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[ASnogarD]

I mean the forums is active, but the frontpage looks like the site is dead, can we have it more active and also less political, we are a group of gamers/gamedevs, not a activist group.
I miss Derek, he used to make the frontpage interesting.

... at least use it to spotlight the more popular new titles in the dev group, like say the most popular game being tested ?

[michaelplzno]

If someone can point me to something front page worthy I'd be happy to write about it and or do a video of playing the game that can be posted on the front page. I just don't know what game deserves that honor.

[ASnogarD]

Theres a few outside games, like Dyson Sphere a 5 man chinese dev , or Valheim by a 6 man Norwiegen team for great Steam games out of the blue, or the Amazing Cultivator Sim that took off like wildfire...

... or at least lets look at the dev test forum and bump up the games that seem to be popular there.

Anything is better than a nearly year old activist post, what does TIG have to do with BLM ? Nothing, or the KKK nothing, or Fem Frequency... nothing.
TIG is games by indies, gamers that like indie games.
The frontpage is old and says something we are not... or has TIG changed from indie games to politics ? If so feel free to delete my account, I will seek a indie game forum elsewhere.

[michaelplzno]

I kind of want to do an article about MOONMAN which was a big game that had been in dev for years on this forum. I think they changed the name though?

Doesn't bother me what you are saying, you are right, the front page shouldn't just be an old BLM post. Even if we wanted to be all about BLM there is new stuff going on there too.

[michaelplzno]

I could do a little article about this game:

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=21997.0

A video and a description and maybe some of the highlights of the dev log and stuff. Seems worthy right? Let me know if this is wanted and I'll make the article/video.

[ASnogarD]

That would be great, and it would help some develepors to market, a frontpage in TIGsource would mean something to the developers.
You could also add topics that are especially helpfull, or news about the various SKUs that indies use, changes to compilers, SDL2 updates, Unity updates, little things that say we support indies.

[Mark Mayers]

I would definitely appreciate the front page coming back.
It’s been dead for years and was an interesting aspect of the site.

Maybe go back to doing DevLog features? Announcements?
I want to see the website revitalized.

[michaelplzno]

I'm still willing to do this, its just a question of when I get time to. If you guys don't like what I do feel free to ignore it and I'll just post it on my stuff.

[Golds]

I would definitely appreciate the front page coming back.

[Alevice]

I'm still willing to do this, its just a question of when I get time to. If you guys don't like what I do feel free to ignore it and I'll just post it on my stuff.

this would be grea

[michaelplzno]

Moonquest





Moonquest has been in development since 2011 and has one of the most beloved devlogs on tigforum covering its development process. Now that the game is being featured of course we have to drag out some baby photos which is sort of embarrassing but also really cool to see a game that used to look like that become a game that looks like this:

The game was made by Dr. eigenbom, who graduated with a PHD in 2011, so of course this guy knows how to document stuff and keep working on a project for a looooong time. And since the good doctor studied computer science he was able to create his own physics engine, and a system for rendering composite sprites using lua:

Characters are a good place to start any game project, and the little green Moonman is a really great design, but eigenbom soon turned to the environment as well creating day and night cycles as well as the ability to place and destroy blocks of terrain:

Eigenbom then started working on lighting (Which he noted was a bit slow performance wise) and in April of 2012 posted the first glimpse into the story of the game: "The Device, in which Moonman must find the pieces of his ship to get back home (the original story behind Moonman); The Heart which is a shorter-length item quest; The Siege which has waves of enemies attacking a fortress built by MM with limited resources; and a few more I don't want to reveal. There will also be a story, Sandbox, which is just an open world with no goal."

Flash forward to June of 2012, the Moonquest was no longer a solo mission and started talking to pixel artists. In July he was settling on a lighting system. But sadly there are no awkward teen year photos of the first lighting eigen thought was up to his spec. And in August v.1 was available for download. And in October of 2012 it was physics code with the famed Box2d Engine:

Sadly v0.3 was not ready in time for December 2012 (It was released in January 2013) but there is a video of all the impressive ladder tech right here that shows how close and far from the final game it was:



In April 2013 we got a glimpse of some of the custom tools for the game:

In September 2013 the v0.4 version flexed pretty hard on the tree and water tech:

The dev cycle for the game was getting to 2 years and eigen points out that he released another commercial game during that time. Next video is January 2014 with some particles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyASwoRF0Qs which would be taken up to 11 with some lasers in May 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_On-TyRnX3Y

Then the big graduation day, January 2015, a kickstarter and rock paper shotgun feature!

At this point the moon was at solstice and the game started development full time. Sadly eigenbom has removed most of the pictures of in development work or I would have made some kind of time lapse, and at this point most of the updates are on twitter. In fact, a lot of traffic had moved from tig at that time and the forum lost its light. Coincidentally: that is the end premise of Moonquest, trying to bring back light to a dying world.

So in that spirit I hope we can start to do more front page feature articles. I decided to cover Moonquest because it is so universally loved as a devlog on tig but also eigenbom followed me on twitter, which is a rare thing for me. We've actually had little chats about tweets and so on. That might not be the best system to pick what games get the front page. I'm open to suggestions if you have a more equitable way to decide!


Note: If you want me to change this I can rewrite it, if you don't want to feature it, that's fine too. Just let me know what kind of stuff you want. Also not sure if youtubes should be links or what. Sometimes the forum changed them to videos sometimes it doesn't.

[Mark Mayers]

I think the post may benefit from a more formal or journalistic tone.
Also you just ended it after 2015 and didn’t talk about the game’s time on early access, release on Steam, what Ben is up to now (he works in AAA).
Maybe also talk to Ben and see if he has anything to say.

It could be reasonable where the community votes on a game to be featured and the dev writes their own article.
I’m sure the actual person who wrote the DevLog would know how to talk about their game better than anyone else.
Also this guarantees a base level of quality and effort, and removes the onus away from a single person.
Would also help the community engage more again.

[Mark Mayers]

Also that post makes it sound like the game stopped development after 2015 but it shipped last year lol.

[michaelplzno]

I can change it 'round if you like the style, to quote the song Paperback Writer. Here's v0.2 I might talk to Ben directly to see "what he's up to lately."

Moonquest

(We can feature the trailer or some other video as the headline here, I'm open to changes. Or I can make a more cut down video of the game or whatever, just lmk.)





Moonquest is one of the most beloved devlogs on tigforum, winning multiple awards for the quality of coverage of the game's development, as well as a successful kickstarter, multiple features on gaming news sites, and its eventual launch on early access and then final release. The whole thing has been in a real way, epic. Eigenbom AKA Ben Porter, who got his PHD during the dev cycle, did a lunar job with this procedurally-generated adventure game, but will we all be able to bring light back to a dying world?

We've broken down some of the key moments in this 3,089 day timeline for you to live the almost 10 year process in just a few minutes.

It Begins - 0% - 9.11.11

What would the epic story of development of a project that took a decade be without baby pictures? Everything that starts has to start with one step and I think its inspiring to think that even the biggest projects can come a long way from their origins.

Adding some Character - 1.97% - 11.11.11

Ben started with a wide range of technical bits including collision detection but what really shined, and perhaps what made the devlog stand out as special is the goofy green moonman character. Characters are a good place to start any game project, and Ben created a custom composite scripting system to render and animate the little goober.

Creating the World - 3.24% - 12.20.11

We all know the earth was created in 7 days, well Ben made a world in 100. This tiny detail was the kind of weird and wonderful world the little green moonman would explore. Ben created a system to add and remove blocks, which would go on to be one of the signature game features.


Let There be Raytracing - 3.66% - 1.2.12

Light, which is actually the entire narrative push of the game, is another good detail to get out of the way early on, and Ben did some tests with raytracing that were a little slow at the time. But development was really moving fast as projects tend to do right when they get started.

Items - 3.92% - 1.10.12

Next up is a GUI and why have a GUI if you can't grab something to put in it? Ben added some collectables in the environment to loot and plunder as you explore the alien terrain.

Enemies - 4.27% - 1.21.12

How can you have a game without bad guys? It is near impossible! Here is a mockup of some laser battles!

Story - 6.86% - 4.10.12

The game would eventually focus on saving the world but the first draft had a bunch of different directions: "The Device, in which Moonman must find the pieces of his ship to get back home (the original story behind Moonman); The Heart which is a shorter-length item quest; The Siege which has waves of enemies attacking a fortress built by MM with limited resources; and a few more I don't want to reveal. There will also be a story, Sandbox, which is just an open world with no goal."

The First Release v0.01 - 10.95% - 7.03.12

As any experienced developer knows, the first 10% of the project can really go much faster than the last 90% and v0.01 launched just shy of a year into development.

Should I continue like this??? Just let me know if this is a better format and I'll convert the entire article to it. If you guys are gonna axe the article I'll stop now though.

[ASnogarD]

michaelplzno just put it up, its good and even if others dont think its pro its better than nothing, I think your article is good so just put it up, then we look for others... dont worry about what others think as long as its Indie, Development and game / application to help games.

TIG, The Indie Game Source... lets go

[michaelplzno]

Alright, I'll write the rest of it and post it on https://indiegame.guru if it can't go up here.

[michaelplzno]

box2d - 12.85% - 10.23.12

One of the best physics engines is completely open source and Ben chose box2d to do some of the heavy lifting for the pick ups and terrain in the game.

PC and Mac Release v0.03 - 16.38% - 1.29.13

Moonman would be invading mac as well as PC, quite a feat for a custom engine.

Blessed are the tools! - 17.67% - 3.10.13

Ben had to make a set of editors to make all the content for the game and we got a glimpse of the tools he made himself to edit the game.

2 Years and a feature on Hacker News for v0.04 - 23.63% - 9.10.13

Ben posted a blog post looking back on the first 2 years of development that got some visibility on some of the blogs and the Hacker News site. Ben had released another commercial project during the dev cycle so this wasn't his only thing, he points out. This video was featured too:





Particles - 28.23% - 1.20.14

What's a game without some special effects? Check out the particle tech.





Particles up to 11 - 31.95% - 5.25.14

And what's a particle system without a good cleansing fire?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_On-TyRnX3Y

Graduation: Kickstarter and Press Blitz - 39.49% - 1.13.15

Time for the game to go become a big boy Moonman. The kickstarter and the game was featured on the gaming blogs like this somewhat dismissive feature on Rock Paper Shotgun I suppose some of the mainstream blogs couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that this would be a different flavor of a game they already knew, Terraria, and the idea that perhaps if you liked that game you might want a different experience that has some similarities but is also different. Even with the press being a bit snooty the kickstarter raised AU$ 46,078 and the development was set for years to come.

The full dev cycle - 65.71% - 4.2.17
Ben decided to take the development photos to another castle, his own forums but I've created a timelapse of all the images he posted.

VIDEO LINK TO BE ADDED.

Final Launch - 100% - 2.25.20

And so the game was finally finished.

When he launched the game Ben posted this note:

"A personal epilogue: I started development on MoonQuest (then called Moonman) in 2011, and I remember posting the first images here on TigSource. The enthusiasm I received for those early years really motivated me to work harder and gave me the emotional support I needed to work by myself, alone. 8 years have passed and, believe it or not, MoonQuest has been my main project for that entire time! The game ended up being a *lot* bigger than I ever intended, and if you ever need to explain scope-creep just point to MoonQuest. I don't recommend spending such a long time on a single project, but sometimes you can't predict how these things will go! Over that time I've made so many game-making friends, from indie to AAA, some of which are from those early days of this devlog.

I've moved on from Tigsource but I will always remember it fondly. To anyone reading this: I hope your game projects are fulfilling and that you are able to form strong bonds with other indie developers, encouraging them, giving them great feedback, and exploring new kinds of games together."

- Ben

Ben now works in AAA games, and sadly, much like the premise of MoonQuest the tigforum has lost its light. Its a shame that a dev who just wants to make friends as he develops a game has moved on, he will be missed. I was interested in diving into the project because Ben was so friendly on twitter with me, a rare thing. And so I think it is fitting that his game may inspire tig to relight the torch of the front page. In that spirit I'm happy to cover whatever we agree is good to cover.

[ASnogarD]

Front page still ...static ?!?

[michaelplzno]

I still have a plan to make a video of a bunch of stills Ben made during dev, but eventually I'll just post it on https://indiegame.guru and be done with it.