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roomforthetuna posted:Also even a little security will stop most fake high scores - if you did an RSA encryption with a challenge-response then chances are almost nobody will go to the effort of digging the public key out of the code, intercepting a challenge, putting together the appropriate fake score message with the challenge encrypted into it, and sending it to the server. You mostly only see fake high scores in tables where the submission is just like POST name=Bob&score=99999 EDIT: ... though even that's probably overkill. I guess either one alone would be sufficient for 99.9% of cases.
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May 30, 2012 16:57
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Svampson posted:I think Touhou checks the fps and stuff and calculates the amount of slowdown you get during a run, you could implement something like that and then invalidate any replays that get over x% of slowdown I guess you can calculate slowdown & stuff but I'm not sure it's worth it, since I would think anyone who's good enough to write a hack to slow the game down would probably be able to extend that hack to report correct slowdown speeds as well without much difficulty. Anyway it's a moot point since if someone managed to do a tool-assisted perfect run I'd think it was totally awesome anyway. quote:Any special reason you are not going with deterministic + Random Seed generated at the beginning of a new game? I think that would work in a Geometry Wars style game Well, yeah, it's deterministic up to the random seed of course. quote:Also even a little security will stop most fake high scores - if you did an RSA encryption with a challenge-response then chances are almost nobody will go to the effort of digging the public key out of the code, intercepting a challenge, putting together the appropriate fake score message with the challenge encrypted into it, and sending it to the server. You mostly only see fake high scores in tables where the submission is just like POST name=Bob&score=99999 Yeah, this sensible. I'm actually porting/upgrading this from a Wii homebrew game I made a few years ago, which did have a naive highscore table that basically did exactly that (POST name=Bob&score=99999) except XOR'ed with some random string, and nobody ever showed up with any really suspicious scores so it's probably not a huge deal. Anyway I'm definitely gonna implement the replay thing since that's cool as chips regardless. Incidentally, I want to support multiplayer and gamepads... can anyone recommend some (C++) library that'll let me get input from gamepads in some kind of generalised easy and device-independent way so that I can set up a sensible control scheme without having to do it separately for every pad that exists? This is made more difficult since I don't have any gamepads so how am I supposed to check if it works vvv quit it with your good ideas seiken fucked around with this message at 17:18 on May 30, 2012 |
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May 30, 2012 17:02
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seiken posted:This is made more difficult since I don't have any gamepads so how am I supposed to check if it works ...buy a gamepad?
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May 30, 2012 17:10
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That Turkey Story posted:...buy a gamepad? As a side note, I always laugh when game reviews whine about console style games not being kb+m. Pony up you cheapskate reviewer, a game pad on a computer is cheap and the best way to play console style games, not to mention that's sort of the benefit of PC gaming: flexibility to a range of genres.
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May 30, 2012 17:50
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Or maybe those people don't like having their controls severely hindered by a completely inferior control scheme just because the developer was too lazy to implement proper PC controls?
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May 30, 2012 18:18
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Orzo posted:Or maybe those people don't like having their controls severely hindered by a completely inferior control scheme just because the developer was too lazy to implement proper PC controls?  ... more seriously, I do most of my gaming on gamepad these days (I like couch gaming / I work all day at a PC already). I don't do FPSes, but if I'm trying to play your indie sidescroller, and you don't support my handy dandy gamepad? That may well keep me from bothering.
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May 30, 2012 18:23
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Oh, I don't disagree about platformers at all. I'd rather use a gamepad. I think I misinterpreted what Maluco was talking about, I'm thinking more like games that would definitely benefit from keyboard+mouse, like any FPS or third-person-anything. But I guess those aren't really 'console-style' games.
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May 30, 2012 18:37
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Edit: Posted this before I saw that /\ /\ Exactly. Gamepads are the absolute best tool for the job when it comes to platformers, action games like Devil May Cry, and many other reflex and precision games that require third person movement of a character. Scoring down a game clearly designed with a gamepad in mind for not being made for mouse and keyboard is ludicrous. Control methods should be tied to the 'game', not the platform it's running on. Maluco Marinero fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 30, 2012 |
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May 30, 2012 18:38
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Orzo posted:I found this article on gamasutra interesting: Ultimately, it's a balancing act. If your game isn't creative then it's probably worthless unless it's gets to the trough first in some new market (i.e. Snood). On the other hand, every deviation you make from something known to be appealing is a risk. Ignoring feedback is a very dangerous thing though. Find a major title you enjoy and it was probably playtested to ridiculous extent, and the designers had to reconsider what they thought were good ideas or they thought was fun when playtesters thought it sucked. If you want to go balls-out and ignore feedback and trust that your vision will find success, then great, but I think the skill that people need to learn more is the opposite: To absorb criticism, recognize the faults in what they've made, and use that to make it better. Shalinor posted:... more seriously, I do most of my gaming on gamepad these days (I like couch gaming / I work all day at a PC already). I don't do FPSes, but if I'm trying to play your indie sidescroller, and you don't support my handy dandy gamepad? That may well keep me from bothering. OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 19:11 on May 30, 2012 |
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May 30, 2012 19:02
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OneEightHundred posted:If you want to go balls-out and ignore feedback and trust that your vision will find success, then great, but I think the skill that people need to learn more is the opposite: To absorb criticism, recognize the faults in what they've made, and use that to make it better. You have to be careful with this though. You don't want to just blindly accept criticism at face value. Often times what people complain about and what is actually the problem are two different things. You have to recognize what is the true core of an issue and what is just a symptom.
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May 30, 2012 19:09
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xgalaxy posted:You have to recognize what is the true core of an issue and what is just a symptom. What can be ignored is what they think the solution is. seiken posted:Incidentally, I want to support multiplayer and gamepads... can anyone recommend some (C++) library that'll let me get input from gamepads in some kind of generalised easy and device-independent way so that I can set up a sensible control scheme without having to do it separately for every pad that exists? This is made more difficult since I don't have any gamepads so how am I supposed to check if it works SDL has a very straight-forward input scheme, joypad buttons are handled the same way as keypresses, they just have a different set of IDs in the keyup/keydown events. Analog controls are something you shouldn't bother with unless you get an actual gamepad though. OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 19:23 on May 30, 2012 |
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May 30, 2012 19:16
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xgalaxy posted:You have to be careful with this though. I like to champion Bungie in conversations like this. They've long stated that they primarily make games they want to play, and have risen to pretty great heights because of it. But if you pay attention to the changes between Halo games, you can also see they listen to feedback (as well as a ridiculous amount of stats recorded from online matches). Generally they get it right, they've had a few missteps but for the most part they seem to have maintained a good balance of listening and identifying. It wasn't like that with just Halo either. Myth played out fairly similarly, as did Marathon.
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May 30, 2012 19:41
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Design's super tricky, so I love conversations on this topic. I actually come down pretty hard on the side of the article, but I'm not sure that the last few posts have contradicted it too hard. Ultimately the goal of the game, the part of it that you're designing for yourself, is an experience and not a mechanic, and so you absolutely should expect to have to revise your vision/mechanics multiple times (using tons of feedback, since you're too deeply embedded in the creation process to be able to get a realistic view of that experience yourself) before you actually nail the gameplay experience you were aiming to create in the first place. Basically, you should never compromise on the game you're trying to make, but you absolutely should in the specifics of how you're trying to make it. Sometimes what you want out of a game won't be something many other people will enjoy, and sometimes what you think you want won't be something even you'll actually have fun playing, but I think it gives you a better chance at actually making a really good game than trying to design a game with a mindset of 'well, what will people who aren't me going to enjoy?'. It's just really hard to design a game for the pleasure of people whose mindsets you don't actually understand that well.
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May 30, 2012 20:09
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As a counterpoint, I personally really enjoy very deep, expansive procedural text-based roguelikes; but if that's the game I'm trying to produce as a business, instead of a hobby, I'm starving to death. You're probably going to make a better game if you aren't trying to make a pure pander play; but just saying "make the games you like" overstates the point. You probably need to try to appeal to a market that's not the misanthropic-autist-pseudosociopathic escapist fantasy, because that's a pretty small chunk of the pie. (Though to be fair Skyrim did fine  )
Unormal fucked around with this message at 20:15 on May 30, 2012 |
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May 30, 2012 20:11
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xzzy posted:I like to champion Bungie in conversations like this. They've long stated that they primarily make games they want to play, and have risen to pretty great heights because of it. But if you pay attention to the changes between Halo games, you can also see they listen to feedback (as well as a ridiculous amount of stats recorded from online matches). Generally they get it right, they've had a few missteps but for the most part they seem to have maintained a good balance of listening and identifying. The former case is mostly fine, but you should really temper it with feedback. Highly-innovative games are often the most rough around the edges, i.e. Spore. The latter is just dangerous because it amounts to ignoring feedback. Also, it isn't an approach that lends itself to creating options for users. That is, I can think of a lot of games that I enjoy with playstyle options that I have no interest in whatsoever, but they're in it because other users really like them. OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 20:58 on May 30, 2012 |
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May 30, 2012 20:40
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Unormal posted:As a counterpoint, I personally really enjoy very deep, expansive procedural text-based roguelikes; but if that's the game I'm trying to produce as a business, instead of a hobby, I'm starving to death. I would also buy Qud for a low price for PC, if it was complete. It'd probably do well as a demo-then-Humble-Bundle-style thing - I'd actually pay more for it on a "what do you think it's worth?" basis than a "here is the price" basis. But yeah, maybe still not as a business since I assume years of work will have gone into it by that point, and I wouldn't bet on years-of-programmer-wage being paid for it. Also Desktop Dungeons appears to have been moderately profitable, though I can't say for sure. At least enough that they hired people to polish it rather than trying to do it with programmer art. DROD too. So Roguelikes, at least, are not impossible to profit from, but yeah, deep, expansive procedural text-based roguelikes might be a little too niche.
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May 30, 2012 21:57
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The dudes making Dwarf Fortress are surviving on just it. They don't make a ton, but it keeps them in enough money to keep their place and live... well, like geeky neckbeards. But they seemed happy in the interview I read, and they're doing something they love, so more power to them. (or at least they were a few years ago, for all I know sales have since dropped off) EDIT: As of last year, at least
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May 30, 2012 22:12
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The thing to take from these successes though is that they categorically did not aim for their finished product as a first release. They operated just like a startup in that they worked towards a minimum viable product and then released it into the wild, developing from there. The gameplay was being tested very early, very heavily in the development process, not for bugs, but simply user enjoyment. Risk goes down massively as soon as you see your MVP strike a chord with users, you can then design with their complaints and compliments in mind because you can ascertain whether the core gameplay is in fact, fun.
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May 31, 2012 00:04
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Shalinor posted:The dudes making Dwarf Fortress are surviving on just it. They don't make a ton, but it keeps them in enough money to keep their place and live... well, like geeky neckbeards. But they seemed happy in the interview I read, and they're doing something they love, so more power to them. Dwarf Fortress' funding is kind of interesting to watch. He publishes details of each months donations at the end of the month and you can pretty reliably chart release dates to massive floods of income. The feature dev is also ridiculous to watch. "Okay ill get to work on fixing item hauling now. Oh and fix backpacks. Guess Ill put in wheelbarrows too. While Im at it sure mine carts. Mine carts are going to need tracks. Oh what happens if the carts travel underwater? I suppose Id better update ballistic trajectories too for when they fly off the tracks." Its ridiculous and amazing.
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May 31, 2012 00:35
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SynthOrange posted:Dwarf Fortress' funding is kind of interesting to watch. He publishes details of each months donations at the end of the month and you can pretty reliably chart release dates to massive floods of income. The feature dev is also ridiculous to watch. Well I think the thing about that guy is that he's like, OCD to his own project. He probably couldn't work anywhere else but is just totally insane enough to make a living from it. This could be totally false and I could be an ableist jackass.
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May 31, 2012 01:44
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roomforthetuna posted:I would also buy Qud for a low price for PC, if it was complete. It'd probably do well as a demo-then-Humble-Bundle-style thing - I'd actually pay more for it on a "what do you think it's worth?" basis than a "here is the price" basis. But yeah, maybe still not as a business since I assume years of work will have gone into it by that point, and I wouldn't bet on years-of-programmer-wage being paid for it. I personally prefer Qud precisely as-is, it's the version I'd personally play (outside of a AAA-budget version); but when we get around to monetizing it, it will do orders of magnitude better with a friendly isometric tile-set and mouse driven UI, and would almost certainly do even better if we were to really take a stab at it as a much more streamlined game for tablets/consoles. I personally prefer to play text based games on my PC with my keyboard, but there's no question that the difference between Qud in text form and a streamlined Qud in console or tablet form is the difference between charity work and commercial viability. However, I'm also certain that yet-another-fantasy roguelike would be far less interesting than Qud, and a Gamma World-esque game was something we really wanted to play, but didn't exist. So, I guess the main point is that you can't JUST make games you like if you want to make a living at it. Thinking of a game you want to play, but doesn't exist, is a great way to find a niche; but you really need to knead those baseline desires in with a good dose of reality if you want to a make a business out of it.
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May 31, 2012 01:53
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ambushsabre posted:Well I think the thing about that guy is that he's like, OCD to his own project. He probably couldn't work anywhere else but is just totally insane enough to make a living from it. This could be totally false and I could be an ableist jackass.
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May 31, 2012 03:00
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Unormal posted:I personally prefer Qud precisely as-is, it's the version I'd personally play (outside of a AAA-budget version); but when we get around to monetizing it, it will do orders of magnitude better with a friendly isometric tile-set and mouse driven UI, and would almost certainly do even better if we were to really take a stab at it as a much more streamlined game for tablets/consoles. But yes, a decently system-complex procedural Roguelike on a portable device would be something I'd pay for, assuming I owned the appropriate portable device. With the limitations of portable device interface though, I rather think something like DROD or Desktop Dungeons would function better in that context. That said, that might just be because I think of Roguelike inventory management as a "select thing to do -> select what to do it with" process - if one were to make a Roguelike with a more modern RPG style "inventory -> grid of icons -> context menus" that would probably work pretty well on a tablet.
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May 31, 2012 03:23
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Wasn't Diablo originally designed as a mainstreamed Roguelike? They seem to have done alright.
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May 31, 2012 05:59
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Cream_Filling posted:Wasn't Diablo originally designed as a mainstreamed Roguelike? They seem to have done alright. 
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May 31, 2012 06:22
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Diablo has quite a bit more in common with roguelikes than just random dungeons. It has traps, randomized monsters and loot, a permanent death mode. I wouldn't call it a roguelike but it's clearly inspired by the genre.
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May 31, 2012 07:45
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roomforthetuna posted:Apart from not having any trait in common other than "random dungeons", yes. It upsets me that Diablo is so popular, since (ignoring all the huge differences) it's more like Rogue than it is like Nethack, and I like to imagine a world where people would rather have meaningful, thoughtful decisions in their games. Well, from what I've heard, the design process started out as an attempt to modernize roguelikes, but then they went ahead and slowly stripped out every roguelike mechanic in favor of more clicking. It's the whole school of game design where the ideal game is "press button, receive reward" with the complexity added only to keep players from realizing this ideal or from becoming bored. As opposed to Nethack, which took the Rogue formula and went the other way by adding a billion layers of complexity to the point where playing the game is almost like engaging in some sort of weird dialogue with the dev team. But, naturally, people usually prefer clicking a lot and being rewarded for it. Not to mention the fact that making considered decisions (as opposed to trained reflexive reactions pre-optimized by some sperg on GameFAQs) is a pain in the rear end, as with most forms of thinking. So APM-heavy RTSs are also more popular than turn-based strategy games. And whiz-bang pre-scripted "cinematic moments" with pre-baked animation and flashy camera angles are more popular than procedural randomized content. I'm not even trying to be snooty here. Early scientific evidence seems to show that making considered, conscious decisions is actually quite fatiguing. It requires the exercise of willpower and self-control, and the difficulty increases with not only stuff like complexity, novelty, or limited information, but also stuff like the pace of decision-making and how much time is spent per decision. For instance, under stress, as generated in a game, people don't want to sit there and think things through. They get twitchy and tense. They want to do things now. You need to exercise self-control to beat down this impulse and force yourself to sit still and work through the problems presented without rushing through the planning and decision-making process (which usually leads to mistakes which are punished by the game). Of course, this is also an ability which improves with practice, which in my mind is one way to (very weakly) justify computer games in the first place. But maybe it's just because I feel guilty about how many cumulative weeks of life I've wasted playing Diablo II. And in the meantime, while you're sitting there forcing yourself to not act, you also feel tension, particularly if there's also a lot of uncertainty or randomness mixed in. Which some people, of course, come to savor when it's presented in a piece of entertainment and not real life, just like they savor a movie that's one long slow burn instead of constant cuts and explosions. Personally, my favorite aspect of Roguelikes right now is the Roguelike community's obsession with LOS and FOV algorithms. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 08:22 on May 31, 2012 |
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May 31, 2012 07:49
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Are there any games that follow a philosophy where your items and abilities actually matter and require mastery? It seems just about every game these days tries to give so many options to the player that they end up with an arsenal of stuff that just doesn't matter. A few examples of games I've played recently: Darksiders: A bunch of different weapons, and even more special moves for each of them that I can earn. Even on the hardest difficulty, I never needed *anything* beyond the default weapon, and never really needed to use any of the special moves. Also, any God of War game is the exact same way. Bastion: This game is probably one of the worst offenders I've ever played. Although the mini-stages where you have to use a particular weapon are fun, the game throws so many weapons at you before you even get a chance to master the previous one that you just stop caring about any of them. Dead Space: Same problem, I could just take one weapon and upgrade it over and over and use nothing but that one weapon to complete the game. This isn't necessarily limited to new games, either. Plenty of old games have the same problem, such as the Megaman series. An example of a game that I think does it right is Adventure of Link. Although there's no additional weapons, the game slowly introduces spells to you, and you pretty much have to use all of them throughout the game to survive (except some of the last ones). Does anyone else feel this way or am I just jaded as hell?
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May 31, 2012 16:43
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Orzo posted:Does anyone else feel this way or am I just jaded as hell? Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden 1/2, DMC 1 and 3/4, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma (somewhat), etc. Tons of options. You should be looking for the games people say are "hard" - that's usually a sign that they require mastery over a limited set of skills, or your choice of one or more specializations.
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May 31, 2012 16:47
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I've played Demon's and Dark Souls (but not the others). In a way, their difficulty mitigates the problem a bit, but both games still throw hundreds of abilities and weapon choices at you very early on with no clear hint as to why you would select one specialty over another. An exception is Demon's Souls level 1-1, which is actually one of the finest gaming experiences I've had in a long time. But after that, the same problem emerges--too many weapons, upgrades, armor, spells, etc, and the difficulty dramatically decreases too, which means you really don't have to master much at all. The upgrade system is particularly terrible because it's so poorly documented.
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May 31, 2012 16:57
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Dark Souls blew my mind. That's the first actually hard game I think I've ever played. I was totally unprepared and it was awesome
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May 31, 2012 16:57
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Orzo posted:Are there any games that follow a philosophy where your items and abilities actually matter and require mastery? It seems just about every game these days tries to give so many options to the player that they end up with an arsenal of stuff that just doesn't matter.
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May 31, 2012 17:07
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DMC 1 isn't hard, just air launch everything. 
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May 31, 2012 17:16
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Orzo posted:I've played Demon's and Dark Souls (but not the others). In a way, their difficulty mitigates the problem a bit, but both games still throw hundreds of abilities and weapon choices at you very early on with no clear hint as to why you would select one specialty over another. An exception is Demon's Souls level 1-1, which is actually one of the finest gaming experiences I've had in a long time. But after that, the same problem emerges--too many weapons, upgrades, armor, spells, etc, and the difficulty dramatically decreases too, which means you really don't have to master much at all. The upgrade system is particularly terrible because it's so poorly documented.
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May 31, 2012 17:18
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I think you're partially missing the point--that or I conveyed it incorrectly. I'm complaining about the fact that the game can be completed without ever caring about 90% of the equipment, weapons, spells, abilities, etc. This is true for Demons/Dark Souls. Maybe you're right, maybe it has to do with RPG mechanics. But most of my examples weren't RPGs either, so I think it has no business in those types of games.
Orzo fucked around with this message at 18:46 on May 31, 2012 |
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May 31, 2012 18:24
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Orzo posted:I think you're partially missing the point--that or I conveyed it incorrectly. I'm complaining about the fact that the game can be completed without ever caring about 90% of the equipment, weapons, spells, abilities, etc. This is true for Demons/Dark Souls. Maybe you're right, maybe it has to do with RPG mechanics. But most of my examples weren't RPGs either, so I think it has no business in those types of games either. I can't think how you'd change what you're complaining about without introducing puzzle elements. An FPS might make it so a shotgun is significantly better for killing monster X, but if you're comfortable enough with a machine gun that's not going to be enough to drive you to switch. roomforthetuna fucked around with this message at 18:43 on May 31, 2012 |
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May 31, 2012 18:39
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Actually I meant to bring up Resident Evil 4 as an example of a game that actually does it pretty well (and definitely isn't a puzzler). It has a few flaws--namely one of the 3 shotguns is fairly worthless and there's a few gimmicky mostly-useless weapons--but for the most part, every weapon and item has a very distinct use. It's pretty obvious when to use each of the weapons (pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, magnum, rocket launcher) and the upgrades are easy to understand. Maybe I'm overlooking flaws because the game is so excellent in all regards, but I'm pretty sure the simplicity and lack of overwhelming choices in RE4 is part of what makes it so good.
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May 31, 2012 18:51
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How about an mmo? The "John loving Madden" World of warcraft flow chart of how to be a feral druid maxxing raid dps?
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May 31, 2012 19:42
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Orzo posted:Actually I meant to bring up Resident Evil 4 as an example of a game that actually does it pretty well (and definitely isn't a puzzler). It has a few flaws--namely one of the 3 shotguns is fairly worthless and there's a few gimmicky mostly-useless weapons--but for the most part, every weapon and item has a very distinct use. It's pretty obvious when to use each of the weapons (pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, magnum, rocket launcher) and the upgrades are easy to understand. Maybe I'm overlooking flaws because the game is so excellent in all regards, but I'm pretty sure the simplicity and lack of overwhelming choices in RE4 is part of what makes it so good. roomforthetuna fucked around with this message at 20:03 on May 31, 2012 |
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May 31, 2012 19:45
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Hey, in some parts of the world it's June 1st, right? That means maybe we could move out of the Pre-Pre-Gamedev phase and into the Pre-Gamedev phase, right? Synthorange is in Australia, I'm sure he can verify his clocks say something like, "rear end early, June 1" Must know the theme!
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May 31, 2012 19:55
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