not really sure what exactly I want to do with the characters -- currently they change which elements you have access to, which doesn't change the game that much in the grand scheme of things. Maybe I will change that more in the future. At minimum I like that the player doesn't play as a super static character now, at least the player now has some extremely simple animations when casting spells. And as always I just added more stuff. Let me count some of it... ...ok I am back -- so there are now 71 items if I counted right, 29 spells and 3 characters which use 12 different elements.

    Next week is the last full week of Timasomo, I am not sure yet what all do I want to do. On one hand there's a lot of stuff that I could add. On another hand I think I might actually try to fully finish the game by the end of Timasomo. It would be nice to have the game done and put it on Steam. If people play it and like it I will keep working on it, and if they don't, well I guess that would be it and at least it would be finished.

    I also got sick this weekend, it didn't really stop me from being productive and I am still doing a ton, but it's still super annoying to be sick... I am so snotty and feel so disgusting.

    Oh and another thing! The results from Ludum Dare got published, my game got 61st place overall, which is solid, and 12th place in the "fun" category -- which I think is pretty nice! Hopefully that means that people do like the concept of the game!

    3 votes
  17. Comment on What are the benefits in the here and now of linguistic diversity? in ~humanities.languages

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    The slavic lingua franca is English, previously mainly German and some French

    The slavic lingua franca is English, previously mainly German and some French

    1 vote
  18. Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link Parent
    Thanks for trying the game! I am most likely not going to be replacing 95% of the assets, the only one that I know that will get changed is the character, since I'd like to have at least some very...

    Thanks for trying the game!

    Are those assets that you're going to replace later on?

    I am most likely not going to be replacing 95% of the assets, the only one that I know that will get changed is the character, since I'd like to have at least some very simple animations (charging spell, spell ready, casting spell). I was initially thinking that I will make images for items, but I think I will probably not do even that.

    Maybe let the character move.

    No :D. Similarly as you mentioned Vampire Survivors, where you only move and don't shoot, here you will only shoot and not move. (well ok, I am planning a potential thing where your character might sometimes move from the original position, but I am not sure if I'll do it and it also won't be a thing that you can do every run, and it won't be traditional movement on WASD)

    Are the spells thing kinda like Vampire Survivors? I don't think I understand how that works in our game. I select the spell, but then I can't leave the window and have to click skip.

    You mean in the new spell window between waves? You choose one new spell to get and choose one old spell that you lose -- hence "Spellswapper".

    When I click, I aim. When I release, I shoot. I'm here thinking, do I really need the aiming bit? Cause I'm always clicking directly on the mob anyway. Seems easier that way. Why not just shoot on click?

    There are many cases where aiming is useful, but also it is true that there can be cases where you don't need to aim. After the last playtest session I did with a friend I got some similar feedback so in the next version I am adding a button that you can hold that will just autocast spells as long as you hold it, and also a button that just toggles on autocasting until you turn it back off.

    I'd say go deep on the retro vibe. It's awesome. Love the HUD.

    Thank you! :) Making the UI was really fun -- I originally wanted to use https://github.com/mr-dreich/Godot-Window-98-Theme this already existing theme but it doesn't work in Godot 4, so I created my own one.

    2 votes
  19. Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 2 Updates in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    Link
    First, before I begin, here's a link to the current version of the game: itch.io link -- to access the page you will need to use the password timasomo. (If you play the game please let me know...

    First, before I begin, here's a link to the current version of the game: itch.io link -- to access the page you will need to use the password timasomo. (If you play the game please let me know what you think! anything that confused you, that you liked, or disliked -- all feedback is useful!)


    I am still doing very good!

    I actually ended up working mostly on systems I'd say. There's still more systems stuff to do though (there probably always is). I have also been doing a ton of balancing. For content -- spells and items, the low hanging fruit was mostly picked, so I didn't add as many items or spells, but I still added a solid amount. Also, here is a video I have recorded a few days ago of the state of the game if you don't want to play the game but would like to take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwElfI4ck8k

    The next week I just want to keep on trucking on. Don't really have concrete plans on what exactly I want to do, but I want to just keep on doing a lot :D. I believe I might keep up this level of productivity, since I am still enjoying working on the game so much. Actually, one thing I definitely want to do is to get a few more music tracks in the game. I'll get that done by the end of next week.

    5 votes
  20. Comment on Timasomo 2023: Week 1 Updates in ~creative.timasomo

    Tygrak
    (edited )
    Link
    First, before I begin, here's a link to the current version of the game: itch.io link -- to access the page you will need to use the password timasomo. (If you play the game please let me know...

    First, before I begin, here's a link to the current version of the game: itch.io link -- to access the page you will need to use the password timasomo. (If you play the game please let me know what you think! anything that confused you, that you liked, or disliked -- all feedback is useful!)


    Productivity

    I am very happy with my progress! Frankly, I spent so much time on the project this week that I think it's quite likely I won't be able to keep up doing as much the next weeks. But I'd like to try! I am still enjoying working on the project fully, so I hope it will last. I spent most of my free time this week only on this game, basically coming back from work and working on the game until I went to sleep, so again not sure if I can keep this up :D.

    Stuff I did this week

    Now, what did I do this week? Literally too much to list all of it.

    First thing I did is to do some refactoring and reworking of some core things. Game jam games tend to get a bit hacky, making things quickly, so to make sure the project is nice to work with I had to remake some of those hacks. As an example, a big part of the visuals is a drop shadows shader -- this shader was made in a super weird way which required me to use a mono-colored background, which obviously would prevent me from having more interesting background visuals. That is now fixed, and even though the backgrounds are still not very interesting, I can now make them more interesting when I'll want to.

    Another thing I did is adding a few big mechanics to the game. One extremely important quality of life feature is targeting indicators for the different spells. Next, I added a fully new mechanic -- items. This will allow runs to have a lot more variety, allowing you to get a ton of different "builds" and making the game a ton more roguelity. Also, I added an options menu, for now with just a few options, but already allowing you to change the volume for the music and the sound FX. Speaking of music, I modified and repurposed an old track of mine for this game, because the old music was a bit too repetitive for me. Last major "systems" thing is that I added a debug console that allows me to setup any combination of spells and items -- this allows me to test things much more quickly then previously. Even after all this there's also just more stuff that I did.

    And the biggest thing is that I just made a ton of content. There are now 21 base spells, 7 spell variants, 45 items and 7 different enemies. Still not enough, but a good start to have a lot of variety for a roguelite.

    Future

    Now that I have proven that I have some staying power for this project and it's not just a tiny fluke, here are some of my plans. Next week I'd like to continue in a similar fashion. There are a few more small systems that I want to add, but nothing as major as this week. I'd like to mainly continue adding more spells and items. Also I'd like to add a few more music tracks so you aren't listening to just one track the whole time -- for this I will probably repurpose some more of the music I made in the past.

    In the remaining weeks I'd also like to add different maps, different characters and some progression system that will unlock the various content in the game piece by piece (similarly to what Slay the Spire/Binding of Isaac and basically every other roguelite does).

    Oh and in the final week I'd like to decide whether I am putting the game on steam right away or not. I'll see in what state game is in. I kind of wanted to put my game in steam next fest, but theres one thats going to be happening right this month I think and the one after is so far away.

    3 votes