Game Developers of Kiwi Farms

[Judge Dredd]

I'm not expecting much from this thread. Professional game devs can't say much due to Non-Disclosure Agreements, and others don't want their name blatantly connected to KF for a number of reasons.

That said, modding, game development, anything you want to discuss. Feel free.


Recently I've had a bit of a crisis, due to an increasingly popular opinion among gamers I've seen mentioned on this forum. One of my struggles as an indie dev has been a perpetual loop of people going "I don't care about graphics, I only care about gameplay. I'm not playing that, the graphics are shit." What's more, the styles themselves are considered a problem. Low poly, pixel art, stock assets, all of it gets slammed with the label of "bad graphics" or worse "lazy". Gamers point to games with large dev teams or games that have been in "early access" for over a decade as examples of how to do it right. Assuming they don't simply contradict themselves. "Don't use stock assets, do what X does!" when X uses stock assets.

It's interesting to see the reaction of creative communities when confronted with this. They basically say "don't listen to them, they don't know what they're talking about". While true, there's likely something to it even if gamers point to the wrong cause. There's no shortage of recent-ish hits that do the things they complain about, and even the most played games on Steam do these things, so clearly blaming low poly or pixel art isn't the problem.

At the same time, there's a seemingly large subset of gamers who complain about wokeshit but will only play AAA slop, so who knows.


On the plus side, I've been having fun with GBStudio again. The games are GBStudio slop, as is to be expected when you use an engine based on templates, made worse by them being all cameos and inside jokes related to friends. But fact that I can throw something together in just a few hours is fun and can highly recommend it if you're feeling burned out on game dev. I'm tempted to make something a bit more serious with it, but I'm not sure yet.

 

[BONECRUSHER]

Honestly, I wish I could program my way out of a paperbag so I could try to do my own project. I've had repeated attempts at trying to learn how to program over the years, but never could get it once it came to actual bits that are more relevant to a game, shit like menus, state machines, saving and loading and such.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

Don't listen to imbecile faggots who whine online. Make a game that YOU want to play, and then likely someone else will appreciate it.

 

[herefortheactualthreads]

@CrunkLord420 made 3 games and 1 game engine in TempleOS which require the HolyC language.

diggaym
cyberchud engine
blazeitfgt
blazeitfgt2

also look at YandereDev's code and do the opposite of what he does.

 

[batterybee]

Honestly, I wish I could program my way out of a paperbag so I could try to do my own project. I've had repeated attempts at trying to learn how to program over the years, but never could get it once it came to actual bits that are more relevant to a game, shit like menus, state machines, saving and loading and such.

I think learning to program in a game engine is a bad idea, since learning the framework of the engine is a whole other skill set on top of the fundamental programming knowledge required to stitch it all together.
I've been meaning to have a go at making something with Godot when I get some time.

On that point of the graphics... when I see something that screams generic indie slop, of which i would consider low-poly 3D models, especial with bland textures, or 2D pixel art, I pretty much write it off from there.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

On that point of the graphics... when I see something that screams generic indie slop, of which i would consider low-poly 3D models, especial with bland textures, or 2D pixel art, I pretty much write it off from there.

So you would write of Rimworld, Minecraft, Terraria, Hotline Miami, Papers Please, etc.?

 

[batterybee]

So you would write of Rimworld, Minecraft, Terraria, Hotline Miami, Papers Please, etc.?

No, those have unique art styles that you wouldn't mistake for other games, Ill find some examples.

 

[libRT]

I'm a gameplay over graphics guy, mostly because I've been stung by so many studio titles that are literally the same basic fps/platformer reskinned with a single new mechanic or w/e. It's clear those devs either didn't play through their own games or didn't think it was any fun it often gets boring after the first 10 minutes. Not all studio games are like this. Its been enough that I hardly game anymore and when I do I pick titles because they look like they'd be fun not because of setting/story. I haven't bought a cod game since the old MW2, I think I pirated GTA5 played it for 10-15 minutes, never played it again.

So you would write of Rimworld, Minecraft, Terraria, Hotline Miami, Papers Please, etc.?

liked and bought all those games. also Gnomoria (shame it got abandoned, seemed closest to DF at the time (not that close but still) with an actual interface, factorio, satisfactory. Faster than light + dlc. Battletech (base game is okay, mods are great). Noita. Played DF quite a lot, might buy it on steam when it actually releases

The gameplay loop needs to have some interesting novelty, something to keep the game loop interesting, at least if you want to amass a decent following. It seems meme games are in if you want to make a quick buck with no work.

 

[Zero MK 2]

Its super annoying to try to learn gamedev and then when looking up documentation or asking for help, you run into nothing but retards insisting that you should steal everything off the internet act like yanderedev.

Like bro, I just wanted to learn how to retarget animations to models I made in unreal. I don't need to know 5000 fucking scripting languages when Unreal has a simple enough UI but vague as hell processes that require a ton of external knowledge.

You'd think that a bug would occur inside the blueprints you made but instead, its often some retarded engine fuckery that you need to go to some other random part of the UI to toggle on/off some feature that was designed to actively fuck with the ideas you wanted to implement. EGS isn't as bad as people claim it is, its the developer community that is awful and full of nothing but "buy my course" shills that are even more vague than Epic's Engine Documentary.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Honestly, I wish I could program my way out of a paperbag so I could try to do my own project. I've had repeated attempts at trying to learn how to program over the years, but never could get it once it came to actual bits that are more relevant to a game, shit like menus, state machines, saving and loading and such.

For what it's worth, you don't need that stuff. Mostly. Saving and loading isn't something I've toyed with to any serious degree. Things like UI vary greatly based on engine. Godots UI system is a mess if you try to use it as intended, but I can brute force it well enough.

Don't listen to imbecile faggots who whine online. Make a game that YOU want to play, and then likely someone else will appreciate it.

It's a good line of thinking, but one I struggle with. "Make a game that you want to play" only works as long as you want to play something that isn't weird, autistic, and esoteric. It's the game dev equivalent of those people that tell single people to "just be yourself". Sure, it makes sense, but it assumes "yourself" is a normie.

I also struggle with making the game I want to make, vs the game I want to play. I hate roguelikes, but when I author my own levels I know them inside out and only see the problems. This passes after I've not worked on the game for a while, but it's a difficult balance to maintain.

I think learning to program in a game engine is a bad idea, since learning the framework of the engine is a whole other skill set on top of the fundamental programming knowledge required to stitch it all together.
I've been meaning to have a go at making something with Godot when I get some time.

Godot is good. It has some serious issues, like the UI system I already mentioned, but it's good enough.

I see what you mean about learning an engine. Not sure if I agree. Godot (and Unity when I used that) has a problem where I know what I want to do and know vaguely how to do it, but knowing the engine terminology is a problem. Having 2D sprites in a 3D engine is much easier when you know the term "billboarding", but I didn't know that term and spent a week figuring that out.

And like @Zero MK 2 said, spending ages troubleshooting an obscure problem, only to find that a dumb, brute force solution works best, or that there's some obscure engine bug is frustrating.

Every so often I get on this kick of wanting to work on modern retro hardware. Things like GBStudio, Pico-8, or Commander X16, likely for this reason. They are limited, but at least you can know everything inside and out.

Its super annoying to try to learn gamedev and then when looking up documentation or asking for help, you run into nothing but retards insisting that you should steal everything off the internet act like yanderedev.

There's also the tutorial problem where using Unity or Unreal to make a game only works until the minute you want to do something that isn't covered by a tutorial or a bloated plug in.

 

[X Prime]

Like bro, I just wanted to learn how to retarget animations to models I made in unreal. I don't need to know 5000 fucking scripting languages when Unreal has a simple enough UI but vague as hell processes that require a ton of external knowledge.

I think you will find a lot of this stuff is on purpose.

There was a shirt in Microcenter once: "your ignorance is my job security."

Even digital art production is like that in some cases.

 

[Coolio55]

Honest question.
What do you guys dislike about the Godot UI famework? Seems like a pretty good system to make scalable GUI but idk.
What do other engines do better?

Also, the Cyclops Level Builder is a huge boon to Godot users. Hopefully Vincent Kalle won't have to awkwardly import BSP maps anymore.

 

[Dull Pencil]

Godot (and Unity when I used that)

Why did you switch? I try to use Unity and I have tons of assets, that are useful sure, but they often end up short due to making them work together or needing extensive coding. I can't code for shit and I'm only interested in making cool stuff, not coding. So that leaves me dependent on premade templates, and yea, those are often completely mindboggling crap. They really made me understand the terms "pajeet code" and "soy dev".

Also, asking for help in Unity is obnoxious. You so very often get reply by some turbo autistic retard that can't even comprehend questions and make an answer in general terms. It has to be super specific. So annoying.

you know the term

Case in point. Can relate, if you ask about something and don't know the specific term the mouth breathers will rather sperg arrogant nonsense wall of texts than saying: "Oh, you mean X? Try this"

Things like GBStudio, Pico-8, or Commander X16,

That sounds really interesting, never heard about those. If you ever need some pixels done I might be interested. You know what I can make.

Now with AI I personally want to make old NES era stuff, but with highres hand drawn graphics. When I was a kid I always thought games in the future would look like the box art(that were made by professional artists), or Disney/Anime movies. But then N64/PSX happened and we got low poly with blurry/misaligned textures at fantastic 30 fps instead...

 

[Zero MK 2]

There's also the tutorial problem where using Unity or Unreal to make a game only works until the minute you want to do something that isn't covered by a tutorial or a bloated plug in.

Had found learning what most of the visual scripting nodes do was a good way to get around this.

I also struggle with making the game I want to make, vs the game I want to play. I hate roguelikes, but when I author my own levels I know them inside out and only see the problems. This passes after I've not worked on the game for a while, but it's a difficult balance to maintain.

Depends on the complexity. Turns out you can tell a decent story without any voice acting that isn't a walking sim or retro shooter.

I think you will find a lot of this stuff is on purpose.

There was a shirt in Microcenter once: "your ignorance is my job security."

Even digital art production is like that in some cases.

It definitely is and its not limited to any one modern engine. The ban happy discordniggers LARPing about wanting you to ask them gamedev questions don't help either.

You'd be amazed at how they try to overcomplicate something as easy as a simple rotating platform. When all that was needed was a repeating timeline and a makerotation node. I figured the out the solution myself from scratch while the tutorials would sperg on for 30+ minutes adding all kinds of wack shit into the visual scripting while mashing their keyboard harder than DSP with his fighting controller.

Honest question.
What do you guys dislike about the Godot UI famework? Seems like a pretty good system to make scalable GUI but idk.
What do other engines do better?

Also, the Cyclops Level Builder is a huge boon to Godot users. Hopefully Vincent Kalle won't have to awkwardly import BSP maps anymore.

Didn't like Godot because of the lack of visual scripting. I am just not a great programmer and no "learning to think abstractly" is retarded when the actual code required for things is often something super simple that isn't covered even in programming books that I end up overthinking.

Going back to the dawn of time to sperg about the history of computer programming while the book author strokes their own ego for several chapters isn't helpful either. Its like trying to learn calculus but they replaced all the derivative math equations with quotes from "war & peace" to make you feel dumb when you obviously don't get anything out of it.

 

[Soycast Guy]

I’ve wanted to develop video games for a long time. I can’t code for shit though and quite honestly learning seems like a hassle. Also budget, because the game I would love to make most is a DMC-like, but I don’t think I would have the budget.

 

[PrimeVector]

I think the disdain of pixel and low-poly games comes from the protracted backlash towards the "Indie Revolution" of the late 00s/ early 10s. A lot of these indie devs had their heads up their asses and would lament the state of the triple A video game industry due to the abundance of military shooters, all the while, making the same pixel shit game where some small animal goes through a deep, emotional story, where it learns it has an asshole at the end of it.

 

[Tiggie_Tiger]

@CrunkLord420 made 3 games and 1 game engine in TempleOS which require the HolyC language.

Wait what? An actual based game dev with skills and isn't dependent on a single game engine? The fact he used HolyC is such a flex.

 

[Grub]

saving and loading and such

Saving and loading can actually be a bit of a pain in the ass. I find reading and writing files in general to be the most tedious and annoying parts of programming things. I always get hung up on the best way to structure my data and format my data files. I find it's something you should try and plan at least a little bit near the beginning. Data management in general is something you should plan early because most games have a ton data that you're manipulating and if you haven't figured out how you're going to store and access that shit before you need to start storing and accessing that shit it can get out of control pretty quickly.

 

[Coolio55]

I think the disdain of pixel and low-poly games comes from the protracted backlash towards the "Indie Revolution" of the late 00s/ early 10s. A lot of these indie devs had their heads up their asses and would lament the state of the triple A video game industry due to the abundance of military shooters, all the while, making the same pixel shit game where some small animal goes through a deep, emotional story, where it learns it has an asshole at the end of it.

It's even funnier when you realize that at the start of the "indie revolution" you were getting a boatload of double and triple A pixel games on the DS.
The GBA and DS are the peak of pixel gaming for me and nothing has come close since.

 

[Whatevermancer]

My biggest success was a web game that got 17k plays and a rating of 4.6 with 18 votes on itch.io. So, very modest.

To me it seems like the gaming industry has become extremely competitive since the age of Flash. Back then you could release a half-decent game and easily get 50k-0.5M plays cause your competitors were other Flash devs like you. You didn't have to compete with PC and console games cause they cost money while your game was completely free. But nowadays you're competing with F2P mobile games, F2P PC and console games, and more and more people are using smartphones to browse the web, so you'd better add controls and settings to accommodate them.
Sure, you can make a premium PC game, release it on Steam, but AFAIK there's 50 games being released on Steam everyday, all of which you'll have to compete with.

So yeah, I'm pretty blackpilled on the idea of developing games to make money especially if you wanna go the "just make what you yourself want to play" route.