Our First Steps In A Game Engine! | Devlog #2

[@jenspeters23]

Here we go again! The smoothest devlogs ever :) 😊

[@graf_fridula3981]

Really appreciate the honesty here! Too many dev diaries are just marketing talk without any real insights. Looking forward to the next one

[@MadPhyl]

Intresting to see your approach in this one, really like it! You just go for it and make it work! Looking forward to play this some day!

[@moshedpotatoez]

Great follow-up episode! Excited for a peek at the combat / fishing systems in the next one, keep it up! 👍

[@kitiwu2345]

Love the dev logs! So excited for whats to come

[@imjusttellingstories1688]

Great devlog🙃 I wish you good luck on this beautiful and difficult journey😉

[@ArdentDev]

Great devlog ! Awesome to see other indie games getting worked on !

[@oneononewithalejandro7128]

love it guys

[@stefman1231]

This is a great story keep them coming :)

[@Monkeymario.]

When I saw the title I thought you made a game engine. KZbin tip: Try to make sure your titles arn't confusing.

[@Punisher1992]

TBH i think its your mistake, because it says clearly "In A Game Engine!" and not "In our Game Engine" or "In my game engine" or whatever.

[@kunodev]

​@@Punisher1992agreed

[@Jiorgos3D]

For the waves you could use the gerstner wave formula! I made a implementation in unity, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

[@Playground_Pigeon]

We currently reworking the water. We actually use gerstner waves but we are not quite there yet with the shade :)

[@harimrlocal]

I'm also making a game by watching tutorials if I want to add anything new to my game I watch tutorials slightly edit it to accompany my game and implement it

[@Playground_Pigeon]

Nice one! And on the way you learn more about the engine so editing to fit your game gets easier everytime :)

[@blackdoc6320]

Heads up, you're gonna wanna decide a proper naming convention system for you games different assets before the game gets too bloated. Becomes a nightmare to sift through after a while. I suggest just using some variation on the unreal recommended ones. Example: Materials- M_MaterialName : Textures- T_TextureName : Blueprints- BP_BlueprintName

[@benjaminreinsch392]

Yes thank you for the heads up! The video shows our progress one year ago and by now we are much better and have a skilles programmer at our side. We had to do a lot of clean up but proper naming convention and blueprint hygene are something we had to learn along the way. Thanks, friend!

[@quentinarrius]

Oh man I want you all to succeed so bad! :D

[@mjhreach]

You shouls check varian Inventory framework

[@lorlouis6644]

Hey, I'm just a random person on the internet but you may be walking into a trap. Your game looks really good but afaik you have not proven that the gameplay is fun. It's pretty common in gamedev to write a small proof of concept just to make sure the systems mesh well together (and also to prevent wasting time on art and modeling for features that might get cut for gameplay reasons).

[@Playground_Pigeon]

Yeah we know that we didnt take the "normal" or "best" approach but so far its working out :)

[@benjaminreinsch392]

You are right about that! That is one big concern of ours, too. But since our gameplay is somewhat unique we first had to build the systems to even test it out. Now we are much closer already - we are working hard on a playable demo and will be able to have it playtested soon. Hopefully people find it fun - if not we will have to change things up :)

[@MaryCarrozzino]

First of all, I think you propably really shouldnt have skipped the time of making a proper course on coding and on getting into the engine. If you want to make a game, you should have at least an idea on how to make a proper architeture to your game, and you should only need to search for tutorials to clarify stuff occasionally, when you have doubts, or to check if there are no better ways to solve an specific problem. To overly rely on tutorials to implement every little single thing in your game when you don't know how to properly structure them in your project will result in a mess pretty quickly even if the scope of your game is tiny... And when the things break (and believe me, they are going to break) you are not going to know how to fix it. Second, but not less important, after you learn how to code and how to get into the engine, you shouldn't be worried in adding features to your game, like an inventory system, a night and day cycle and things like that. Those things are secondary. First of all (well, second of all, in this case) you should be prototyping your game - building quick tests of your core mechanics and of your game play loop to check if they are any fun and how you are going to balance them. The things we use to call "proof of concept". I think you should try to check one or two videos about video game development on KZbin that should explain all the steps. I think that you are jumping far too many first steps, and it might bite your ass later. I know I sound harsh, and I'm so sorry for that, but I swear I talking from a place of concern and good will. I really hope that your project succeed anyway! It looks really nice, and you look really passionated about it. I hope I dindt brought down, and I hope that you keep motivated.

[@benjaminreinsch392]

Hey there :) I am one of the devs and I really appreciate your comment. I know that this would be best practice. This video is in retrospect and we have one more year of experience now. Things did indeed bite us in the ass and will continue to do so but I think we learned a lot from it. And by now we are able to implement complex systems all on our own. The tutorials helped so much with learning nodes and systems. Yes we replicated some of ppls mistakes and had to do clean up but to me at least this hands on approach was the best way of learning :) And now that we have the gameplay systems in place we are playtesting them and working on a demo. So fingers crossed!

[@MaryCarrozzino]

​@@benjaminreinsch392 That's conforting to read, Benjamin! Cheers! Fingers crossed! 🤞

[@pantoneg.6957]

I agree that coding knowledge would ease out some problems and it´s way more easy to organize code instead of spaghetti blueprints - but i also think at the same time that it´s not a necessity. It will just help enourmousely. There are many games done solely with blueprints - first in my head is Choo Choo Charles for example. For creative minds, coding can be a pain - i can relate to that. If i didn´t know coding i would learn it besides making the game as you can connect better with actual results rather than abstraction. Blueprints give a very good foundation to get into these coding logics, and converting your blueprints step by step over time could be a satisfying way to learn coding - C++ is not easy to learn as a first language and can be quiet overwhelming and exhausting. So i would suggest - get on with blueprints but start learning besides in spare time and just start to adapt slowly.

[@marcomoutinho.gamedev]

There are so many things wrong that trigger me... Omg , how to you even had found if never had made a game before? You take government money and just follow tutorials and never use the game engine before? Do I even have to say how irresponsible that is? There so many good game developers that wish for an opportunity like yours... Did you even know if the game is fun? How? Edit: I also see a LOT of Hard references on of your blueprints... Plus: if you need so much community help like tutorials you definitely should go with Unity! Worst case you could use AI to help you with C#.. AI as far as I know can't help with Blueprints...

[@kitiwu2345]

I see your point with them taking the risk but I also think it is so brave and incredible to have the guts and strenght to follow your dream and to have the endurance to go on with it with so much trust and joy. Especially when you cant be sure if you will succeed with the outcome. You should be able to see that and to think about how incredible it is that these two people have access to the tools they need to make their dream a reality. And I am sure they didnt make the decision lightly to quit their day jobs and try to create something completely new, without knowing if it would ever pay off. I hope they get far with their game. I‘m sure its going to be great and I for one cant wait for the release Grateful to live in a world where some people are still brave enough to take a risk and follow their dreams

[@marcomoutinho.gamedev]

@@kitiwu2345 I was not only talking about they, but I was talking about who gave it money. They just give money without any palpable proof of success. What I can guess is who found the project don't know anything about how games are made

[@benjaminreinsch392]

Hey, friend. I am one of the devs. I really see that your are frustrated with us and I understand. But see, first of all, the funding is not only for the programming. It is also for the concept, the art and everything in between. We now have a programmer in the tean to help us. We were never meant to programm all of it on our own. That being said, we had to start somewhere right? How did you learn all of this? Similar way I guess! But this process is one year in retrospect. Rest assured we are much better now, testing the gameplay, practice proper naming convention and blueprint hygene. We are holding ourself to very high standards and we do not waste these funds or the opportunity. And by the way. Everyone can apply for this funding :) If one is so skilled and much better than us they should be granted the money without a problem. If we did it, they can, too!

[@marcomoutinho.gamedev]

@@benjaminreinsch392 that's not my point. My point was : someone give a bunch of founding to develop a Game , based only on ideas and concept art. MVP exist for some reason (Minimal Viable Product); Vertical slice or even just Prototype of something palpable of fun and working, a proff of concept. And I'm Not frustrated with you, I'm with who found the project with the condition presented. Idk what country you are in mine (Portugal there are no found for game industry). I apply with a prototype once on a private startup (that help start any type of projects - supposedly - and it seems they are much more rigorous.

[@benjaminreinsch392]

@@marcomoutinho.gamedev Maybe I can clarify a bit more: They have 3 steps of funding with this program: Concept funding (which is up to 20k Euros), prototype funding (up to 80k, the one we got) and production funding (up to 400k). So actually the whole funding is JUST for a prototype to see if the game is actually nice. Not strings attached. and if it is, candidates can apply for the production funding afterwards. Might sound outrageous from where you stand but imagine - there might be so many great game ideas out there and the devs are just too small to ever be able to explore them because they lack the monetary means. This programs helps immensely with that. Besides, you should check out what games are usually funded with the bigger programs with millions of euros. they look like a money laundering scheme (and probably are)