@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

psychicparrot42

@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place

Ancient #indie game maker. He/Him. Award winning. Author of #Unity dev books. Making games and stuff for PC, Xbox and the occasional #ZXSpectrum game. All round good egg. Boosts a lot, especially games. Racing and rally game fanatic (mostly RBR). BSC (Bronze Swimming Certificate). Existing on unceded Algonquin territory. Please wear a mask.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

psychicparrot42, to random
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

For anyone interested, this is my uber low budget version control solution! It’s a little Dell Optiplex 3050 I got for $100 from the government surplus store and I put in 16gb of ram and it already had a 512gb hdd. It connects via built in WiFi and I’m running Win 10 and Gitstack on it (free tier) for GIT. I use GitHub Desktop to upload to it and, so far, it’s been perfect! To save power, I turn it off most nights and turn it on when I start work in the mornings.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@Aequitas Yeah it's a nice cheap way to have full version control (and large file support without having to pay!) .. it was mega easy to set up (I know very little about networking etc., so it needed to be) and it costs next to nothing to run. I can easily just backup to a backup drive every now and then for extra peace of mind, as well, so yeah I like it 👍

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@Fivesprites Large files, mainly. Some client work needs massive files sometimes (which you have to pay for on git) and most of the time it's just me working on projects, so I don't really need to share access much. It's also way faster having it on my own network, of course. I suppose the downside to this is that I have to do my own backups and it's not offsite.. but at least I have control of it all.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@JeremiahFieldhaven Gotta make the most of the near-zero budget, right?? 👍

gilesgoat, to random
@gilesgoat@toot.wales avatar

PSA for game developers .. "If you do an international thing start doing your UI in French or German" .. WHY ? .. because if you start "English" you have this like "Press Pad" or "Best score" or "Time left" .. ... .. "too simple" .. then someone DEMANDS you "WE NEED GEFIS" .. and then "Press Button" gets something like "Appuyez sur le bouton si'vous plait merci salutation" of "Le meilleur score de la journee" "Le temp que vous still avez" .. Then "all fantastic UI" suddenly is BROKEN 😂 😢

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@gilesgoat All of my experiences of localization have been ‘how in the hell do I fit all this text into that tiny button?’ and ‘how the hell do I get a font that renders that language?!’ 👀 Avoid all words. Use pictures! 🤣

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@gilesgoat Yeah I've at least had the luxury of using other people's fonts and not had to make my own!!

psychicparrot42, to random
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Wowwww setting up Unreal's enhanced input system in C++ was a pain. Why isn't it added to the build settings by default, since they're demanding we use it over the old one? Makes no sense to me.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@RethinkJeff Ahhh maybe eh?! That makes sense.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Doing the same thing with Blueprints is wayyyyy easier and I think I'll just to stick to that in future! No point making extra work for myself, is there?

psychicparrot42, to unrealengine
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

My instinct to capitalise the 'object' in 'sub object' keeps slipping me up when I use Unreal's CreateDefaultSubobject function. Gah! I want to capitalise the object SO MUCH!!!

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@bazkie I think the way I type really affects this, too - my brain naturally splits up the words to know where to press the keys, so I default to capitalising words like this. I would want to do the same with Timestamp, too!!

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@JeremiahFieldhaven JOB DONE! 🤣👍

psychicparrot42, (edited ) to random
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Aw I just read an article about marketing and now I have to go flush my head down the bog for cleaning. "Just ask Steam for discoverability" is the worst advice. ".. and they'll give it to you, if they like your game" .. just how fucking naïve?! Steam don't give a shit about your game! "The key to success on Steam, he explained, is getting yourself in the Top Upcoming list." No shit, Captain Obvious! "This requires about 1000 wishlists a day" But how do I? Yeah, I thought so.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Maybe I should write a game marketing book called "It's Fucking Easy, Get 1,000 Wishlists a Day and Be Popular You Bellends". Inside, it'll state the obvious and repeat all the things you've read in every marketing article ever written before.. but I'll be edgy about it and pretend I'm going to give you the ACTUAL secret later in the book. Only I'll never give you the secret, but you'll have read the book and I'll get more popular and have a slot talking at GCD next year.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@dahie "Disney's Marketing Championships with Mickey Mouse and Goofy".

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Eventually, once enough people have bought my marketing book and attended my marketing talks, I'll launch my own game and on the same day reveal that the real secret to marketing was, in fact, to write a book about marketing, be featured on games sites and talk about marketing at conferences until you gather enough of a following to get 1,000 wishlists per day for your damn indie game.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@elFlashor 😀👍👍

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@sinbad Isn't it?! Really does seem like it, to me. Not a single marketer ever actually mentions that for some reason..

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@Bobbins Yeah, dead easy to get these things. I mean, I'm actually just off to the bog to drop a few wishlists myself.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@Bobbins "Read my blog, take my course, buy my book, subscribe to my channel, follow me on insta for more marketing tips" urggghhhhhh I get sick thinking about it.

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

i know im supposed to be on break but i got bored and started working IM SORRY

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko looks at you with an exasperated, but completely understanding look 😑

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko Whenever there's silence, I hear the game calling out to me..
"Finishhhh meeeeeeee" 👀

JeremiahFieldhaven, to gamedev
@JeremiahFieldhaven@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Loading levels from JSON files is now working!

There are still a bunch of things that need to be added (for example, right now all the objects are using their default behaviour, rather than loading the settings from the JSON) but it actually bloody works.

This is a massive relief. It means all the levels made with the Unity version will work. Makes me hopeful I might be able to replicate the in-game level editor too!

#gamedev #indiedev #Unreal

Video showing the Unreal 5.3 editor open with the MainMenu level loaded. It has a handful of actors placed for lighting and atmosphre, but notably there's a BP_LevelBuilder actor. When simulation is started, lots of runtime-created actors are added to the scene forming a scene made up of glowing blocks floating above a distant, gridded landscape. A couple of turrets start to fire as the camera is moved around the scene.

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@JeremiahFieldhaven Ah that's brilliant mate! I haven't tried doing anything like this yet.. are you doing that in C++ or is there Blueprints support for it?

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@JeremiahFieldhaven I love that you're able to save the levels you already made. Very cool!

psychicparrot42,
@psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@JeremiahFieldhaven Oh nice thanks. Blueprints are amazing! Now I feel like I already have a headstart when I need to do this in the future! 👍👍

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • InstantRegret
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ethstaker
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • ngwrru68w68
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • modclub
  • love
  • kavyap
  • everett
  • cubers
  • anitta
  • mdbf
  • khanakhh
  • tacticalgear
  • osvaldo12
  • rosin
  • tester
  • GTA5RPClips
  • cisconetworking
  • Durango
  • normalnudes
  • provamag3
  • Leos
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •