Independent Development Thread - All Indie Devs welcome!

[Pehesse]

Hello everyone!

I’m opening this thread as a showcase of the work of the indie dev community at large. Whether you are a newcomer just starting off on a new project looking for tips, a veteran looking to showcase your latest update, an enthusiast wanting to share the latest news about a specific engine, or an onlooker wanting to check out how games are made, you’re all welcome!

The aim of this thread will be for devs to post about their work, discuss each other’s progress, techniques and ideas, and generally be an inclusive and positive place to read about all things indiedev. Updates can come in the form of screenshots, animated gifs, webm, videos, and more as we experiment and find what works and what doesn’t.

We’ll set ground rules as we go and the community develops, but due to prior experience, here’s one to start with: please engage with the community more than simply posting about your just-released game for a quick bit of self-promo. We want to hear more about your work than the promotional material available on your presskit!

I’ll also update this post with previously available material on other sites, as they are recovered, discovered, and simply brought to my attention. If you have something you feel this opening post would benefit from, feel free to PM me.

And with that, let the game (making) begin!

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EDIT: Here’s a list of resources, links and topics, courtesy of Popstar!

GETTING STARTED

I don’t even know how to evaluate which engine to use, I just want to make something, help!
PICO-8
PICO-8 has tools for editing code, music, sound, sprites, maps built right into the console. Create a whole game or program in one sitting without needing to leave the cosy development environment!
_ _
The harsh limitations of PICO-8 are carefully chosen to be fun to work with, encourage small but expressive designs and hopefully to give PICO-8 cartridges their own particular look and feel.

Actually, give me a list of some engine options
Unity
Unreal Engine
GameMaker Studio 2
Construct 2
RPG Maker

I’d prefer something free and open source
Godot
Cocos Creator
https://love2d.org/

Is there anything domain specific that’s friendly to non-coders?
PuzzleScript - make sokoban style puzzle games
Twine - make Interactive Fiction / Visual Novels
Adventure Game Studio - make point and clicks
Bitsy - explore small, 2D spaces

I’d like a bit more control without having to write everything myself, what about a framework?
Monogame
Simple and Fast Multimedia Library (SFML)
Cocos2d

I don’t know if what I’m doing counts as a game, it’s more of an interactive art installation type thingy
Processing, Processing.js
Cinder
Open Frameworks

#YOLO, I wanna put together my own framework/engine
Handmade Network
DirectXTK - Microsoft’s D3DX replacement
SoLoud - portable c/c++ audio engine for games
Single-file public-domain/open source libraries with minimal dependencies
For your debug/GUI needs: Dear Imgui (looks like this)

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WEBSITES
Game From Scratch - http://www.gamefromscratch.com
News, reviews and tutorials of engines and tools for game development. Also has a YouTube channel.
Gamasutra - http://www.gamasutra.com
Originally the website for Game Developer magazine but long since its own thing. Useful news, blogs and GDC content. Highly recommended to subscribe to their RSS feed.

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ASSETS
Free Assets
OpenGameArt.org - https://opengameart.org
Blend Swap - https://www.blendswap.com
GoodTextures - http://www.goodtextures.com
freesound - http://www.freesound.org
GameSounds.xyz - https://gamesounds.xyz
Musopen - https://musopen.org
Google Fonts - http://www.freesound.org
Font Squirrel - icon indicates fonts free for app embedding - https://www.fontsquirrel.com
Font Library - https://fontlibrary.org/en

Asset Stores
Unity - most assets may be used in non-Unity projects - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/
Unreal Engine Marketplace - assets are governed by Unreal Engine license and require UE royalty even when used outside of UE - https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace
Itch.io - https://itch.io/game-assets
FontSpring - check individual fonts for app license - https://www.fontspring.com
textures.​com - limited free access - https://www.textures.com/

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SOFTWARE
Pixel Art
Graphics Gale (Windows) - free! - https://graphicsgale.com/us/
Pro Motion NG (Windows) - paid, has free version - http://www.cosmigo.com
Aseprite (Windows, macOS, Linux) - paid - https://www.aseprite.org

2D Art
Clip Studio Paint (Manga Studio) - paid - http://www.clipstudio.net/en
Spine - paid - http://esotericsoftware.com

3D Art
Blender - open source - https://www.blender.org
Maya LT - paid subscription - https://www.autodesk.com/products/maya-lt/
3D-Coat - paid - https://3dcoat.com/
MagicaVoxel - free - https://ephtracy.github.io

Procedural Generation
Tilemancer - https://led.itch.io/tilemancer - free procedural pixelart tile generator
Spacescape - http://alexcpeterson.com/spacescape/ - free procedural space skybox generator (HDR enabled)
Texture Generato Online - http://cpetry.github.io/TextureGenerator-Online/ - free procedural texture generator

Level Editing
Tiled - open source - http://www.mapeditor.org
TrenchBroom - open source - http://kristianduske.com/trenchbroom/
Yarn - open source - https://github.com/InfiniteAmmoInc/Yarn

Screen Recording
Video
OBS Studio (Windows, macOS, Linux) - open source - https://obsproject.com
VClip (Windows) - free - http://blog.bahraniapps.com/vclip/
Quicktime Player (macOS) - pre-installed (File -> New Screen Recording)

GIFs
GifCam (Windows) - free - http://blog.bahraniapps.com/gifcam/
ScreenToGif (Windows) - open source - http://www.screentogif.com
LICEcap (Windows, macOS) - open source - http://www.cockos.com/licecap/

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Marketing suggestions

General considerations article
#screenshotsaturday (on saturdays), #indiedevhour (on wednesdays, 7PM UTC+1); #indiedev on Twitter, Tumblr
cartrdge - Videogame focused portfolios
TIGsource devlogs
ProjectMQ - indie focused exposure+community
IndieDB

Marketing Tools

presskit()
Promoter
distribute()

Indie Focused Publishers

Devolver Digital
Adult Swim Games
Raw Fury
Humble Publishing
Indie Fund

Graphics related stuff

Article regarding compression and file export formats
Loop GIFs properly on Twitter
Animator’s Resource Kit

Design related stuff

Compilation of articles regarding platformer design
Accessibility Guidelines for Games

Other relevant threads

Game designers in general (Game Designers/Developers General Thread- All Skill Levels!
New Jam City - The Unofficial Waypoint Game Jam
Share your games writing/criticism!

[Pehesse]

To get the ball rolling, I’ll start with my own work, though I hope more will come to post their own very soon as word of this thread spreads around.

I’m currently working on Pachacuti, a 2D platform-action game using tradigital animation, starring the daughter of the Sun on her journey to reclaim her home from the spirit of the Moon.
I’m currently 1 year into the project, working on making the backgrounds for the prototype.

The very last update I have to share is about the health system, using the color of the sky and position of the sun as visual indicators, to offer a “GUI free” experience. Here’s how it looks in WIP motion:

Next week’s goal are to finish up the remaining background pieces (first pass, of course - there’ll be a lot more to do later on, but the current objective is to get a test level dressed up and ready to go ASAP), before moving on to test enemies. I have little to no prior creature design experience, so that’ll be a lot of fun… I hope.

Anyway, there’s that - until the next update!

[Mikachu]

Yay! Indie dev gaf was my most beloved part of gaf. I hope to see some awesome work from devs on here who might have avoided gaf too!

I’ll hopefully have something to show this week but as usual your animation is incredible! (I was tamaster92)

[Metalsnakezero]

I was wondering where this super cool girl was coming from. Looking forward to this.

[SPRidley]

Thanks for the work Pehesse!
If you need some banner for the OP os anything just ask.

Last thing ive been working on the game im making right now, Sitcome Valley, is on the shop menu.

[Pehesse]

@Mikachu

Yay! Indie dev gaf was my most beloved part of gaf. I hope to see some awesome work from devs on here who might have avoided gaf too!

I’ll hopefully have something to show this week but as usual your animation is incredible! (I was tamaster92)

Looking forward to your participation

@Metalsnakezero

I was wondering where this super cool girl was coming from. Looking forward to this.

Now you know, and hopefully a lot more of them will be there to discover as well! Plenty of awesome projects to look forward to!

@SPRidley

If you need some banner for the OP os anything just ask.

Ah, thanks! I’ll wait to see if this gets off the ground before committing to that kind of work, but if something needs to happen, then yeah, I’ll likely need some help

[Systolique]

Feels great to have this place – even if only temporarily !
Did I miss the release of your game about wrestling @Pehesse ?

[Pehesse]

Maybe you did? It was a year ago, though, so I don’t know! Just in case, here it is: Honey Rose: Underdog Fighter Extraordinaire on Steam

@Systolique

Yeah I completely missed it, was looking forward to it, thanks !

Ah well, there you go then Hope you’ll find it interesting!

[Systolique]

Yeah I completely missed it, was looking forward to it, thanks !

[Jacksinthe]

Thanks for making this thread for us!

Jack here from Absinthe Games, developing Mainframe One. I’ll be updating and contributing per usual.

[blackmag_c]

Hey, am not really used to daily conversation about how I do games but I’ll try to pass with some stuff… What exactly do people like to read? Things about method? How stuff is going like a daily blog?

Never been engaged in Neogaf it was just too massive…

Thanks!

[Pehesse]

@jdev

Thanks for making this thread for us!

Jack here from Absinthe Games, developing Mainframe One. I’ll be updating and contributing per usual.

Hey Jack Looking forward to the M1 updates!

@blackmag_c

Hey, am not really used to daily conversation about how I do games but I’ll try to pass with some stuff… What exactly do people like to read? Things about method? How stuff is going like a daily blog?

Never been engaged in Neogaf it was just too massive…

Thanks!

Welcome! I don’t think there are hard rules as to what’s interesting to share or not (yet ). Simply share what you feel tells us about your work, what you think is interesting or what you’re most excited about, and we’ll see where it leads us

[Luvlaskan]

Great thread Pehesse!

I lurked indie dev gaf a lot but I will try to be more active here. I work at a pretty small developer by day but will post about my spare time projects.

Currently wrapping up a gamejam thing I’m doing with a colleague. It’s a pretty simple asymmetrical coop puzzle game that’s going to be played on some homebuilt arcade machines this weekend. The themes where multiplayer and halloween.

[Ludophonic]

Yo IndieGAFWaypoint. Artist formerly known as Popstar here.

Thanks for adding the resources to the OP @Pehesse.

[lilipoo]

guten tag. I’m Lili. I’m working on an action platformer because I feel like the indie community has been underserviced of late, and filling holes is my wont.

I’ve been animating gross tar hands this weekend for like a bottomless pit in the game, that grabs at you and pulls you down. It’s fun.

[Pehesse]

@Luvlaskan

Great thread Pehesse!

I lurked indie dev gaf a lot but I will try to be more active here. I work at a pretty small developer by day but will post about my spare time projects.

Currently wrapping up a gamejam thing I’m doing with a colleague. It’s a pretty simple asymmetrical coop puzzle game that’s going to be played on some homebuilt arcade machines this weekend. The themes where multiplayer and halloween.

@Ludophonic

Yo IndieGAFWaypoint. Artist formerly known as Popstar here.

Thanks for adding the resources to the OP @Pehesse.

@Witch

guten tag. I’m Lili. I’m working on an action platformer because I feel like the indie community has been underserviced of late, and filling holes is my wont.

I’ve been animating gross tar hands this weekend for like a bottomless pit in the game, that grabs at you and pulls you down. It’s fun.

Glad to see everyone I’ll refrain from posting just to welcome everyone to the thread from now on as it could get tiring quick, but the spirit is there! So welcome back to old faces, and plain welcome to all new ones - we’re all eagerly looking forward to everyone else’s work!

[Jacksinthe]

Good to see you here, Lili

[DodgeOffset]

Thanks for making this Pehesse :)! I’d been following the previous Indie thread for a while, but have never posted.
You guys are all creating really inspiring stuff!
I’ll hopefully in time, be able to post progress on a game I have in mind!

Dylan
Cape Town, South Africa

[parfait]

Hey, folks! Welcome to Waypoint!

Just in case y’all haven’t seen any of these threads yet, I thought I’d go ahead and link some of the other Waypoint threads about game dev that are buried a little bit in the current chaos.

There’s a thread (that hasn’t been used much since May, fwiw) for game designers in general (Game Designers/Developers General Thread- All Skill Levels!), a thread of the Waypoint game jam that ran from July 1st to August 1st (New Jam City - The Unofficial Waypoint Game Jam), and, to wrap it up, a thread specifically for writing about games/games criticism (Share your games writing/criticism!).

Hopefully that’s of use to some of you! And, again, I hope you enjoy your time here!

[Pehesse]

@parfait Oh, my apologies, I had not seen there was a previous thread about indie development, even when creating it with the tooltips at the right. Should the threads be merged in some way, or any other action?
About the two others, and all future relevant threads, if at all useful, I can link to them from the OP as well if this thread stays as is, if you think that’d help!