It feels odd to make a personal statement like this but here we go, I loved the story about your mom and you interactions with butterfly, would be a nice touch to include an esteregg somewhere where if you interact with something a butterfly will fly on your shoulder and some music could play, could make it a steam achievement.
It doesn’t feel odd to me. It feels fantastic. I almost cut the butterfly sequence from my video because I worried about coming across crazy so I appreciate the validation. I think your idea would be a wonderfully amazing tribute and super fun. I promise im doing this thanks to your amazing advice. You are so wonderful. Thank you.
@@advancenine I think your personal and open devlogs are why it's so honest and fun to watch! Love your content and game! Keep up the amazing work! I've wishlisted!!
For your use of colors in speech bubbles, keep in mind that roughly 1 in 20 are colorblind, so differentiating symbols/patterns is more inclusive - but if you don't like that style, it can help making sure there's contrast even with a greyscale filter.
A different style outline for the speech bubbles for Player and NPCs can also give an easy visual feedback on whos talking. Something subtle but distinguishable.
Good idea? You mean great idea. You guys are freakin rad for this. This is the first bit of user feedback I'm implementing from this devlog. So thank you for the AMAZING support!
Start including similar games in the titles of your videos!! You need people who are searching for games similar to yours to be able to find this one! For example "Adding MAGIC to my Animal Crossing like Game!" You need them eyeballs my friend :)
Holy cow that new running animation made a WORLD of difference! Mixamo is great, but for games like this, cartoon-style animations just look so much better
Oh thank you so much for saying this. I'm so glad you noticed and felt it improved the game. As soon as I put it in, I thought the game was soooooo much better! Thanks for the validation.
For the bloom lanterns. You could add a yellowish texture to the ground which pulsates the same way. It would be very inexpensive and would give even better lighting. You could even use a dark inner circle with some dark lines where the bars of the lantern are to simulate shadows. You could do this with something called screenspace decals.
Holy wow that is such a good idea. It’d be cheap too and it would really sell the lighting. That’s a freakin great idea. Thank you so KIC for this. You rule.
There is a gloss around your objects especially noticable during the night. You could have a look at "Window" -> "Rendering" -> "Lighting" and take a look at the "Environment tab" and tweak the settings there. The environment lighting is different from a directional light in the scene - if you'd set environment lighting to pitch black, every shadow would be pitch black, for example.
Hey thanks for looking out for me. I think you are referring to my rim lighting? It’s part of my shader but maybe I have it turned up too high. I’ll fix it. You rule for letting me know. Thank you soooo much.
This is the best game dev series I've ever seen on RUclips, no matter how the game turns out this will always be preserved on the internet and I find that great.
Aw cmon that’s some high praise i don’t know if I can live up to. Thanks for being so supportive and cool. And that’s a good call on it being preserved. This’ll be so fun to look back on 😀
I absolutely love you're game!!! I do think that it would be really cool to have caves with colorful crystals and underground animals that you can interact with!
Absolutely love this series! I find I often struggle with choosing the small details in my work, I love how you base those decisions based off your passions or sentiments, like your love for the classics and your mother. That’s an awesome inspiration for my personal development process. Keep up the amazing work
Hey this is a really cool comment. Thank you. Really really nice thing to say. As a guy who also used to struggle with decision making, I guarantee you’ll be way happier with the progress of making 10 very good decisions vs 1 perfect decision. Go get em. Thanks for being so freakin cool.
@@advancenine No wayyy. It would be great seeing another solo game dev working live. I'd love to know your work flow and how you come up with ideas for the game
Great progress! Maybe a camera transition to a closer angle for npc talking could look interesting especially if they are saying something new for the first time. then any subsequent dialogue/repeat dialogue could stay in the form its in right now
I love the new walk animation! An idea: add birds on the ground and when the player walks near them, they fly away. I think this will fit perfectly to the game feeling!
Hey there, amazing to see how far Night Stones has come along, insane passion and motivation! I'm a dev as well, I specialize in 3D and C++ and dabble with a lot more but those are my core focuses. I'm quite familiar with Unity/C# although I've transitioned to Unreal about 2 years ago. Pretty much anything under the umbrella of game dev, I'm currently working on a project of my own and helping a friend with a card game similar to Hearthstone for steam/mobile release. I'm interested in helping with Night Stones or any future projects, if you're willing of course. Is there any way I can get in contact with you directly? In any case I've wish listed Night Stones and can't wait to see where it goes! Thanks
@@xSTstSTx thanks for the wishlist! It’s the best possible way to help me and I really appreciate it. I also appreciate the offer to support the game dev. I’d love to hear from you. You can snag my email from my About page on RUclips. Please hit me up!
For the lights in the town, there's a few tricks you can implement to improve the look. First, you can bake the lighting into the scenery, meaning you process the lights once, and that data is saved and displayed at run time, so it's part of the memory, not part of the processing. This won't illuminate characters. However, you might try a little script that scales up a character's material's self-illunination as they get closer to a light source. Neither of these solutions will produce shadows though, so though they are quick to run, they might not look quite right. There are other tricks to produce the illusion of a shadow on the ground too. One would be to create just a little shadow object that follows the characters feet, rotates relative to angle to light source, and stretches relative to distance to a light source. This would be easiest with a simple blurry shadow, not animated. If you wanted to get fancier, instead of just a blurry dark spot though, it could actually project to a mask for the baked lighting, so it would just use the non-lit coloring where the shadow is. I can't think of a simple way you'd simulate shadows on the character models though. So without that the ground shadow effect might just make it worse. But try baked lighting at least, and maybe the self illumination linked to proximity to a lamp. I think they could bring a little more life to the night town, and the lack of shadows may look just fine.
Should maybe add a little wetness to the river bank close to the water. At the minute it just kinda transitions from water to completely dry dirt or rock. Also maybe add a little fishing mini game if you get the time, because who doesn't love a fishing mini game. Awesome job so far, really inspiring stuff. Always wanted to create my own video game. can't wait to see how this develops.
I love your comments so keep em coming. Seriously thanks for letting me know the vids inspired you and I seriously want to see what you create! Thank you!
I want to say your relationship with your kids is just wonderful. Mine is just 10 months but 2:45 is my goal. Congrats on that and, as I told you on reddit once, congrats on a wonderful game!
I think the lighting from the lamps would be more believable if you painted the ground underneath the lamp in a lighter color to give the illusion of them casting light on the ground without any more computational power required. Love the look of the game so far! Can't wait to see the next episode
That’s a really good idea and you totally understand the problem. I’ll need to figure out a way to remove the paint when the lamps are off during the day but let me mess with it. Thanks for the amazing suggestion and for helping me.
With the strong ability for the player to swim, you should add underwater quests/features/equipment/floating town/puzzles/ etc... Think Avatar and the under lake prison or the village in the polluted lake. Something else to think about is maybe the difference in how characters might act in the "day" vs "night" scenes.
Enjoyable devlog. Great format. Three suggestions: 1. Giving the town NPCs different colors is fine, but it might be nice if they also had different walking animations to reflect their personalities. You could probably make a bank of walking and idle styles and assign them to NPCs at creation. 2. I wanted to say this after watching the last devlog, but now is as good of a time as any: it might be nice to have the occasional grasshopper leap from the taller grass as the player approaches, or the occasional fish hop out of the river when the player enters it (or maybe even when he gets close to shore). The butterflies are a great intro into the liveliness of the scene, however. 3. Maybe you've mentioned this already and I've forgotten, but it would be great to know why you start with outline views of each map, or if that's just a setting that you can toggle. Keep up the great work.
Wow this is some really good feedback. Seriously thank you no love the idea to add different animations to different characters. And I love the grasshopper mob idea. It’d add to the movement of the game and that’s so helpful for the overall look. The outline sections are purely story driven and I just use them when I have something to say and not something visual to show. I felt it’s like a storyboard planning type idea. Thanks so much for watching and supporting me!
Baking is a good idea but I went this path so I could save memory . The bloom has been there since the beginning for the overall look of the world... adds to the surrealness of it. I just highlighted it in this episode since it really shows itself at night. I'm using a custom low precision algorithm so it's faster than the out of box Unity solution. Your point is super valid thought and I reserve the right to change my mind in the future :)
And i liked and subscribed because this game looks amazing how do you do that in months and not a year and i cant even get the camera to follow the player
This is just a random Idea and it's probably a bad one but, I think it it would be awesome if you added some sort of pet or companion that followed you around
Yknow, I was already hooked from the first three episodes, but then you say that Kingdom Hearts is your favorite game series? Now I'm invested. Financially. Take my money.
Can anyone please explain to me if when making a game, one has to make all of these specific trees and stones and houses in Blender for example and then import them in game engine to place them around the world or those are already available for download somewhere on the internet? Thank you!
Good question. You can do either. The trees in the game are actually from the unity asset store and there’s a link to them in the description. Things like the player and glider are custom and made in blender.
I have just watched four of your videos back to back, wishlisted your game and subscribed. I was literally on RUclips watching some other stuff. You are so cool! I love what you are doing and the journey you are taking us on!
You wishlisted it!? Aww thanks so much. That’s the best possible way to help me and I truly appreciate it. Everything else is super bonus. You are like… my greatest friend ever. Thank you!
For you I will do anything. Next episode drops this week. And it’s so awesome I’m pretty sure it’s going to get more views than your last 10 combined 😂 thanks for the rad motivation.
I'm just starting my gamedev journey and haven't really made any games. But having your kids look at what you made and seeing how they enjoy your creation is the best feeling. I actually made a 2D render of my kids stuffed toy to learn character animations and then made it fart to dip my toe into particle effects. Even though he could only run, jump and fart in an empty space, bot my 7 year old and my 15 year old had a good laugh. That alone made it worth the effort.
Oh that is such a cool thing you did for the kiddos. Really awesome. I freakin love making them smile with something I created. It’s the best feeling ever!
Just a slight addition to how bloom works: it's a bit different than blurring in that it kind of "smears" across the screen, basically it averages the brightness above a certain threshold of lower and lower resolutions of the screen, giving it a cool brightening effect. It's supposed to replicate the glow effect that strong lights have on cameras. I think it's a great way to make lights look brighter, and it makes your town look really great at night.
I could be wrong, since I haven't gotten to working on lighting in my steam game yet. But I believe with baking your scene, the bloom will illuminate any object tagged as static, which is quite performant, and looks even better than "just bloom" ^^ Hopefully that can help you out! Good job, and keep at it! Excited to see where it goes.
Thanks so much for the kind words and help. I really appreciate it. You are totally right that baking is more performant than bloom. Like everything, baking also has its downsides and I didnt pursue it because I'm changing things so much right now that I didn't want to have to continually re-bake. But you are totally right and I may revisit this decision after things have stabilized a bit. Thanks so much for helping me!
@@advancenine No I fully understand. I wouldn't want to bake all the time ^^ My point being that baking actually makes bloom have illumination visually as well. As long as you tag the objects with "static" in the inspector (only your static parts of course)
A reference your kids maybe can be pretty cool, like Zelda's "it's dangerous to go alone," but Instead of being an old man can be your kids, just an idea that came to mind.
Wait. WAIT. What’s the “it’s to dangerous to go alone” reference? Like I know it’s the the game but it’s a reference to the guys kid? I freakin love this idea!
@@advancenine sorry i'm not a native english speaker, what i meant is a reference to the old man in the cave in the original zelda where he says it's dangerous to go alone and gives link a sword.
I just scrolled through the comments and you replied to pretty much everyone. That is going above and beyond. The game isn't something I'd play but you have no doubt earned the like, subscribe and steam Wishlist. Good on you and keep up the awesome work.
Nah. It’s you commenters that go above and beyond. Honestly I’ve learned so much from the comments. Totally worth it. You’re nice for saying so. But I’m the winner here. And thank you for the like, sub, and wishlist. That is seriously AMAZING help and I truly appreciate it.
Awesome, Ryan! Congrats on your fourth devlog! I know these things take time, and I appreciate how you're willing to share your journey! I know I was one of the people who suggested colored dialogue text. But I fully support you in going with the choice you made! Game dev and all creative endeavors is a process of trying things out, and settling for what we think works best. I trust you made a great call by solving the issue the way you did! 🤜 On my own end -- my project of writing a "screenplay to be turned into video game" -- I finally overcame my most challenging task as a writer ever! Took me 10 months to write this particular 25% of the overall script, and I hope it'll make for an emotional story sequence. It might be a sequence you'll find appealing, if you also enjoyed the narrative sequences of FFX where Tidus does voiceovers and reflects upon life in Spira. 🙂 As always, here to cheer you on! You've got this! 😄
Hey thanks for sticking around and continuing to be so rad and supportive. I really appreciate it! I have some love for FFX so I’d be all over your story. Such a cool idea!
New run cycle looks perfect, made me grin when i saw it😁 Maybe for the lights, as well as the bloom, you could experiment with vertex painting - have an object that paints the floor underneath it additively with an orange-white colour only at night. I don't know the specifics of the technique but i've heard its quite cheap☺️ (Very touching btw to hear about the butterflies - a delicate rememberance - thank you for sharing with us 🥲)
The game is looking good. One suggestion I'd make is to vary the size of the paths. Make the path intersections a little bit wider than just connecting them together. For paths near steps or doors, also make them a little wider since the steps are a little wider than the paths, and the door too. People step a lot around that area and the grass doesn't grow as much. The grass doesn't have to be fully removed near the step/door area, just faded would be nice.
Oh this is really good feedback. Thank you. This is definitely something I would have never thought of so you are helping me immensely. Thank you so much!
What!? You are literally like the 3rd person in the comments saying stuff like this. I think you’re right. They’re a spirit animal. Wow. This is so cool. Thank you so much for sharing. I love hearing this. Thank you.
Ive just binge watched all 4 videos, the games looking amazing so far, its fun watching the improvements each video. Just a couple of things,, the paths are all around the same width. I think if this was varied a bit throughout it would make it look a bit more natural. Also maybe add some water droplets come off the character when emerging from the water? As at the moment its a transition from wet to dry.
The game is looking great! I love the little things that kids find funny. My boys think it’s the funniest things when I use my hand to crawl at them like a spider only for them to slap it lol
Really appreciate the fact that you care about performance and how is the game running under the hood (lightning and bloom). I see many people these days jumping into game dev because it looks cool, but without the knowledge of technical side (what is happening under the game engine, GPU...) Sure the games looks visually good but at what cost... and in the end only people with RTX 4090 can have satisfied experience. About game... It looks very authentic, unique, visuals matching game theme and gameplay. I really like small details and uniqueness in games. Pay attention when designing/decorating new towns because there are sooo many games when all locations/towns looks the same, just copy pasted and rotated. (quality before quantity every time). You can easily fix that by choosing theme of towns like (farming village, church, taverns...), adding twists to assets, focusing on small details. I would say assets made from scratch pay big role in uniqueness too, but I know its compromise of time. Sounds like background music and main theme should be very carefully chosen, that it fits game's theme, gameplay and visuals (in my opinion it gives the game soul and joy). I really liked the butterfly addition, game definitely looks more alive. Might be even better with some other wildlife like rabbits, deer, birds... I am sure you know more about game dev than me, but just wanted to add some tips, might be helpful. Really looks like a quality game, visually stunning and well made. Amazing work.
Holy smokes this is some amazing feedback. I really appreciated it. I agree with everything you said and will integrate these features into gameplay. And I’m going to show off the game’s amazing soundtrack in the next devlog!
Ngl this is my favourite game devlog on RUclips so far!!! Idk hire you do it with a job and two unbelievably cute babies but holy cow!! I’m an architecture student with zero code background and a part time job currently trying to brainstorm an isometric car racing game idea I’ve had for a long time!!
Right? I love it so much. Always had this vision of playing Zelda with my boy for his first real video game. But now his first game will be my game. Like how freakin cool is that!?
I love it! the only problem i have with it though is that sometimes, when the characters are talking, you won't add punctuation sometimes. This sometimes makes the characters dialogue seem stale. Cant wait to see the next video!
I appreciate the feedback and the constructive criticism. I totally get what you are saying. I’m still working to find a time and style I like for the dialogue and I’ll take your awesome feedback to make it better. Thank you a ton!
To add onto colourblind feedback, windows has colour filters built in, so you can switch between the 3 major colour blindnesses and greyscale! It even lets you switch between them with windows+c!
Oh that’s really good to know. Thank you. This’ll be a great way to test where I need more contrast. You are freakin awesome for this feedback. Thank you.
This game looks soooo good! The butterflies are a really nice addition imo, as I really like when games feel like they’re properly made with love for the product. Adding something so personal to you really drives home how this isn’t just a game, but the artistic vision of an actual person, which is something I really enjoy seeing. Keep doing what you’re doing!!
This is probably the most excited I've been for a game in a long while. You're doing a great job. Seeing how you respond to suggestions is also really refreshing, you're very passionate about it and it shows.
You seem a very kind and positive person this makes your videos way more enjoyable than the average video you find on the net. Keep it on, this really looks nice and beautifull ! Nowadays games seem to lack something that yours has. Perhaps that greed has taken over love and passion in gave dev.
Whoa. This is like an overwhelmingly kind comment. Thank you so much. With friends like you, this will be a super successful project. I’ll keep bringing the passion. Thanks for the insane amount of motivation. I truly appreciate you.
a day and night cycle with a clock on the top right might be cool , that way you can make some puzzles that require the player to time perfectly the change between day and night to unlock new areas. Also you can maybe add seasons to the game with the enviroment changing a bit in every season or/and have snow that blockes and reveals new paths for the player to take and unlock new areas.
I'm astonished. YT has been recommending me Dev blog videos and this is the one that I've liked the most how it looks, it's just amazing. Will definitely be keeping an eye on it.
The part about the butterflies is really interesting... My cousin died ~8 years ago due to a motorcycle crash. My aunt (her mother) died two years ago due to a stroke. During the funeral two butterflies flew around us chasing each other. It looked like they are hugging. At the end of the funeral they flew away.. Im absolutely not religious but that was... weird but in a good way.
That is so freakin nuts. You are like the fifth person to comment something like this. At this point, I'm convinced butterflies are spirit animals for our loved ones. I'm sorry for your losses but am so happy that your cousin was able to be reunited with her mom. Thanks for sharing such an amazing story. I'm going to add some butterfly easter eggs in the game for your cousin and your aunt.
![Should I Add Secret Caverns to My Open World Game? [ Devlog 5 ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UB7MMkCJDJg/mqdefault.jpg)
![Should I Add Secret Caverns to My Open World Game? [ Devlog 5 ]](/img/tr.png)
🎮 Play the Night Stones Demo Now 🌙👉
store.steampowered.com/app/2300340/Night_Stones
This has got to be my favorite gamedev series. It's high-quality, fast-paced, and just overall nice to watch and follow. Incredibly underrated.
I agree, this is becoming one of my fastest clicks in the sub feed. Such a competent developer making clear progress every time.
Omg you guys are seriously making me blush. Seriously thank you.
@@advancenine man you deserve it 😊
same. like he just smashed all buttons with full color, wholesome colors.
@@somerandomchannel382 you’re the raddest. Thank you sooooooo much, friend! Your username is 🔥🔥🔥 by the way
It feels odd to make a personal statement like this but here we go, I loved the story about your mom and you interactions with butterfly, would be a nice touch to include an esteregg somewhere where if you interact with something a butterfly will fly on your shoulder and some music could play, could make it a steam achievement.
It doesn’t feel odd to me. It feels fantastic. I almost cut the butterfly sequence from my video because I worried about coming across crazy so I appreciate the validation. I think your idea would be a wonderfully amazing tribute and super fun. I promise im doing this thanks to your amazing advice. You are so wonderful. Thank you.
Great idea!!
@@advancenine I think your personal and open devlogs are why it's so honest and fun to watch! Love your content and game! Keep up the amazing work! I've wishlisted!!
@advancenine I agree. Adding those more personal elements is what makes your process of creativity that much more relatable.
The changes in the eyes, fireflies, and butterflies add so much! Can’t wait to see more!
Thanks! I appreciate you watching! I’m excited to make some more. I have a lot more cool stuff to get out of my head and into the game!
@@advancenine As Storytelling is according to you a Part of this game, i recommend
RUclipsr 'Hello Future Me'.
WTF i discovered this channel 30 minutes ago, watched all 3 devlogs, and the 4th devlog dropped as i finished watching the 3rd one
The exact same thing just happened to me.
Bout time you found my channel. I've been waiting weeks for you. Wanted to make sure you were caught up before posting again!
For your use of colors in speech bubbles, keep in mind that roughly 1 in 20 are colorblind, so differentiating symbols/patterns is more inclusive - but if you don't like that style, it can help making sure there's contrast even with a greyscale filter.
A different style outline for the speech bubbles for Player and NPCs can also give an easy visual feedback on whos talking. Something subtle but distinguishable.
It's a good idea, I hope he reads your comment
Good idea? You mean great idea. You guys are freakin rad for this. This is the first bit of user feedback I'm implementing from this devlog. So thank you for the AMAZING support!
@@advancenine as a colourblind person, thank you :D
@@kwipxd don’t thank me. I would have messed this up. All the rad feedback above really saved me. You guys are the freakin best!
Start including similar games in the titles of your videos!! You need people who are searching for games similar to yours to be able to find this one! For example "Adding MAGIC to my Animal Crossing like Game!" You need them eyeballs my friend :)
Yo! That's a good freakin idea and I'm so dumb for not thinking of it myself cus I want eyeballs! You rule. Thank you.
@@advancenine Welcome :)
each episode is getting better, just amazing
Aww heck yeah. This means a lot to me. Thank you. I’ll really appreciate you following the journey. Thank you!
This devlog is Reallly Cool!! and also the game is having its own feeling of "enjoy my gameplay and my graphics"
Yeah! You. You get me. Thanks for the rad praise. I appreciate you. 😀
Holy cow that new running animation made a WORLD of difference! Mixamo is great, but for games like this, cartoon-style animations just look so much better
Oh thank you so much for saying this. I'm so glad you noticed and felt it improved the game. As soon as I put it in, I thought the game was soooooo much better! Thanks for the validation.
You could add a diving board to that island in the town as a little nod to your son loving it so much
Hahahaha! Wow what a great idea. I’m totally doing this. Thank you!
For the bloom lanterns. You could add a yellowish texture to the ground which pulsates the same way. It would be very inexpensive and would give even better lighting. You could even use a dark inner circle with some dark lines where the bars of the lantern are to simulate shadows. You could do this with something called screenspace decals.
Holy wow that is such a good idea. It’d be cheap too and it would really sell the lighting. That’s a freakin great idea. Thank you so KIC for this. You rule.
There is a gloss around your objects especially noticable during the night. You could have a look at "Window" -> "Rendering" -> "Lighting" and take a look at the "Environment tab" and tweak the settings there. The environment lighting is different from a directional light in the scene - if you'd set environment lighting to pitch black, every shadow would be pitch black, for example.
Hey thanks for looking out for me. I think you are referring to my rim lighting? It’s part of my shader but maybe I have it turned up too high. I’ll fix it. You rule for letting me know. Thank you soooo much.
This is the best game dev series I've ever seen on RUclips, no matter how the game turns out this will always be preserved on the internet and I find that great.
Aw cmon that’s some high praise i don’t know if I can live up to. Thanks for being so supportive and cool. And that’s a good call on it being preserved. This’ll be so fun to look back on 😀
I absolutely love you're game!!! I do think that it would be really cool to have caves with colorful crystals and underground animals that you can interact with!
Great freakin idea. I'm totally doing this!
Amazing work as always. I'm struggling with animation myself and yours came out perfect.
Ha! Thanks dude. Like all things gamedev, I look forward to seeing you do it better 😍
9:03 WOW that is wholesome
Honestly one of the greatest moments ever for me. Just me and my boy playing my game together 😀
lets go im so hyped for the next one i love this series :)
great video dude, cool explanation while being entertaining
Yussssss! I'm hyped too! Excited to show off Twilight Town. Thanks for the kind words. You are a good friend!
i approve the jumping in the water from the island. he sounds like a great judge
Muhahahaha. I mean I certainly can’t disagree with you.
What a coincidence that I just found this series and you upload on the same day. this game shaping up, I love it.
Took you long enough. I’ve been waiting weeks for you to catch up so I could upload the new episode 😜 thanks for the kind words!
you should add a rare occurrence where a butterfly lands on your character and guides you to a butterfly glider
Holy moly! What a sweet and beautiful idea. You are so amazing. I freakin love this!
@@advancenine Thank you!
Omg, this game looks like it's really coming together since you started 2 months ago! Cant wait for this game to come out!
Thank you! I appreciate the support. I can’t wait for you to play it!
The little "behind the scenes" tips you include in these videos like the blur effect for the lanterns are really awesome!
Aww. Thank you so much!
Absolutely love this series!
I find I often struggle with choosing the small details in my work, I love how you base those decisions based off your passions or sentiments, like your love for the classics and your mother.
That’s an awesome inspiration for my personal development process.
Keep up the amazing work
Hey this is a really cool comment. Thank you. Really really nice thing to say. As a guy who also used to struggle with decision making, I guarantee you’ll be way happier with the progress of making 10 very good decisions vs 1 perfect decision. Go get em. Thanks for being so freakin cool.
Im so excited!!! I have been waiting for this!!!
Me too. Me toooooo! I l was pumped to show off Twilight Town
These dev logs are so cool to see. Hopefully one day you can do a livestream of what your working on in real time
Oh man be careful what you wish for. I might bore you to death with all my useless facts. Actually, sounds fun!
@@advancenine No wayyy. It would be great seeing another solo game dev working live. I'd love to know your work flow and how you come up with ideas for the game
Im mostly impressed by the Fact that your Game looked so good so early.
But it just keeps looking better and better
Yeah! I appreciate that. Small improvements really add up over time. Thank you. 😍
Great progress! Maybe a camera transition to a closer angle for npc talking could look interesting especially if they are saying something new for the first time. then any subsequent dialogue/repeat dialogue could stay in the form its in right now
Dang thats a freakin good idea. I didn't even think to use zoom. I'm on it. Thank you sooooo much!
Bro u gotta be the best advisor 🫠
I love the new walk animation!
An idea: add birds on the ground and when the player walks near them, they fly away. I think this will fit perfectly to the game feeling!
Oh heck yeah! I can literally see you idea in my head and its amazing. I'll make this happen. Thanks for the amazing help! 😎
🎮 Wishlist Night Stones on Steam Now 🌙👉 store.steampowered.com/app/2300340/Night_Stones
I'm no expert but if you need some help with 3D models here I am
i always wishlist the game if i'm watching a devlog for it, even the ones i'll never play.
Hey there, amazing to see how far Night Stones has come along, insane passion and motivation! I'm a dev as well, I specialize in 3D and C++ and dabble with a lot more but those are my core focuses. I'm quite familiar with Unity/C# although I've transitioned to Unreal about 2 years ago. Pretty much anything under the umbrella of game dev, I'm currently working on a project of my own and helping a friend with a card game similar to Hearthstone for steam/mobile release. I'm interested in helping with Night Stones or any future projects, if you're willing of course. Is there any way I can get in contact with you directly? In any case I've wish listed Night Stones and can't wait to see where it goes! Thanks
@@xSTstSTx thanks for the wishlist! It’s the best possible way to help me and I really appreciate it. I also appreciate the offer to support the game dev. I’d love to hear from you. You can snag my email from my About page on RUclips. Please hit me up!
Will the game be free? also i love your videos
For the lights in the town, there's a few tricks you can implement to improve the look. First, you can bake the lighting into the scenery, meaning you process the lights once, and that data is saved and displayed at run time, so it's part of the memory, not part of the processing.
This won't illuminate characters. However, you might try a little script that scales up a character's material's self-illunination as they get closer to a light source.
Neither of these solutions will produce shadows though, so though they are quick to run, they might not look quite right.
There are other tricks to produce the illusion of a shadow on the ground too. One would be to create just a little shadow object that follows the characters feet, rotates relative to angle to light source, and stretches relative to distance to a light source.
This would be easiest with a simple blurry shadow, not animated. If you wanted to get fancier, instead of just a blurry dark spot though, it could actually project to a mask for the baked lighting, so it would just use the non-lit coloring where the shadow is.
I can't think of a simple way you'd simulate shadows on the character models though. So without that the ground shadow effect might just make it worse.
But try baked lighting at least, and maybe the self illumination linked to proximity to a lamp. I think they could bring a little more life to the night town, and the lack of shadows may look just fine.
Wow this is such amazing, insightful, and helpful feedback. I’ll implement this and the game will be so much better. You freakin rule. Thank you!
Again a great view man!
Aww. That’s such a nice thing to say. Thanks for the rad support!
Should maybe add a little wetness to the river bank close to the water. At the minute it just kinda transitions from water to completely dry dirt or rock.
Also maybe add a little fishing mini game if you get the time, because who doesn't love a fishing mini game.
Awesome job so far, really inspiring stuff. Always wanted to create my own video game. can't wait to see how this develops.
Thanks for the rad feedback. I love your ideas with the water features. I will total add these with my sincere thanks!
Man... I love your videos! They inspire me to want to learn game development to create a game too!
I love your comments so keep em coming. Seriously thanks for letting me know the vids inspired you and I seriously want to see what you create! Thank you!
I want to say your relationship with your kids is just wonderful. Mine is just 10 months but 2:45 is my goal. Congrats on that and, as I told you on reddit once, congrats on a wonderful game!
I am really loving the progress on the series job well done😊
Appreciate the kind and motivating words! Seriously thank you!
instantly subbed, amazing looking game!
Thanks for the insta sub! I really appreciate it and your support is soooooo awesome!
Your game looks good enough to make me jealous. That means you’re on the right track. Keep up the great work. I wish listed it. 👍
Hooray. You are so rad for helping me in the best possible way with a wishlist! Thank you. Glad to hear I'm on the right track lol 🤣
I think the lighting from the lamps would be more believable if you painted the ground underneath the lamp in a lighter color to give the illusion of them casting light on the ground without any more computational power required. Love the look of the game so far! Can't wait to see the next episode
I also think that technique gives the game a cool retro gamecube/ps2 era feel to it.
That’s a really good idea and you totally understand the problem. I’ll need to figure out a way to remove the paint when the lamps are off during the day but let me mess with it. Thanks for the amazing suggestion and for helping me.
Can't wait for this to be released. Also, that jump into the water was pretty epic !
I can’t wait for you to play it! And good call on the epic jump. I didn’t know how amazing it was until you and my son noticed. Lol.
With the strong ability for the player to swim, you should add underwater quests/features/equipment/floating town/puzzles/ etc... Think Avatar and the under lake prison or the village in the polluted lake. Something else to think about is maybe the difference in how characters might act in the "day" vs "night" scenes.
Fantastic video - the graphics are so beautiful!
Hey again! Thanks for the rad and supportive words. I appreciate you!
Enjoyable devlog. Great format. Three suggestions:
1. Giving the town NPCs different colors is fine, but it might be nice if they also had different walking animations to reflect their personalities. You could probably make a bank of walking and idle styles and assign them to NPCs at creation.
2. I wanted to say this after watching the last devlog, but now is as good of a time as any: it might be nice to have the occasional grasshopper leap from the taller grass as the player approaches, or the occasional fish hop out of the river when the player enters it (or maybe even when he gets close to shore). The butterflies are a great intro into the liveliness of the scene, however.
3. Maybe you've mentioned this already and I've forgotten, but it would be great to know why you start with outline views of each map, or if that's just a setting that you can toggle.
Keep up the great work.
Wow this is some really good feedback. Seriously thank you no love the idea to add different animations to different characters. And I love the grasshopper mob idea. It’d add to the movement of the game and that’s so helpful for the overall look. The outline sections are purely story driven and I just use them when I have something to say and not something visual to show. I felt it’s like a storyboard planning type idea. Thanks so much for watching and supporting me!
My man, just use static lights and bake - it'll be much much better!
Plus bloom is actually quite expensive to render - especially on hand-held 👌
Baking is a good idea but I went this path so I could save memory . The bloom has been there since the beginning for the overall look of the world... adds to the surrealness of it. I just highlighted it in this episode since it really shows itself at night. I'm using a custom low precision algorithm so it's faster than the out of box Unity solution. Your point is super valid thought and I reserve the right to change my mind in the future :)
You know what will be more fun bosses i hope in devlog 5
And i liked and subscribed because this game looks amazing how do you do that in months and not a year and i cant even get the camera to follow the player
Haha! You're everywhere! I like it! Thanks for the sub and the amazing feedback 😍
This is just a random Idea and it's probably a bad one but, I think it it would be awesome if you added some sort of pet or companion that followed you around
How is that a bad idea!? I love it. I bet you'll see this idea in action in the next devlog or two. Thank you so much!
Yknow, I was already hooked from the first three episodes, but then you say that Kingdom Hearts is your favorite game series? Now I'm invested. Financially. Take my money.
Haha! Your support is so so wonderful. Thanks you for such a supportive and cool comment
Can anyone please explain to me if when making a game, one has to make all of these specific trees and stones and houses in Blender for example and then import them in game engine to place them around the world or those are already available for download somewhere on the internet? Thank you!
Good question. You can do either. The trees in the game are actually from the unity asset store and there’s a link to them in the description. Things like the player and glider are custom and made in blender.
I have just watched four of your videos back to back, wishlisted your game and subscribed. I was literally on RUclips watching some other stuff. You are so cool! I love what you are doing and the journey you are taking us on!
You wishlisted it!? Aww thanks so much. That’s the best possible way to help me and I truly appreciate it. Everything else is super bonus. You are like… my greatest friend ever. Thank you!
Please release a new video in this series!!
For you I will do anything. Next episode drops this week. And it’s so awesome I’m pretty sure it’s going to get more views than your last 10 combined 😂 thanks for the rad motivation.
Didnt know James Charles was interested in game dev 😯 Thats pretty cool
@@victorpena2566 insanely cool. I was pretty sure it was a bot account at first. Once I saw it was real: totally made my day.
What are you doing here, James?
Wait what
Listen, I love how this game looks so far! The eye detail added a lot! Also, I LOVE the Twilight Town reference, great game!
I'm just starting my gamedev journey and haven't really made any games. But having your kids look at what you made and seeing how they enjoy your creation is the best feeling.
I actually made a 2D render of my kids stuffed toy to learn character animations and then made it fart to dip my toe into particle effects. Even though he could only run, jump and fart in an empty space, bot my 7 year old and my 15 year old had a good laugh. That alone made it worth the effort.
Oh that is such a cool thing you did for the kiddos. Really awesome. I freakin love making them smile with something I created. It’s the best feeling ever!
As a 35-year-old gamer dad and casual unity nerd, I wishlisted and will purchase it when it comes out. Good luck and keep up the good work.
Dude. Man that’s a cool thing to say. How freakin motivating are you? Thanks for the rad words, fellow DadDev.
Modifying SCALE of a character is another important aspect of making same models pass for different characters.
Holy wow you're right. It's so simple too. This is a good trick! Thank you.
this is almost like a gaming essay wrapped up inside a game dev diary. So awesome man!
I am convinced that you were born to make dev logs! You are able to make them concise, entertaining, and informative.
Dude. You are so nice and motivating. I freakin ❤️ this comment. Thank you.
Just a slight addition to how bloom works: it's a bit different than blurring in that it kind of "smears" across the screen, basically it averages the brightness above a certain threshold of lower and lower resolutions of the screen, giving it a cool brightening effect. It's supposed to replicate the glow effect that strong lights have on cameras. I think it's a great way to make lights look brighter, and it makes your town look really great at night.
Great explanation and super helpful. Thanks for adding tech credit to the channel. You are the best and I'm so happy you like the final outcome :)
It’s nice to chill watching a fellow developer make a game I’d actually want to play for a change. (Yes I’m one of “those” devs)
Haha! Lol. Well I like you even if you are one of “those” devs!
I could be wrong, since I haven't gotten to working on lighting in my steam game yet. But I believe with baking your scene, the bloom will illuminate any object tagged as static, which is quite performant, and looks even better than "just bloom" ^^
Hopefully that can help you out! Good job, and keep at it! Excited to see where it goes.
Thanks so much for the kind words and help. I really appreciate it. You are totally right that baking is more performant than bloom. Like everything, baking also has its downsides and I didnt pursue it because I'm changing things so much right now that I didn't want to have to continually re-bake. But you are totally right and I may revisit this decision after things have stabilized a bit. Thanks so much for helping me!
@@advancenine No I fully understand. I wouldn't want to bake all the time ^^ My point being that baking actually makes bloom have illumination visually as well. As long as you tag the objects with "static" in the inspector (only your static parts of course)
love a small rpg with cute graphics and high quality story
definitely gonna play this when it releases
Really? If you played and liked my game, it would make my life! 💖
I wish-listed because you've given me a lot of tips/tricks for my only projects without even trying.
Thanks so much for the wishlist! That’s the best possible way to help me and i truly appreciate it. Your kind feedback means the world to me!
A reference your kids maybe can be pretty cool, like Zelda's "it's dangerous to go alone," but Instead of being an old man can be your kids, just an idea that came to mind.
Wait. WAIT. What’s the “it’s to dangerous to go alone” reference? Like I know it’s the the game but it’s a reference to the guys kid? I freakin love this idea!
@@advancenine sorry i'm not a native english speaker, what i meant is a reference to the old man in the cave in the original zelda where he says it's dangerous to go alone and gives link a sword.
I just scrolled through the comments and you replied to pretty much everyone. That is going above and beyond. The game isn't something I'd play but you have no doubt earned the like, subscribe and steam Wishlist. Good on you and keep up the awesome work.
Nah. It’s you commenters that go above and beyond. Honestly I’ve learned so much from the comments. Totally worth it. You’re nice for saying so. But I’m the winner here. And thank you for the like, sub, and wishlist. That is seriously AMAZING help and I truly appreciate it.
Looking at strong references and classic elements in games is always a WIN for me! HUGE fan ! WISHLISTED!
Yooooooo! Thank you so much for the wishlist! That's the best possible way to help me and I truly appreciate it. Thank you!
Awesome, Ryan! Congrats on your fourth devlog! I know these things take time, and I appreciate how you're willing to share your journey!
I know I was one of the people who suggested colored dialogue text. But I fully support you in going with the choice you made! Game dev and all creative endeavors is a process of trying things out, and settling for what we think works best. I trust you made a great call by solving the issue the way you did! 🤜
On my own end -- my project of writing a "screenplay to be turned into video game" -- I finally overcame my most challenging task as a writer ever! Took me 10 months to write this particular 25% of the overall script, and I hope it'll make for an emotional story sequence. It might be a sequence you'll find appealing, if you also enjoyed the narrative sequences of FFX where Tidus does voiceovers and reflects upon life in Spira. 🙂
As always, here to cheer you on! You've got this! 😄
Hey thanks for sticking around and continuing to be so rad and supportive. I really appreciate it! I have some love for FFX so I’d be all over your story. Such a cool idea!
i feel jealous but at the same time happy for you, great work
Hahaha! I get that. Your honesty is real and amazing! Thanks for being so cool.
New run cycle looks perfect, made me grin when i saw it😁
Maybe for the lights, as well as the bloom, you could experiment with vertex painting - have an object that paints the floor underneath it additively with an orange-white colour only at night.
I don't know the specifics of the technique but i've heard its quite cheap☺️
(Very touching btw to hear about the butterflies - a delicate rememberance - thank you for sharing with us 🥲)
The game is looking good. One suggestion I'd make is to vary the size of the paths. Make the path intersections a little bit wider than just connecting them together. For paths near steps or doors, also make them a little wider since the steps are a little wider than the paths, and the door too. People step a lot around that area and the grass doesn't grow as much. The grass doesn't have to be fully removed near the step/door area, just faded would be nice.
Oh this is really good feedback. Thank you. This is definitely something I would have never thought of so you are helping me immensely. Thank you so much!
Oh that butterfly thing happends to me too when my grandma passed ig its like a spirit animal idk
What!? You are literally like the 3rd person in the comments saying stuff like this. I think you’re right. They’re a spirit animal. Wow. This is so cool. Thank you so much for sharing. I love hearing this. Thank you.
Yay I'm so glad you used my different colored speech bubble idea! The game is starting to look amazing! Can't wait to see more :)
I had to take it. It was such a good idea. I really appreciate your support and your help. You are a good friend. Thank you! 😍
the butterfly story was beautiful.. thank you for sharing it
Wow thanks so much for saying that. I really appreciate the kind feedback. Thank you.
Ive just binge watched all 4 videos, the games looking amazing so far, its fun watching the improvements each video.
Just a couple of things,, the paths are all around the same width. I think if this was varied a bit throughout it would make it look a bit more natural. Also maybe add some water droplets come off the character when emerging from the water? As at the moment its a transition from wet to dry.
Thanks for binging 😎 really good feedback about the trails and the water. I appreciate it and I’ll fix it. You rule. Thank you!
The content you produce is so intriguing!
This comment makes me feel warm and gooey inside. Thanks for being so nice and supportive. You rule. Thank you.
The game is looking great! I love the little things that kids find funny. My boys think it’s the funniest things when I use my hand to crawl at them like a spider only for them to slap it lol
Hahaha. I do the same thing for my kids. Jump in some water for them. They’ll go freakin bonkers 😀 thanks for the rad comment!
Really appreciate the fact that you care about performance and how is the game running under the hood (lightning and bloom). I see many people these days jumping into game dev because it looks cool, but without the knowledge of technical side (what is happening under the game engine, GPU...) Sure the games looks visually good but at what cost... and in the end only people with RTX 4090 can have satisfied experience.
About game... It looks very authentic, unique, visuals matching game theme and gameplay.
I really like small details and uniqueness in games. Pay attention when designing/decorating new towns because there are sooo many games when all locations/towns looks the same, just copy pasted and rotated. (quality before quantity every time). You can easily fix that by choosing theme of towns like (farming village, church, taverns...), adding twists to assets, focusing on small details.
I would say assets made from scratch pay big role in uniqueness too, but I know its compromise of time.
Sounds like background music and main theme should be very carefully chosen, that it fits game's theme, gameplay and visuals (in my opinion it gives the game soul and joy).
I really liked the butterfly addition, game definitely looks more alive. Might be even better with some other wildlife like rabbits, deer, birds...
I am sure you know more about game dev than me, but just wanted to add some tips, might be helpful.
Really looks like a quality game, visually stunning and well made. Amazing work.
Holy smokes this is some amazing feedback. I really appreciated it. I agree with everything you said and will integrate these features into gameplay. And I’m going to show off the game’s amazing soundtrack in the next devlog!
I genuinely love these devlogs so much
Not as much as I love this comment. Thank you so much.
The aesthetic of this game is top notch! Can't wait to see how the game turns out.
Me too me tooooooo. Thank you.
Never heard HDR and bloom explained so eloquently. Makes a ton more sense now!
I admit to not really understanding it until recently. So I was super happy to pay that one forward. Thanks for your kind words!
It’s a secret, but all animators use those reference sheets to build their animation up ! Thanks for sharing your process
Really? Oh that’s good to know. Once I had that as a guide, the whole animation fell into place. Thanks for letting me know!
Ngl this is my favourite game devlog on RUclips so far!!! Idk hire you do it with a job and two unbelievably cute babies but holy cow!!
I’m an architecture student with zero code background and a part time job currently trying to brainstorm an isometric car racing game idea I’ve had for a long time!!
Love it! Looking forward to more!
I can totally do that. Thank you.
You could bake the lighting for stuff like buildings.
really enjoying the devlogs, got it wishlisted the other day in-fact! I need to play this game for my life to be complete
You wishlisted it!? Oh thank you so much that is the best possible way to help me and I really appreciate. You. Are. The. Raddest!
Love to see the kids happy. Great times & fun memories in the making right there 😊❤
Right? I love it so much. Always had this vision of playing Zelda with my boy for his first real video game. But now his first game will be my game. Like how freakin cool is that!?
@@advancenine very cool 😎
I love it! the only problem i have with it though is that sometimes, when the characters are talking, you won't add punctuation sometimes. This sometimes makes the characters dialogue seem stale. Cant wait to see the next video!
I appreciate the feedback and the constructive criticism. I totally get what you are saying. I’m still working to find a time and style I like for the dialogue and I’ll take your awesome feedback to make it better. Thank you a ton!
To add onto colourblind feedback, windows has colour filters built in, so you can switch between the 3 major colour blindnesses and greyscale! It even lets you switch between them with windows+c!
Also just for clarity, these would help you see what colours and textures are hard to distinguish between with those blindnesses!
Oh that’s really good to know. Thank you. This’ll be a great way to test where I need more contrast. You are freakin awesome for this feedback. Thank you.
I can't wait to play this game for myself, really nice devlogs and a dev who actually makes progress
Wow. What a man insanely nice thing to say. Thank you so much! I’ll keep the progress up!
This game looks soooo good! The butterflies are a really nice addition imo, as I really like when games feel like they’re properly made with love for the product. Adding something so personal to you really drives home how this isn’t just a game, but the artistic vision of an actual person, which is something I really enjoy seeing. Keep doing what you’re doing!!
Thanks for this rad comment. You’re so motivating and I truly appreciate you’re support. Thank you!
This is probably the most excited I've been for a game in a long while. You're doing a great job. Seeing how you respond to suggestions is also really refreshing, you're very passionate about it and it shows.
Such a freakin cool thing to say. Thank you.
The music will become one of the most important things to add the overall vibe. Im existed to see, what you will create!
I'm working with an amazing composer and he's made some really cool stuff. I'll show it off in the next episode or two. I totally agree with you!
I just need more of this! You inspire so much motivation for us, developers!
You seem a very kind and positive person this makes your videos way more enjoyable than the average video you find on the net. Keep it on, this really looks nice and beautifull ! Nowadays games seem to lack something that yours has. Perhaps that greed has taken over love and passion in gave dev.
Whoa. This is like an overwhelmingly kind comment. Thank you so much. With friends like you, this will be a super successful project. I’ll keep bringing the passion. Thanks for the insane amount of motivation. I truly appreciate you.
a day and night cycle with a clock on the top right might be cool , that way you can make some puzzles that require the player to time perfectly the change between day and night to unlock new areas. Also you can maybe add seasons to the game with the enviroment changing a bit in every season or/and have snow that blockes and reveals new paths for the player to take and unlock new areas.
Holy moly these are REALLY good ideas. Seriously thank you!
I'm astonished. YT has been recommending me Dev blog videos and this is the one that I've liked the most how it looks, it's just amazing. Will definitely be keeping an eye on it.
Heck yeah! Thanks so much for the motivational comment. I appreciate you following along. You’re rad!
Idea: Make it so you can enter houses and shops :) and also add a money currency
Wow such a good idea. Thank you!
I'm absoluitely loving this series man, and I wishlisted Night Stones on steam.
Keep it up dad, you're killing it
character looks like an unfriendly bully now, but that will not stop me to play the game :3 great series!
Hahaha. Fair criticism. I appreciate the comment!
Awesome series so far! It's looking great! Can't wait to see more videos on the development. Wishing you the best on the project!
This is utterly staggering, I'm in awe of what you've achieved!
The part about the butterflies is really interesting...
My cousin died ~8 years ago due to a motorcycle crash. My aunt (her mother) died two years ago due to a stroke. During the funeral two butterflies flew around us chasing each other. It looked like they are hugging. At the end of the funeral they flew away.. Im absolutely not religious but that was... weird but in a good way.
That is so freakin nuts. You are like the fifth person to comment something like this. At this point, I'm convinced butterflies are spirit animals for our loved ones. I'm sorry for your losses but am so happy that your cousin was able to be reunited with her mom. Thanks for sharing such an amazing story. I'm going to add some butterfly easter eggs in the game for your cousin and your aunt.
@@advancenine Im sorry for your loss too.
Thank you😊 Didnt expect that^^