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Game Dev Monthly 4 (September)- Progress and Rant
4 years ago
I posted the Flappy Kylina game this month. Happy about that. As with all my games, I'd have liked better graphics, or more polish in the menus. There are also some problems, like the directional audio meaning that the flap sound comes from the left speaker, which is bad if you're wearing headphones. But, I got the game done, and that's what matters. I don't know if anyone else played it. I doubt it.
For the second half of the month, I wanted to work on 3D modelling in Crocotile 3D. That didn't happen for a reason I'll get into. Was going to be a tank game.
Which brings me to the rant, with a bit of advice. I saw that a Half-Life mapping discord was having a community mapping project based on Half-Life 2. I thought I'd join. But here's the technical requirements.
-Install SDK Base 2013
-Install SDK Base beta branch
-Install Half-Life 2
-Install Half-Life 2: Episode 1
-Install Half-Life 2: Episode 2
-Install Mapbase Base
-Install Mapbase Episodes
-Install community mod
-Install community template map
-Set all of that up in a very specific way
All of this is before installing VTF edit for custom textures, or GCFScape to use content from other source engine games.
When it didn't work, I got a bunch of non-advice with things like "did you follow the step by step guide?" and demands to upload the error console. When I upload it, I was given some settings to copy and paste into a .cfg file. When that didn't work, everybody fell silent. So after some fiddling trying to get it to work myself, I eventually gave up.
So what's the lesson here? Manage your dependencies! There's a reason that I don't play mods that rely on mods upon mods upon mods. One of the things I like about Godot over "industry standard" engines is that Godot has 1 point of failure. Godot. I don't have to worry that my editor or compiler is the problem.
So, I've been thinking of making my own Half-Life map/campaign. I guess you call it a spite project. But since it was something I wanted to take part in, why not just make the things I would've made anyway, just as it's own thing without the bullshit? If they want to over complicate a simple volunteer "just for fun" type project with technical hurdles, that's on them.
I did have a productive few days at the end of the month, making a lot of progress working on driving game tutorials over a few days, and even made progress on a long video script. I'm kind of tempted to make the tank game a combat driving game or even do a racing game. I don't know. I likely stick to a tank game for simplicity, we'll see.
For the second half of the month, I wanted to work on 3D modelling in Crocotile 3D. That didn't happen for a reason I'll get into. Was going to be a tank game.
Which brings me to the rant, with a bit of advice. I saw that a Half-Life mapping discord was having a community mapping project based on Half-Life 2. I thought I'd join. But here's the technical requirements.
-Install SDK Base 2013
-Install SDK Base beta branch
-Install Half-Life 2
-Install Half-Life 2: Episode 1
-Install Half-Life 2: Episode 2
-Install Mapbase Base
-Install Mapbase Episodes
-Install community mod
-Install community template map
-Set all of that up in a very specific way
All of this is before installing VTF edit for custom textures, or GCFScape to use content from other source engine games.
When it didn't work, I got a bunch of non-advice with things like "did you follow the step by step guide?" and demands to upload the error console. When I upload it, I was given some settings to copy and paste into a .cfg file. When that didn't work, everybody fell silent. So after some fiddling trying to get it to work myself, I eventually gave up.
So what's the lesson here? Manage your dependencies! There's a reason that I don't play mods that rely on mods upon mods upon mods. One of the things I like about Godot over "industry standard" engines is that Godot has 1 point of failure. Godot. I don't have to worry that my editor or compiler is the problem.
So, I've been thinking of making my own Half-Life map/campaign. I guess you call it a spite project. But since it was something I wanted to take part in, why not just make the things I would've made anyway, just as it's own thing without the bullshit? If they want to over complicate a simple volunteer "just for fun" type project with technical hurdles, that's on them.
I did have a productive few days at the end of the month, making a lot of progress working on driving game tutorials over a few days, and even made progress on a long video script. I'm kind of tempted to make the tank game a combat driving game or even do a racing game. I don't know. I likely stick to a tank game for simplicity, we'll see.
