Adding Visual Effects And Polish To My Roguelike - Devlog 6
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- Опубликовано: 4 май 2024
- Adding some great polish to my game. Death effects, screen shake, sound effects, and more. In this devlog I show how take my game to the next level. And how I create vignettes and particle effects in aseprite. I spend time adding polish to my game, before moving on to other topics for the next devlog.
Steam page:
store.steampowered.com/app/26...
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💖Patreon: / helperwesley
Links To Where I Hang Out:
linktr.ee/helperwesley
Links To My Set Up:
linktr.ee/helperwesleysetup
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Time Stamps:
00:00 Visual Effects
02:31 Foreground
04:00 Area Variety
06:34 Loose Ends
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Devlog Playlists:
✅Sci-fi Mobile Game Devlog Series:
• Remaking The First Gam...
✅GMTK Game Jam 2022 series:
• Top 10 In Popularity -...
✅Binding Of Issac-like Devlog Series:
• Devlog 1: Making A Bin...
✅Ludum Dare 50 Game Jam Series:
• Making A Game In Under...
✅Vimlark Hosted Game Jam Series:
• Kicking Butt In A Game...
✅Village Clicker Mobile Game Devlog Series:
• Village Clicker: A New...
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#Devlog #Gamedev #Gdevelop #indiegamedev #games #videogames #indiedev #gamedesign #Pixelart #GameDeveloper #GameDevelopment 
Игры
I should have said "early release" not "early access." I'm not planning to put the game on steam any time soon. 😅
Still! Curious to hear your thoughts on early access. 👍
:)
I think early access is a really nice step in to publishing the game u are able to see what people think of the game and see if there are bugs
Can you give us a list of the tools you are using? Like the animation editor.
@@Moame1 and with early access steam is like oh wow a new game better recomend this, but instead of doing it once it does it twice
Early release would be nice
The game is looking pretty good! I think early access is good for some feedback.
Yeah, I sort of like what Hades did, holding an early access run elsewhere before officially releasing on steam as a final release. 🤔
@@HelperWesley Yeah, seems like a perfect idea!
always making this game look better with each video 😌 I think early access is good Cuz you can get feedback and stuff to fix any bugs but for me I'd have a group to play test so I can do a full release and not have to worry about bugs but that's just me 😅
Thanks!
And yeah, that's how I'm currently working, sharing the game with a small group of friends who are willing to playtest it.
I get the appeal of doing a full early access though as a dev, for some games they end up with a small army of people playtesting their game. Feedback is priceless.
Like I said in the video, pros and cons. 🤔
Dude hahaha 3:42 I LOVED this. Great video and great development so far! Keep it up
As someone who has made some death animations... haha. Yup they feel like a waste of time for a solo dev. Effects are a smarter way to go. The game is looking good! Keep up the hard work!
Totally, I've made death animations before, but I'll probably never do that again.😅
Thanks!
I think it depends on your game's vision. Sometimes if you need enemies to leave a corpse, or if you just want it for the extra polish, it can be well worth the time.
about early access, i think it's a great way to get the thing out early, and it also justifies any bugs or loose ends, but one thing that could be done if its a single player offline game, is to keep every single version available on the download page, so people can try any version they wish, whether it's to have an amazing experience in the latest version, or just have fun trying to break an early access game.
Great great video! Really like all the different aspects you tackled in a not-that-long video!
Loving the progress vids. Lots of great insights for making your game sparkle, especially digged the enemy death animation segment. Game is coming along great. Awesome vid as always.
Thanks!
And yeah, I was really happy when I found that death/spawn animation trick. That's 2 less animations you need to worry about making for each enemy in your game. I'll probably never go back to trying death/spawn animations ever again. 😅
Again, awesome video ❤
i recommend changing the 3 coins u choose from, only on hover u can actually see what they do as they are way too similar. in a quick roguelike like this one u want to instantly see which power up to choose from by just looking at the artwork.
If you add some noise to your tiles it can dramatically change the feel of an area with very little work. Games like rainworld do this and it makes it feel like they have an endless amount of tiles. If you plan on adding different dungeon types I recommend experimenting with it.
Otherwise with early access, you could instead go for a limited approach where you give keys to a group of people to play test as much as possible if you want the game to be more finalised when it's available for everyone.
Good luck im enjoying watching your progress
I love neat little bite sized videos
These improvements make the game look fantastic!
Also some people hate early access because some games get stuck and never officially release however I think the sooner you can get player feedback the better. You can tweak the game more and get it into a better state. Just remember to release it properly otherwise the haters will come a knocking.
wow, new video. I was looking forward to it. I support the idea of early access to the game.
Early access is good for two things.
For games which can be modified from a near-complete state without much hassle (and which can't pull off big in-house QA tests), it's good for getting some feedback on how the game feels.
For non-free games made with limited budgets, it can bring in a much-needed cash flow.
The first one seems applicable here.
Yeah, the thing that would excite me most about doing an early test release is to get that flood of feedback that I can use to fix and improve the game.
For now I'm keeping the playtesting to a small group of friends, but a trial run on itch might help give me the info I need to really polish the game to a shine. And then I can drop the fully finished game on Newgrounds to get that gold trophy. 😅
it's literally what i needed for my fanframework!
This keeps getting better and better :)
one thing that could help not breaking the flow, is to show the description of the "coins" without hovering. then the player can see their option without interacting and it should be faster ☺️
I really like the variety in the environment, it helps feel like you are in a different room.
Thanks! I will eventually add other obstacles in the rooms, like pots and tables, but for now I'm happy with how this looks. 👍
your devlog inspires me to learn gdevelop and make my own game, this is so cool!
Your game is simple but impressive and so creative!!
I love to play games in Early Access and see the game getting better!
The biggest thing to make a game pop in my opinion is enemy animations, getting hit would trigger noises and animations to show they are hurt, this would include gun noises hitting enemies
A link to the past did put elements in the foreground in the lost woods. But that made sense as it was light shining through the treetops that were above you but not seen.
Having an early access is the best ways for devs to both get feedback, but also a great way to connect with the players, making them feel like they are part of development, thus making them more likely to buy the game when it does eventually come out. Also nothing shows more confidence from a dev than having a version of the game that anyone can play before buying (Though that is normally for more finished versions.)
I think Nuclear throne did something like that, and I know don't starve did back when it was first released. Maybe I will go that route.
The game revolves around leaderboards, so it could be fun to reset the leaderboards after each big patch so people can try to get a new high score with the new game changes. 👀
Congratulations on your creation! I believe your game can be part of a huge wave bringing GDevelop to a wider audience.
As for my opinion on Early Access games, I believe these games should be in a very playable and 'finishable' state. I really don't like when game are released in EA while missing a lot of pieces. If it has a story, release it when the story can be enjoyed in its totallity, not just part of it.
Looks like a great game👍
cool game & early access is good for feedback🔥🔥🔥🔥
When you put something out as early access, people think of something not nearly as finished as this. And i also really want to play your game
great video! keep up the great work :)))
I like your pixel art! It's so good!
Thanks. The environments I make myself, but the characters and enemies all come from Kenney's creature mixer tool. I love that thing. 😎
id say early access is the way to go especially for something like this,
I feel like it can be useful to have real feedback as you're working.
I find it difficult to continue working with new ideas without diverse feedback on my game project.
and it kinda gives the community the feeling that they're kinda involved, u know?
It's my efffort, thank y
Man, this game is turning up! I'm loving it!
Oh, and my thoughts on Early Access is that it's a fantastic thing. Feedback is worth it's weight in gold.
Yeah, I love the idea of early access as a dev especially, I just hope I can keep it interesting for players between patches.
So I probably won't put out the early release until the game has more content. But after that I could reset the leaderboard after each patch, and hopefully people can have fun trying to get a highscore with the new game tweaks. 🤞
Something you could improve about your devlogs is ‘Show don’t tell’, since almost everything you build has to be deeply explained
What part do you want to see more of? The art process? The code?
@@HelperWesley I think seeing more of the process and less of the product could make your devlogs much more engaging. Seeing your though process and reason behind adding each feature and mechanic, and seeing the problems you faced implementing them could I be much better than just showing us the end result
early access in my opinion is just a kind of beta phase of the main game part, so additional content can be added later on, its like a game release and then adding free dlc, but whit a beta phase first. the most just using it a an alpha instead, wich makes the bad reputation. as long as a game is patched fast enough if it has game breaking stuff an the new content is coming in it should be fine. comunication is important too, dont forget that!
Since you added a bit of polish your game feels much more like a completed game.
Great additions to the game! The new improvements and polish really gives the rooms more variety visually. I think an early release version of the game would be good to get more feedback from a wider audience. Glad you're feeling better, keep up the good work!
Thanks! I'm really glad I can record again. 😌
I'm still thinking it over, because I do want the final release to have a big impact on Newgrounds. I love the idea of getting a flood of feedback and input on the game, but I do wonder if it would impact the number of people who would play the final version. 🤔
Long Time no See! Looking good!
Thanks!
It's so good to have my voice back, happy to get back to making videos. 🥳
It kinda looks odd for the over world heros to be camped out in what looks like any other dungeon room. You could say that it is like the first room of a Zelda dungeon. But I think it might look better for these guys to be camped outside the dungeon in a forest or something. You could keep the dungeon wall and it's door maybe carved in a mountain. But I think it would look better for the floor to be grass and dirt, the walls be trees. Then you could put some of these characters in different parts of the forest close by because not everyone wants to hang by the came fire.
It would definitely make more sense, a firepit indoors is a terrible idea. Delver is the first game that comes to mind for that.
But ever since I played darkest dungeon, I've loved the way a campfire looks inside of a dark dungeon. I'm definitely not doing that idea justice, but I want to capture that feeling at some point. 🤔
@@HelperWesley what if you made it into a cooking pot?
i think secret rooms could be cool. like there might be a small chance that a large crack would be in a wall that you could smash with your weapon or something to unlock a secret room with rewards idk. also ambient effects for like dust (like small white balls?) floating around and stuff with low opacity maybe
Right now the rooms are disappearing the moment you walk in to the next room, so it's not a persistent dungeon, and that makes things like secret rooms a little trickier.
But, I do want to tackle that in the future, tweak how it works and give people some options for special room and if I can get that working then secret rooms would just be a little more work away. 👍
I WOULD LOVE TO PLAY THIS EARLY
a pretty good example of forground in this top-down style is The Binding of Isaac, which has pretty subtle shadows hovering above everything
The binding of Isaac? I was looking all over, how did I not notice that?! 🤦♂️
Oh well.... I'm pretty happy with how mine turned out, but I wish I'd noticed that to learn from. 😅
Wow I didn't know you have your own 😮
I'd say it depends on the kind of game you are making.
Since yours is a roguelike, releasing an early access build would do you a ton of favor compared to a story-intensive game like mine.
Because in my case, I would have to strip down the story elements down to just the levels only for gameplay feedback and would opt to release a prologue of the game instead, which is basically, a demo.
Sorry for the long TED talk, Tl;Dr, you should definitely release an early access build.
Random suggestion about the items: But I think color coding them would br neat (ie; bronze for the basic stat increases, silver for those double stat increases, and the current gold for the mechanical upgrades). I think this will give a bit more flavor and color breakage to the game. I also suggest making the coins bigger. Keep up the good work!
I don't mind early access games. Just make sure is looks polished, kinda like a demo.
I would love Early Acess ! Found your account today and I love it ! Il try and maoe my own game 😁
Good luck with it. 👍
early access would be good; things that are disliked can be changed before final launch
Hi, I love your devlog progress and honestly it's amazing how much you listened to the comments and tried to implement them in such a way that it would look great. So, the only concern that I have is the delay of 0.5 or 0.45f second that you have right when you go to different doors that is kinda confusing since I thought game began but it didn't so either fade it for less than it takes to come so that some time may pass with fade and it is barely noticeable, sorry if you feel that I was pointlessly critical I apologize.
The soft fade to black between the hub world and the game is just because I didn't really like the hard cut. But the camera pan between each room will hopefully give players the chance to see which enemies are there before the fight starts. So they can start to plan where they need to move/shoot. 👀
No need to apologize, love hearing what people think. I may agree/disagree, but if I were to try to make a game without any feedback I would have to guess what people liked/didn't. 😅
@@HelperWesley Oh wow never thought I would get a reply but thank you for replying and listening to my critique, and I wanted to say what you are saying sounds reasonable but still if it is at all possible any mechanic that can be added so that delay won't feel like it takes half a sec to play would be interesting but again it's your game and you understand it more than any other person and also I just say your video and subscribed right away even though I am unity developer I find your ideas and approach really worth the watch!!
I mean, whatever lets me play the game sooner! 😂😂
But fr tho, it would be cool to see what would come from community feedback. I would love to see what kind of tech comes from it 😄
😂
I like the idea of early access as the developer, having so many people looking for bugs and giving great feedback.
My goal is to drop this game on Newgrounds to finally get that gold daily medal, so maybe I'll put out an earlier release on itch or something. 🤔
We'll see. 👀
@@HelperWesley well in that case, I will keep an eye out! 👀
Yup early access is good.
I think early access is good for if you can call the game done but there's still a lot that's going to be added
i think you should add an ability to tame monsters or have a monster pet, that attacks for you
I think early access is a good idea for this kind of game especially, roguelikes are difficult, and you're always going to be better at your own game, so you won't be able to truly tell if it's too easy or too hard. I think it's a good difficulty level as of now as I played a to my knowledge recent version that was on your discord, but not everyone is in the discord (they should be!!!) so I think early access is a good idea
Thanks for giving it a play through. 👍
I think I am going to release an early build on itch or something after a couple more videos of work. The obvious bugs and issues were hopefully found by people who tried it out in our discord, so now it's just a matter of fixing up those issues and seeing what comes next. 👍
Finally. The single color floor was bugging me for a while. The texture is still understated imo. I don't think early releases hurt a game. Testing is important. It's just important to manage expectations. Just because there is an alpha doesn't mean the release is close, just because the alpha is promising/laggy doesn't mean the final product will be etc.
Yeah, I'm going to work on it some more before releasing any public test builds, but I do definitely need to make it clear that there's still a long way to go before the game is "finished". 👍
Early access would be nice after some bug fixes
The game's looking good!
How do you calculate the dash? I'd need a precise dash where I can predict the end point for my game
The dash in this game just applies a force for a set duration. But someone managed to glitch through the wall with that.
So I think I will, and you could, use a ray cast in the direction you want to go to check if there is a wall or anything the way, and then apply a force to the end point of the ray or where ever it hit a wall/object. 🤔
Thanks Wesley, I will subscribe to gdevelop after finish my game😊silver and eventually gold membership, God willing 😊
i think you want animations for the player getting hit and bullets entering and exiting the screen because those are very important events for the player
The player flashes when they get hit, and I keep meaning to add a slow down and maybe a tween to make them shrink a little bit when they get hit.
But I definitely need to add an effect/animation when bullets hit the walls. Even just a particle of something. 🤔
@@HelperWesley yeah, when polishing its usually the best to polish the parts that are important
I have no problem with a playtest version but keep in mind to never make to much promisises like releasedate and so on, if you do your game is likely to be overestimated and this can cause a lot of problems. Better a late and good release than an early and "bad" one.
Totally agree!
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
-Shigeru Miyamoto
(Unless it's something like No Man's Sky, which apparently is good now after being bad at launch.😅)
@@HelperWesley there are sure exceptions but they are really rare
Hello Wesley! I think that early release is a good idea, since you will get a lot more feedback on how the game "feels" for different types of players :D Also, one question, at 3:37 which program are you using to edit the texture?
Yeah, I probably will do an early release, feedback is super valuable. 👍
And that program was GIMP, it's free and it's what I use for my thumbnails and promotional artwork.
Could you please do a tutorial on the random room switching please? I'm struggling to find good tutorials and I love your style of video😅
Please ask engine related questions over on the GDevelop channel. 👍
But, the base version of this game is actually an example game I made a while ago. It has the basics of fighting, upgrade, and the room randomization and switching built in. The game example is called "the conviction of gun dude", you should be able to find it by searching game example in the engine. 👍(There's a desktop and mobile version)
@@HelperWesley Legend
My respect for you has increased when I saw you made this all in gdevelop... Like bruh I'm a c programmer and I hate the way they've made it to program in gdevelop, I just can't.
Lol. I think it just comes down to how your brain is wired. I tried all of the major engines, and I honestly couldn't get in to any of them. I almost gave up until I found GDevelop.
And I've been using it ever since.
Dude i am new at your channel and i want give you a little advice.
Can you make a takedown effect life doom or farcry which gives the player a boost of speed or health. This change will make your game different and unique
If the beta test / early access version does get released, what would it be on?
Just curious.
And the game is coming along great!
It'll be on desktop as a web build, probably on itch. 🤔
My plan is to eventually put the "full version" on Newgrounds.
You need a steam page my guy, get them wishlists!
This version of the game is destined for Newgrounds, I want to drop something big on Newgrounds to finally get a Gold trophy from that site. 😅
But after that, maybe I'll keep working on it and drop it on to steam. 👀
@@HelperWesley newgrounds is based,.
Beta feedback good, releasing all content bad? I would suggest branding it beta as some ppl don't understand graphics come last, and perhaps have a specific question you would like to have answered in releases to get focused feedback (along with any bonus niggles which will come through anyway)
I think you could make a personalized crosshair cuz the normal mouse doesn't fit
while this is a great project so far, i do think the game is lack luster when it comes to style and being unique. but if this is matching up to what you envisioned then i 100% support it!!
It is definitely landing a little too close to it's influences, I might have to lean more in to the "coin" style. Add some risk/reward "gambling" mechanics or something. 🤔
But for now, I'm just happy to have a fun game that plays well. 😅
@@HelperWesley yeah that’s an awesome idea i really like the look of the coins so far so maybe the game could revolve around some deal/gambling in terms of story or something like you’re in dept and you gain coins to pay it off not sure 🤔
Wow just found this game, and it's kinda rare to see someone use GDevelop, but good job anyway.
I'd think an Early Release would sound good
I think Early access depends on the content you intend to release. If you intend to release the game with all it's content then early access is not a good choice. But if you intend to add on the game upon release. I think Early access is a good idea. But I'm not an expert on this field so take this with a grain of salt
Some minor constructive criticism:
I think the coin upgrade display thing needs some work, wich is probavly something you will do anyway later. What i mean is that all the coins look mostly the same. Maybe you could try different sizes and colors for different upgrades? Like, the 15% Movement Speed upgrade could be smaller copper coin while the damage one is a medium silver one, and the shield could be a large gold with grey rim or smth. Just make the upgrades nore inmediately recognizable becuse just the small symbol in the middle aren't very distinct from one another.
Also tweak the RNG a little so it is not possible to get 2 of the same upgrades choices on the same lebel.
I don't want to guide people to picking certain coins, so I don't want to go with copper/silver/gold or anything like that. But I get your point, they're all the same.
Another commenter suggested doing 3 different versions of coins for the 3 different kind of coins. 1 for the basic stat upgrade, 1 for the big stat upgrades that come with penalties, and 1 for upgrade that make a mechanical change.
And also yeah, I need to tweak the rng a little, because during playtesting for the video I actually managed to get all 3 coins with the same upgrade. 😅
I think the feeling of shooting and killing things feels a little under whelming compared to other similar games. Don't be afraid to completely mess with the visual or even freeze the game for a frame or two when the player gets hit. Screen shake, whiteouts, massive knockback even to the point of bouncing off walls etc.
Is there anywhere I can play the game before it officially releases? I really want to see how the enemies in your game react to certain conditions because I'm making similar enemies for my game and I've had some issues.
I reckon just release the game to play testers, and then create a demo and release that to the public
Early Access = Early Get My Hands On It!
Totally! I've played a bunch of early access games. I love getting to play it early, even if there are a few bugs. 😅
Though I've bought a couple of duds.... so I can see why some people wouldn't like it. 👀
Wow, nice game, if I was one of the testers, I might be carried away by the game ☺️.
When talking about a specific sound effect (like the fire) it would be a good idea to actually play it in the video =P
I did, it's mixed in with the music, so it might be a bit hard to hear though.🤔
ruclips.net/video/V-iuC8x_3TA/видео.html
What about adding a savegame system too?
Right now it saves a single set of files automatically, but a save system with a couple different slots might be something I do eventually. 🤔
hey dude for game optimization can you make a gun that is literally your fists
Death animation comment, well question.
Why don’t you write a quick script that will break apart the image. Just keep that in mind when designing enemies. Or possible have indifferent breaking options.
I'm sure that's possible, but I have no idea how I would do that.😅
I don't do code. 🤷♂️
Idle animation for ur character?
im Polish too
I really do think putting the game on steam is a good idea. Steam really likes to push your game out to people and the $100 fee isn't as big as you might think
Could you add more stuff to do than just the normal dungeon?
What do you mean? What sort of things?
Question, would this game ever be accessed on mobile? Or have mobile controls, cause it would be so fun, another thing is you can get alot of inspiration of a game so similar called soul knight
The current version I'm working on is just for desktop. But once the game is finished, I'll likely go back and add mobile and gamepad controls. 👍
Can u show how you did that dash in top down movement..
If you're using GDevelop, I actually made the base version of this game for GDevelop originally as a game example. You can open up that game and have a look. It's called "the conviction of gun dude". 👍
-Wesley
@@HelperWesley where can I find it?
@@GamerXPlayz On the build page when you first open the app, there are templates and example games to pick from. Type that in to the search bar when picking an example. 👍
@@HelperWesley thanks for the help
which software use for character design
Kenney's creature mixer and then Aseprite to make the art.
I think a demo should be clearly separated from the final game. I dont like it if a game is in early access and then gets an update and is suddenly the full game. so demo yes, but not early access. (maybe its just me interpreting the term early access wrong, possible)
Well what I mean by it is that I would put the current version online, for people to play and give me feedback on, that I would update every couple of weeks until I am satisfied that the game is "Finished".
@@HelperWesley I personally do not like this, but its a way of doing it. The question is if you would then already charge something for the early version or only after some time for the full version
as long as you don't give out the whole game
Reminds me of Soul Knight.
I've heard that a few time. I should give that game a try at some point. 😅
What game engine are you using ? I hav not seen it before
I use GDevelop. 👍
@@HelperWesley cool!
@@HelperWesley I played the game and it is really fun!
Will you ever transition to godot or unity ?
Probably not. 🤷♂
As long as I'm making 2D games, GDevelop works just fine. 👍
I think the coin toss animaation is a bit too slow, giving a low gravity feel
The coin toss of the npc or the coins coming up for the upgrade screen?
Ok i reallt need to learn polishing so youre cool if i "get some inspirations" from this video?
Of course! 👍
I "got inspiration" from a lot of different games. Same thing. 😉
Early access please
hey what game engine is that??????
I use GDevelop. 👍
@@HelperWesley cool, thanks :D
This isnt gospel, but I think a somewhat faster time switching rooms would feel better so you are not leftwaiting to continue playing every time you go to the next room.
wow, love ruclips.net/video/V-iuC8x_3TA/видео.html brings great memory of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery