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Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

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Re: Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

#111

Post by qiqitori »

bananabat wrote: post #84
Teknoman117 wrote: post #53

Congrats! It's absolutely refreshing to dust off an old hobby and do something with it! I'm only 28, but during the pandemic I decided to dust off my old electronics hobbies that fell by the wayside when the mobile app boom started. Middle school and early high school me thought I was going into robotics, but the iPhone came out the year I started high school. When the App Store came out the following year, the smart…

Thanks! I've always been fascinated by electronics and I so envy people in that domain. I bought an Arduino board (sorry if that's totally kiddie to you) and some parts and so far, my son and I have made a little robot that runs very inefficiently on 9-volt batteries. I just want to plug the damn thing in to overcome the power issue.

(I don't know how much you know about electronics so sorry if I'm stating the obvious here)

9V batteries sound and look like they should last long, but putting 6 1.5V batteries in series should last much longer. 9V batteries have a typical capacity of ~550 mAh, 1.5V batteries (even rechargeable ones) have a typical capacity of 2000~3000 mAh.

Re: Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

#113

Post by iamthemonster »

bananabat wrote: post #69
sci_prog wrote: post #50

Congratulations! Game development is what got me interested in programming in the first place. Once I put my first pixel on the screen and I figured out how to interact with it blew my mind, limitless possibilities. Since the pandemic started my wife and I have published one game [0] and currently have a second one [1] in a pre-release phase (probably going to make a separate SHOW HN post once it is live). Keep up th…

How has your experience with Unity been? It overwhelms me for 2D work. Thanks for the links, I'm gonna check out your games!

I just paid for your Android app and had a play with it and left a review. It is more polished in-game than I expected from the Google Play listing; the icon for the app looked a little bit 2009. So I was pleasantly impressed with the game itself. Great work!

Re: Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

#114

Post by sci_prog »

bananabat wrote: post #108
sci_prog wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The curve is a bit steep but once the things start clicking you productivity goes through the roof. You'll be able to make game prototypes in a few short hours. I admit that building 2D games with unity is a bit of an overkill but the fact that everything just works across different platforms makes it well worth it. I originally developed games using Java and a cross platform framework called libgdx. It was fun till…

I love the Unity asset store and I use it a lot for graphic assets. I intend to get back to Unity when I feel a little more competent and not feel like I need a whole bunch of third-party programming assets to do what I want to do.

The easiest way to learn unity (or any other new framework/engine/language) in my opinion is to recreate the project that you've already built. And you have one.

Re: Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

#115

Post by bananabat »

harrisi wrote: post #109

I couldn't find a comment addressing my gameplay recommendations, so apologies if this was already stated. - Replaying shouldn't take two taps. I just want to get back into it! I now know the middle button replays, but it's not immediately obvious. - I don't understand what the floating aliens are for. I keep trying to get them but they don't seem to do anything. - My score doesn't stand out, it took several plays to…

Great and detailed feedback, thanks!

- UI has always been my weakest point in the sense that what seems logical to me might be puzzling to others. I've been taking notes on what's confusing to players and will implement improvements on the next go-around

- Floating aliens are just...that. I've thought about making it more obvious that they are part of the environment or just removing them altogether

- The score HUD needs to be improved if it's not giving players the satisfaction of keeping a streak. Will test a few things.

- The regular planets give you more turns and they are more present in the lower levels. I might reduce the amount of allowed turns. But in the higher levels, you'll need them if you want to rest a little bit because most of the planets will allow 3 turns at the most or only 1 turn.

- I agree that the multiplier probably needs to be more prominent.

- Autopilot gives a countdown about how many auto jumps are left. The incentive there is that it's entirely possible to keep your streak going if you're paying attention.

- LOL @ the last two options. I'll tell you the story about that. We tried to keep words to a minimum because we have a multilingual option and some terms just don't translate well. FYI, they control camera shake and camera smooth/snap, respectively. If anyone has better icon suggestions, I'm all over it.

Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed the game despite some moments that gave you pause.

Re: Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

#116

Post by pbourke »

JeremyReimer wrote: post #78
bananabat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! How's your experience with GMS2?

I'm really enjoying it so far. It seems to fit with my mental model of making video games, which basically ended when I was 15 and writing games in MBASIC on my Heathkit (and later QuickBasic on MS-DOS, but I sort of stopped making games at that point) Obviously the language is very different and it's object-oriented, which MBASIC definitely was not, but it sort of feels... similar somehow? I can't really explain it.…

Very cool to have a piece of your own computing history that you can reinterpret/carry forward.

Re: Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

#117

Post by dqh »

Thanks for sharing your story. I am a similar age and a couple of weeks ago I took the somewhat scary step of quitting my CTO job to pivot to indie game development. Can't wait to get started after my notice period ends. It helps to know that i'm not alone starting game dev later in life :)

Re: Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

#118

Post by muzani »

I love the rawness of games that are built by people who just want to make games. Today, we have tons of games that are made for money. Some are "fun" but missing that bit of soul.

I haven't played this, but there's something appealing from the screenshots. The flat colored backgrounds, the slightly unaligned colors, the typo on the screenshot. It's like an alternative rock band.

Re: Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer

#119

Post by JeremyReimer »

bananabat wrote: post #102
JeremyReimer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really enjoying it so far. It seems to fit with my mental model of making video games, which basically ended when I was 15 and writing games in MBASIC on my Heathkit (and later QuickBasic on MS-DOS, but I sort of stopped making games at that point) Obviously the language is very different and it's object-oriented, which MBASIC definitely was not, but it sort of feels... similar somehow? I can't really explain it.…

I just looked at your blog post. Artwork is amazing for your original game. I wouldn't say great for a 15-year old...it's super well-done, period. And it's adorable that you had stuffies on your monitor.

Thanks! I think it's just a combination of the limited graphics character set on the Heathkit, plus eight years of practice (at the time) making games using it.

The stuffed animals are from my childhood, so I kept them on my childhood computer. I think they're happy there. :)

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