My Week Balancing Indie Game Dev with a Full-Time Job
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ม.ค. 2022
- Welcome to another devlog for Dauphin! This episode is more of a "week in the life", where I focus less on completing a single feature and more on how I manage to make progress on Dauphin while making time for everything else in life. Hope you enjoy!
#dauphin #devlog #godot #gamedev #godotengine
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I would really recommend pausing the game when showing level up messages because if the player is in the middle of combat it might be really annoying
Agreed! I'll make a note.
I pausing could break the whole flow of combat. Maybe the message should be delayed until a few seconds after the combat ends. Or maybe something like fallout/elder scrolls where there's just a small popup that you leveled up and all of the zaz is saved for when you open the inventory or go back to the ship and rest.
@@ODCrab yeah, a notification on the side like the picked up item display will be much less intrusive and flow breaking, but still convey the necessary information across to the player. Pausing wouldn't really work well.
Pausing the game would also be anoying though
i think itd be better if it just waited to show the message until the player is out of combat, because it could be really weird with the game randomly pausing mid fight
I really love your weekly updates and telling how you managed all these things. It really motivates me to do the same. 😀
It’s a small detail but I think you should make the dive flag visible when in the diving scene and maybe for a reason you can’t go deeper till leveling up is that the rope attached to the dive flag is to short and leveling up allows it to get bigger
i like this better than the other suggestions about this diving system
Long time viewer and fellow game dev! I find that when you have a system such as the dive level, it adds to the immersion to tie their skill levels back to your world. A generic example: "The pressure here is too much for you to currently handle. More practice/better gear will help you dive deeper". I struggle with being too focused on data when I do game dev and this tip helped me a ton. Best wishes.
Another great update, I always look forward to your videos :)
Just an idea for the dive limits, instead of setting a hard limit to how deep you can dive, what if instead narcosis takes effect once you pass your skill-limited depth? It could allow for some interesting visual effects (hallucinations, extra corruption, etc), and you could drastically ramp up the difficulty. That way the player could theoretically try to push their luck and go past their limits, for some high risk/high reward action.
Or maybe something like what Subnautica does, where you lose Oxygen faster the deeper you dive
Had the same thought, might also want to combine this with suddenly 10x (or some good amount) oxygen usage, so that they have a very limited time to go deeper and probably can't reach much down there
Love your work-life balance. Encourages me to be more structured and manage my time better
From a fellow indie game dev with a 9-5 job and a family, just wanted to say how much I enjoy and appreciate your videos. Just a great vibe - motivating, relaxing, and always interesting, no matter what you happen to be working on. Keep up the awesome work, mate!
These dev logs are great. Huge inspiration to be honest.
honestly the game is starting to look like something i would actually buy
same
This game and these devlogs are amazing! Please keep up the good work. I will support you through anything.
Awesome progress,
Two main things that came to my mind:
- 80 levels would be probably too many, might wanna reduce to about 20 and make each level up more exciting.
- Instead of not allowing the player to go to a certain depth, how about giving them a big penalty such as loosing x4 oxygen.
Keep up the great work and hope you doing well!
+1. In Subnautica they limited oxygen instead of depth when diving without vehicle. For a vehicle you would unlock additional reinforcement that would increase supported depth. diving below that depth in the vehicle would quickly crush it. That also meant you could dive down to 900m with a vehicle for example then get out of the vehicle and dive however deep you want as long as your oxygen tanks supports it. limiting diving of the human player by depth will prevent you from going out of vehicles (if you ever support that one day) to collect stuff on the sea floor.
Really love and appreciate watching the balance you’ve struck with work/life/projects!
6:11 looks like oldschool runescape skills
I've been following you for a while now and it amazes me how advanced and matured your coding and game design skills are.
You're an inspiration, keep up the awesome work!
The game is coming along nicely! I hope to see this continue far into the future...
I appreciate the digging into the code and how you approach the problems. Thanks!
I love your workflowand your devlogs so much! they’re so relaxing and the project is coming along great!
I really like the way you've expanded the content out some. Nicely done
This has been a topic I’ve been curious about. Thank you so much for sharing! 😇
I also really love your vlogs, it's good to hear how you manage your time, planning, and life balancing 😇
I love these videos. Your videos motivated me to improve and optimize my workspace. Keep at it!
I love and commend your commitment to the game and your early morning work before work. You're a good role model for a productive and healthy life style.
I enjoyed the informal devlog and the focus on small fixes.
That vignette effect is cool. Gives me some ideas! Thanks for your channel.
Another one already! Thank you!
I'm finding this channel very inspirantional. Keep up the good work.
Love these vids dude. Your house looks awesome, led walls, shrimp tanks and a gym!
Love the devlogs of smaller stepping stones in the project! Your devlogs don't need to be based in big new features to be interesting keep up the high quality content!
I am glad you are showing us the actual process behind this, I also use godot (not so good at it but learning)
It’s so interesting to see how your game is developing week by week!!
Great devlog as always ! :)
It's ultra tough.
Keep up the good work!!!!!!
Bro i just started watching you and i like the chill calm vibe and its super interesting becouse i recently started coding i am amazed that you made this alone keep up the great work
Great video Ben! I hadn't noticed your style change really until you mentioned this, but seeing the smaller parts of a devlog as you say is great! It's all part of the journey!
I was curious, if you were to try and save a cave bat without being the right level what would happen?
Been enjoying the dev logs, thanks!
One comment on leveling up, I always find it a bit jarring to get the level up note at the exact time you do whatever action needed to get the level up (in this case hit the crab). I think its nicer game flow if you get the level up notification a couple of seconds after the action. Gives you a chance to experience your action first and then only deal with the level up after.
I can't believe I'm not subbed to you. I've been watching your videos for 2 years
Great video as always, man. Congrats! Just like to add an info because something caught my attention when you were diving. The bubbles that the char makes while underwater are crossing the surface line into the air
this video was really good
Awesome and inspiring video. Keep up the great work! One suggestion for the leveling feedback is to show the progress bar filling up with a small animation similar to Skyrim. I find it very satisfying and thought it could fit your leveling system nicely. Have a nice week!
I love your videos, because of them i started to learn Godot
I love watching devlogs because you can see the game develope before your eyes
yes thats what i also like
I have a tip for you as a diver, The more experienced divers tend to consume less air. They waste less air when trimming the jacket and due to their more relaxed state, also consume less.
Leveling up diving could make you dive deeper simply because you have more air.
Also don't forget that you can spend less time at 20m than at 10m.
Love this feedback! The max time on your "timer" will definitely increase as you level up. I've heard a few people mention how depth can affect your time underwater. That would be a very cool feature to implement.
@@DevDuck you can also add in some cave systems to explore underwater. This will make diving way more interesting and here, the whole time-system is going to really make a difference. Also gives the user something to keep coming back to the same spots as they can go further and further. + forcing them to make choices when the tunnel splits etc..
I thought of something like that too! In the beginning of the game you would start with very little air, but when you level up your diving skill you would start a dive with more air so you can stay underwater.
You could also calculate the maximum depth that a player could reach with this much air to still set a max depth. Depth can also affect air usage (if that is wat you mean @DevDuck ) which would add a good challenge but also discourage players with low diving skill levels to go too deep.
Anyway, I really like the game so far, and I also like that you show the bugfixes. I'm a developer too (only as a hobby) and bugfixing is a big part of programming (sadly...), so it is good you show that too!
It's very important to have a good work-life balance. Great video!
Seemed pretty structured to me :D
underrated
I love the master shield
Looks good.
Very cool videos! Keep up the good work.
Btw what todo list tool are you using
HERE IN THE FIRST HOUR!!!
LES GOOO
Yo is that Green Bay Packers helmet a Commander Keen reference? :D Awesome video, love your biophilic workspace!
Good luck managing your time. I know personally it's something I struggle with. I always have to force myself to take breaks or force myself to be productive. Balance is hard!
I love your weekly updates. Will you release a native version for the Apple Silicon? Keep it up your great work. Greetings from Moldova!
Not really related to mechanic updates, but I noticed when you pick up a lot of items the text can get quite big because it shows a notification for every item you pick up. I just thought you might want to implement some sort of item stacking in the notifications.
You could check to see if there is already a notification for that item type before spawning another one, and if there is, reset the destruction timer and update the text to say " x2", then " x3", and so on. This would also work for XP, just adding it up in one notification when gained in quick succession. Just thought this type of system might be a bit easier to keep up with once the items really start flying.
Best of luck with the rest of your game!
Great vlogs! I am wondering, do you have a specific feature set planned for your "full version" of the game or are you going to keep adding stuff until you are satisfied?
I really like the way the diving looks now! But I was thinking that maybe it’s enough to get that depth warning one time, after that you kind of figure out why you can’t go deeper. Anyways, just a thought, I enjoyed the video as always!
Hello there! I'm really enjoying these devlogs! I was wondering if you had any idea when it will be ready for a demo
Love this man, please make more of these. Also you should check out click up. It's been pretty useful as of late for me. Also, could you do a video about your process in which you study to know how to implement things in your project. I.e. how do you figure out what functions you need to make the diving skill
Thanks for the video I really enjoy it. What software are you using for the “Dev Board “ please ?
i really love your cut scenes. I was wondering do you have any plan to create a tutorial about how you managed to create it? i would love to follow.
It's awesome to see how your unlocking system works. I wonder if the game would benefit from a 'total' or 'actual' level, like combat levels in runescape. Perhaps conservation is a good candidate for this since that seems to be a main focus of the game.
Love the video man! Do you have some aquarium tips?👌
Thinking about making a video about that in the future! I recorded the entire setup of that 5-gallon.
oh dude that horror crab looks cool
Hey what keyboard are you using ? Looks awesome! Great video
!
Great devlog!
What are you using for your defect list? Doesn't look like trello :)
Hey DevDuck! I discovered your channel a while ago and I just started binge-watching each video of yours! They're very fun to watch. Hope you keep working on Dauphin since it honestly look amazing. Also, you gotta hook us up with those wallpapers :D
great work man, whats the wallpaper used on your desktop?
What is the Trello-like application you are using at 1:23? Love the video!
Great Video! I really like both styles of videos you make. There is a quick question I have. What organization software do you use? I thought it was Trello but it seems like another software. Thanks :)
I was wondering this too. Anyone know?
you could add the ability to enter underwater caves by reaching a certain diving level
It would be cool when you level your diving skill you get more air as well as being able to dive deeper.
i think all us devlogers run into that issue where you need to work on less flashy things for a bit, especially as you get further into development. I think you handled it pretty well, good job! (expect it to keep happening lol)
I reckon making the dive timer count down faster the deeper you go past their current dive limit is a great way to give a sense of urgency but also agency to the player. If they just need to go that 'little bit deeper' they can make that risk/reward judgement and it's more organic than a hard limit =)
Also, when the level up info pops up, can the player still be hurt? Because that could be kind of annoying
Fair Play, Trying to balance full time work and part time masters with new interest in game dev myself, failing miserably haha
I like the whole watch thing which shows you the general info one would need when doing their certain tasks. I don't know if it's possible but if I'd be playing the game myself and I were diving I would probably want to be able to see both my breath and the depth at the same time.
I am but one humble opinion so feel free to ignore :p
1:18 what kind of task manangement tool are you using? It look kind of pretty
Nice WRX :p
Good. What is the name of that ToDo-Kanban app you use? Looks nice and simple.
What's the tool name for your kanban board style mac app? Is that Notion?
I wish you would make rpg game tutorials course like how you make your game so far. I would definitely buy it.
Love that note app! Name?
Hmmm... I missed a few devlogs and see you aren't using Trello anymore? Or wasn't that the case at all?
Just curious what you're using now, looks sleek
Man I go to bed at 01:00 at earliest
I got rdr2 over the winter sale too! :D
Hey just wondering, i'm new to programming, what languages are you using for all of this? :)
Really enjoying these videos, thanks for uploading dude!
Godot
@DevDuck Make the deep limiter thing where you have a high chance to start blacking out
You have probably answered this before but I am new to the channel. Why don’t you do Game dev/programming for work? Or have you tried doing it for work?
I think when you implement a way to stop the player from diving too deep, it would be more interesting to set up some risk/reward: below 5m the air could be used up in double the time for example. Might feel more organic that way
Hey DevDuck, how do you feel about making a video on your code architecture in Godot.
Reckon I could do that! Not sure my architecture is the best, but it does seem to be working for me.
I'm proud 👏 man. I seem how you started from the beginning and you are still going strong. 💪 but the only way I like shrimp 🍤 is fry, sauté, grilled... not in a tank. 🤣
What if the diving watch and/or the oxygen level is also locked in the diving skill, since you can see that you are running out of air through the shader.
How do you maintain focus so well? I struggle with that so, so much.
What is the todo/progress tracker you are using?
what app do you use for you to do lists?
what application is your notebook? I've been looking for something like that.
Did you switch from Trello? What's the new PM tool?
i love eating shrimp xD
Looking good, something I noticed that your text wraps while its writing, which looks kinda strange. Unity would do the same thing with text. What you could do is directly write the whole text invisible, and just show a character at a time. Would look the same for the player, but the engine already figured out how to wrap all text.
What about reusing the vignette effect when the player dives too deep?
Here is a small suggestion. If the player dives to deep. Instead of Blocking him from it, he loses air. That means he can also risk diving deeper and "pass out" or stay in the save range. It shouldn't be a instant kill but like 3-4 times air usage if too deep. That way it also would show you are not accustom to the depth yet.
What did you switch from Trello to? I don’t recognize that one