itch.io

I'm a newbie game developer, but I've been a fan of open source and a linux user since the 90s.

It's definitely possible to make a game using only open source - I think the limitations are your skill level and the amount of work you want to put in, and of course a learning curve which should be expected whenever trying any new tools.

All of the projects on my itch page are made using 100% open source tools. I'm still very new and inexperienced; I don't have any training or education in any tech field: I'm just a hobbyist, but you can see what progress I've made since July of this year.

It’s a finished game, but might get some polish down the road (suggestions welcomed :) ) Also, as this is the initial release, you shouldn’t be surprised if there are some bugs to squash - please share if you find them.

You start out as 'Kenji' living a simple normal life... but seemingly small choices can have a big impact on how the story unfolds...

There are 8 possible conclusions and 1 “True Ending”

You can find the game on itch or our website

It’s currently available as an android apk or play online via browser:  exports for other platforms may become available in the future.

I'm not a lawyer or an expert, but is that copyright/trademark infringement?

Just uploaded a new browser version 0.0.6beta - I'll get the cross-platform downloadable versions up once I'm finished updating the levels :)

Several new features fully explained on the devlog (available on mobile as well):

Options for shading, cpu throttle(for older devices), lights, graphics (32x32 or 64x64), and sound control

Behind the scenes, I implemented a new "modular" approach to making the levels that gave me a nice boost in performance.

If you're interested, you can check my youtube channel for some videos I made during development:

I think there's a checkbox in your settings for your upload page you can click give it full screen.

I notice a few things...

When I click the website button the browser attempts to load 5 popup windows. Is this intended or is it supposed to only popup one?

the spacebar for jump causes the page to jump. maybe it needs a full screen button?

Here's a temporary test build of the new version... it's got a million bugs, but that's not the point.

https://games.gdevelop-app.com/game-92af3b97-27b1-41cc-9445-932b8238dc65/index.h...

I'm hoping to get some feedback on the new features I'm trying out: Lighting layers, shadow effects, different display resolutions.... which work well, which don't, what's worth keeping, what should be abandoned, how the effects affect performance on different devices.

If you choose to offer feedback, it would help me to know what type of device you're playing on, amount of RAM, processor speed and architecture (x86/ARM).

*The options screen isn't made yet so mobile players won't have the ability in this test build to turn options on and off.

Looks interesting. I'd be much more likely to give it a  play with a linux or browser version :) 

~FOSS user 

My game is a RPG/dungeon crawler (think eye of the beholder-ish) loosely based on the book "Pilgrims Progress" by John Bunyan (1678)

Utilize Trust, Faith, and Hope. Acquire abilities like Independence, Compassion, and Intuition and face off against the darkest adversaries out there: things like  Ridicule, Doubt, and Struggle. Break down Walls of Lies and overcome Obstacles of Deception & Manipulation. Discover if you act in the interest of self or the interest of others. Grow your Courage, Willpower, Patience, and Resilience until you’re ready for anything.

What path will you take on your journey to defeat your Inner Demons?

Current version is 0.5

Next update will include a lot of enhancements to the feels: More variety in textures, more detail to battle screens, more audio selections; as well as a few bug fixes.

As a new developer, I'd like to reinforce what a couple people here have already stated: the value of good feedback. Good feedback is really really hard to find (at least for me at this stage in my development). As an example: I have several small projects on my itch page, and a few works in progress that I'm always working on. In total, between all of my projects I've had 364 browser plays - not bad for a newbie, right? And a little less than half that of downloads. And yet, excluding my game jam entries, I've had 1 rating, and only 2 persons give feedbacks.If you include game jam entries, I could add a few more... still,  less than 2%. A few weeks ago I found out that one of my projects was bugged and unplayable via browser - I quickly fixed it, but it was on itch for over a month and had numerous people play... no one bothered to tell me it was broken :(

It's one thing to say "I like it" or "it's fun", or on the flip side "I don't like it" or "it isn't my type of game" - but this isn't really valuable. If you can add a little extra detail, it makes a huge difference. Such as "I like this because..." or "This felt unnatural to me because..." or even "It was okay, but it I'd like it much better if you did..."

This way the developer can keep the game going in a good direction, or possibly change gears if something isn't working. I don't think we have any telepaths here. How can you expect a developer to make a good game if the developer doesn't know what you want? If it happens, it seems almost a small miracle.

In closing, you or anyone else is more than welcome to review anything I've made. I make no promise that any of it's any good, but if you use it in a video drop me a line, make a comment on one of my posts somewhere, etc, so I can see what you think about it. I'm not hard to find with a little effort. If you leave me valuable feedback (note I said valuable, not positive or negative) I'll surely give you a like. If you provide me with consistently valuable feedback, I'll joyfully subscribe.

Make a browser version and I will provide you with some good, honest feedback (linux user). Not because I want to, and not because you deserve it, but because I know how hard it is to get good feedback. So many play and walk away...

I can see you've been busy reviewing games and making videos.

One thing I'm usually pretty good about is making all my games available on multiple formats (including browser hint hint)

One of my weaknesses is I'm not so good at making games that are user friendly and intuitive, so hopefully you can figure out how to play my loving creations. If not, I'm sure your confusion and frustration will be amusing to someone.

I'm curious to know which of my games you'll choose to review and why. I'll have an eye on your youtube channel :)

I think the skill of the developers in the jam isn't an issue; however I notice some  game jams have people that have been members for a long time, and they develop into cliques, and people just talk to the people they know, ignoring the new members. I don't find this exclusivity conducive for growth or learning. It's like these game jams have evolved into a circle for people who know each other to stroke one another's egos.

Boo@that.

Kudos to @Xanderwood for thinking beyond establishment. Depending on your selected limitation I may join your jam :)

[edit] I wonder if it would benefit the community to have a system for rating game jams, just as the jams have systems for rating games? Just brainstorming here... not so much a suggestion as an idea. Some possible criteria for rating game jams:

• useful feedback given
• open environment
• teaching and learning
• exposure brought by the jam
  
  

Just updated a new version of this. The new version (0.5) includes:

• mobile support (largely untested, so expect bugs)
• fixed all the display bugs in the combat screen (hopefully)
• started on the second area of the dungeon
• 3 new battles, and new attributes  to acquire alongside them
• map oriented puzzles to challenge the player in addition to combat scenarios (area2)
• pared down some maps that were a bit big and causing some lag (I've still got a bit of this to do)
• started fixing some of the display bugs in the walls from when I constructed some levels too fast and didn't set the proper animations (this is going to be a bit time consuming so I'm doing just a little at a time, like eating an elephant)

Here's a screenshot of the new area2

I was actually just working on this now. It not only helps improve performance but gives it a nice creepy effect with the shading around the players field of view.

Regarding the slow-down when approaching corners due to the multiple rays hitting: I have been working to make npcs appear, and have figured out a way. I put the npc images as animations of the walls, then set an instance variable for the ray obstacle for the npc, which passes from the obstacle to the sensor to the wall with an extra condition during wall creation. I put an npc in a corner, and it helps the lag a little by deflecting some of those rays from hitting the same spots.

However, it creates a minor display bug in the wall behind the npc, since the rays don't pass through it.

I am still getting better fps with the raycasting example.

I recieved it :)

Maybe it would help to make an object to thin the amount of rays sent out when you approach the wall would minimize the issues? Like if you are in collision with an object near the corner you send out 50% amount of rays.

It may not be ideal for what you are doing. Yours is a first person shooter. For what I'm doing, I don't need a lot of action components. I made a perimeter around the walls, and took out all of the extra stuff. I was able to maintain an almost consistent frame rate ~38-41.

I am going to try and see next if I can figure out how to broaden the ray to give a wider perspective, and see how that acts.

[edit] upon trying the broader perspective I am unsatisfied with the gaps that appear from the thinning rays. I may try wider tiles. I'm undecided at this point. I do like to experiment with it; it is a vast improvement over the previous method.

I think I still need to learn a great deal more before I can understand it. But it's fun to tinker with. 

I notice I've been able to have up to 48fps in this version but as you say it lacks some consistency. I notice for me the place it has the hardest time is when you get close to walls, particularly corners.

I wonder if  a perimeter around the projected walls to keep the player from getting too close to get a more consistent fps.

For me this example didn't work as good, it is a slight drop in frame rate (1-2fps) compared to no raycasting. [edit] correction, there was a vast improvement in fps. I was using the example improperly. When I changed the animation to the textured wall it improved dramatically. Amazing work!

I haven't tried to make a projectile yet but I've thought about it quite a bit.  

I'm curious what you mean by sprite points. Do you store the coordinates in object variables for the walls to be created? [edit] I looked more at your new example and I think I see what you mean. You're using the sensor to create the necessary objects when it hits the walls. I think this is what you mean?

I had thought of making 4 types of wall base for walls facing north, east, south, and west, then creating 8 at a time in a "repeat" condition

I tried using distance and raycasting but it didn't go very well for me, it made the lag worse. perhaps the raycasting was too broad? I've not used it before (raycasting) so perhaps I wasn't using it the best way.

I really like the idea of using  a single base to make multiple wall sprites.

https://dancewiththedevil.itch.io/inner-demons-dungeon-crawl-an-experiment-in-be...

<3

I also want to do some comparisons to see how I can achieve the highest frame rate.

Noticing the lag as I put in more objects, I started to use just 1 object (what I call the faceless npc) and shade it, but it occurs to me that from what I've learned of GDevelop, one area it typically does really well is in handling lots of objects. I've heard of some people with thousands of objects in a scene with no lag - so I may have been counterproductive. I want to make 2 different experimental scenes, 1 with 10 different npc objects, the other with 10 of the same npc object shaded differently and see what gives me the highest frame rate.

With some advice from https://mikhail-pomaskin.itch.io I was able to consolidate some code. I was running the events that move and scale the objects 4 times, once for each type of object. I've consolidated all the objects into a single group and now running the events once for all objects  which gave me a noticeable improvement. It could still be better, but I noticed it immediately.

Typically I am able to run on my dilapidated hardware about 30 fps - which may not seem very good, but given that it's displaying 3d in a program that was never meant to display 3d, I think that's not too bad. 

Regarding deleting/creating objects - I was doing something similar trying to fix some display issues. I was using the objects scale to determine when to hide an object. It didn't seem to affect performance in any noticeable way.

I wonder if it would be good to employ this method of deleting and creating objects on the fly depending on distance from player, but perhaps run it only every second or two to conserve resources. Or maybe delete the objects in every frame, since that seems less cpu intensive, then create the objects as needed once every second.

Thank you for your ideas :)

I think because the macOS and browser version had the same name, itch got them confused and was trying to use the macOS version in browser, causing the error. I have uploaded a differently named browser version that should work now.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "fever-dream."

My goal in making this game is to demonstrate the idea handicapped persons can leave the world a better place. I was inspired by a good friend :) My friend is politically active and told me that I had to put gender roles and police brutality in the game for the cripple to fight, so I tried to find a way to represent this visually.

Regarding the issue getting up slopes, I  noticed this too. I believe it's due to the way gdevelop handles collisions between objects at different angles (I could very well be wrong). I had thought of trying to fix it, but after thinking for a while I thought it added a bit of realism to the game. If you've ever ridden in a wheelchair, you'll notice that it's sometimes hard to get up slopes, and if you go to fast you'll lose traction and get stuck. The slopes are the same way - if you go to fast you'll slide backwards, but if you slow down you'll chug right along.

Unfortunately, like the audio, there is no way to win or lose, although you can improve your high score :)

Sorry for the mixup. The macOS version and the browser version are both .zip files... so there was a little confusion. The browser version is up and should be working.

Don't be too sorry. Not for my laptop.

It lets me do most things I want. Except for upgrade the video card :( 

For 70$ USD, I have no cause for complaints :)

Be sorry that I won't be able to give a lot of the games from this jam any feedback. Yours isn't the only one I've had issues with lol.

Just added gamepad support for this title. It should be compatible with PS and XBox gamepads - maybe others (tested on PS).

Yes I've noticed the lag, particular in the beginning of the scene with the transparent wall; it gets a bit worse as more npcs are added. I was a bit zealous in making the scene too large with too many objects in that small area. 

I wanted to make this scene bigger than it currently is, but after noticing the lag I've changed my strategy and will start branching off into different scenes rather than continuing to add to this one.

Just added gamepad support for playstation/xbox controllers. May work on other gamepads too. I've only tested it on Playstation dualshock as that's the only one I have at the moment.

Also, this update is only applied to the browser version... I'll have to wait until my available export slots roll over to apply the update to downloadable builds.

I'm happy for you that at least you have a computer that can run Unity engine. Maybe I'll catch up one day :)

Confirmed it's a webGL issue because my laptops a dinosaur.

Failed to create WebGL context: WebGL creation failed: * tryNativeGL
* Exhausted GL driver options. UnityLoader.js:4:475
Warning: Unsupported graphics API WebGL 2.0 UnityLoader.js:4:11226

I'm a newbie game developer from East coast USA. I decided to start trying my hand at making games because of the strange and unusual times we've been living in.

Taken from the About page of my website:

"What does dance with the devil mean? Does it mean that we're devil worshipers? Or that we like to live haphazardly and dangerously? Maybe that's what it means to some people. To me it symbolizes a method of examining the aspects of life that aren't always appealing or fun to deal with. It's an effort to help people understand and accept the worst parts of themselves without drowning in negativity. You'll notice this effort in our games. The big studios and development companies could never make the games we do. We don't have to make games that are popular, appealing, or socially acceptable. We aren't constrained by a public image department.We have sufficient life experience to pass on some low key knowledge to gamers that pay attention and read between the lines, and we aren't afraid to do it. "

I have a partner who is learning along with me. We're using all FOSS (GDevelop, Gimp, Audacity) and mostly public domain assets, because we have low funds and underdeveloped skills but good imaginations.  My partner is more focused on the front end and I'm more focused on the backend but we do criss cross paths a bit.

I've had a decent number of views in the last 3 months, and a few plays/downloads, but what I'm really hoping for is feedback. It'd make it a lot easier to improve if I could find people that care enough to tell me when things suck or are broken... so go ahead, lay it on me. Don't spare my feelings. Be brutally honest. It's appreciated :)

Cheers :)

My submission is made in GDevelop :D

Any chance for a browser version of this game? ~Linux User

You've already done it :) I think all you need to do is edit your game page and click the checkbox under the WebGL version for playing in browser.

[edit]

I made a quick demo to show that the webGL version can be played by browser,  and because I'm impatient lol.

You can see it at https://games.dancewiththedevil.net/test/index.html

PS I'm not trying to steal your game. I'd be happy to host it for the duration of the game jam if you like or delete it right away.

I tried out the game but I don't know if I've found a bug or doing something wrong. It seems like the torpedoes are having no effect on the enemy? 

Very beautiful game. 

[edit2] I've removed the test version since you got it working on itch :)