About tweening, be EXTREMELY careful that those little animations don't waste ANY time. It can be incredibly frustrating to open your inventory and have to wait even just a tenth of a second for it to appear. You want it to be as snappy as possible.
I know how much we like to say, especially in the indie space, that graphics doesn't matter - but seriously guys they do. Hiring a professional towards the end of your project to give a "once over" on all your assets will put you miles ahead of your peers. The fact that the dudes who made this video didn't mention visuals, their own game has weak visuals, and by their own admission their sales were poor: it's the blind leading the blind
Graphics do mater but I would say only 20 to 30 percent of the entire game, the man focuses should be stoy /narrative of the game, world building and most importantly game play over everything else, so It would look like this graphics 10 percent, native / story would be 20 world building 40 then gameplay would be 30 percent.
I think graphic is what draws people in, gameplay engages, while story and music is what the player will remember and talk about. You can prioritize what you want as needed.
10:10 re:sounds... specially for sfx that are very repeated (walking, jumping, menu clicks) adding a tiny bit of random pitch (or other effect that you prefer) distortion can make it feel a lot less repetitive - and that's literally one line of code in any engine if the sfx in question is really core to your game and will be on focus a lot, even consider going a step further and having a bespoke set (instead of random distortion), e.g.: 10 different crafted sounds for stepping that you pick from each time you play
Regarding sounds, especially music and ambient sounds. Have it on while programming, on loop. If you are annoyed before the days over then the player will be annoyed. You see this sometimes where the music sounds great. The first two loops, then it starts to get grating. And by the 7th loop you're in the menus trying to turn it off. Or refunding. Obviously, if you have a high paced combat track that'll only play for a couple minutes you don't have to last the whole day, just an hour or so.
A good point on getting the "feel" of a game right, build your game with a specific emotion in mind. Try to elicit and build on that emotion throughout the aesthetic, the controls, the ui, and the story of the game.
for the love of god, if you add animations to everything - specially if you are building a game that is expected to be played repeatedly (rogue-like, factory/management, etc) - PLEASE also add a "instant animations" option (no man sky is an excellent example of how lacking this option can hurt the game a lot)
I think by tweening you mean in general making transition animations instead of instant switching. As far as I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, tweening refers to the illusion of making these transitions smoother by adding frames between the transition keyframes, which may distort the object in various ways to make the movement look more realistic/faster etc
Thank you for all the information! This has been really helpful! Would it be possible to let us know what type of equipment you all use for game development? Such as drawing tablets and things like that :)
I've already done 2 scrapped videos where I tour my setup basically, but both times I just found them too boring, as I am not one of those TH-camrs with a super aesthethic desk. Basically, I have my PC, with a bunch of monitors, I have my ProArt Studiobook laptop, and an XP-Pen 22 Pro that I picked up really cheap 2nd hand. The others of BiteMe all just use their regular gaming PCs for gamedev. -M
Thank you for that, just wondering really if I need any special equipment, currently, I have similar stuff, just don't know much about drawing pads like the Pen 22 that you mentioned, thank you for replying! This helps a lot!@@bitemegames
9:30 re: jumping/physics also be careful to not be too "correct"... just implementing a perfect physics jump might not feel "right" for your game, consider messing around with both custom acceleration curves old mario games for instance are notorious for having a different "gravity" if you are doing a small jump, big jump, or just falling off a ledge, which makes absolutely no sense in terms of physics, but feels right
Hi! i'm really enjoying watching your videos, thanks for all the tips. I just tried Forge Industry now, I played for 19 minutes but I couldn't craft an Iron Ingot because I simply don't understand wich button should I press to make Ore "do his job". I thought to myself, maybe I should drag the ore item to this empty space under Ingot icon, but drag doesn't work. The tutorial on the left just tell that I need to craft in the refinement station but doesn't telll how to do this. Considering that a tutorial usually tells you "press this button in this place to do the thing", I was hoping for that. Maybe you guys should consider revisit the tutorial in a future update. My best wishes for BiteMe Games!
still on the topic of sound since I see this one a lot... be super careful to limit the number of sound effects playing at once, specially if the same effect can be triggered 10s or 100s of times in a very short interval.. depending which engine you are using and how you set your audio it can lead to unpleasant sounds, clipping, or super loud spikes godot/unity/unreal (likely others, but I'm only familiar with these 3) have easy ways of setting this up but you need to opt-in
Overall, advancements in accessibility actually are good for the whole population! Eg closed captions, key bindings, good color contrast. Before bed, I use a blue light filter on my phone, meaning this one game I play (that uses red, green, blue of about the same brightness to identify different empires) is as unplayable to me as it would be for a color blind person (aka I never play it night). So I wish they had designed that game with color blindness in mind!
Thanks for the insight. I want to make a ludo game & card building deck game for unreal engine or Godot do you have or know where I could some tutorials please thanks.
Go for Godot, just break down your main mechanics you're going to be having, and look for tutorials related to the topic on TH-cam. Make sure you have a little bit of an understanding of GDScript in advance, if not, watch some basic godot videos first, follow along some tutorials, and get a feel for the engine. -M
Physics instructions unclear, I stood up and jumped but haven’t come down yet.
To infinity, and beyond! -M
About tweening, be EXTREMELY careful that those little animations don't waste ANY time. It can be incredibly frustrating to open your inventory and have to wait even just a tenth of a second for it to appear. You want it to be as snappy as possible.
Absolutely. Never compromise usability. "should i?" is always more important than "can i?"
I know how much we like to say, especially in the indie space, that graphics doesn't matter - but seriously guys they do. Hiring a professional towards the end of your project to give a "once over" on all your assets will put you miles ahead of your peers. The fact that the dudes who made this video didn't mention visuals, their own game has weak visuals, and by their own admission their sales were poor: it's the blind leading the blind
Graphics do mater but I would say only 20 to 30 percent of the entire game, the man focuses should be stoy /narrative of the game, world building and most importantly game play over everything else, so It would look like this graphics 10 percent, native / story would be 20 world building 40 then gameplay would be 30 percent.
I think graphic is what draws people in, gameplay engages, while story and music is what the player will remember and talk about.
You can prioritize what you want as needed.
Just started making my own game and shortly after discovered this channel now it’s been on repeat
10:10 re:sounds... specially for sfx that are very repeated (walking, jumping, menu clicks) adding a tiny bit of random pitch (or other effect that you prefer) distortion can make it feel a lot less repetitive - and that's literally one line of code in any engine
if the sfx in question is really core to your game and will be on focus a lot, even consider going a step further and having a bespoke set (instead of random distortion), e.g.: 10 different crafted sounds for stepping that you pick from each time you play
Regarding sounds, especially music and ambient sounds.
Have it on while programming, on loop. If you are annoyed before the days over then the player will be annoyed.
You see this sometimes where the music sounds great. The first two loops, then it starts to get grating. And by the 7th loop you're in the menus trying to turn it off. Or refunding.
Obviously, if you have a high paced combat track that'll only play for a couple minutes you don't have to last the whole day, just an hour or so.
A good point on getting the "feel" of a game right, build your game with a specific emotion in mind. Try to elicit and build on that emotion throughout the aesthetic, the controls, the ui, and the story of the game.
for the love of god, if you add animations to everything - specially if you are building a game that is expected to be played repeatedly (rogue-like, factory/management, etc) - PLEASE also add a "instant animations" option (no man sky is an excellent example of how lacking this option can hurt the game a lot)
UI.... original ascii version of Dwarf Fortress....
So happy they changed the UI XD
We played in Spite of the UI
Appreciate the experiment, think it paid off nicely
Great tips as always 👍
I think by tweening you mean in general making transition animations instead of instant switching. As far as I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, tweening refers to the illusion of making these transitions smoother by adding frames between the transition keyframes, which may distort the object in various ways to make the movement look more realistic/faster etc
Thank you for all the information! This has been really helpful! Would it be possible to let us know what type of equipment you all use for game development? Such as drawing tablets and things like that :)
I've already done 2 scrapped videos where I tour my setup basically, but both times I just found them too boring, as I am not one of those TH-camrs with a super aesthethic desk.
Basically, I have my PC, with a bunch of monitors, I have my ProArt Studiobook laptop, and an XP-Pen 22 Pro that I picked up really cheap 2nd hand. The others of BiteMe all just use their regular gaming PCs for gamedev. -M
Thank you for that, just wondering really if I need any special equipment, currently, I have similar stuff, just don't know much about drawing pads like the Pen 22 that you mentioned, thank you for replying! This helps a lot!@@bitemegames
9:30 re: jumping/physics also be careful to not be too "correct"... just implementing a perfect physics jump might not feel "right" for your game, consider messing around with both custom acceleration curves
old mario games for instance are notorious for having a different "gravity" if you are doing a small jump, big jump, or just falling off a ledge, which makes absolutely no sense in terms of physics, but feels right
Hi! i'm really enjoying watching your videos, thanks for all the tips. I just tried Forge Industry now, I played for 19 minutes but I couldn't craft an Iron Ingot because I simply don't understand wich button should I press to make Ore "do his job". I thought to myself, maybe I should drag the ore item to this empty space under Ingot icon, but drag doesn't work. The tutorial on the left just tell that I need to craft in the refinement station but doesn't telll how to do this. Considering that a tutorial usually tells you "press this button in this place to do the thing", I was hoping for that. Maybe you guys should consider revisit the tutorial in a future update. My best wishes for BiteMe Games!
still on the topic of sound since I see this one a lot... be super careful to limit the number of sound effects playing at once, specially if the same effect can be triggered 10s or 100s of times in a very short interval.. depending which engine you are using and how you set your audio it can lead to unpleasant sounds, clipping, or super loud spikes
godot/unity/unreal (likely others, but I'm only familiar with these 3) have easy ways of setting this up but you need to opt-in
You should make a video on game UI!
Recently I added bindable keys specifically for someone that uses an AZERTY keyboard.
"We don't make games for blind people" - wrong again. Inclusive game design is a very important aspect these days.
Overall, advancements in accessibility actually are good for the whole population! Eg closed captions, key bindings, good color contrast.
Before bed, I use a blue light filter on my phone, meaning this one game I play (that uses red, green, blue of about the same brightness to identify different empires) is as unplayable to me as it would be for a color blind person (aka I never play it night). So I wish they had designed that game with color blindness in mind!
"Just buy an asset"
I hate when I can't read something! Or if it's too fast to read.
One of my main complaints with movies as well.
Love your videos! Keep them coming! ❤
I believe you can make ui really great if you add lots of icons, so peopld don't have to read.
"Controls are important" (*uses footage from the game "Control"*) 😅
Thanks for the insight. I want to make a ludo game & card building deck game for unreal engine or Godot do you have or know where I could some tutorials please thanks.
Go for Godot, just break down your main mechanics you're going to be having, and look for tutorials related to the topic on TH-cam. Make sure you have a little bit of an understanding of GDScript in advance, if not, watch some basic godot videos first, follow along some tutorials, and get a feel for the engine. -M
8:55
I agree, Unreal 4 had TERRIBLE jump mechanics.
Unreal 5 is MUCH better. Still a little floaty, but not like you're on the moon.
A UI is like a joke, if you have to explain it, it’s not any good. 😂