Post by khouram in SAINTS WERE MADE : A Postmortem comments

SAINTS WERE MADE : A Postmortem » Comments

Viewing post in SAINTS WERE MADE : A Postmortem comments

Wow, man. This helps a lot you have no idea. I’ve never made a game before, so all this is really new to me. But this helps so much! So thank you for taking the time out to respond. You’re right, you have to fill in those gaps yourself as a Solo dev. I’m making my first game right now, and I’m definitely learning a lot. My fear is frustration, as my time is quite limited and I fear that I will never make a game. I come from a film background so I’m more in line with believing that the more projects I complete the better the dev I will be. And full disclosure, being a game dev is something I want to do instead of my current job. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who are in a similar boat but like I said, this helps a lot.

You mention visual scripting, and if I can ask what did you do about the shaders that you use? Did you get them from the asset store? If so, which one would you recommend as I’m looking for the same retro look you go for in IMS.

somewhat4 years ago

No problem. Sounds like we are in a similar boat. :-)
About visual scripting, I'm just not a coder, I don't know the expressions and how to type it, but I believe I understand the logic of code. And as such, visual scripting is a way to create code without writing it. It's much easier to explain and understand visually, so look up visual scripting tools on Google to get a quick and better picture. As I work with Unity, I tried a few options such as PlayMaker, Bolt and GameFlow before settling on GameFlow (which is very similar to RPG Maker, as it's just a series of commands read from top to bottom). Bolt is more like actually coding without having to type (I found it very intimidating for a beginner) and PlayMaker is forcing everything to be a state-machine (you tell every object in the game what to do at all times, and what they do changes depending on the situation, making the object change from state to state... hope that makes sense). PlayMaker is the most popular option, and has extensive documentation online, if you want to get into it.

As for the 'retro' shaders, you have a few options. I personally use Flashback94 (found on the Unity Asset Store), but most devs I know started out using DSoft20's PSX RetroShader, which is free : https://github.com/dsoft20/psx_retroshader
There is also Keijiro's shaders who are pretty popular, make sure to check out their other stuff : https://github.com/keijiro/Retro3D
Recently, fellow low-poly dev LeakyFingers made a similar shader for Unity as well : https://leakyfingers.itch.io/retro-3d-shader-pack-for-unity

So your options are pretty wide opened. Test a few of them and settle for the one with a UI that clicks best with your brain. Happy game making!

khouram4 years ago

Seriously, I can't thank you enough for your message. Being a solo dev, you need all the help you can get. I purchased your bundle, from one dev to another we need to support each other! :)