The Walking Dead games. Just finished episode 4, I'm sure shit will go down in the last one. It's been a hell of a ride so far, everything's so desperate but they keep pushing on somehow.

I've never cared much for adventure games because of moon logic and pixel-hunting, but these are well-made. Great that the focus is on story rather than puzzles. It feels like my choices really make a difference here, I'll have to play around more with rewinding and changing my decisions.

I still haven't given up on that level connecting gimmick, however esoteric it might be. One way to make it meaningful is some sort of territory competition between wolves and the player. Sometimes wolves would find their way to connected safe zones and you'd have to lead the bunnies somewhere safe, then cut off the wolf-infested zones so that it doesn't happen again.

It could even be that the entire game is about standing up to the wolves, like they're the ones that trapped the bunnies to begin with. Playing around with different executions on paper.

Hoo, there's the entire Avernum series for pocket money. That takes me back.

Low-level stuff is always cool. Keep us posted with gory technical details.

When game development is brought up, people switch to businessman mode and talk about publishers, business plans, and profits from mobile games. Though it goes more like, "how should I market my first game", and I'm all "wut, try making the game first". Then they admit they haven't really thought about what to make, they'll just remake Tetris or something, and I suddenly start to miss idea guys.

It's all about the deep-rooted tendency to think of games as products.

This is a good thread. Most music tutorials talk about equipment and how notes go together, but there's little material about actually composing, communicating things with music. I get that it's partly because everyone has their own take on it, and it can't easily be taught, but it's good to at least discuss this sort of thing sometimes.

Great that this wasn't just a one-time event, wake me up in August. There were some truly creative entries last time.

Yeah, it's pretty distracting during gameplay, so some limitation like that would come in handy. But you could go all the way when the player dies.

Byakuren? Is that you?

Oh wow that looks cool. Wonder if that could be incorporated to gameplay somehow, like the world starting to disintegrate as you make bad choices or run out of time.

Well, the visuals and audio are clearly top-notch, which leaves a good first impression. However, there are some problems with the controls (and arguably level designs).

I see potential in this, but there's one major flaw. The teleporting mechanic allows the player to traverse long distances, while the camera view is limited to short distances. There were a few places where I had no idea where to shoot the ball next. Maybe the camera should follow the mouse a bit, or the levels could be zoomed out more.

The falling slime is a particularly ugly reflex test. The camera only reveals the small gap you need to teleport through when it's too late to react. There's a lot of stuff being thrown at the player within three seconds: the moving tentacles, the slime, the gap, the spikes near the gap, and the rising tunnel after the gap. It's hard to tell what's meaningful and then you're already dead. This is especially bad with the last checkpoint being behind a part where I have to awkwardly tumble my way up by charging and spamming teleports.

The bunnies obviously spawn from holes, but there's still the question of where do wolves come fro--



oh

Code:

// no

Damn, missed that one. Admittedly, I've become a bit lazy with AIME, since what's left mostly constitutes the more mundane parts of gamedev (like UX stuff and my lack of foresight coming back to haunt me). It's no wonder that the sunshine outside takes priority occasionally. But I'll wrap this project up this week, I guess, or it'll start getting in the way of other stuff.

There don't seem to be many threats to the bunnies apart from getting stuck or falling off, making their exigency less than mild. Inspired by the design doc and my need to avoid the boring coding, I thought of adding hungry wolves that roam through zones eating whatever comes across, but there was a - ahem - small problem.



But when in double, make it trouble:



Looks intimidating as long as you avert your eyes from its wonky legs. (The thought of having to animate this stuff is enough to make me feel like procrastinating, so It's likely I'll just rush it the last night like I always do.)

Here's the current state of the art, though it looks embarrassingly unchanged on the outside. If I have to point it out, you can see a timer and a level preview, which is clumsy because I don't seem to have easy access to bitmap data.

Subliminal that looks kinda cool, is it for anything? (or just so you could use the final destination meme)

I was kinda hoping I could challenge people to do something better with those restrictions.

2 colors

64x64 canvas

final destination

Oh, and there was also some guy called Buddha who said I'm ready to be released from this existence, but I told him I still have to mak gam and he disappeared.

Had a bit of a zen experience.

I'm visiting Pallet Town and strolled into an old-fashioned cafe, the sort that hasn't changed since the 50s - everything's made out of wood, you can only pay with cash, and the cashier is up for a chat rather than just automated thank yous. I had a nice cup of coffee by the riverside, sipping it with the appreciation Paul Eres has taught us.

After just sitting there in the sunshine for a while, I started throwing some rocks into the river, trying to make them bounce off the surface. I was pretty bad at it at first, but once I tried out different techniques and picked the right types of rocks, I managed to make some of them bounce like four times. But it wasn't a competition or even an (indie) game, just something that happened.

Most of the time, I have a couple of things on my mind, like a stream of thoughts and distractions. But my head felt really clear there for a while. These small countryside towns are therapeutic in all their unchanging mundaneness.

I have been playing game since I was in a walker, so that's about 21 years of experience there

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I do not plan on creating my own games until I have a substantial amount of expierience.. What are some of the better companies to work for?

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I'm leaning more towards character and environment design so I know so far z brush and maya are the best ways to go and what operating system do companies use in their studios?? So I may also get the corresponding tools to work and practice at home as well

Sorry, but these parts are red flags that you have the wrong approach to game development: you're already thinking of going full-time before even learning the tools of your trade. It's strange how some people say they're interested in making games, but their interest doesn't translate to actually making games in their spare time. So they graduate from some "game design" major without any hands-on experience and wonder why game studios aren't lining up to make their awesome game ideas a reality.

If you don't have anything to show, professional work is out of the question; you'd be disappointed with the lack of creative control anyway. Start small, work to improve your portfolio in whatever area you want to focus on, and don't be afraid to learn a bit of coding on the side.