Board 8 > Downloaded Godot (game engine).

(+) Yeah! (+)

Awesome, I've heard nothing but good things about Godot.
Do you have a game idea in mind?

I joined the video game industry in 2021 as a PR manager, but I moved to another company in 2022 and now I'm a project manager, so I'm more involved in the actual development process. My work mostly develops mobile games though we did launch a PC/console title last year and are working on another one.

That's cool too! I come from more of a theatre and writing background, excited to see where those skills align and where they crash hard.

Raka_Putra posted...

Do you have a game idea in mind?

In a sentence: protagonist misunderstands what a rap battle is supposed to be.

I have other ideas that are too big for me right now and maybe forever, but this feels like enough as-is to make happen within my scope.

I've done a bunch of tutorials on it and have been using it the last while for making my own interactable stream overlay instead of a game per say

definitely feels doable! I think the bundle you mentioned has some definite parts that'll fit the bill for some scenes

Funnily enough, I'm taking a theatre writing class right now haha. It's been a blast so far since I've dabbled in writing (but never really script writing) but never took a course before.

HaRRicH posted...

In a sentence: protagonist misunderstands what a rap battle is supposed to be.

I have other ideas that are too big for me right now and maybe forever, but this feels like enough as-is to make happen within my scope.

That sounds neat and probably doable. It's great that you're already doing something with a reasonable scope that you can probably get done. After being in the industry I see way too much people who are starting out taking on projects that are just simply too big (a college kid wanted to something with the scale of Genshin Impact...).

Aww yeah, Chester was a technically-made money title.

And tag to follow along with the game devving.

Good on you for putting in the effort to learn. It's a step many choose not to take.

How long have you been waiting for that

Grimlyn posted...

I've done a bunch of tutorials on it and have been using it the last while for making my own interactable stream overlay instead of a game per say

definitely feels doable! I think the bundle you mentioned has some definite parts that'll fit the bill for some scenes

Oooh sounds flexible! But also I dunno if that's possible with other engines too or not.

Raka_Putra posted...

Funnily enough, I'm taking a theatre writing class right now haha. It's been a blast so far since I've dabbled in writing (but never really script writing) but never took a course before.

First time for everything! Love playwriting.

xenosaga posted...

Aww yeah, Chester was a technically-made money title.

Aw yeah!!!

Uglyface2 posted...

Good on you for putting in the effort to learn. It's a step many choose not to take.

I have plenty of time to mess this up...! Figure this is a way to try harder at least.

XIII_Rocks posted...

How long have you been waiting for that

For the idea I shared? Less than a week. I'm not going into this with any ideas that are too precious and am just deciding on the genre because Godot has a project/demo for RPGs.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/709438-misplaced-max

a game written by ZenOfThunder, now basically lost media

HaRRicH posted...

Oooh sounds flexible! But also I dunno if that's possible with other engines too or not.

should be for sure, all it needs is websocket support to communicate with my python script that transmits commands! I was trying out pygame first but ultimately switched to a game engine because pygame can't run a transparent window without using chroma key which looks ugly

all the shit going on with Unity tho definitely pushed me to Godot even tho my use-case is totally irrelevant lmao, but it's been cool to learn!

ZenOfThunder posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/709438-misplaced-max

a game written by ZenOfThunder, now basically lost media

You have near-complete board domination there. Nice.

Grimlyn posted...

all the shit going on with Unity tho definitely pushed me to Godot even tho my use-case is totally irrelevant lmao, but it's been cool to learn!

That's how I first heard of Godot.

Right off the bat: if you have the Godot Humble Bundle but haven't redeemed it yet, its "redemption deadline is April 17, 2024 at 7:00:00 PM PDT. You have 8 days left!"

Well I guess I'm just in time.

Ludum Dare jam this weekend. Jump right in, no experience required. It will boost the chance of you succeeding at your bigger game project by 10-100x
https://ldjam.com/

Did a few slides/videos from the Humble Bundle intro course. Nothing bad so far, even though looking at Godot continues to look initially overwhelming. Main takeaway so far: scenes are collections of nodes and nodes are like atoms.

So, here's the JRPG Demo that came with Godot. I played it. It's very simple.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/080b6d24.jpg
(there's supposed to be a key in the middle like the gameplay has -- basically here's a blue slime I can fight and a key that I can't pick up with some light dialogue and a battle screen)

I changed the Player node (yellow slime) in a few little ways like position on the map and the image, but they took a long time to figure out because this interface immediately felt like a lot when I first saw it and that has not changed yet. Not much was successfully done here, but I'm allowing myself time to be stuck and explore. Going forward, I will be deconstructing this demo through its other existing nodes later on. With any luck, I will one day not recognize it.

I began a new file so I can explore both sides of working on scenes, but am stuck pretty early. I have Node2D, Camera2D, TileMap, and Timer at the moment. I figure this keeps my viewpoint and genre locked down until I change them later. My next search is for Player like I saw in the JRPG Demo, but I don't see that node yet.

Ah well. I'm exploring both sides of scenes here. I will find that node soon enough.

foolm0r0n posted...

Ludum Dare jam this weekend. Jump right in, no experience required. It will boost the chance of you succeeding at your bigger game project by 10-100x
https://ldjam.com/

I'm interested, but it says I need an invite code...didn't see one on Twitter or reddit. Do you have one I could enter with?

wut that's weird. Oh it's probably to fight against spam

Try this: MasterDonLD54

Also there's a discord with a ton of noobs and vets if you're interested https://discord.com/invite/HMPSGnx7

HaRRicH posted...

My next search is for Player like I saw in the JRPG Demo, but I don't see that node yet.

Can you inspect the demo scene and see what nodes they use for each object?

foolm0r0n posted...

wut that's weird. Oh it's probably to fight against spam

Try this: MasterDonLD54

Also there's a discord with a ton of noobs and vets if you're interested https://discord.com/invite/HMPSGnx7

I'm in on both counts, thanks!

foolm0r0n posted...

Can you inspect the demo scene and see what nodes they use for each object?

I'll check this out later, but yeah I figure after fumbling through blind yesterday that reverse-engineering between projects or just Googling would be the next direction to go for resolving this basic hurdle.

Yes, a game that did not reach the marketplace

I guess finishing a RPGmaker game counts?

Zylothewolf posted...

Yes, a game that did not reach the marketplace

I guess finishing a RPGmaker game counts?

I would say yes. Bam, good job.

Zylothewolf posted...

I guess finishing a RPGmaker game counts?

post it !

Quick note as I explore JRPG Demo: I did not see Player or Opponent in the node-section as expected, nor did I see any nodes with the silhouette of a person as its little icon like a tutorial video I have on in the background would indicate...

...until I take a break from typing this to bring back up Godot, and then here it is (no silhouete-icon included).

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5c123662.png

I don't understand why this just appears for me yet, but okay. I turned the enemy blue slime into something twice its size on the world map and then also made its sprite appear upside-down. Also, I noticed a glitch! Or at least what I'm calling a glitch for the moment. My current sprite for Player only stays and appears that way if I don't bump into a wall...but if I do, it will go to its shocked sprite and then revert to the original slime-sprite it was again. Interesting.

I hid most of the grass/flowers/pebbles with the eyeball-icon. That feels like Photoshop. It does appear based off this demo though that the flowers and grass in the non-walkable areas are stored elsewhere than the folder I first did this in for the walkable areas...probably just a personal choice of organization there.

Moved some bushes, whatever. Switching from Select Mode to Move Mode feels a little slow and clunky but I'm also still very new.

Also, zooming in and out with the middle mouse button makes sense, but I am not used to holding it to drag things around like my general view-point. I'll get used to it.....

Aaaaaaaand now my scene menu's changed back to how it first was again:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a5e53b1e.png

Think this happened from when I clicked the script-logo beside one of the nodes. Good news though is that I now see what my disconnect was here: these are two different scenes I'm dealing with, a Game node scene and an Exploration node scene. Tricky!

Saving this deconstruction for later. Going back to the Humble Bumble overall training for awhile.

Shortcuts are crucial for toggling between different tools.

And yeah Godot by default always hides child nodes of other scenes. So when looking at Game, Exploration's children will be hidden.

When looking at Exploration, Player's children are hidden. But you can actually see Opponent's children. That's because it has the Edit Children checkbox ticked when you right click it. The children have yellow names to indicate this.

When you run the game, there should be a new Remote tab. This contains the scene tree of the actual running game. No nodes are hidden here, so it's the best place to search for a node across all scenes. The nodes here also show the actual properties that are used and updated at runtime, so you can watch them change as you interact. And you can change them manually to update the running game.

The Humble Bundle intro videos are getting more into the 3D side of things now...I'm gonna watch the whole tutorial, but I'm more interested in the 2D genres. I'll keep tinkering aside from these videos, but it's easy to get stuck. I haven't seen how to make a game from its earliest nodes much, and don't know much about the transition from there to working on Godot's next steps. Fumbling in the meanwhile...!

Latest take-aways: resources are assets like textures, I see a lot of file management ahead, and there are indeed some one-button shortcuts. Nice.

Comparing the demo to my new file: I don't understand why I can't add an Exploration node to a new game like the JRPG Demo seems to be doing. One guess is the demo renamed the node for that file...but I don't know what the original node for that gameplay-type should be then, and that also seems confusing to do unannounced for the purpose of a demo. I'll cave in and Google it soon.

Next up: coding and programming, alright. I don't think my old HTML skills apply perfectly with this Python-variant, but most of it makes sense early on. I'll need to remember these words:

var
func
String
bool

Operators, I think...?

Decided to check out a lesson or two on the making-an-RPG course early too, just to see what I catch -- very presentation'y day. I'm not ready for all of this one and it's stated early on. This teacher had a gameplan about this course's resources: have some pre-made ones on stand-by before making this video and new game (I think Godot's open-source assets?).

Dunno that everyone has to do it like this, but so far this RPG-course looks like it's going in the order of PROJECT/GAME --> NODE/SCENE --> RESOURCES/ASSETS --> CONTROLLER --> PLAYER --> ??? --> PROFIT. That helps me frame in my head a bit more about structuring what's ahead to get to what I think a game should look and play like.

HaRRicH posted...

I don't understand why I can't add an Exploration node to a new game like the JRPG Demo seems to be doing.

Exploration isn't a node, it's a scene (see the movie clacker symbol). So you have to copy the Exploration scene file into your project, then you can drag it into your scene. You also have to copy any files that Exploration uses.

I see that I'm not grasping that separation between nodes/scenes and scenes/projects well yet. Hmmm. I'll be Googling that tonight. Pointing out the scene-icon was helpful in the meanwhile!

I think a lot of my challenge here is I feel like I need more done...not so much as a programmer trying to make a game, right, I'm new and expecting to get stuck a lot, but rather as someone still side-eying the Scene Bar trying to understand how much or what else I need in there. Understanding that I can save one node as one scene makes some of that make more sense now, so, baby steps.

I copied the JRPG Demo's image-files into my other file, testing that out...lo and behold, that was easy enough. Did some light edits to a slime's image -- MSPaint-caliber, aw yeah. I'm going to Script where I expect the code to be though and it's not appearing -- none of it. There's nothing really here for a runnable game so maybe that's why, but I thought it began with some sort of _start or _process code anyway.

I asked ChatGPT for Godot-code to a very simple game, and it gave me Pong's. I put it into Godot and it did nothing but highlight some code with brown highlighting. Bummer. I did practice reading the code and trying to understand code better when I see it.

Humble Bundle training just went over vectors. I don't remember much, but I keep passing their little quizzes at the end. Next it'll be going over how to make a simple coin-collecting game, where I am hoping some of this solidifies soon.

One of my other videos today switched from Godot to Game Builder Garage...might give that game a try again sometime down the line. Its nodols seem to be really similar to Godot's nodes here, but also the game's much more pre-set and limited early on because it's still a game. Their terms won't be the same so I'll hold off on it now anyway, but I can see some concepts that are similar.

Game jam tomorrow! How you feeling about it foolmo? Anybody else getting in? I think my modest goals will still be too big for this at the rate I'm going, but that's no excuse not to make a game. =)

Blacker than a moonless night, hotter and more bitter than hell itself that is game development

HaRRicH posted...

but I thought it began with some sort of _start or _process code anyway

If you add a new script to a node it should give you a default file with these funcs

I'm not really sure how good I'll do in the jam. I still hit a lot of friction with godot, and I'm spending time organizing my local jam too. My goal is to make it my best godot jam game by a significant margin. Shouldn't be hard since this is my current best, and I only spent a day on it https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/type-traveler. Stretch goal is to make it as good as my average unity games.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b3091392.jpg

Played on mobile and worked fine without the keyboard! I agree with some of your comments that the sound for messing up is scary-sounding. Still, neat and effective, and I liked the sound-changes with the colors.

That's ok about your goal though, hope you hit it! I've got power outages happening off and on here...rabble rabble. Hopefully they don't impact me much here.

Still no power.

Pretty mad.

Almost seven hours later, I get my power back...a mix of frustrated and relieved. Ultimately though, this jam is back on.

I see the theme is "Summoning" so I'm tossing my original idea for the moment and am chasing the theme. I made some amateur sprites and a one-screen map -- we'll deal with the harder stuff tomorrow, like how to connect nodes appropriately.

I always spend the first night ideating anyway. I think I've got something but it's difficult. Gonna start programming in a bit.

Oh hey, YouTube sent me Zenva's/Humble Bundle's whole tutorial for Godot in case anybody else wants it:

https://youtu.be/NlzTmL_eB-U?si=bBrKsq-Hf0Ap7C18

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b9068b88.png

Art. The goal is to make it a game to get the snowman's head on the snowman's body. We shall call that a summon, given that it takes magic to find the right pair of jeans for a snowman to fit.

That already better than many LD games tbh

Thought about joining this jam but weekend ended up busy so going to live vicariously through you two.
Maybe next jam!

I just achieved movement.

Fuck yeah.

Stuck on collision detection. I've fallen into a lot of back and forth with ChatGPT -- it seems to know a lot about Godot but not the newest version. Sometimes it's offering code for me to adjust, and sometimes it's recommending me node-types that don't exist. It took a lot of troubleshooting to get any movement at all in my controls, and then I saw that it was moving both my player and also the snowman's head...so, that took awhile.

Tomorrow's goals are collision detection between my player, snowman's head, and snowman's body -- lots of confusion about Collision --> Layer and Mask, I can't seem to get them to work. I also need players not to run off the blue path I made. I gotta have the snowman's head be recognized as a key and the snowman's body recognized as a lock. I would sure like to get to a start screen, finish screen, music, and sound effects...but this is not a fast process for me, so I can't really count on all that. Decisions, decisions.

Taking a break -- collisions is not going anywhere successfully so far and I'm trying to work through that with scripts and connecting signals. Sometimes being stuck is its own progress, but I am vying for new progress tonight.

48 hour jam done. It's a rune drawing puzzle game. Very complex and brittle math here but it mostly works. 34 levels in total! Should work on desktop of mobile using mouse or touch.

https://foolmoron.itch.io/etsa-djavul

Also uploaded to Newgrounds https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/926088

I have completely been stuck on collision detection. I think the deadline is 9:00 PM Eastern to be uploaded, right? If so I think I can still make a game in time, but it won't fit the theme anymore.

I'll check out your game this afternoon -- congrats on its completion ahead of pace dude!

I did the solo compo so I had to complete it by 9 yesterday.

But yeah for you, focus on getting something the tiniest bit playable, and then upload that. Theme doesn't matter at all, it's just a starting point. The stats are usually around 50% of games unsubmitted, so you'll automatically be in the top 50% if you submit.

I've been fighting how to save and upload this for two or three hours. This sucks. I was hoping to upload on time. Still trying.

Still not working, but at least I've got a link that has stopped giving a near-instant error message.

https://hotmagic.itch.io/summoning-scrub

Just a gray rectangle on all browsers where I expect the game to be. =/

I'm giving up tonight...disappointed in the uploading issues, but feeling good about finding an idea around my lack of current programming capabilities:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d08389f2.jpg