Hey folks!

Just thought I'd share my new game with you all: Kapsul Infinite. Its an endless physics flyer, with procedurally generated levels, some twisty mind bending environments and a stark minimalist atmosphere. I like it. I hope you do to!

Steam Link





Also, free keys! First come first serve...
X6AZT-GHRCX-Q7R8K
G2GD7-R8960-QTYHF
V3CY2-AZ58M-PNRW4

I've been reading a bit more about the gameplay in No Man's Sky now that its out, and it seems as though it opts for survival+exploration as its core game loop.

While pure exploration sounds great, and is something that a lot of people were excited about with NMS, it seems as though developers resort to survival mechanics as a kind of psuedo-challenge to make the exploration feel a bit more 'dangerous'. Its a bit disappointing, as the craft/survive loop feels more like an arbitrary obstacle.

That's just my opinion though. What are your thoughts on the survival loop commonly used in procgen/exploration games.

I sometimes have a bit of a strange opinion on randomly generated content if I'm aware of how that content was created. Sometimes it can draw me out of being immersed within a game. For example...

I'm exploring a randomly generated world and I find a treasure chest. Within that chest I find an awesome new weapon thats perfect for tackling that boss.

The question I can't help asking myself is if the procedural content was designed to create world where the game director has hidden a chest containing the item I'm looking for and through exploration of the environment, I found it.

Or did the game director decide that I needed to find that weapon, so when I opened a chest (any chest) it decided to spawn that weapon within it.

The first option makes me feel like an adventurer/explorer who has discovered something unique, the second makes be feel like a factor in a numerical equation.

I know what you mean. I've been thinking lately about an approach where the focus is on the generator producing interesting or 'natural' results, and gameplay is designed around that. From the player's point of view though, this could just end up being terrible. Realistic terrain/dungeons/whatever aren't necessarily the most fun or interesting to explore.

Hi everybody,

I've been toying with some first person platforming mechanics for a while now, and I've finally decided to turn it into an actual game.

The game will combine the first person platforming with procedurally generated levels. For now, here's a few screenshots of the generated levels.







I know it may look a bit uniform right now, but it plays nicely and I'll be adding environmental hazards, decoration and whatnot to make the levels more interesting.

I'm toying with a Spelunky-esque structure, where the goal of the game would be to survive a series of increasingly difficult procedurally generated levels. To spice things up a bit I'm hoping to develop a few distinct level generation algorithms, one for each of the 'chapters' that the player will progress through.

Anyway, first post done. More info / screenshots / videos to follow.

That Sims idea highlights something that could work particularly well with procedural generation. Since the behaviour of the characters is a simulation (rather than scripted) it could be interesting to just watch how the systems interact with one another.

Which actually brings me back to Age of Empires - you could play on randomly generated maps, and tweak the parameters yourself. It introduced this kind of play where you could explore how the game plays under different conditions quite easily. In that sense, there's a kind of meta gameplay with the procedural generation itself, where most games that feature procedural generation hide their inner workings from the player.

So, maybe that's something to explore? A kind of experimental gameplay where the player can create game modes for themselves by playing with the procgen system.

Awesome, thanks!

Kapsul Infinite is now up on Steam Greenlight! So if you hate mobile gaming or want to soak up the minimalism on the big screen, please vote! Thanks!

Kapsul Infinite on Steam Greenlight

I'm a bit of a procedural generation fiend when developing my own little personal projects, and I've been using it extensively at work as a way to expand the scope of what can be achieved with a small team.

One thing that interests me, and I was hoping to hear all your thoughts on this, was how procedural/random generation affects the way people play a game, their experience of the game, and the types of game mechanics and structures that work best when used in conjunction with procgen environments.

I feel as though there are a few emerging patterns among the games that feature procedural generation. Roguelikes/lites/likelikes are the obvious trend, which feature a focus on the player's mastery of the game systems and mechanics, and in some cases strong meta-game progression systems. But are there other ways of looking at procgen as a feature? Arcade games are another genre that use procgen extensively, but also focus on mastery.

So, to summarise the above as questions to y'all:

• What game mechanics, or approaches to gameplay design do you think work well with procgen environment?
• What meta game structures work well with proc gen? (Series of generated levels? Focus on player upgrade systems?)
• How do you see procedural generation being used to create specific player experiences beyond mastery focussed games?

Very vague, I know. Just wondering what you think. Also, here's links to some of my procgen efforts.
Mt. - climb mountains generated from player input
Colourblind - odd roguelike/puzzle game featuring very random 'dungeons'
Kapsul Infinite - endless series of randomly generated levels in a physics action game

[How do you personally handle criticism about your game?]

This.

listen more to player's problems than their solutions.

How do you personally handle criticism about your game?

Its very hard to take criticism. As a designer, who has made hundreds of little decisions while making something, the immediate response is to defend those decisions, but that doesn't really help you to improve your game.

Instead, I personally try and identify what problems the player was encountering by listening to what they have to say and probing further with questions.

At what point does someone's criticism or ideas become invalid? Is there no such thing as invalid criticism?

If people are suggesting solutions to you, that's where criticisms starts to become invalid. Some people 'get' what you're trying to do, and will suggest solutions that help you to achieve that. This is great. Other people though, just want to see the game that they want to play, and will make suggestions that do not help to support your vision - ignore this.

[Purpose of GDD]

My experience with GDDs:

Team size = 20
Designers = 3

Purpose of GDD
A starting point for further discussion with the rest of the team, and a great place to put down in writing the outcome of any quick design discussions. Also, a crucial point of reference for designers communicating with each other - its hard to just talk about design and all end up on the same page.

How and when do you start making your game's GDD?
Preproduction/prototyping phase. Getting ideas down on paper before any code or art is produced. Refined repeatedly as prototypes are built to test ideas out.

How do you organize it and why?
We used a lot of different Google Slides and Google Spreadsheets because the Google software allows for realtime collaboration, and makes it dead simple to share updates to a GDD with the rest of the team. Its done in real-time.

We used Slides instead of Docs because the slide format forces you to keep it simple and to the point. The idea isn't to explain every detail exhaustively, but to give the team enough to understand the basic idea - they shouldn't be expected to make the game based on the GDD alone, there should be a lot of working directly with designers to flesh out the idea (in my opinion).

For organisation, we kept every subsystem in a separate GDD. Made it easier for programmers to navigate. Subsystems included, for example, the overall UI flow and game structure, the Reward Systems, Each level had its own GDD, and our Adaptive Difficulty System had one too.

Other thoughts on GDDs
I think GDDs tend to get a bad rap because of the dreaded Design Bibles of old - monolithic stacks of paper that contain every last detail of the game as envisioned by some designer, that quickly becomes outdated as the team faces the realities of production.

These days, its much much easier to keep a 'living' document that a designer keeps up to date. That way, the GDD remains a relevant source of information, even if its just there to keep track of all the hundreds of little design decisions that are made throughout the course of development.

Daniel Cook, of Spry Fox, has put forth the idea of using Design Logs for this very purpose.

Hey @Mindbender4, thanks for the feedback.

Yep, the smoothness is something I was curious about. I was hoping to give the player character a bit of weight and momentum, but it runs the risk of just feeling a bit out of control. I'll see if I can tighten it up a little.

Interesting idea to take an open world approach. I have been conflicted on this point - should it be a challenge based game with a series of carefully designed obstacle courses, or should it embrace the open approach? I'm personally more partial to the latter, though the gameplay becomes a little less clear - What are the goals? What are the challenges? How should levels be designed?

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. In a very early stage with this and I'm looking to bounce ideas off you lot!

Oops. Thanks. Fixed!

Hi everyone,

I've been toying with some first person platformer controls on/off for a while now and wanted to get some feedback. Right now, its just a demo of the controls in a randomly generated blocky terrain.

Download First Person Parkour Demo

The unique aspect is that clicking the left mouse button while in midair causes you to 'dash' forward. The idea is to give you a bit more control over where you land, as first person platformers tend to have issues in this department.

Controls:
Mouse - look around
WASD - move around
Left mouse button in midair - 'dash' forward

Questions:

• Do you like the feel of the controls?
• Is running/jumping around fun enough to form the foundation of a game?
• What other mechanics would you like to see (if any)?

I'm basically trying to decide what to work on next, and this could be a contender. I'm just not sure the controls work for other people, and I'm not entirely sure where to go next... Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Hey everyone, I released my new game for iOS and Android today: Kapsul Infinite. Its a challenging, 2 button action game in whcih you pilot a little space capsule through an infinite series of procedurally generated levels.

Have play, let me know what you think. Enjoy!

App Store
Kapsul Infinite
Kapsul Infinite - Free


Google Play
Kapsul Infinite
Kapsul Infinite - Free

So, Kapsul Infinite is done and is out now on iOS and Android! Have a go and let me know what you think.

App Store
Kapsul Infinite
Kapsul Infinite - Free


Google Play
Kapsul Infinite
Kapsul Infinite - Free

[EDIT:]

EDIT:
Kapsul Infinite is now up on Steam Greenlight! So if you hate mobile gaming or want to soak up the minimalism on the big screen, please vote! Thanks!

Kapsul Infinite on Steam Greenlight


ORIGINAL POST:
Hi all,

Just wanted to share the progress I've been making on my latest game: Kapsul Infinite.

Its an endless, 2-button action game that I'll be releasing on iOS, Android and (hopefully) Steam in the coming months. Its based on a prototype I made a while back called Kapsul, where you pilot a little capsule through a series of increasingly difficult challenges. All of the levels are procedurally generated, so there are an infinite number of challenges for the player to progress through - similar to Desert Golfing.

Check out the announcement trailer below.





And follow the game on twitter and facebook for more screenshots / announcements...
Twitter
Facebook

Thanks! It was a bit difficult in the couple of days we had to test and balance the puzzle design... something I hope to continue working on in the future. Glad you liked it.

Hi all,

Just wanted to share with you a game I put together for the Global Game Jam this weekend, with the help of Daniel Sykora.

Its a first person, music/puzzle game called Serenity.

Check out SERENITY HERE

Let me know what you think. Feedback is always great!

Enjoy!

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.

This article popped up yesterday, and reflects a lot of what you have said (with some nice stats thrown in for good measure).
Indiepocalypse? More like INDIESCHMOCALYPSE!

Basically, while its easier to make and distribute games, its just as difficult to make good games. Still, marketing is important to help highlight the good games, but I guess that's always been the case.

I've come across many articles recently about the "Indiepocalypse", basically stating that since it is so easy to make and publish games these days, all platforms are flooded with content which is driving prices down and making it harder for games to be discovered. At the root of the supposed problem is that games are no longer as scarce, and basic economics says that for something to be valuable it has to be rare (and/or really really awesome).

Anyway, I came across this BBC News article about the changes to the music industry due to digital distribution and thought it might be an interesting point of reference for this situation.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34268474

Music is a few years ahead of games (what with streaming and the like making individual songs kind of worthless), but there are glimmers of hope. "Lived experiences" such as live performances can still make money. So this begs the question, how could this apply to videogames? Sports and E-Sports have spectator events, but not all games are well suited to this. Thoughts?