TwistedTwigleg

I'm of the opinion that the secret to making a good networked game is getting the software to lie convincingly about what happened. As long as each player sees something reasonable, who cares if they all see the same thing at the same time. Einstein would approve.

    I was in a love-hate relationship with Unity, TBH. It's sad to see it change and all. What I didn't like was how those who couldn't/didn't pay for stuff was usually kept in the dark. Plus, the tuts they offered for free were not up-to-date. I liked how easy it was to whip up a game with it using assets from their store, and I also made and published my very first game with it. It wasn't really that great, but it was a huge step.

    Some doubted that I would get that far, it was awesome when I managed to officially correct them.

    Alright, so this is about my player blinking to indicate invincibility.

    Right now, I'm using AnimationPlayer to make visibility on and off.

    It's just... well... the node tree.

    Normally, it should be either AnimatedSprite or AnimationPlayer + Sprite. Here, I use both of them (AnimatedSprite for explosion effect and AnimationPlayer + Sprite for blinking).

    I did try to use only AnimationPlayer + Sprite, but when changing texture using keys, the texture is just... gone.

    Maybe because the explosion sprites are on different files, it doesn't want to work.

    Assets:

    • Ships
    • Tiles <- The explosion sprites are here.

    So in the end, I have to use both methods. Though, I feel it's not efficient.

    duane Everyone pretty much knows adware is the way to go for indy games. They can probably sell a few on steam, but mostly people don't want to pay for indy games.

        I wouldn't be so keen on getting my game flagged by Windows Defender or MalwareBytes. Not a good look.

          fire7side Everyone pretty much knows adware is the way to go for indy games.

          A highly debatable statement.

              My bet is we'll see if that statement is correct or not depending on how well Unity does now that it has merged. Makes me full of idle curiosity.

              cybereality Can't tell if it's satire or irony, can't be a true statement.

              On the Internet, it's very hard to tell who's kidding and who's... saying what they really think. That's why I try to be very careful with the wording, to make it as clear and understandable as possible. But I'm not sure that always succeeds.

                Exactly this. I usually wouldn't tease without some laughing face or whatever to show I actually am, unless the statement is plain out ludicrous.

                cybereality I can only speak for myself, but all the indy games I play are on android and ad based. Generally they have a "no ad" option to buy, but I doubt many would buy it without playing the ad based first. Small teams can generally sell a game on steam, and once in a while there is a solo game on steam that is pretty good. I bought two games on steam that were written by one or two developers. That's all. It's a true statement for me, anyway.

                  I wasn't so fortunate with ads, but I didn't have much experience then, either. Still, ads sounded better than making people pay and risk missing having a less fortunate crowd try it.

                  With that being said, there is a nasty drawback: people will use adblockers to stop your ads. I used to swear by rewarded videos for this- it checked if the ad fully ran before rewarding. Other ads are either skipped or completely blocked using ad blockers or putting the phone on air plane mode.

                  Ads are phasing out right now, but I bet they will return as a valuable method for making money from games.

                  A friend gave me a tip recently. Anyone else hear of Rachel Pedersen? She has a podcast on marketing on Podbean. I checked it out and find her stuff kind of interesting. Might be worth looking into for beginners social networking.

                  I can't say I've ever touched a website in the past year without javascript and ads disabled. Ads definitely should not be relied on for any amount of money.

                  cybereality
                  I'm not sure if you're joking here or not. That would be a seriously dumb mistake that would be easy for them to avoid. 🙂

                  I just read the very interesting console article, and I have to say that if I were a young developer, looking to make money, godot would not be my first choice. There's less support for consoles (the source of "most of the revenue from independent developers"), even if you count third party companies. It's harder to insert advertising -- based on the many posts I've seen asking for help on the subject. There's just not much to recommend it.

                  Of course, mine is very much a layman's opinion, but new developers don't have much more knowledge on the subject than I do. They might reach the same conclusion.

                      Okay, I'm not sure if this would help, but... Fahir Mehovic made a tutorial about setting up Admob in Unity- not Godot, but go with me. Could anyone possibly convert the code he uses to GDScript? Would that work?

                      That feeling whether your tutorial is good enough or you still need to improve it.

                      For context, I'm currently making a tutorial for Udemy. I have created the game for the tutorial, but I don't know whether they will like it or not.

                      Functional speaking, it's ready. But there are some that still need to be improved, I think.

                        For my own part, I will not install a game (or any software) that needs an internet connection, a registration, has some sort of DRM or does not run in user space alone. To be provocative, one either has the idea for a nice game that's worth spending money on (e.g. Factorio, KSP), or not. They are not that many. But if they must rely on ads to boost their income, they're not my cup of tea anyway.

                        @KanataEXE , I would say that a game for a tutorial doesn't need golden handles, bells and whistles. Too much info might distract people from the underlying principles. It is not much that even a good teacher can transport in an hour lecture. People often tend to pack too much into it. That doesn't mean it should be repetitive, but just enough to give the listeners the feeling of achievement. It is an edge to walk, and you have no feedback like in a classroom.
                        Disclaimer: I have heard for decades that I am a bad teacher :-/

                        I really recommend everyone read this book if you want to be successful.
                        GAMEDEV: 10 Steps to Making Your First Game Successful by Wlad Marhulets.

                          To each their own. I sometimes like the stuff that has ads if it's not insanely packed with them. They're free, so I'm not out anything. If I don't like the privacy policy, I just move on.

                          I also like offering the game to multitudes rather than only those who are willing to pay.

                          Both ways to sell games have pros and cons, just like free to play stuff with IAPs.

                          It's not necessarily about how you prefer to play games as a dev, it's what brings in the actual money.