itch.io

I noticed that a lot of people don't know what a zipfile is and how to unpack it.

Like Hugues said it's not a good idea to fight a writer's block. Being not only a game dev but also a novelist, I know how frustrating writer's blocks can be. 
In the end forcing yourself to write will only lead into terrible results. Creativity, after all, only works if the ideas come up spontaneously, and are later worked out.

It's basically easy, you can see a lot of AAA=BBB in the files I linked your to. AAA is the tag the game itself uses, and BBB the text to be translated.

Of course in the section [LANGUAGE] you will see NAME=English, and TRANSLATOR=Jeroen P. Broks, well, there you can put in the Portuguese word for Portuguese as NAME and the name under with you wish to be credited under TRANSLATOR. The best way to go is to copy the contents of the upper link in my previous post into your favorite plain text editor (even Windows Notepad will do) and you can just translate everything right of every = mark.
Oh yeah, everything between [ and ] is for the game to find the sections by, but should not be modified.

I already explained how to use accent mark. If you type "Je suis fatig|'e" in the file the game will display that is "Je suis fatigé" (mean "I am tired" in French). 

I made the system as easy as possible.
 (If you wonder about the game itself: https://phantasar-productions.itch.io/house-of-cards).

Portuguese? That's interesting. Alright, I have this game House of Cards in which you can play several card solitaire games.
It uses simple file to get all the strings in the chosen language. 
The English strings can be found in this file: https://github.com/PhantasarProductions/House-Of-Cards/blob/main/SRC/Assets/Tric...
Just to compare here's the Dutch translation: https://github.com/PhantasarProductions/House-Of-Cards/blob/main/SRC/Assets/Tric...

Now I do not know if Portuguese uses accent marks and such, but in order to add those you can use |ue to get ë or |'e to get é and |`e to get è. Should work with any vowel, and if you need more, it won't be too much trouble to adjust my font file (I created the main font the game uses myself). Now this is a non-budget (and also non-profit) project, so it will be a volunteers job, but then again, the amount of text to translate isn't that much, either.

The thing is, Discord is a place where most people are. I've seen many many alternatives to chats, social media platform and forums, and safe as they may be, when you are all alone there, it will eventually get pretty boring and then it's often the matter of going back to the old, with all the risks it has, or remaining on your own. 
I've been on a few alternates for Facebook, but in the end, there was nothing to do there. Although I didn't recover my Facebook account, and I am still staying away from there. 

When Twitter was under fire, there were alternates like TruthSocial and Parler, however both were soon deserted, or filled with people only praising Donald Trump. Now I don't want to fire up a political discussion about Trump being good or bad, my point is rather that the world is more than just Donald Trump regardless if you love or hate the guy. So in the end Twitter was the place to go. Of course, now that Elon Musk bought it, things changed there, but if Musk is to be trusted, is something I am still not sure about.

Discord is not that much different. I know many Slack channels went to Discord due to Discord being better than Slack, well, when it comes to general user interface. If Slack is much safer, I don't know either. Of course, there's also Telegram. It seems to be pretty safe, although there are a few things about Telegram (in usage) that I don't really like. Getting myself onto servers without my consent, and all of them being scam sites about cryptocurrencies also doesn't really make my day well (at least that doesn't happen on Discord). 

That Discord is not really trustworthy was something I only expected.  I've had a few scammers on my tail also (although that's not Discord's fault. Any big network is bound to attract internet criminals, no matter how secure it is, you must always be aware of that). Time will tell if Discord will remain the main chat or if people will move. And that will take time. I mean, everybody knows that Facebook (or should I say "Failbook"?) is a scam, yet people are still on that platform. For some reason it's very hard to get people to move.

In the end it can always be a good idea to try a small nonsensical project first, to see if an engine/library got what you need. 
And when it comes to Unity being close-sourced, yeah, I too don't like that, so I think you got a valid point there.

I basically hate Python for big projects, most of all due to the identing rule getting very much in my way in large complex projects.
Now I have tried a few game engines for Python in the past. The big letdown with loads of Python stuff is that it's very dependency based. Which makes Python programs mostly very terrible for distribution. Which is fine for distribution on Linux I guess, since Linux users are used having to install tons of dependencies. On Mac and Windows I guess, it's a less good idea.

Now RenPy is most of all focused on Visual Novels. Since I don't do Visual Novels myself I have no experience with RenPy, all I know is that it's specifically for VisualNovels and that it's based on Python. I've played a few RenPy games. I was never sure if RenPy is just full of limitations or if people never really explored what it can do, to be honest. In other words, many games just looked the same, just having a different story. Same kind of thing I've seen with games made in RPGMaker.  

Now I did see someone recommend Unity and Unreal. I've no experience on either, but I do know that Unreal uses C++ and Unity uses C#. Now C# is not really that hard to learn, especially when you already know C++. I do know that Unity in particular is a popular engine and I've played many games written in Unity, from both amateurs and pro. I know you prefer not to learn a new language, but it can still be an engine to check out.

When it comes to a 2D game library that can be used in both C and C++, perhaps SDL2 can be a good choice. My own game engine is also built entirely on that. 
There are very good tutorials out there to get on the move with SDL2, and it's completely free and open source. 
Now I've never explored lighting effects, but it has a few quick dialog boxes supported. Of course SDL2 is set up to give you as much power as you want, so you may need to get a few things up yourself to get it fully to your liking.

Of course, when it comes to switching engines, you must really be sure doing that halfway a project is a good idea, as it can bring you a big crapload of work. I have no experience with Godot. All I know about Godot is its existence. I've always tried to be as self-reliant as possible, so I only rely on 3rd party code when I really have to.

Well, since I set up a regular solitaire game (House of Cards), I guess it's only obvious your game triggered my interest, and it didn't disappoint me. A very nice twist to the Golf family solitaire games (of which TriPeaks is one), and the graphics are cute, and I actually like them.  

First of all, I am a bit shocked to read about your health condition. I hope you'll get a quick and good recovery.

When it comes to games of mine that might suit the stuff you just named:
- https://phantasar-productions.itch.io/star-story Star Story is a turn based RPG in scifi theme. I also made a Star Story II https://phantasar-productions.itch.io/star-story-ii already
- I also have two fantasy themed RPG games https://phantasar-productions.itch.io/the-fairy-tale-revamped The Fairy Tale Revamped and https://phantasar-productions.itch.io/dyrt-net The Secrets Of Dyrt
- Cynthia Johnson https://phantasar-productions.itch.io/cynthia-johnson is an adventure themed puzzle game.

When it comes to a game to train you in typing then perhaps "Who Is The Virus" https://phantasar-productions.itch.io/who-is-the-virus can be a good choice. It's a CLI based games, so all actions revolve around typing commands. That two is a nice puzzle game. 

Then what brings you here?

Luna's Father

Always nice to see what people can do with ASCII art. 
I've been tempted to actually set up a game engine specifically for games with this kind of art, but my schedule always brought me to other things.

Thank you.
I really needed this encouragement. 
By the way, I'm still working hard on this game. 

Well the original English language file is here: https://github.com/PhantasarProductions/House-Of-Cards/blob/main/SRC/Assets/Tric...

Basically it's just FIELD=Text so basically it's just replacing all texts behind the = mark on every line with their English translations.

Only this part can best be left alone:

[^SYS^]
ACTIVE=Yes
CREATIONDATE=2/2/2024 10:18:07 AM
CREATIONTOOL=Rosetta

And in this part:
[LANGUAGE]
NAME=English
TRANSLATOR=Jeroen P. Broks
You can replace "English" with the Indonesian name for the Indonesian language, and in the TRANSLATOR field you can enter the name of how you wish to be credited as the Indonesian translator.

I hope that's all simple enough to understand. Thank you and good luck.

Luna's Father

Indonesian, eh? 
I cannot offer any money, but if you are interested in translating my House Of Cards game into Indonesian, let me know and I can link you to the file containing all the original English lines. 

Now that you mention it.... I didn't notice, but I see the post that made me notice this topic.
I agree that it would be better to lock this topic up, as nothing but trouble can come from this one.
(And sorry that I didn't notice earlier).

Define "most of the world".

Good old QBASIC. Since I already switched from BASIC to Turbo Pascal when QBASIC came out, I've not used it very much, yet I did like some of the improvements it had compared to GW-BASIC.

I'm not really fond to discuss politics on a forum like this. If you really want to know, I think she's bad news. But I don't trust Donald Trump, either. 

The first game I ever made was for the P2000T computer and has gone lost over time, although I've remade included it and included it in my Star Story game, as an optional mini-game.

The newest game I completed would be House Of Cards, I often like to kill some time with solitaire card games and I got a bit fed up with all the endless ads that the solitaire collection of Windows hunts me with, hence I came up with my own collection. It has more different kind of games also (the screenshot below shows Yukon solitaire, oh, and don't mind the Dutch language in that shot. The game supports English, Dutch, German and French).

Now my game Luna's Father is still in development, so I won't count that as my latest game yet.

Luna's Father

Luna's Father

Oh... I completely forgot I posted that, after 3 years. Well I still stand by what I wrote back then, and I'm glad it's still of use to somebody. 😉

For me it really depends on the project. Most of my game projects contain music on their own, and then having another source of music is not really a handy thing for me to have.

Now when it comes to focus, I can lose it quickly too, but if I really am in a good mood to work, then things mostly work out fine. 

I have heard about CFS and you are not the first I meet with this syndrome, but I'm afraid I know almost nothing about it, but since this has little to do with development in general, but rather with a medical status, perhaps the best way to go is to medics, but also to people who suffer in the same way you do. I suffer from the Asperger syndrome myself, and speaking to fellow Aspies (and one of my ex-girlfriends being an Aspie as well) did help me a lot to deal with loads of things. And this basically goes for all medical conditions. Speaking to fellow-condition-havers can always be by fare more enlightening than speaking to medics does, and this goes for both mental as physical conditions. After all the only way to fully understand what it is to have CFS is actually suffering from it, but even then there might be aspects of your own condition you may not yet fully know or never thought about, and that's where people who suffer from the same condition can sometimes have good pointers. Of course, every person is different, so what works for them may not always work for you, but at least listening to how they cope with things, can sometimes give you some good ideas for what may work for you. It's one of the ways in which I explored the Asperger syndrome. That's the only advice I can give. It does not matter if what they do has nothing to do with game development, as you may still find some things they do to make what they do possible.

Now perhaps as somebody who has the habit of sometimes drinking too much coffee, I may not be one to talk, but drinking caffeine solely to stay focused is rarely the way to go. I prefer energy drinks only when I need to drive at night, to make sure I get at my destination in one piece, but since I rarely have to do such rides, the danger is minimal, but in your case I guess things are different. But if there's really no other option, you may wanna discuss with a doctor how you can go this in a relatively safe way, or if there are any alternatives. It's mostly not a good idea to see medical advice on an open forum.

And with that I've given all the advice I can give, I'm afraid. I don't know how many people you may find on itch who suffer from CFS, as well. Perhaps you should look up if there are any places where people with this syndrome seek each other, preferably in your neighborhood so you can meet them IRL (which often works better than over the internet). 

I really wish you all the best.

I'm glad I was able to help.
Good luck!

Well, I did the survey. Since I code my own engines in C++, I have no experience with RPG Maker, whatsoever, but when it comes to game development tools in general, and this goes for both high level stuff such as RPG Maker, as well as low level stuff such as C, C++, Pascal and so on, that it can be fruitful to make a few test setups first not for publication. No trouble if they are crappy or ugly or whatever, but just to get the hang of how things work. Dennis Richie, the inventor of the C programming language said  "The only way to learn a new programming language is by making programs in it," and in my humble opinion he is fully right, and his words do no only apply to actual programming languages such as C, C++, Pascal, BASIC, etc. but also to tools such as RPG Maker, basically any tool you can use to create games in. When looking for good tutorials for absolute beginners keywords such as "getting started",  or "beginner" or "newbie"  can sometimes help in your search requests. I cannot imagine there would be no absolute beginner tutorials on the RPG Maker website.

Now being experienced in doing big RPG projects (which you can all download for free, my avatar is a character from one of my games), I can say that you should not underestimate the task of creating an RPG game. Especially when you plan to add minigames, which do require extra programming work, things can easily give you a lot of work, and having tools such as RPG Maker do not always remove all that work. All it takes away is the low level coding (which was in my own RPG projects the least amount of work to be honest).  And balancing might be your biggest horror. Having a party of 4 members of which one is almost invincible and the other would even  be slammed to death by a common fly, is an extreme example of off-balanced heroes. Especially in my older projects (which are not available for download anymore) I noticed I clearly underestimated that department myself. Of course, properly balancing the enemies to the player parties can also be a challenge. Especially when you want your game to be hard. I've faced a few times, as my RPG games all have difficulty settings that some hard mode challenges where not hard anymore, but rather mathematically impossible. 

Now a very common beginner's mistake is making dungeons too much of a maze. A few mazes can be challenging, but one maze after another will get annoying. And be sure to add a bit of cosmetic detail, like a torch, or a skeleton in chains. It's stuff like that, which can prevent your game from looking boring. But don't overdo it. Too much detail can also kill a game concept.

Now when it comes to battles. Are you going for instant random encounters? Or having enemies running around in the dungeon starting a fight when they get too close? Or completely realtime? In all three scenarios you should take care that combat does not take place in a location where they can be absolutely annoying. That's most of all the locations were a puzzle has t be taken on. If you have a puzzle in which the hero has to push blocks to certain locations, it can be a good idea not to have any enemies in that room. In most cases it can also be preferable to have the bosses have their very own room in a dungeon where you meet no other enemies except for the boss (I mean in different fight situations. A boss grouped with other enemies in one fight, can especially in turn-based combat work out nicely).

And what can also be very annoying to having to go back and forth too much. A key in the ultimate west, then having to go very far east to open the door, only to find another key there with its down all the way west again, can work out boring. As well as forcing the player to do the same dungeon multiple times. Sometimes the story line requires you to go down that road, but try to prevent it. Of course, shortcuts that can only open up when you have completed the dungeon once so you can skip a major part if multiple runs are required, can be a good idea.

And lastly, especially when you are long on the way, RPG projects can at a certain point kill your motivation to work on. It's a high crapload of work to do everything alright. Work as fast as you can, but remember to take a break and be honest to yourself when you really notice the project is killing you. Working on an RPG without motivation is THE way to get a terrible product. Be sure to retire the project temporarily on time and set a kind of term in which you'll resume the project. Of course when you wanna do this for money, I understand deadlines can make this a bad idea, but on the other hand, I am not sure if I want to pay for a rushed game. 

I hope my pointers were useful. 

True. Licenses do not protect you or your work directly, but they can only help you if you want to bring stuff in court or something, but unless the offender is a bit commercial company or something doing this on a big scale it will not be worth the trouble (not to mention that such companies can easily put themselves above the law, so you'll need a good lawyer too, and some publicity). 

Now I do not know how the itch.io staff responds to clear license violations on smaller skills. For example, Scyndi's Creative Interpreter is a game engine I created myself and released under the terms of the GPL3. Makes you free to use my engine, even in commercial productions actually, but if you modify the original source code create a new game with it, sell it without releasing the modified source code, then we got a violation of the GPL3. Of course, I cannot prevent people doing that, but I take it the itch.io rules do ban that practice, right? That being said, it can still be handy to have a license included in your game. 

When it comes to protecting yourself against copyright infringement in general. I was young in the 80s and 90s and have seen the countless creative ways in which game developers put in copy protections to prevent piracy. They all failed as document with the codes so you could print them, or even hackers managing to remove these protections were countless, so piracy happened any way and for legal users they were only a big source of irritation. Long story short, it was futile.

Luna's Father

The game House Of Cards is a collection of solitaire card games, released under a General Public License, which I plan to expand over time with more solitaire card games.

Right now the game is only available for Windows, but as the game relies on SDL2, I think it should work with Wine and similar software on other OSes, (and if you think you can help me to port the underlying script engine, which has been entirely coded in C++,  to other platforms I'm all ears).

My motivation came up, due to me having the Microsoft Solitaire Collection, but getting more and more annoyed by the unskippable ads, which become more and more aggressive, almost getting to the point that you spend more time watching ads than that you are actually playing (unless you're willing to waste(!) money on a premium account). Since I knew I had the skills to create such a game myself, I eventually started this project, and now the alpha is ready. GPL3 licensed so the game is free (as in freedom) and the license does not allow anyone to deny you these freedoms, and no I have no interest at all to gain any money from this project. In the end I just had fun creating it.

The game has localization files to allow to play the game in English, Dutch, German and French (and I've also received an Italian localization by now). If you want to translate the game into a language I don't know, well, they are just plain text tiles containing nothing but variables and string values, so I guess anyone can figure out how they work.

The game has multiple decks of cards, and multiple backgrounds, and yes, if you want me to feature a deck you created in the game, then be my guest. (All custom decks require to be a series of PNG files in which the file name starts with the first letter of the suit name (so H for Hearts, C for Clubs, D for Diamonds and S for Spades) and the value of the card (in which Ace=1, Jack=11, Queen=12, King=13 and the numbered card just the number on the card WITHOUT leading zeros), with 2 jokers (Called "Joker1.png" and "Joker2.png" respectively), and with all that I can easily add your deck to the game. No problem).

As many solitaire games have some optional rules, the games have some own configurations you can set up, in order to play the game with either "official" rules or with optional rules (which can both make it easier or harder). 


What? You don't know how to play these solitaire games? No worries just go to this Rumble channel where you can find instruction videos I recorded myself, in which I explain the rules as clearly as I could (oh, don't get frightened, but I am a man, so don't let the sound of my voice surprise you. People easily make assumptions based on my avatar). I must note that there are videos in both the English and in the Dutch language on that channel, so check the language first before starting the video (all videos in Dutch have a Dutch flag in the thumbnail). 

Since the game has a free open source license the  source code is freely available on Github, which is also where my bug tracker is located. (Please note, that repository only contains the source of the script code, as the game itself is entirely written in Scyndi. If it's the C++ source code of the engine you're interested in, please go here, as that engine is a project on its own used for multiple games of mine).

One important notice.
The game is STILL ALPHA. Most of the features should work without any trouble, but bugs that can really mess things up may still be there. If you encounter any, please remain polite, hop over to my issue tracker, check if I already know about it or not and politely describe the bug in full detail for me, so I can try to replicate it and eventually fix it. 

House Of Cards 

(Note, the time was not yet scripted when I took this screenshot, hence it being 00).

-- And they don't all agree on what "adult content" is. --
And there you got a very good point. Since "adult content" is also a bit subjective.

And let's also be wary of false positives, as some words may imply "adult content" while in fact it's not. I've been banned on Twitter for 14 some years ago by a bot-moderator for using the word "trigger", as that was a death threat. (I was using that word in a completely different context, though).

Indeed, as soon as I see software packages of which the developers claim the impossible, I personally walk away as fast as I can.

Any time. Your deck has been put into the game under the name "Pixel".

House of Cards - https://phantasar-productions.itch.io/house-of-cards

Yeah, you too een fijne dag. 😉

Well, I was to understand this was your first attempt to create a game, and with in mind I must say I'm impressed. This is far better than my first games, I tell ya.
It also brings back memories of the good old days when games like these were really "beyond cool".

I see you focused most of all on the design and the code, as the assets are most of all 3rd party. That's no shame. At least all the assets are well-chosen, which already an achievement.

Now I guess those stars on the background are just a kind of tiled wallpaper. Well, it works. Personally I'd just use objects for the stars so I can make them move independently and also at different speeds. Somehow that can create a less static effect. 

This could be a nice game for me to kill some time.

House of Cards.