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[ANtY]

I decided to go back to writing articles about gamedev more often - as it's something I really like to do. Well, without much fore-talk

Here's the full blog post - http://frozendistrict.com/2017/04/14/how-to-design-efficiently-for-indie-games/  

Based on my design process behind Kheera, the Shamaness – a character from our current project.

[...]

So when the time came that I sat down to design the Shamaness’s skill set, the first idea that popped into my mind was that we have to keep her iconic move – shape shifting. Screw just keeping it, let’s expand on it! So I came up with a skill tree including three shape-shifting skills tagged as “ultimates”, which meant basically that you can only have one of those in your selection.

Each one would stand for a different play style, defensive, aggressive or supporting. Then each of those shape-shifting skills would have three additional upgrades, each one corresponding to one slot in that shifted form’s skill set. So when you transformed into a different form you’d disable your ordinary abilities and have three new ones based on the shape you picked and one to go back to your original form. That would mean animating additional 3 creatures controllable by the players. And that adds up to roughly ~30 additional frame-by-frame animations!

We already had a really tight milestone plan when it comes to animations so I decided to rethink that approach.  [...]

whatchya'll think?

[Resource]

It's an interesting quick look at the character you've created, but other than a little note at the end there isn't anything related to the title "design efficiently for indie games." Might be better to just call the post "Design process behind Kheera" or something and stick to that.

[darkhog]

whatchya'll think?

Well, I think...


Note that it may work for other people, but I've found that certain webhosts have a nasty habit of blocking connections from Poland for one reason or another. Guess I won't read the article for now.

Let me share my own thoughts on the subject instead.

For my own 3D platformer, Computer Virus Simulator I knew that I wasn't able to compete visually with even other indie teams due to financial issues> And I want to have a playable demo before I even start any crowdfunding. But I had to make game look somewhat different to current 3D platformers which seem to take on N64-Gamecube period. So I've made it look like early 3D games (untextured polys, extreme lowres and lowpoly). I've basically made the game look worse to make it look unique and appeal to a certain demographic.

But of course, the game was to be about a computer virus, so I had to design abilities around that. One of these, checkpoints settable by an user, I've thought as something that is unique and hasn't been done before. Then I've learned that another Polish 3d platformer, Kao the Kangaroo did it earlier. Funnily enough I've played it as a kid, just never remembered that feature being there. May be an unconscious inspiration.

But, because of the fact that I was in very bad financial situation at the time (still kinda am, just a bit less shitty right now) I had to think about features that would take the least effort to implement, especially since I've had to develop a level editor first in order to make levels as I've wanted to give players the same kind of power I had as a dev and the only way I could see that happening is to design levels with the same tool players will be able to use later once the game is released.

That fact made it so some of the enemies, even the ones I have models and AI patterns designed for aren't coded yet and several features won't be coded for the demo, but at later point once I can crowdfund the game.

I hope these little thoughts will help someone visiting this thread in the future.

[Fat Pug Studio]

Nice text (though i expected something different judging by title), it's always a good reminder not to lose yourself in fantasy and bite off more than you can chew. Anyone who ever got to a decent milestone in development knows about this, but as i said - it's good to remember, and a good advice for rookies.