itch.io

This has been brought up a couple of times in the past (https://itch.io/t/186947/mastodon-links-in-profiles, https://itch.io/t/566204/mastodon) but given the rapidly increasing popularity of Mastodon (and I don’t know if verified links were available when those posts were made) it’s worth raising the issue again:

Please can we have Mastodon links in the same way that we have Twitter links? It’s all very well have a link to a Mastodon profile explicitly in the text of your itch.io creator page, but it would be really nice if it could be a rel="me" (if you try doing that, it gets mangled) so it could be verified on the Mastodon end.

That’s disappointing. RAM usage I would expect to be the same, since it’s still loading the same instruments into memory, but I really thought the CPU usage would drop. I’m afraid I’m out of ideas for further improvements at this point.

That’s frustrating.

I’ve just uploaded “lite” version 1, which just has the static backgrounds and no animations. I hope this works for you.

If you want to give v16 a go, there’s an option (button at the top of the interface) for turning the graphics on or off – it’s on by default so you’ll need to turn it off before hitting “Play”.

It’s possible this version will reintroduce the original problem, even with the graphics off. If so, I’ll have to go back to the idea of having a separate “lite” version to keep the CPU load down.

Excellent!

I’m hoping I can release a “lite” version without the 3D visualiser this weekend.

Having said that, give v15 a go. I’ve quickly shifted some of the visualiser from GPU to CPU. I’m hoping it will run, but expecting performance to be terrible.

OK, looks like the problem is a combination of your graphics card (or drivers) not being supported by the 3D visualiser and me not thinking to provide options for running with a lower spec visualiser (or none at all). Pretty sure I can work something out, but it might have to wait until I’ve got time at the weekend.

That’s weird. You’re not going to get a web response from it, but email should be working.

Can you send the text to prog at sarrowsmith.plus.com and I’ll see what I can do?

I'm afraid I don't have access to a Windows 7 machine to test on, just Windows 10, and I don't really know enough about Windows to make any guesses.

Best option is to look for the log files in `AppData\Roaming\Godot\app_userdata\Prog\logs` -- they should look something like:

Godot Engine v3.3.2.stable.official - https://godotengine.org
Godot Engine v3.3.2.stable.official - https://godotengine.org
Godot Engine v3.3.2.stable.official - https://godotengine.org
OpenGL ES 3.0 Renderer: Radeon RX 580 Series (POLARIS10, DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.0-90-generic, LLVM 12.0.0)
OpenGL ES Batching: ON
**WARNING**: ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details).
   At: core/object.cpp:2132:cleanup() - ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details).
**ERROR**: Resources still in use at exit (run with --verbose for details).
   At: core/resource.cpp:450:clear() - Resources still in use at exit (run with --verbose for details).

If there's anything else in there, it might give me a clue as to the problem.

Thank you! I'd kind of been intending releasing the source for the generator, but it ended up being a bit too tangled up in the game to be useful to anyone else. If I can untangle it enough (and possibly rewrite it in C#) then it'll get a MIT-licensed release.

Thank you!

Fine-tuning the speed and having some sort of altitude control (whether diving or straight up/down) is definitely something I'll be doing if this ever starts turning into a proper game, rather than the demonstration of the generator it is at the moment. (Truth is, it's just a first-person controller for walking around on the surface, and flight is nothing more than the ability to turn gravity off.)

I'm curious why you'd want A & D swapped in flight. Vertical tilt I get -- I know that's very much a preference & I've just hard-coded what's right for me -- but I think it would be very strange to have the same control mean "walk left or fly right".

Prog is a a downloadable tool for generating random music, which can be exported as .mid or .wav files for use elsewhere.

It's also got its own visualiser:

DragonMail is a non-violent game. There is no fighting, no enemies, just some slightly grumpy badgers. It requires neither lightning reflexes nor deep problem solving, just a desire to explore a landscape that is randomly generated each game and its equally random inhabitants.” It’s an experiment in creating something which looks like an action or RPG game, but has none of the conflict or combat.

The development "team" is just me, working in my spare time on one machine gluing together things from the Unity Asset store. Development and testing is being done on Linux, but I’m producing Windows and MacOS releases in parallel.

As of this release (v1.0.1), it has all the features I want (for Version 1, at least) and contains no known bugs impacting playability. Although no doubt there are, so please report anything and I will attempt a fix. The known minor bugs are not amenable to fixing, given my limited resources.

Download, play, hopefully enjoy, and above all, fly safe!

OK, I'll revise it to a "success", because there is a complete (if buggy) game in there, and I'm curious as to what will be most heavily criticised,

OK, follow-up question. I've marked my submission as "incomplete" even though it's playable, because it's missing a lot from my original goals. Do "incomplete" entries get reviews, or only "success"es?

Thanks. I'll figure something out.

How long does the original submission have to stay up? Assuming I get something submittable, I've got the bones of something I want to keep working on.

Installing a game through the itch.io app means signing isn't necessary. (Wish I could find a better link than that.) But of course that depends on the player having already installed the app before installing your game, so, yeah, target a web version if you can.

That video is spot on. The story about the game crashing when a test player tried opening the menu during a cut scene reminded me very strongly of my first testers reporting the controls not working, and it turning out that they'd been dismissing the map while the game was still generating and that catastrophically interrupting the loading sequence.

That's such good feedback I turned my reply into a devlog.

Two points I didn't address (because they didn't really fit with the theme of the post):

1. I find the vertical ascend/descend controls invaluable around buildings, particularly when negotiating towers. If you can manage without them, I admire your dragon-handling skills.

2. Good point about having some sort of progress measure on screen. I've tried to keep the game view as uncluttered as possible, but I can always make them optional (as I will with the altimeters).

And thank you for the point to Vlad MGC. That'll be something for the next level of release.

What sort of fine tuning for the controls were you thinking of? Are the control sensitivity settings not making enough of a difference?

The arrow in the upper right is time of day (straight up is noon, straight down midnight). It was the compass surround I've always thought confusing. The two bars are different measures of altitude: orange is height above the ground where you are, blue is height above the deepest point of the deepest lake, which affects how fast "superspeed" (shift) flight is. I guess the icons aren't clear enough :( OK, HUD labels all round.

The in-game menu (del) shows you how much earned, but I think I need to change the colours (again). It also gives you a list of all the places you've got letters for, and who in each location to deliver to. Figuring out where everything and everyone is is supposed to be part of the "exploration" aspect of the game, but the names should tell you what sort of animal they are, so unless you get *really* unlucky (I got a castle full of rabbits the other day) you don't need to talk to *everyone*.

The water is UnityProDaytime, and the reflection calculations it does are a significant fraction of the render time, so I'm glad it's worth it!

Just released v0.5.4 which takes on your Q/E suggestion, & also includes a mouse-sensitivity adjustment (Menu->Settings->Control Options). The camera should also track movement a little tighter.

Thank you, and thanks for the feedback! Have to admit I struggle with all keyboard+mouse game controls, so working out a mapping was a bit hit and miss. I totally get what you're saying about Q/E -- that goes on the list for the next bugfix release. & at the very least I'll put a mouse sensitivity adjustment in. (Fully mappable keyboard controls are on the long-term wishlist. Input mapping and UI work are possibly the most painful aspects of working in Unity.)

DragonMail is a game of non-violent exploration in a randomly generated landscape. No fighting, no enemies, just some slightly grumpy badgers. It requires neither lightning reflexes nor deep problem solving.

As it's my first proper game, I'm making this public beta/early/pre-release to try and get some playtesting and feedback beyond the couple of friends who've already seen it. Particularly as to whether the concept has any legs (or wings). There are plenty of known bugs, no doubt many more as-yet unknown, and no real certainty what direction future development should take (if any).

The development "team" is just me, working in my spare time on one machine gluing together things from the Unity Asset store. Development and testing is being done on Linux, but I’m producing Windows and MacOS releases in parallel.

Download, play, hopefully enjoy, and please feed back!

There's no explanation of any of the configuration or gameplay options in-game, and while some are fairly obvious (such as resolution and volume controls), others aren't:

*These options can only be set when starting a new game.

**This is the only boss encounter in DragonMail. The boss gives you a performance review.

Also, there are a couple of inessential controls which aren't documented within the game, and some UI screens are missing prompts, so here is a full reference chart:

*These haven't been tested, and at the moment are best guesses.

**Swapped by "Invert pitch control" configuration

***Moving focus on menu screens by keyboard and controller is somewhat unreliable

As far as I can see, the percentage revenue share a developer gives to itch.io is linked to the developer account, not the individual project. Is this correct? Is there any possibility it could be changed? (eg if I'm happy taking 70% for a solo project, but want 90% to share if I've got collaborators to pay.)

That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

Looks like the two Unity-packaged items the Itch app thinks are executables are irrelevant, although as I can't find any documentation on what they are I can't be certain! I can certainly fiddle things so my install script is either not in the way or runs the executable if called by the Itch app. So one way or another it can be fixed. Thank you!

Running the app from the console is less helpful than examining the logs from within the app! However, I do have multiple executable files in the folder: there's also a little install script which sets up a .desktop file, and it turns out that itch is running that. Delete it, and "Launch" gives a choice of the right executable or the two Unity shared libraries sitting alongside it.

So, problem diagnosed, but how does the app decide which executable file to run, and is there any way to tell it what the right one is?

My project is in an early playtesting "Restricted" state, and I have authorised non-itch testers happily downloading it. However, when I install it myself using the app it won't run. Download is successful, but "Launch" does nothing (other than register that it's run the game). No errors on screen or in the logs. Checking the download ("Manage"->"Show in file manager") shows that everything's there, and in fact running directly from there works. Disabling sandbox running doesn't help. Other games are downloading and running.

(itch 25.4.0 running on Ubuntu, developing on Unity, uploading with butler 15.8.0.)

As a lone developer, my resources for making DragonMail accessible, and especially for playtesting accessibility features, are limited, but it is very much a consideration. Some aspects are intrinsic to the game design, such as not requiring reflex reactions or high-speed button mashing. Others have fallen out of my development practices, such as having full controls on both gamepad and keyboard, and there being no game-critical information conveyed only by sound, and especially no speech. Future accessibility features will be prioritised by Game Accessibility Guidelines recommendations where possible, except when a higher level feature can be implemented easily, or is specifically requested in this topic, or has benefits beyond accessibility.

For full details of the current status, download the Game Accessibility Guidelines checklist.

Annotated with release in which they were first recorded. Italic items have been addressed but not yet released, partially addressed and released, or believed fixed only because they are no longer reproducible. Bold items are considered as critically impacting gameplay.

• NPCs running on the spot 0.3.1 (partial fix in 0.7.1)
• Camera can clip through wall when player is in a tower 0.3.1 (but forgotten until reported in 0.3.31) (Default camera position moved closer to player, making this less likely.)
• “Massive” landscapes hang during generation 0.4.3 Made less likely by rebalanced demographics in 0.5.5
• Graphical glitches where some walls, floors and roofs meet 0.3.1 (but ignored until a particularly serious case was reported in 0.6.2) (Worst known cases fixed in 0.6.4)
• Trees growing through towers 0.6.4 (unable to reproduce in development environment, but believed fixed in 0.6.6)
• Player can clip through walls or into the ground during conversations 0.6.10 (somewhat mitigated in 0.6.11, further mitigation in 0.7.5)
• NPC walking on thin air 0.6.10 or embedded in ground 0.6.13 (unable to reliably reproduce)
• NPC name tags disappearing and spontaneously returning 0.6.13 (appears to be a Unity bug, so there’s not a lot I can do about it, and not observed as often in 0.7.1)

Wishlist for future development.

Next (version 1)

I’m declaring version 1 feature-complete, if only to get a release nailed down.

Deferred (version 2)

Features understood but descoped from version 1:

• Warp speed
• Island (rather than crater) landscape
• Audio effects
• Towns
• Proper support for other controllers (they should work, but the face button mapping will be off)
• Translations
• Variation in NPC mood

Solutions believed to exist, but not thoroughly investigated yet:

• Wandering NPCs
• The need for feed
• Real language spoken dialogue
• Island chain

Distant (version 2+)

Solutions may not exist, or be practical

• Idle and walking animations for grounded dragons
• Android and WebGL builds
• VR (of some sort) build

Stretch

Solutions require this becoming more than a hobby

• Multiplayer
• iOS and Console builds