Yo! I'm Ben. I'm a 31 year old software developer by day, and aspiring indie game developer by night (and early morning).
I created this channel to document my attempt at becoming a successful indie game developer while managing the responsibilities of a full-time job and maintaining a fun and healthy lifestyle. I hope to post both technical content about the game development work I'm doing as well as lifestyle-focused content to show how I try to balance everything I do.
I hope that my content here might serve to inspire any others who share my passion for creating and sharing games! Hope you enjoy.
- Ben
Disclaimer: In my video descriptions I have some Amazon Affiliate links to my desk equipment. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks for your support!
That's a cosy dev room at 1:18! Also a new subscribe here, thanks to this video that YT recommended! :) Hey what is that table you are sitting at? Asking for a friend
I'm working on a game in "floating islands" setting with more-less same sailing in mind. You can use sprite stacking to make a neat pixel art boat that can also freely spin 360 as if it's a 3D object. Video for reference: "Stacked Sprites in Godot" by Jon Topielski. Personally, I just drew it layer by layer manually, took like 20-25 minutes to implement.
The ocean and boat improvements look amazing! I love how you added a bobbing to the boat. As a small suggestion, I found myself really wishing I could see the submerged part of the boat too, to make the boat and the bobbing feel more grounded in the sceen.
This is some amazing work. Hopefully I am not too late to this video to ask a question? If I were to make one of the terrain values BREAKABLE I could add it to another terrain and make BREAKABLE WOOD or BREAKABLE GRASS. I then can attach the terrain detector or make an node that extends from it and put it on my players hitbox. Then I can make the sword swing detect if the object is breakable and what kind of materiel it is then instance the breaking effect and queue_free that specific tile at the collision position? Is this a good idea?
I figured it out! I set up an additional signal that sends the tile coordinates from the collided tile. I then multiplied it by 32 to get the actual global position. I then instanced the animated sprites of the breaking wood on those areas and replaced the cell with the floor tile in a script on the tilemap node! This is just a short version though for those who are interested in maybe doing this modification! *note* I just put the object tiles on the floor tile layer with the floor sprited beneath them*
yo i am so excited for this game and also thank u for the information. I was going to ask how u did the luminous stuff but u told us, so thank you see u next vlog.
Recently stumbled upon sprite stacking technique and I think it would be super useful for smoothing out those boat angles. I'm using it for a game I'm making and it save me a TON of headache not needing to worry about my perspective and not needing to spend hours drawing several sprites for all the directions I want.
Need more Diablo whackers, no story, just gear up and see the damage numbers go WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII on zombies or chosen theme. Dont overthink youre first game, is what i am saying. After your first success minigame, you can afford to hire a group and expand.
Load the whole map and see how much RAM it actually uses. It's probably a lot less than you think. Actually get numbers for your testing, don't just think it might be too much. Also if this is a loading problem are you using the resource loader to do asynchronous loading? Or is the stutter from using the simple load on the game thread? Edit: i posted too soon lol, you did the asynchronous loading.
great video! its been a while since catching your upload & i love to see the production quality differences (= this video is flowing & i love the sailing artwork !
Wow, I can’t believe it’s been 4 years since first I found your videos! I was studying back then, now I am a full time game developer. Thanks for motivating me through the rough times! Also, I’m glad you’re still working on your game. Keep up the good work!
The problem with the lags is the autotiling algorithm. There are also some github issues regarding this. You have to create your own autotiling algorithm to solve the issue. Unfortunaly the set_cells_terrain_connect function is pretty slow
As an indie dev, what's the best way to buy the game so you and/or your team get the biggest cut? I just hate that Valve takes such a big cut of the price tag on Steam.
IDEA: It would be neat to see our hero's shirt wet to the point of the water level he was standing in, and his shirt would dry, see the color blue of his shirt transition from dark wet to dry normal blue, a few moments etc after the he exits the water. Tint drops of pixel water animation, falling from his wet shirt as he walks on the sand - dripping wet to dry transition would add that extra touch LOL!!! I can see this little bit in my mind playing out LOL! I do have an idea of how much trouble this little touch would be - adding this in. Beautiful game!!! Jesscode's wave sparkle - work also is AMAZING!
Lovely video as always, really liked the new music too, it sounded new anyways! I think your chunk spawning is how Insomniac's Spiderman did it, they have a GDC talk on how they load Manhattan, I'd recommend it if you haven't already!
The ship animation and sprite looks much better now! But I think it can look better, for example I want to see you try the method that Brandon James Geer do motorcycle top down sprite animation on his new game
Hey Duck... Suggestion on how to speed up loading of map as you travel. I suspect you're using Tiles? You only need to load Tiles on the edges facing your direction of travel. Faster to shift Tile data in your array, and then load the two edges of Tiles in travel direction. Or, use nine arrays. Center is player's world view. They travel across it and as they near the edge of the array, the game engine pulls needed data from the other arrays to complete the player's view.
For the tiles, perhaps gave them load one at a time instead of rendering them all on same tick. This is what a lot of maps do to reduce stutter ( google maps, leaflet ect)
