Currently I’m working on two projects. One is meant to be a super short story 2d game. The other is a simple mobile game. Both in unity.
I’m trying to improve my skills and not focus on huge ideas. I will post pictures soon. For the mobile game, it’s currently pretty simple and I’m trying to find a way to make it standout more.
Unfortunately, my entry didn’t place well. Overall I placed #531, which is about the half way mark.
I made a fps game. In this game the player is playing a VR game console. The console constantly lies to the player. Eventually the player will leave the simulation.
The idea behind the VR game console came from the hosts including “the game is” in the title. That’s just how I interpreted it.
I’ve thought about continuing it. But I’m not exactly sure what direction I would want to take it in to really make it engaging and interesting.
I had a total of five reviews. Here we the overall stats for my game.
I think I needed more reviews. Five is difficult to really get an accurate description of. I should have put my game out more, but it didn’t help that I had a large size downloadable game. I saw alot of entries were web based.
As, for the rest of the entries;Here are the results:
It was a fun experience. I’m glad I did it. Next time I’ll probably try to do even better.
Often while making games in Unreal i’ll use the basic 3D primitive shapes(spheres,cubes,planes,cylinders,and cones) for prototyping levels. In Unreal Engine you can merge a set of actors into a new (reusable) static actor.
This is great for building levels and props without 3D modelling experience, or if you need a placeholder until the actual prop is ready.
To merge actors into a single static mesh, select a group of actors. Then right-click on them. There should be a menu option named “Convert Actors to Static Mesh“. Select that option, then choose the save location and name. After that, you can reuse the created static mesh as many times as you want.
One caveat is that the origin isn’t always where you want it to be, but that is a minor inconvenience for such useful fuctionality.
Step 1, Drag a basic cube onto the scene.
Step 2, move & scale the cube. Then create duplicates, and move & scale them. You should end up with a fence made up of multiple Cube static mesh actors.
Step 3, select the cubes and right-click.
Step 4, select “Convert Actors to Static Mesh” and, select a save name and location.
Step 6, locate your new static mesh.
Step 7, drop it in the scene.
NOTE: The existing actors will still be in the scene after you create the static mesh, you can reuse them, or delete them once you have confirmed it’s creation.
And that’s it!
In my entry for the August 2019 Community Game Jam, i did this with the buildings. Each building probably consists of 10+ Cubes. I built out the building, merged the 10+ actors into a static mesh, and saved a lot of space in my world outliner.
Hope that helps.
A follow up to a previous post. I entered a game jam one week ago. I’ve finialized my submission. It’s been a interesting week. Things didn’t always go as planned. Improvision was sometimes the neccessary route.
Previous Post: https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/thinksleepplay-games.com/71
https://thinksleepplaygames.itch.io/the-vboxstation-experience
I’ll make a in-depth post a little later when i have time to relax and take some input in, but i’ll give some simple details. The theme of the game jam was “The Game Is a Liar”. My game is a FPS game about a guy/girl who got a new virtual reality console. I do not want to spoil anything else.
Thanks for reading.
I recently decided to join a 1-week long Community Game Jam. The jam is being hosted by several popular YouTube game developers.
Update: The Game Jam is over. My submission is uploaded. Link posted below.
Link Here: https://itch.io/jam/cgj
Game Link Here: https://thinksleepplaygames.itch.io/the-vboxstation-experience
A Game Jam is a type of “themed” game development contest. Single Developers and/or teams submit games created specifically for the Jam. Games are Judged based on different categories such as Art, Fun, and Uniqueness.
Game Jams come in different lengths. Some Game Jams might last a couple hours, and some might last a couple days.
The best part about a Game Jam is that each Game Jam has it’s own Unique Theme. This theme isn’t told to anyone until the exact start time. This creates a fun layer of suspense and mystery. You can’t start brainstorming ideas until the clock starts ticking.
When the Jam starts on Saturday August 24th at 3:00PM EST, I will begin development and probably wait until later in the week to post. I’ll definitely make a post when the Jam is over for my final entry.
I’ve also got some ideas for more tips and content for this blog. So stay tuned. Thanks for reading.
This one is a shorty. Be careful when setting the default game state class for custom game modes. Choosing a game state class that extends “GameState” can break your player controller somewhat.
I was experiencing an issue with my player controller. You might have guessed it, my player controller was not working. Oddly, the tick function was running; but the BeginPlay event was not being called. This messed up a bunch of other things. After a lot of stress, i switched the game state class from “GameState” to “GameStateBase” and it worked.
I really wish unreal had popup notifications for this. Maybe i’ll do a post explaining the differences later when i read up more about it.
I started up TSP Games because i wanted to get serious with Game Development. I’ve used a lot of game engines/frameworks in the past:
I also am somewhat okay at drawing, graphic design, and 3d modelling. Those 3 are my weakest fields however, and i do want to improve on them.
Game Development was always a hobby of mine, the most “success” i had was with Adobe Flash. I quote the word success because it’s relative. I defined my success with it as actually fully completing games start to finish. Back when it was an active/popular technology, i did actually also make some money off of games made with it. I cannot brag however because a lot of people did, and a lot of people did make more in fact. I can’t brag about it, but i can take some pride in the completed work.
What is now know as just FGL.com, used to be FlashGameLicense.com. This was a site where flash developers could interact, upload, and sell games to publishers. I really miss these days. The game jams. The chat room. First impressions and leveling up. It was a lot of fun. Maybe i’ll do a short post on it. I also did contractor work as a flash/html5 developer. This was really cool also. I got to work on some cool projects that i’ll forever be grateful & appreciative for/of.
Fast forward to around 2019. I still “make games” but i don’t really make games. What i mean is, i would make a lot of prototypes, but never finish them. I had a lot of ideas that got started, and never finished. I think there are many aspects to why they were never finished. However overall i think one reason i stopped is because i didn’t have a goal or motivation besides the fun i get from doing it.
I have done a lot of Unity prototypes, with various gameplay mechanics; but never really finished anything. Lately i switched over to Unreal Engine, and was starting on that same path for a while. However, i’m not sure where/how; i decided to make a goal and try to seriously work for it.
I don’t want to become rich from making games. I’m not trying to make some huge game development company that becomes a household name. I think my first/simplest goal at the moment is to make a game, and for someone random to tell me in person that they really enjoyed it and/or it touched them. I want to earn it though, i don’t just want it from friends or family who wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings or are just being nice.My second/third goal(s) would be to publish a game for Steam and then for Console. I have some ways to go until then. I’m still learning a lot. However, that’s what i decided on. That’s why i decided to create ThinkSleepPlay-Games.com.
I guess i still could make games without TSP. However TSP represents something solid, that i have decided upon. Ideas, Inspiration, and Motivation can be fleeting. TSP represents my goals as a game developer, and hopefully will help me stay focus.
Thanks for reading.
I first learned of Founders’ Fortune watching a Let’s Play on YouTube. I liked the graphics style and I needed a new game to play. So a little later that day i downloaded the game. About 6-8 hours later i finally managed to save & close the game, hopefully that should say enough about the game.
NOTE: The game itself is in an alpha version but is very stable. I didn’t encounter any performance bugs at all.
Founder’s Fortune is kind of like The Sims meets Age of Empires. You have to manage resources and build your colony/village, while simultaneously catering to each of your villagers’ specific personality traits, needs, and stats. The mixing of these two game types is well done.
In founder’s fortune you manage your village and it’s villagers throughout the 4 seasons. You can give them specific jobs & tasks to do, and must also mange the villagers themselves.
I’ll try to explain some major aspects of the game below.
In RTS games the player must tasks his available units with gathering resources. A unique type of resource in Founders’ Fortune are it’s Crystals. Shown in the screenshot above (and on the main menu), these crystals are your primary resource for the research process. The research process is how the player unlocks new items to build & craft.
First-off, the crystals must be mined. After being mined, they can be analyzed. Analyzing crystals earns your points towards unlocking new research nodes. Each Research Node will have prerequisite research nodes (except for the first two).
Once you have unlocked something from research you’ll need the necessary resources to build it. The primary collectible resources in Founders’ Fortune include:
Researching and gathering resources are a common feature in RTS games. Founders’ Fortune does it’s village building a little bit different though.
With unlocked material you can build up your village. There are no predefined buildings however. Like in the sims you can place walls, doors, and flooring wherever you want. There are different types of floors, walls, and doors. You can also decorate the interior and exterior with a vareity of items such as Vases and potted plants.
A cool feature is that each villager is aware of what their “home” is, and what their “room” is. A villager’s “room” is the enclosed space where their assigned bed is. A villager’s “home” is the overall space that encloses their room.
Researching, gathering resources, and building your own custom village isn’t the end of things though. Enter a Sims-style villager management system.
All of your villagers in Founders’ Fortune are unique. Each villager will have his or her own expectations, wishes, thoughts, stats, and traits. You’ll have to manage all of that for each villager, while keeping an eye on the seasons and your resources. It sounds like a handful, but you get the hang of it real quick and it’s a lot of fun.
I only got up to six villagers. I had the opportunity to recruit 2 more, but i wanted to be prepared for a nearing winter. Unlike in a lot of RTS games, you cannot recruit new villagers on demand. They will come to your village over time, if all your villager’s expectations are met.
A villager’s stats include their Hunger, Health, Stamina, and Mood.
As long as their is food, villagers will feed themselves. If there is no food, they will start to starve and their health will drop. You can increase or decrease a villager’s food rations if necessary.
When a villager loses all their health, they die. A villager’s health can drop when they get the sick, and/or are damaged in battle. A villager regains health using health potions and also by sleeping.
As a villager works, they lose stamina. When their stamina is depleted they must sleep. If a villager as a Insomnia trait, they will require double the amount of sleep.
When a villager’s mood reaches it’s limit, they will stop working. Your villagers’ mood changes based on their thoughts. More about thoughts below…
Each villager will have two wishes at given time. Granting these wishes will earn them a specified number of satisfaction points. When a villager gets enough satisfaction points, their satisfaction level goes up one.
A villagers’ wishes can include things like:
Yep, villagers have their own thoughts too. This is a pretty unique add-on to the game. A villagers’ thoughts affect their mood. They vary in where they come from, but positive thoughts increase a villager’s mood; whilst negative thoughts decrease a villager’s mood. A villagers’ thoughts can include things like:
There are a variety of thoughts a villager can have, which helps keep things fresh and novel.
Some final aspects of the game i’ll go over are Goblins, Seasons, and Trading.
At least in the normal difficulty, goblins are a minor part of the game. Occasionally they will attack your village. However, it’s not difficult to defend against the attack and receive little damage.
Founders’ Fortune cycles through the four seasons. A cool feature is that certain farming crops only grow in specific seasons, and nothing grows during winter. This does add an interesting spin to the game’s strategy.
To be honest, I didn’t think i would make it through my first winter. I didn’t have too much food saved up, and crops would no longer grow. My saving grace was in trading. Fortunately i had a lot of wood to trade when the trading merchants came along.
Occasionally a trading merchant will appear on the shore. You can talk to the merchant, trade with him, attack him, or kill him. I’m not sure of the ramifications of attacking/killing him, but my curiosity is brewing. Talking didn’t seem to have any affect, maybe this is a bug or unimplemented feature? As for trading, it’s what you would expect. You can trade what you have for coins and/or what he has.
Overall, Founders’ Fortune is a promising Indie Game that has hours worth of fun. If you are a fan of the RTS genre, it’s definitely a must play. The developers are even cool enough to put a free (super-stable) alpha out. They’ve definitely earned me buying it, and for an early-bird price too.
Check it out at: https://foundersfortune.com/
Think, Sleep, and Play Games 