TIP FOR BLUR: I think what you described is you're using planes with a shader applied to them rather than using a canvas/screen space shader. I can see the issue here as the shader is typically a set sized plane so you have to duplicate and align them to cover more area. There's a couple ways around this but I think the best would be using "Viewports" and "SubViewports". If you set two cameras at the same position and use the render layers to separate the background into one camera and the foreground into the other you can apply a screen space blur to the shader to the background camera and them mix the result s using a mask then send that to a Viewport rather than using the main camera to display all content. For a 2D game it's possible to have 5-6 of these camera layers without too much performance hit. I've been making a game using Godot for the past 3 years. Feel free to message me if you need an idea board.
I was going to mention the Godotcon viewport video by Raffaele Picca, it's up on Godot's main youtube channel. They used 15 subviewports in Dome Keeper. Though I don't think they were doing full screen shaders on all of those layers so 5-6 might be more accurate for gaussian blurs. Do keep in mind that you can use a lower resolution on the subviewport if you're going to be blurring it, saving memory, processing, and basically getting a portion of the blur for free.
Your game is looking great so far! You have really great scenery outside your window. I'm very sorry to hear you were laid off, it's tough out there but it's nice to hear you're making a job for yourself. I can't wait for a demo and your future devlogs. If your project comes to fruition I'd definitely cover it.
I already enjoy the fact that you can just slash and semi-destroy the lamp posts, it feeds the "let me be a little gremlin of an MC", without it like effecting like storyline Unless its a passing comment that doesn't effect final outcome, that's good too, I love that sort of stuff!!
@@MrChambers Very LoZ where players have Link going around smashing every pot energy that I'm here for!! I was also very excited to see Hollow Knight in the amalgamation of what vibes you're going for. Even though I suck so bad at most video games. I'm a button masher at worst and maybe mediocre at Binding of Isaac at best. That said, Over the Garden Wall hold a special place in my heart so I'm really excited, on top of just loving your vibes as an animator informing how you're designing this game. Plus like cozy games that aren't full on just gardening sims are chefs kiss!!
Great job on moving forward with all the obstacles. Game is looking great so far. Best of luck on the development, and I look forward to seeing future devlogs!
dont worry man. you re not alone. i dropped out of college lol. To learn unity and other stuff. im pretty sure we both will make money by the end of this december. stay strong
Game look super unique and interesting, personally I love the atmosphere and visual look because I've never seen something quite like it before! I wish you guys the best on your GameDev journey, and I hope the game turns out to be a huge success!
I used to really enjoy your videos essays on art and how to become an artist. They really motivated me and I had forgotten about this channel but I'm so glad you're posting again
I love the vibe you have so far even early in development. "What if Over the Garden Wall was a game" has me sold already. I hope you really lean into those autumnal vibes, and the sort of eerie and strange twists that places and characters in OTGW had, while still feeling very cozy and nostalgic. I really love that sort of thing
I like the idea for the feel of the game. Earthy colors, old-timey language and sensibilities and low-fidelity, warm music? Would be a good time! Whenever you get around to posting another Devlog, I think we would love to know some of the gameplay mechanics you have planned for the game. Also, if you have any idea for a story or a bit of fleshing out of the world/planned environments would be really cool to hear about!
I like how the game looks, It’s heading in a good direction, it does not stand out yet but I believe that’s because everything is still been developed, and changes will still be made.
So great job so far. Keeping in mind this is all conceptual before commuting to a direction, take a moment to pseudo out the design elements. I've walked away from Unity for about a month an a half now and yes rebuilding my tools takes time but I am getting there. Also I've even made a procedural state machine but that is in a very early stage. It's stable but ideas are coming into mind about how to really leverage what it is capable of... sadly I am one person so I've just wrapped up a mini-game for my main game (need to add music and integrate it into the main project.) There's I think two sites I know of for Godot shaders, personally I just poke around those and edit them to get what I wanted. So I would get a distortion shader and then alter some of the formula to get a blur effect instead of writing everything.
As a game dev(who has been focused on comics more recently) my main suggestion is just to try to get your project to fit in a Venn diagram. Every popular game can be described as the successful overlap of the specifics(looks, feels, scenarios) with the main concept(themes, principles, "design pillars"), and it can be really hard to figure out what's missing or even what kind of game you are working towards until you visualize that. Game productions can be iterated on so heavily that it's easy to end up with contradictory elements without some kind of roadmap to what's being developed, but once I hit on using Venn diagrams everywhere, some 15 years after I started making games, I was able to calm down the brainstorming and doubts and direct it towards a process that gives specific justifications for any design decision. It's been a huge help for confidence and for the quality of what I'm doing.
Sage advice my friend. Thank you very much. Gonna start brain storming how my game can fit into a ven-diagram and hopefully have an update next dev log. Cheers!
Seeing names I recognize from game grumps animations coming together is cool, like a superhero crossover. As a fellow game dev I'm rooting for you guys. I'll be all over anything you guys put out to give feedback when y'all are looking for it. If I could say anything now, the humble, hand-drawn, cozy atmosphere rang to me a bit like hollow knight, which I'm sure for a lot of people would be a good thing, so definitely be ready for those comparisons and whether you want that or want to differentiate, when the identity of the project starts to come in line.
Thanks so much! Your feedback is 100% welcome here. Were def going for Hollow Knight vibes, but we might stray away from that path if it dosent feel right.
@@MrChambers TBH I would never look at a well made game like this and just go "Ugh, ripoff of Hollow Knight!" If it is a genuinely good game then my reaction is more like "Hell yeah, another game in one of my favorite genres/vibes"
I'm pretty new to godot, but I've worked with similar style of graphics back in 2012 and in our group we just blurred and downscaled sprites for the background elements. Pretty sure that you wouldn't utilize blur if it wasn't necessary, but for me in general rule of thumb is to use as little resources first before deciding on what should be added later. I've seen sub viewport solution proposal and I definitely agree on that one, that will provide the best results, but I personally would keep it humble on the most inactive and non-informative layers to keep most of performance, to be able to bring it to foreground and make it pop as much as possible. Your project looks absolutely gorgeous, I'm very excited to see what kind of journey you have ahead, I wish you best of luck ❤
Very cool ! Always wanted to make a game myself and tried to at the beginning of the pandemic but shortly discovered writing code feels like a punishment haha Animation industry has been depressing these last few years 😅
I feel your pain. Very similar situation here where i had almost 2 years where i couldn't land a half decent job in illustration. But instead of using that time to learn programming i was just ... angry on how life was going. In the last 2 months i finally decided to start programming, so big congrats to you for not wasting precious time and jumping right into it!
Games looking good, I love the onion running around with a sickle. I think you should increase the parallax effect a bit, it looks a bit flat in the footage above. ~💗
How dare you give me the itch to learn Godot. I already don't have very much free time as it is 😤. Jokes aside this is looking great! Glad to see that the Unity kerfuffle didn't stop you from making this game!
Just to the other suggestions, Godot has a built-in parallax layer system (ParallaxBackground/ParallaxLayer nodes), that is able to handle repeating, offsets, etc. abstracting that away from you. You can then add the elements of a layer inside the ParallaxLayer, set its scaling, and add a ColorRect as the last element applying whatever shader you want for that layer only. This spares you from messing with multiple cameras/views. This makes it very easy to save individual layers into their own scenes, too (e.g. "SwampForeground", "SwampBackground", etc.) for reusing things.
I originally built this scene using the parallax layer nodes. But they made it really hard to work in the scene because the z-offest would mean nothing in the viewport looked the same as they did in the game. So I went with Canvas layers that are more friendly to the viewer. Cheers for the suggestion!
Love the video blogs! They are funny and informative. I'd like your thoughts on choice of GoDot over Unity now that's almost been a year later and any pros and cons or lessons learned.
Just saw this, and at the segment starting at 4:52 ? That's amazing for "just getting started." This is one of those "You need to adjust your point of reference" moments. It looks good, and looks like it feels good. The idea has teeth. Sadly, I can't help much on shaders or blur effects, but I hope you're able to stick with this.
Thoughts from the cheap seats. I would suggest a VERY strong and clear theme is in order. Like Hollow Knight, Limbo, Cult of the Lamb, or Ori. I'm not getting that yet. Over the Garden Wall is terrific inspiration, but you need to give us a clear indication of why we would like this game, and that world story is critical. Tug at our heart strings or inspire us. An alien trying to find his way home. A kid trying to escape Hell to rescue his dog. A mom has been miniaturized and has to get home before her Ex gets custody of the kids. A bird in a world ruled by giant worms, I don't know. Something we can relate to on some level or that really flips the script and makes us want to see where the story goes. Metroid stand the test of time because of the sick character and the expansive puzzle-box world. Good for you, taking on a new engine! Looks good so far!
Afaik, there isn't a really solid way to blur 2D-textures in Godot since textures can only take one pass shaders. You can hack it with textureLod but personally I don't like it because the blur is affected by texture size and what not if I'm not misremembering. We need multipass shaders in Godot.
For performance reasons I'd advise you to pre-blur the content for the background planes. This will also let you downsize the assets you use after you blur them. The alternative is to perform a depth of field blur and position the background layers in 3D, however this can be a performance drain on lower end platforms depending on the size of your blur kernel. it's still better than trying to stack blur layers, simply let one shader do the job based on your layer depth position. You have to painters them back to front (true for all of these I think except for in focus foreground), less than ideal but not as much of a burden as stacked layers of on the fly convolution. If the engine's baking these somehow it's not so bad but I doubt it because things can move arbitrarily.
I think the engine is baking them. But this is also just some solid advise all around. Not only can pre-bluring save performance, but it will give me more control as I can do the Blurs in photoshop and just import blurred versions into the game. Thanks for the advise!
Wow, this actually mirrors my own journey. But I started out working as a narrative writer for games (previously working in film/TV). Then of course -- layoffs + strike = kicking my ass x2. But I started learning Godot. Fast forward, now working on finishing my own demo, and no it's not wishful thinking to secure funding with an awesome demo.
Same thing happened to my team when Unity imploded. Luckily we weren't far along, but finding programmers for rev share games is like shoveling coal into a furnace. "It's fine, it's going, oh they're gone get the shovel."
Holy crap you and me are the exact same person! Except i don't have a gf lol. i made cartoons before i got into Godot. lmao 😄 Yeah i was using Unity untill they did that 'amazing' publicity stunt. I love Godot to death, it's easy as Godot to get into lol. 🙂 As far as your Blur problem goes.... i'm an idiot and don't know how to do it the right way either XD. I'd probably try making Super-low-res versions of the trees for the background and Scaling them up(i think Texture filtering is on by default soo it'd make them look blurry?? i don't know. I'm still learning Godot too!!!!!) The Current state of your game looks sooo good oh my lawd i love it AAaah❤🔥😍💓
Radical staking skills In terms of the game the consept art is great Im just worried about the gameplay cuz so far it looks like hollow knight but oninion
It's pronounced Godot. Edit: for clarification, GOAT. I just say it Godot because it rhymes with the logo. My neighbor says Yo-doe-ta because he's....special. Seriously though, the game looks cool so far! Good luck!
Be warned of the hollow knight community's toxic side. They will call any metroidvania involving a little guy with a white head and sword a clone of hollow knight. Or pretty much any metroidvania for that matter. Other than that advice, I wish you good luck! It looks really cool!
Thanks! And I'd welcome the criticism with open arms. I'm not going to pretend this game isn't inspired by Hollow Knight. But hopefully the love and care we put into the game will give it its own voice and allow it to shine through.
I saw your post on reddit! I really want to make a metroidvania game that has hand drawn "gothic" art style, since that is my favourite kind of art style, but I know it will be called a hollow knight rip-off and I'm really scared about that. I had this idea before I even knew about Hollow Knight, so as soon as I saw that game, and the amount of people that just call any hand drawn art styled metroidvania game a Hollow Knight rip-off, I instantly lost my motivation to make something like that
Please dont lose motivation to make your metroidvania! If you go back to my post and look at the replies its FILLED with love and support. That post gave me so much confidence that most people are going to see your game for the art that it is. And your metroidvania could end up being something I and tons of people play and resonate with. Please make your game!
Just wanted to give you a tip: Do a playable demo, really polished and all, and if the game is great, then that’s good. You shouldn’t focus on things like Lightning and art right now: just do a playable demo with the main mechanichs, and if it’s good make it look good, and if after all that the game still excits you, finish it
Looking really promising so far! Sounds like you're still early in the phase of working all this out, but if I could offer a bit of visual feedback as an illustrator myself I'd say the depth of the visuals isn't ideal yet. From the snippets I've seen so far, it always looks to me as if the background is really far away from the main-game midground , so everything feels a bit detached from the rest and it doesn't look like an immersive forest to me yet, especially with the inspirations you've mentioned being quite wild, labyrinth looking woods. I'd maybe pull a few background layers a bit closer and make them a bit less dark/blurred. Might also be because the trees in the background look massive, and we only have small trees in the foreground so far - it would be great to play with the scale of foreground elements too so it feels like part of the same woods!
One suggestion is I think your character is too far to the right of the screen when they’re moving. Most games avoid this. Thanks for sharing and good luck!
your game looks very very similar to hollow knight. You should think about what makes your game different. Make those aspects apparent. There is no reason to make a worse version of hollow knight. Make something novel or unique instead. Don't go in direct competition with one of the best games in the genre.
Dude, you have zero revenue and zero games made, why care so much about what Unity does with their fees that only applies to extremely successful studios that make millions. No offence but its not like your game will be affected by any of this. I'm so over "game devs" who can't use Unity because their unfinished first-time game would be hit by fees once it starts selling for millions of dollars. Like if it would, you would even care at that point.... The only thing that matters is picking an engine that accelerates your chances of even launching your game.
I wanted to stay on task, since that's not what this video is about. But I highly recommend the short cartoon Adam Conover made about the whole situation. Its short, educational, and to the point.
Follow our kickstarter here and see the full gameplay trailer when it drops!: www.kickstarter.com/projects/tallordergames/layers-deep
Glad you took the Godot pill, brother. I’m excited to see where the game goes from here
Based and Godotpilled
The pill from Xananax? 🤔
TIP FOR BLUR:
I think what you described is you're using planes with a shader applied to them rather than using a canvas/screen space shader. I can see the issue here as the shader is typically a set sized plane so you have to duplicate and align them to cover more area.
There's a couple ways around this but I think the best would be using "Viewports" and "SubViewports". If you set two cameras at the same position and use the render layers to separate the background into one camera and the foreground into the other you can apply a screen space blur to the shader to the background camera and them mix the result s using a mask then send that to a Viewport rather than using the main camera to display all content. For a 2D game it's possible to have 5-6 of these camera layers without too much performance hit.
I've been making a game using Godot for the past 3 years. Feel free to message me if you need an idea board.
Yup this, pretty much the same thing for Unity as well.
Thanks so much for this Blur tip! Gonna give it a go today!
@@MrChambers Godot has a Godotcon '23 session on Viewports for effects on their YT channel
Oh hey i know you! you're that dude who is going to start doing Godot tutorials!
I was going to mention the Godotcon viewport video by Raffaele Picca, it's up on Godot's main youtube channel.
They used 15 subviewports in Dome Keeper. Though I don't think they were doing full screen shaders on all of those layers so 5-6 might be more accurate for gaussian blurs.
Do keep in mind that you can use a lower resolution on the subviewport if you're going to be blurring it, saving memory, processing, and basically getting a portion of the blur for free.
yes, more of these devlogs please 🤗
Fur u Shun, anythin
Wow catfat
Happy retirement dude, respect your work.
Your game is looking great so far! You have really great scenery outside your window. I'm very sorry to hear you were laid off, it's tough out there but it's nice to hear you're making a job for yourself. I can't wait for a demo and your future devlogs. If your project comes to fruition I'd definitely cover it.
That's very kind of you! If this thing ever releases you can guarantee steam codes will be hitting your inbox!
DUDE!! It’s so good seeing you create ❤️❤️ I’m so excited to see where this game takes you and your friends :) !!!
Thanks so much! Happy to be back!
I already enjoy the fact that you can just slash and semi-destroy the lamp posts, it feeds the "let me be a little gremlin of an MC", without it like effecting like storyline Unless its a passing comment that doesn't effect final outcome, that's good too, I love that sort of stuff!!
Ideally, id like you to be able to break everything just because why the heck not!
@@MrChambers Very LoZ where players have Link going around smashing every pot energy that I'm here for!! I was also very excited to see Hollow Knight in the amalgamation of what vibes you're going for. Even though I suck so bad at most video games. I'm a button masher at worst and maybe mediocre at Binding of Isaac at best. That said, Over the Garden Wall hold a special place in my heart so I'm really excited, on top of just loving your vibes as an animator informing how you're designing this game. Plus like cozy games that aren't full on just gardening sims are chefs kiss!!
Aaaaeeehhhh let's goooo Josh! I'm rooting for you bro
Thank you Mik-L!!!!!
This devlog was really good. So well edited, and the game looks awesome. Following this one for sure
omg i love what you do, the editting, the vibes, and the game looks awsome btw
I definitely get the vibe you’re going for from what you’ve shown so far. Very excited.
Very smooth dev log! I really enjoy your musical interruptions :)
I hope you like Godot and wish you great success!
Great job on moving forward with all the obstacles. Game is looking great so far. Best of luck on the development, and I look forward to seeing future devlogs!
dont worry man. you re not alone. i dropped out of college lol. To learn unity and other stuff. im pretty sure we both will make money by the end of this december. stay strong
Thank you Mr.Rizzler :)
You got me with the sick fingerboard tricks at the end
Game look super unique and interesting, personally I love the atmosphere and visual look because I've never seen something quite like it before! I wish you guys the best on your GameDev journey, and I hope the game turns out to be a huge success!
I used to really enjoy your videos essays on art and how to become an artist. They really motivated me and I had forgotten about this channel but I'm so glad you're posting again
Great video! Best of luck out there creating your art in crumbling world : )
Dude ur art looks so much better, 2 years and seeing your progress is insane, Im impressed
Thanks so much!!
I love the vibe you have so far even early in development. "What if Over the Garden Wall was a game" has me sold already. I hope you really lean into those autumnal vibes, and the sort of eerie and strange twists that places and characters in OTGW had, while still feeling very cozy and nostalgic. I really love that sort of thing
Hey man game looks cool! Good to see yo face.
Excited for more! And I'm sorry about the state of the animation industry, it seriously sucks so hard out there rn.
U are like the chillest dude ever, I make games too and plan on switching to Godoot. love how the game looks, wish you the best of luck.
Thank you my dude!
I like the idea for the feel of the game. Earthy colors, old-timey language and sensibilities and low-fidelity, warm music? Would be a good time! Whenever you get around to posting another Devlog, I think we would love to know some of the gameplay mechanics you have planned for the game. Also, if you have any idea for a story or a bit of fleshing out of the world/planned environments would be really cool to hear about!
Thanks! And yea I think ideally Id like to have the game properly playable by the next dev log.
Good to see you again Chambers. Welcome back
Hell yeah Josh it’s Austin Jacquemin brother . Started checking out your vids today they are dope! Keep going homie!!
I’m already pumped for this game, can’t wait for it to blow up 😎
I like how the game looks, It’s heading in a good direction, it does not stand out yet but I believe that’s because everything is still been developed, and changes will still be made.
It looks great thus far! Lookimg forward to seeing more! :D
Fantastic looking game so far! Reminds me of Child of Light, will definitely try out the demo whenever it drops. Good stuff, my friend! ✨👍✨
Looking gr8! Best of luck working up to the first demo!
Here for the ride. Game lookin right cozy man 😊
So great job so far. Keeping in mind this is all conceptual before commuting to a direction, take a moment to pseudo out the design elements.
I've walked away from Unity for about a month an a half now and yes rebuilding my tools takes time but I am getting there. Also I've even made a procedural state machine but that is in a very early stage. It's stable but ideas are coming into mind about how to really leverage what it is capable of... sadly I am one person so I've just wrapped up a mini-game for my main game (need to add music and integrate it into the main project.)
There's I think two sites I know of for Godot shaders, personally I just poke around those and edit them to get what I wanted. So I would get a distortion shader and then alter some of the formula to get a blur effect instead of writing everything.
Has great vibe. Would def want to see more:)
Dude I'm hyped I can't wait for the next devlog
As a game dev(who has been focused on comics more recently) my main suggestion is just to try to get your project to fit in a Venn diagram. Every popular game can be described as the successful overlap of the specifics(looks, feels, scenarios) with the main concept(themes, principles, "design pillars"), and it can be really hard to figure out what's missing or even what kind of game you are working towards until you visualize that. Game productions can be iterated on so heavily that it's easy to end up with contradictory elements without some kind of roadmap to what's being developed, but once I hit on using Venn diagrams everywhere, some 15 years after I started making games, I was able to calm down the brainstorming and doubts and direct it towards a process that gives specific justifications for any design decision. It's been a huge help for confidence and for the quality of what I'm doing.
Sage advice my friend. Thank you very much. Gonna start brain storming how my game can fit into a ven-diagram and hopefully have an update next dev log. Cheers!
i love your style of devlog pls make more. also sick kickflip
Thanks so much! And more are on the way!
Let's goooo!!! Proud of you bud
Seeing names I recognize from game grumps animations coming together is cool, like a superhero crossover.
As a fellow game dev I'm rooting for you guys. I'll be all over anything you guys put out to give feedback when y'all are looking for it.
If I could say anything now, the humble, hand-drawn, cozy atmosphere rang to me a bit like hollow knight, which I'm sure for a lot of people would be a good thing, so definitely be ready for those comparisons and whether you want that or want to differentiate, when the identity of the project starts to come in line.
Thanks so much! Your feedback is 100% welcome here. Were def going for Hollow Knight vibes, but we might stray away from that path if it dosent feel right.
@@MrChambers TBH I would never look at a well made game like this and just go "Ugh, ripoff of Hollow Knight!" If it is a genuinely good game then my reaction is more like "Hell yeah, another game in one of my favorite genres/vibes"
Looove the feel of the game. Go ahead man👍👊
I'm pretty new to godot, but I've worked with similar style of graphics back in 2012 and in our group we just blurred and downscaled sprites for the background elements. Pretty sure that you wouldn't utilize blur if it wasn't necessary, but for me in general rule of thumb is to use as little resources first before deciding on what should be added later. I've seen sub viewport solution proposal and I definitely agree on that one, that will provide the best results, but I personally would keep it humble on the most inactive and non-informative layers to keep most of performance, to be able to bring it to foreground and make it pop as much as possible.
Your project looks absolutely gorgeous, I'm very excited to see what kind of journey you have ahead, I wish you best of luck ❤
When it comes to the art direction I know very little restraint. Well def rain it in if it starts affecting performance though. Thanks for the help!
oh hell yeah i can't believe you snagged a spot on God's Speed! what a hard dub.
Thank you, me neither TBH.
Full time tech deck channel when?
Great to see you posting again man, keep at it!
Thanks, Luke, youtube couldn't handle my full-time tech deck channel!
loving the style of this update video, very pricklyalpaca-ish.
Good luck mate
Always subscribe for the tech deck skills
Very cool ! Always wanted to make a game myself and tried to at the beginning of the pandemic but shortly discovered writing code feels like a punishment haha
Animation industry has been depressing these last few years 😅
I feel your pain. Very similar situation here where i had almost 2 years where i couldn't land a half decent job in illustration. But instead of using that time to learn programming i was just ... angry on how life was going. In the last 2 months i finally decided to start programming, so big congrats to you for not wasting precious time and jumping right into it!
Hell yea! Glad you hopped back on that horse!!
@@MrChambers You and me both 😄. Again best of luck with the game!
BACK INTO THE DEVELOPMENT DUNGEON WITH YOU
In I go! To return in another 2 years!
Games looking good, I love the onion running around with a sickle. I think you should increase the parallax effect a bit, it looks a bit flat in the footage above. ~💗
Thanks for your perspective! Will play around n see if I can get it poppin more
How dare you give me the itch to learn Godot. I already don't have very much free time as it is 😤.
Jokes aside this is looking great! Glad to see that the Unity kerfuffle didn't stop you from making this game!
Thanks Ethan! And if you ever want Godot tips you know where to find me!
bro this game look gorgeous, I would play it right now without any real gameplay just from the looks/atmosphere
Aw thanks so much
this looks great
Just to the other suggestions, Godot has a built-in parallax layer system (ParallaxBackground/ParallaxLayer nodes), that is able to handle repeating, offsets, etc. abstracting that away from you. You can then add the elements of a layer inside the ParallaxLayer, set its scaling, and add a ColorRect as the last element applying whatever shader you want for that layer only. This spares you from messing with multiple cameras/views. This makes it very easy to save individual layers into their own scenes, too (e.g. "SwampForeground", "SwampBackground", etc.) for reusing things.
I originally built this scene using the parallax layer nodes. But they made it really hard to work in the scene because the z-offest would mean nothing in the viewport looked the same as they did in the game. So I went with Canvas layers that are more friendly to the viewer. Cheers for the suggestion!
Love the video blogs! They are funny and informative. I'd like your thoughts on choice of GoDot over Unity now that's almost been a year later and any pros and cons or lessons learned.
Just saw this, and at the segment starting at 4:52 ? That's amazing for "just getting started." This is one of those "You need to adjust your point of reference" moments. It looks good, and looks like it feels good. The idea has teeth.
Sadly, I can't help much on shaders or blur effects, but I hope you're able to stick with this.
Thanks so much! Just wait until I upload next week's video, it looks even better now.
Thoughts from the cheap seats.
I would suggest a VERY strong and clear theme is in order. Like Hollow Knight, Limbo, Cult of the Lamb, or Ori. I'm not getting that yet.
Over the Garden Wall is terrific inspiration, but you need to give us a clear indication of why we would like this game, and that world story is critical. Tug at our heart strings or inspire us.
An alien trying to find his way home.
A kid trying to escape Hell to rescue his dog.
A mom has been miniaturized and has to get home before her Ex gets custody of the kids.
A bird in a world ruled by giant worms, I don't know.
Something we can relate to on some level or that really flips the script and makes us want to see where the story goes. Metroid stand the test of time because of the sick character and the expansive puzzle-box world.
Good for you, taking on a new engine! Looks good so far!
This is very good advice. I think this 100% needs to happen before we look for funding. Cheers!
I love the look of this game
Afaik, there isn't a really solid way to blur 2D-textures in Godot since textures can only take one pass shaders. You can hack it with textureLod but personally I don't like it because the blur is affected by texture size and what not if I'm not misremembering. We need multipass shaders in Godot.
as a fellow Animator i understand you hope you get yourself back together :D
Lost my job last year too
Its rough out there.
For performance reasons I'd advise you to pre-blur the content for the background planes. This will also let you downsize the assets you use after you blur them. The alternative is to perform a depth of field blur and position the background layers in 3D, however this can be a performance drain on lower end platforms depending on the size of your blur kernel. it's still better than trying to stack blur layers, simply let one shader do the job based on your layer depth position. You have to painters them back to front (true for all of these I think except for in focus foreground), less than ideal but not as much of a burden as stacked layers of on the fly convolution. If the engine's baking these somehow it's not so bad but I doubt it because things can move arbitrarily.
I think the engine is baking them. But this is also just some solid advise all around. Not only can pre-bluring save performance, but it will give me more control as I can do the Blurs in photoshop and just import blurred versions into the game. Thanks for the advise!
Bro is using a tech deck for a mic. Respect.
its got good acoustics
YAS JASH. i will be there... and ill be square, for the next one.
Both Randy the Candy man and I love your vid Josh :)
That's dandy of you and Randy :)
Just found this channel and you had some good progress
Thanks!!
you worked on godspeed! i backed that, very much looking forward to it! Final Space was such a loss ;(
Woah, thats awesome! Thank you for backing it, one of the coolest projects I've ever gotten to be a part of!
@@MrChambers I am a big final space fan so no brainer, but very glad i found our channel as i want to do some animation myself
Wow, this actually mirrors my own journey. But I started out working as a narrative writer for games (previously working in film/TV). Then of course -- layoffs + strike = kicking my ass x2. But I started learning Godot. Fast forward, now working on finishing my own demo, and no it's not wishful thinking to secure funding with an awesome demo.
This is very comforting! Thank you so much for sharing!
cool skateboard tricks
4:25 by "wall"you mean one big shaded sprite?
Its essentially just a blank canvas item. At least I think. If I put the shader on a sprite the sprite itself dissapears?
@@MrChambers depends if shader gets effected by it
Good luck
Cool to see you back at it for game dev! Currently game looks a bit like hollow knight, not sure if that’s a good or bad thing
Minus the color, similar art style though and character is similar
I was definitely inspired by Hollow Knight so thats bound to happen. I think well find our own voice the more we experiment. Cheers!
Agreed, and I'll be following along. Wish you the best!@@MrChambers
Same thing happened to my team when Unity imploded. Luckily we weren't far along, but finding programmers for rev share games is like shoveling coal into a furnace. "It's fine, it's going, oh they're gone get the shovel."
Yea, it's a tough spot to be in. You kinda gotta accept that you care about your game the most and will therefore need to do most of the work
this is so cool!! please, don't stop! and don't disappear for another couple of years (⊙_ʖ⊙)
Im gonna try not too, pretty commited this time around
Holy crap you and me are the exact same person! Except i don't have a gf lol.
i made cartoons before i got into Godot. lmao 😄
Yeah i was using Unity untill they did that 'amazing' publicity stunt.
I love Godot to death, it's easy as Godot to get into lol. 🙂
As far as
your Blur problem goes.... i'm an idiot and don't know how to do it the right way either XD.
I'd probably try making Super-low-res versions of the trees for the background and Scaling them up(i think Texture filtering is on by default soo it'd make them look blurry?? i don't know. I'm still learning Godot too!!!!!)
The Current state of your game looks sooo good oh my lawd i love it AAaah❤🔥😍💓
Thanks so much! And ill look into the texture filtering! Its comforting knowing im not the only one walking the animation to gamedev path!
I'd release a demo sooner, are you play testing it with Family and friends?
Not yet, mainly cause there's no real gameplay at the moment.
Interesting.
"if over the garden wall was a video game" is the perfect elevator pitch i've been looking for 😍
There's just not enough Over the Garden Wall in the world.
There's a Metroidvania system library for Godot called MetSys
What!? I gotta look into that yesterday!
Put Thea in the game.
Def needs a pack of Thea's....and a mallard
Thea gave him the idea.
He really puts the Obamna in Gedot or however it's spelled.
Radical staking skills
In terms of the game the consept art is great Im just worried about the gameplay cuz so far it looks like hollow knight but oninion
Will hopefully have some combat to show in the upcoming dev log. We have some ideas on how we can make the game feel unique.
@@MrChambers very good
I wish you good luck then
It's pronounced Godot.
Edit: for clarification, GOAT.
I just say it Godot because it rhymes with the logo.
My neighbor says Yo-doe-ta because he's....special.
Seriously though, the game looks cool so far! Good luck!
Essa música faz muito sentido com o vídeo kkkkkkk
Just don’t use blur. Checkout as a reference super mario wonder.
I very much would like to play that game. Perhaps now I have a good excuse.
Be warned of the hollow knight community's toxic side. They will call any metroidvania involving a little guy with a white head and sword a clone of hollow knight. Or pretty much any metroidvania for that matter. Other than that advice, I wish you good luck! It looks really cool!
Thanks! And I'd welcome the criticism with open arms. I'm not going to pretend this game isn't inspired by Hollow Knight. But hopefully the love and care we put into the game will give it its own voice and allow it to shine through.
The Olan Rogers Godspeed???
Yup!
Based and godotpilled
I saw your post on reddit! I really want to make a metroidvania game that has hand drawn "gothic" art style, since that is my favourite kind of art style, but I know it will be called a hollow knight rip-off and I'm really scared about that. I had this idea before I even knew about Hollow Knight, so as soon as I saw that game, and the amount of people that just call any hand drawn art styled metroidvania game a Hollow Knight rip-off, I instantly lost my motivation to make something like that
Please dont lose motivation to make your metroidvania! If you go back to my post and look at the replies its FILLED with love and support. That post gave me so much confidence that most people are going to see your game for the art that it is. And your metroidvania could end up being something I and tons of people play and resonate with. Please make your game!
Just wanted to give you a tip:
Do a playable demo, really polished and all, and if the game is great, then that’s good. You shouldn’t focus on things like Lightning and art right now: just do a playable demo with the main mechanichs, and if it’s good make it look good, and if after all that the game still excits you, finish it
This is the way, good sage advice. Hopefully the next dev log will be more about this and less about the art.
Looking really promising so far! Sounds like you're still early in the phase of working all this out, but if I could offer a bit of visual feedback as an illustrator myself I'd say the depth of the visuals isn't ideal yet. From the snippets I've seen so far, it always looks to me as if the background is really far away from the main-game midground , so everything feels a bit detached from the rest and it doesn't look like an immersive forest to me yet, especially with the inspirations you've mentioned being quite wild, labyrinth looking woods. I'd maybe pull a few background layers a bit closer and make them a bit less dark/blurred. Might also be because the trees in the background look massive, and we only have small trees in the foreground so far - it would be great to play with the scale of foreground elements too so it feels like part of the same woods!
I think this is a fantastic critique and I couldnt agree more! Going to add this to my notes. Thank you!
One suggestion is I think your character is too far to the right of the screen when they’re moving. Most games avoid this. Thanks for sharing and good luck!
Agreed, we think were gonna make our own custom camera controller so we can adust the cam based on player-facing direction.
Throw some parallax in there
You're a TH-camR??? And how did you know I work here? I was trying to keep it a secret.
your game looks very very similar to hollow knight.
You should think about what makes your game different. Make those aspects apparent.
There is no reason to make a worse version of hollow knight. Make something novel or unique instead.
Don't go in direct competition with one of the best games in the genre.
I promise were trying to do our best to make something unique here. But were only a few months into development and itll take time to get there.
A small note: try to differentiate from other games.
Good note, thank you
Dude, you have zero revenue and zero games made, why care so much about what Unity does with their fees that only applies to extremely successful studios that make millions. No offence but its not like your game will be affected by any of this. I'm so over "game devs" who can't use Unity because their unfinished first-time game would be hit by fees once it starts selling for millions of dollars. Like if it would, you would even care at that point.... The only thing that matters is picking an engine that accelerates your chances of even launching your game.
Your right! We just always wanted to check out Godot and found this to be a good enough excuse. Cheers!
Why not address WHY the animation industry imploded...just like the western comic book industry?? ☺😊
I wanted to stay on task, since that's not what this video is about. But I highly recommend the short cartoon Adam Conover made about the whole situation. Its short, educational, and to the point.
make it hard like dark souls.
😈
better bake your blurs.
looks nice so far. also sick tricks brah 🤙🛹