

Ask HN: Are you developing a game? Tell me more - JonLim

Hey HN,<p>I have always wanted to hear about the trials and tribulations of indie game developers and maybe offer a helping hand in anything possible.<p>So let's get the ball rolling:<p>- What is the concept of your game?<p>- How far are you in development?<p>- Are you looking for help? Where and how?
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SingAlong
Nice to see this thread,

I'm just getting started with game dev. And to get a grip of the simple stuff,
I'm developing a pong game using Polycode (<http://polycode.org>). I'm very
much interested in knowing what tools other indie devs use.

JonLim, since you mentioned you are looking to help, you can pitch in and help
with Polycode itself - <https://github.com/ivansafrin/Polycode>. It's a nice
tool with C++ APIs and also Lua APIs which makes it easier to develop stuff.
I'm hangout on FreenodeIRC #polycode as HashNuke.

I'm not working on the Polycode directly, but after this pong game (hopefully,
if I can squash some bugs) I'll have a little framework to develop games using
Polycode that I can opensource.

~~~
JonLim
Not the best of coders but I will take a look at it. When do you think your
framework will be finished?

~~~
SingAlong
Polycode is pretty much done and good enough to work on hobby projects as per
what the docs say. There's a neat learning section on the site too to help
others get started. I got started with that. I haven't taken a dip in the
framework too much. The repo's maintainer hasn't accepted pull requests since
a month or so and others who have forked it have added build instructions and
a lot of fixes.

I sent a message to the repo owner yesterday asking him if he can add build
instructions to the site so that others can use it to contribute. Still
waiting for reply.

I've been waiting to get my hands dirty and contribute to the Lua APIs. The
forks of the repo which have build instructions say building the project from
source on Mac OSX has problems, the repo owner Ivan somehow built it (i'm on a
mac), so I guess we'll have to wait until he adds the instructions himself.

~~~
JonLim
Sounds good, I will take a look. What games do you have planned after the ping
pong game?

~~~
SingAlong
A shoot-em-up (top-down view) next. I've not yet chosen my tool yet. But I
fell in love with Polycode coz it abstracts the OpenGL APIs and gives you a
nice set of Lua APIs.

I thought pong was simple to start with. But Pong in itself is not that simple
when it has to be 'complete'. Realized that gamedev isn't that simple as web
dev :)

~~~
JonLim
Contra top-down style? My least favourite of levels! Haha.

I remember my days in high school Java class, trying to learn to create pong.
That was a fun experience.. :P

~~~
SingAlong
Not contra-style. Remember the Battle Tank game on NES?
<http://ui13.gamespot.com/1100/battlecity1a_2.png> That kinda stuff. I played
it in co-operative mode (2-player) with my dad during nights when I was a kid.
Loved it :)

I'm actually doing these just to get a good feel of gamedev before plunging
into anything even a bit complex.

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yobfountain
I have a couple of games I am working on now.

The first one is called uchoos (<http://uchoos.com>). It's a choose your own
adventure game for your phone. It's live right now with a demo story. I put it
together for GameHackDay. It has a CMS for for creating and uploading content.
I'm not sure how much time I'm going to spend on it.

I'm also working on another game called zown that is a real-world capture the
flag variation. I've built some custom hardware for it and I'm currently in
the process of completing the web server that will support gameplay. Details
for the custom hardware are here: <http://bit.ly/pvWZHv>

I'm not currently looking for help but I'm always interested in feedback.

~~~
JonLim
Very cool!

For uChoos, are you supposed to text the number on the site or... what? :)

~~~
yobfountain
Right now you just call and it puts you into my demo story. I have an sms menu
(and some other features) on my current work branch but I have not pushed it
yet.

I'm toying with the idea of creating a web view for the stories as well. As of
now, the 'story builder' is not open to the public but my next release may
allow for that.

~~~
JonLim
Looking forward to that. Not sure I can call it (long distance from Toronto!)
but I'd love to be able to play with it on the web. :)

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mmccomb
I'm not actively developing any more, but I've actually just released my first
indie game so I speak from experience.

\- What is the concept of your game? It's an asteroids clone with a bit of a
twist. The asteroids can be one of a number of colors and the player has to
switch bullet colors to match their target asteroid. Hit an asteroid with the
wrong color bullet and it spawns more.

\- How far are you in development? Complete - you can check out some pics and
download (it's free) from the official site...
<http://www.mattmccomb.com/Coloroids/index.html>

As for the trials and tribulations...

\+ Use frameworks - I handcrafted my engine from scratch. My maths/geometry
isn't bad but implementing the physics and rendering took me much longer than
any other aspect of the development. And for what gain? I learnt a bit about
maths/physics but it's not useful to me. I would have been better off using a
library (cocs2d, unity, etc.) and pouring my time into gameplay.

\+ Finishing is the hardest part - Adding features and tweaking control
systems, that's fun! Coding menus, creating icons and writing app
descriptions, not so much. I left all the dull stuff to end. I spent my last
week of development writing emails to app review sites and creating promo
images/videos. I suggest that you plan ahead and do some of the dog work as
you go. It'll make completing much easier.

\+ Feedback is Critical - find a diverse range of testers, old, young, gamers,
non-gamers and let them play your game from day 1. They are the most vital
source of feedback you will find. NEVER rely on your own judgement - you're
your own worst critic.

\+ Enjoy the process - build a game you enjoy playing and believe in.

~~~
JonLim
Thanks for the awesome post!

A few questions:

\- Were you not aware of Cocos2d / Unity when you started? Or did you think
you could do it better?

\- What sort of feedback did you get and how did you go about getting it?

\- Are you not planning to develop any more games? (Based on your first
sentence.)

~~~
mmccomb
\- Were you not aware of Cocos2d / Unity when you started? Or did you think
you could do it better?

I was aware of it, although not to the extent that I am now. Awareness wasn't
the reason for the decision however. The decision was a mix of naivety and a
desire to learn as much as possible about game design/development. Writing my
own engine was therefore a bit of a self-learning process. It certainly was
beneficial but not a process I would repeat or recommend for a
commercial/releasable game - especially for indie devs.

\- What sort of feedback did you get and how did you go about getting it?
Prior to release I pestered friends, family and strangers. I would make a
concerted effort to mention what the game in conversations (if the other
person reciprocated with interest). This often led to a description of the
concept, mechanics and a short demo/play test. I did this from day one - when
there was literally a ship on screen with a control pad. Immediately I was
told that the controls were too sensitive - but as I alluded to you become
blind to these things when you spend your days play testing your own game.

\- Are you not planning to develop any more games? (Based on your first
sentence.) For me the process was about two things - 1. the challenge and 2.
the experience. Games are difficult and they involve some fairly complex
design/coding problems, that was the attraction for me. I don't have a
particular affinity/interest in games development - so I'm not sure I would
jump into another game immediately.

I would however love to remake the game using a framework and with some more
polished graphics. I actually really enjoy playing it and think the concept
works well. Unfortunately my own decision to custom design the engine has
potentially hindered the enjoyability and limited the functionality.

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tluyben2
We just finished a game, written with the Corona SDK. We're just doing the
music now and then we are releasing. It's my first game in more than 20 years
(I wrote games for 8 bit computers) and we documented the progress; i'm
currently setting up a blog to post that. It's a casual game, the idea is that
more will follow. I'll post the link to the blog here when it's up.

~~~
JonLim
That's great! I would love to hear more, and possibly if you guys are looking
for any help?

Let me know.

~~~
tluyben2
For the next game we are ; we are looking to make something bigger for the
second one.

~~~
JonLim
Awesome. Looking forward to hearing about this one then!

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robfitz
Currently working on a strategy board game at <http://multiplayful.com> which
is a combination of a collectible card game and Go.

It's very much in development.. core gameplay is in place but missing all the
collectible and PvP elements and still only has a tiny bit of single player
content.

I would forever adore anyone who helped with single player content (AI
campaign mode, puzzles, AI decks), game design (new units, effects,
playtesting for balance) and art (units, boards).

The whole frontend is just images and javascript animations, with the backend
in django nonrel running on appengine, so there are probably also accessible
coding tasks that I could easily make use of as well.

