Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411278 Posts in 69323 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 28, 2024, 12:56:58 PM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsCommunityJams & EventsCompetitionsOld CompetitionsProcedural GenerationK2 [FINISHED]
Pages: 1 ... 3 4 [5]
Print
Author Topic: K2 [FINISHED]  (Read 44450 times)
Melly
Level 10
*****


This is how being from "da hood" is like, right?


View Profile
« Reply #80 on: June 08, 2008, 12:45:34 PM »

Not very gentlemanly way to feedback, is it? Gentleman
Logged

Feel free to disregard the above.
Games: Minus / Action Escape Kitty
JP
Level 0
***


vordhosbn brezhoneg


View Profile WWW
« Reply #81 on: June 08, 2008, 12:47:41 PM »

You know, this may be considered adding complexity to fix clarity, which in principle is dubious, but I'm realizing just how much tougher being 3D makes everything to get across.  2D shmups pretty much never need position and distance cues, it's already all there on the screen for you.  Ideally in 3D you can read an entire space instantly, in practice it's really tough.

The enemy positions registering on the player shell is a start.  You've got the star lines which make your direction and velocity pretty easy to read.  One thing I'm remembering about TIE Fighter et al is that capital ships often served as landmarks... a big star destroyer 10 klicks away would become a reference point, you could reorient yourself by them more easily after a twisty dogfight.  So maybe some big masses with distinct shapes further off in the background?  Or something completely different that accomplishes the same purpose.

Aside from that, a lot of feel tuning and perfecting the feedback channels (you know, that nontrivial stuff that makes every game go from okay to great).  I can drill into that more if you want, but it sounds like you have some ideas about where to take that already.
Logged
Bezzy
Level 5
*****


Loves the Gloves


View Profile WWW
« Reply #82 on: June 08, 2008, 01:38:38 PM »

You know, this may be considered adding complexity to fix clarity, which in principle is dubious, but I'm realizing just how much tougher being 3D makes everything to get across.  2D shmups pretty much never need position and distance cues, it's already all there on the screen for you.  Ideally in 3D you can read an entire space instantly, in practice it's really tough.

Yeah! That's really the central challenge I've been trying to tackle with both K and K2. I want that simplicity of a 2D game, but in a 3D world. Perhaps that's trying to square the circle, but I enjoy the process of trying to work it out.

Obviously, I am not winning this yet (and may never win), but there are a few places I think it's coming together - the crosshair, I feel, does its job very well. The spatial-sphere of game play is broken down from 3D to 2D, auto-correcting depth for you. That works.

Spatial awareness is something I've barely touched on with K2, but had a bit of success with in K - (multiple shadows helped you to understand clearly where your craft was relative to the ground, but K2 has no such relativity - it's currently spatially agnostic, as I mentioned before). The background sphere is too much of a blur (needs more landmarks) and orientation is anyway kind of irrelevant at the moment. Seems like even in space combat games, people are more comfortable with the game if a game-flow line/plane is defined by two/three major celestial bodies. It's interesting how we ultimately want to be able to break down 3D space into 2D components so that we can get our heads around it.

Quote
The enemy positions registering on the player shell is a start.  You've got the star lines which make your direction and velocity pretty easy to read.  One thing I'm remembering about TIE Fighter et al is that capital ships often served as landmarks... a big star destroyer 10 klicks away would become a reference point, you could reorient yourself by them more easily after a twisty dogfight.  So maybe some big masses with distinct shapes further off in the background?  Or something completely different that accomplishes the same purpose.


Hah, yes. I'm in complete agreement. As the game develops, I'd like to work toward large bodies in space, doing just that - setting the flow of the scene. Things like capitol ships, definitely, but also planet/planetoids looking more like K's landscapes. The enemies in the current prototype were supposed to combine together to create sort of... lego capital ships, like Warning Forever's system. Obviously, with the lack of optimization, i couldn't get too many on screen, and just didn't have the time to do more complex snap-on upgrades.

Quote
Aside from that, a lot of feel tuning and perfecting the feedback channels (you know, that nontrivial stuff that makes every game go from okay to great).  I can drill into that more if you want, but it sounds like you have some ideas about where to take that already.

Thanks, yeah. I have a big list of various things which need better feedback. Interestingly, I'm not ignoring the feedback which has been put to me in a polite fashion.

In response to DanLomez... your post has had me feeling pretty down all night. The feedback itself is fair, and useful, but gains nothing from the tone in which it's given.

In addition, I'd like to point out that since games are my day job, I like to use my homebrew time to try things that are too risky or inappropriate for work hours. I like to experiment. Before someone leaps down my throat saying "innovation isn't everything", I should point out that I have no problem what so ever with people trying to make established tropes really cool, especially if the can re-invent them in interesting ways. I find it enjoyable to explore off the beaten track, and try new ideas (or new takes on old ideas), even if they're not guaranteed to work. I want to learn why they turn out the way they do, whether or not they are successful experiments. It's a personal choice of what I do in my spare time, and I'm not sure why I feel the need to justify it.

Trying anything vaguely new brings your face in immediate proximity with the hundred mile an hour, obvious-in-hindsight problems which you encounter far less if you're sticking to a pre-defined template. While it's not particularly hard to point out what went wrong, it's very hard (though not impossible) to foresee problems without trying them out first, hence prototyping. It's not like I'm in any way married to any errors of implementation I make - decisions will change, or be revoked entirely should a better solution not emerge out of the exploration. A verbal kick in the teeth makes me no more or less aware of the problems in the prototype.

And yes, the game probably IS better on paper than in practice. That'll be something to do with the limited time, experience, and man-power available to me. Ropey, unpolished, unfinished builds are sort of de rigeur when it comes to prototyping. I confess I've been more concerned with trying out these various experiments for my own personal curiosity than to living up to your subjective expectations. Perhaps you should ask for your money back?
« Last Edit: June 08, 2008, 01:42:38 PM by Bezzy » Logged

superflat
Level 10
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #83 on: June 08, 2008, 01:55:27 PM »

Go Bezzy!  Spoken like a true Gentleman.
Logged

Melly
Level 10
*****


This is how being from "da hood" is like, right?


View Profile
« Reply #84 on: June 08, 2008, 03:04:14 PM »

Quote
your post has had me feeling pretty down all night.

Part of doing any kind of creative work is dealing with bad and downright insulting feedback. Part of becoming an artist/designer of any medium is growing thicker skin. When these kinds of things happen you have to learn to laugh it off.

Here, I'll fetch you a beer. Beer!
Logged

Feel free to disregard the above.
Games: Minus / Action Escape Kitty
Gravious
Level 2
**


"Swedish meatballs"


View Profile WWW
« Reply #85 on: June 08, 2008, 03:12:36 PM »

To be honest, i think Dan was just upset he couldn't get the cock missiles to work.
Logged

One day I'll think about doing something to stop procrastinating.
Melly
Level 10
*****


This is how being from "da hood" is like, right?


View Profile
« Reply #86 on: June 08, 2008, 03:15:20 PM »

Cockrocket!

Had to say it.
Logged

Feel free to disregard the above.
Games: Minus / Action Escape Kitty
___
Vice President of Marketing, Romeo Pie Software
Level 10
*


View Profile
« Reply #87 on: June 08, 2008, 03:20:37 PM »

Uh... wait.. so everyone is offended at Dan's post?
Logged
Melly
Level 10
*****


This is how being from "da hood" is like, right?


View Profile
« Reply #88 on: June 08, 2008, 03:35:22 PM »

Well, it's not really the fact of him talking about what wasn't good in the game, but his attitude and tone were pretty rude.
Logged

Feel free to disregard the above.
Games: Minus / Action Escape Kitty
DanLomez
Level 0
*


View Profile
« Reply #89 on: June 08, 2008, 03:49:12 PM »

Don’t mistake my criticism for any sort of attack on you, your person, or your development and design abilities. I did not intend to ruin your evening either, but that’s more your fault than mine. You chose what to take from my post, I didn’t choose for you. As I stated in the post, which you chose to overlook, was that I respected the amount of work put in and I hoped that you developed it further. Had my intentions been to only attack I would have said “Stop working on this, move on”. I didn’t say this because I don’t feel that way, not because I forgot to mention it.

The reason I attacked your tagline was because I saw your tagline as nothing more than fluff that you would see on a movie poster, not inspiration. You described K2 as “Tiefighter meets Rez meets Konjak”. You used the word “meets”. Meets implies that all of these things came together to form K2. Some could argue that is the definition of inspiration, I would not. That does not imply inspiration in my opinion. Had you worded that line “K2 is a game that is inspired by TieFighter, Rez, and Konjak” then I would have said nothing. I’m betting, based on the reaction to my initial post, you’ve already changed it in your first post. Tell me you weren’t trying to hype and I’ll tell you that you are now trying to distance yourself from an obvious exaggeration of your game after being caught by the only person willing to call you out on it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t hype your game, you should be proud of what you accomplished, but expect someone to say something when the hype doesn’t match the game. Had the creator of Dyson said “Dyson - StarCraft meets DigDug meets Supreme Commander “, I would have called him out as well.

I am honest and I call things how I see them. Some people can handle honest criticism, others can not. I figured with all of the one line “this looks awesome” comments and the overwhelming support from friends you had in this thread, that you could handle, benefit from, and were ready for some real criticism. You, obviously could not handle it and chose to brush it off with a juvenile and sarcastic “Perhaps you should ask for your money back?”. The only thing I would ask back is the time it took to post my original opinion, because it’s painfully obvious that you can’t take criticism if it isn’t peppered with complements and reassurance. I was blunt because I figured a mature adult, the kind of professional that I thought made this game, could take the straight forward observations I made about the game with out having to frost it up with happy complements. You posted your game, on a public forum and offer a public download, then get miffed when someone posts something that doesn’t complement you more than criticize you. You bring up prototyping, isn’t part of the purpose offering a public prototype to get feedback? Instead of focusing on the feedback in my post and ignoring something as trivial as my tone, you focused on that because you didn’t want to read anything bad about your game. I thought people posted their games in these forums because they didn’t want to design in a bubble and wanted to get outside opinions on their creations, and to use those observations to inspire them to improve their creation. I don’t expect you to be thankful, it’s not easy to hear criticism on something which took hard work, I don’t even expect you to react or act on the criticism, but I would hope you would take it like a professional.

I’ll end this post the exact same way I ended my first one and leave it at that. Bezzy, I hope you continue working on the game and make it live up to the ambitions you have posted in this thread.
Logged
___
Vice President of Marketing, Romeo Pie Software
Level 10
*


View Profile
« Reply #90 on: June 08, 2008, 03:55:00 PM »

Yeah I mean after reading through the criticism post, there are a few choice words that I might take away as rude, but at the same time I wish someone would take the time to write me an essay on how they think I could improve my games.
Logged
Derek
Bastich
Administrator
Level 10
******



View Profile WWW
« Reply #91 on: June 08, 2008, 03:57:39 PM »

I have to be honest, after reading Dan's review I didn't find it particularly rude.  Having read tons of genuinely rude reviews and having regretfully written plenty myself, his seems fairly straightforward in comparison and I believe he posted it with sincere interest in improving the game and wanting to see it (and Bezzy) succeed.

Especially after reading the other reviews Dan has written here, I don't think his intention is to hurt anyone's feelings.

That said, Dan, these compos are pretty light-hearted, so it can be jarring to read a harsh review that goes as far as to critique the way a developer hyped his game in a forum thread.  I think the first paragraph of your review is mostly unnecessary within the context of what the competition is about and it sets up a bad vibe for the rest of it.

Anyways, let's take this as a learning experience from both sides?
Logged
JP
Level 0
***


vordhosbn brezhoneg


View Profile WWW
« Reply #92 on: June 08, 2008, 05:21:15 PM »

I have to be honest, after reading Dan's review I didn't find it particularly rude.  Having read tons of genuinely rude reviews and having regretfully written plenty myself, his seems fairly straightforward in comparison and I believe he posted it with sincere interest in improving the game and wanting to see it (and Bezzy) succeed.

Especially after reading the other reviews Dan has written here, I don't think his intention is to hurt anyone's feelings.

That said, Dan, these compos are pretty light-hearted, so it can be jarring to read a harsh review that goes as far as to critique the way a developer hyped his game in a forum thread.  I think the first paragraph of your review is mostly unnecessary within the context of what the competition is about and it sets up a bad vibe for the rest of it.

Anyways, let's take this as a learning experience from both sides?

Bravo sir.
Logged
Bezzy
Level 5
*****


Loves the Gloves


View Profile WWW
« Reply #93 on: June 09, 2008, 12:14:32 AM »

Quote
You bring up prototyping, isn’t part of the purpose offering a public prototype to get feedback? Instead of focusing on the feedback in my post and ignoring something as trivial as my tone, you focused on that because you didn’t want to read anything bad about your game.

Quote
The feedback itself is fair, and useful, but gains nothing from the tone in which it's given... A verbal kick in the teeth makes me no more or less aware of the problems in the prototype.

If you want to believe I'm ignoring your feedback, that's fine, but I should re-iterate that it's your tone I found offensive - not the actual content, which I've already said is fair and useful. I haven't ignored the feedback because I couldn't take a harsher tone. I've taken on the feedback and found the tone irritating.

And perhaps I should grow thicker skin - I guess that takes time, but this caught me unawares. I just didn't expect this kind of thing for something, as Derek says, as light hearted as this competition.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2008, 01:22:52 AM by Bezzy » Logged

Bezzy
Level 5
*****


Loves the Gloves


View Profile WWW
« Reply #94 on: June 09, 2008, 03:16:20 AM »

I'm glad you liked it, and thanks for the confidence boost.

the smooth steering,

A few people have said they really didn't like the steering. I need to look into this. I think it's one of three things:
  • A mouse sensitivity issue, between computers
  • The affect the mouse movement has on the ship movement (i was trying to use "jerks" on the mouse to make it dodge to the side, and differing sensitivities could have a huge impact on that). Either way, I need the ship not to shift around so much relative to the camera.
  • Simply a marmite way to do aiming. I originally had it inverted (since I invert for most games), but the controls are so close to being like a cursor that I went back to normal (did the same for FlashPoint, which has a similar scheme).

Rez as inspiration is more shorthand for saying "stuff's going to look abstract", and *ideally*, some things will lock timings with the sound track. Most likely, I'll drift back toward K's aesthetic, rather than drawing a bead on Rez's style.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2008, 03:18:40 AM by Bezzy » Logged

Guert
Level 10
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #95 on: June 09, 2008, 04:40:35 PM »

I just finished reading Dan's crit and I thought I'd drop my two cents since it's a topic that interests me... I agree with all that Derek said so it's just some extra stuff from my behalf here...

Note: the following are general thoughts and are not aimed at anyone precisely...

First of all, I didn't feel like the crit was all that rude or offensive. Doesn't mean it was fantastic either. Dan raised some interesting issues but failed as a constructive critic. Being constructive is not "You fail, do better next time". It's "I think you failed because of this, next time I think it would be better to do that". When picking up a title, sitting down and then feeling like telling the author the weakness of his work, respect and tact is always required if you want the critiqued to be opened to the message you want to communicate. You don't usualy step up to a stranger and say "Hey you freakin' moron, can you tell me what time it is?" and expect an answer. It is no different in critics. In fact it's a lot more delicate. A creator, whatever the skills or interest in his creation he may have, has poured time and his soul into something he felt proud enough to show the rest of the world. It's easy to forget that you are talking about the work of a human being because he's not physicaly there and in the end, it's just a name on some online boards but the people behind these games are real and are usualy working alone on it. Games that are posted around tigs are not multi-million dollars game with a team of 100 paid talent. We're talking about small teams ranging from 1 to 5 motivated members with the budget of jack sh*t here. Whatever you say about the game, you're saying it about the creators too. If you want them to get better at what they do, you have to be honest and explain why you didn't like it.

To be a critic is to be a creator. If you want to write a constructive crit, you first have to go through the creating process yourself. It's one thing to say that an element didn't work; It's another to say why and what could've been done to make it feel right. For example, if you didn't feel like the menus worked, you have to tell why, use solid examples and then say what you think the creator should've done instead. This will help to open the communication and will show your full point of view to the critiqued which will allow him to understand your opinion. And there's no point into going in your life details if it's not directly linked with the topic. Who cares if you showed Miyamoto how to design a game; what matters is what you think of the subject at hand now, not what you may have done about something else in the past. Well no, that didn't happen in Dan's crit but I felt like I had to say this here.

So anyway, if you get critiqued, don't feel bad about it. Just analyze what is being said and if the critic doesn't tell why he wrote something, ask for the reason. The best way to recognize if you are dealing with someone who's just bitchin' around is to ask the question "Why". That usualy demolishes whatever argumentation they have. And if he does tell you why, just listen, take notes and try it. You got nothing to loose when trying something that may enhance your work.

Anyway, that's enough chatter from my side. Keep workin' on those titles and crits people.  Beer!
(That post almost made me want to crit again! Smiley )
« Last Edit: June 10, 2008, 02:03:53 AM by Guert » Logged

Pages: 1 ... 3 4 [5]
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic