Notices by Parrot (Jeff) (psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place), page 2

@JeremiahFieldhaven @crussel I think as long as you can manage it and keep track of it, then it's all good. It only becomes a problem when it becomes a problem for you to manage, I reckon. My graphs were getting messy and I know that in a few months there's a strong chance they'll deteriorate into total insanity. I'll still use Blueprints for a bunch of other stuff, but as soon as things start getting messy my brain works better in code.

I'm considering lowering the price of Die for the Economy, as it's not selling very well compared to my other games. I'd originally thought since Berzerk Recharged was priced at US 9.99 it'd be reasonable to ask for 7.99 for my funky comparable version, but of course I don't have the same clout Atari or the clout the official name has, and now I'm thinking maybe $5 might be more in line with what gamers expect for a game like this. I don't know, just considering it. Pricing is hard.

I am really angry with Nintendo for rejecting me/my games again. I’ve made some good games that would be perfect for Switch (they’re great on Steamdeck) and yet they’ll allow all kinds of scammy shovelware on there and here they are rejecting someone who is genuinely trying to make good games. It makes no sense and I hate even more that there’s no human on the other end to talk to about it.

I spend the time writing up the application; about my games, my history as a dev, why I want to make games for Switch etc and all I get is a ‘your application for access to Switch was rejected’. That’s it! This is how I’m treated as a hard working game developer by this company. I’m shit on their shoe and I don’t even deserve a proper response or a human to appeal to. It’s demoralizing, you know?

Just got a reply from Nintendo! They said NO to allowing my games on their hardware 🤷♂️ no idea why. They provide no reason (just a 'declined' message) and there's not even a human to ask what they're thinking. What a great company to deal with. Not.

One of my relatives shared yet another right wing, climate emergency denying piece of shit meme on FB this morning. Then they'll be looking for sympathy from other relatives because I don't talk to them any more, of course. Rather than thinking for a second that (as I've told them in the past) it's their hate-ridden bullshit spreading that makes me think their insides might be dead, not that I'm being mean to them because we 'disagree on things'. 🤔

If only the PCG track gen wasn't quite so wibbly!! Car physics are nowhere near yet, either. It's just a really really really rough prototype that could still amount to absolutely nothing if I can't make it work properly. #unreal

Loads of problems with this so far, sadly. Getting the track to behave itself is proving to be a bit of a mare - it tends to get bumpy in the wrong places. There's also no way to 'interrupt' the spline, so jumps would have to be done with multiple splines. You can't easily sculpt 'ends' to splines, either, so they're 'empty'. It's looking more and more like this is a dead end. I think the mesh has to be built from scratch to work properly and so that I can have the control I need over it.

Rough as a badger's bum, but (yay!) it's a track section generated with Unreal's PCG system. I mean, OK it totally freaks out when I try to add position offsets, which means I've messed something up there, but *it's a start*! Learning the PCG thingit is like learning a new language - I was hoping it'd be a bit friendlier than this, tbh. Hey ho.

Currently trying to learn Unreal engine's PCG (procedural thingy generatory errm I don't know what it stands for after all .. oh, is it procedural content generator? that sounds right to me) .. anyway, trying to learn it without my brain melting. Only, my brain is melting. Need more tea, I reckon! 🤯

Weather app says the ‘Feels like’ temperature is -18c here today. I say ‘it felt like I was freezin’ my nadgers off putting the bins out this morning’. I should have my own weather app.

OK I found something I don't like about Unreal .. it appears that Unreal's character movement component only lets you use *one* (and ONLY one) collider on your character - a capsule. If you want characters that need multiple colliders or shapes that aren't a single, upright capsule (like, say, a dog) then you're modding the engine, writing your own movement component or you're doing some nasty collision hacks (as far as I can tell). Urggghhhhhh.

Now, how the heck does this Unreal engine thing work again? 🤔 Feels like I’ve been away from it for a long time- I think it’s been about 5 months or so and I feel like I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff already.

@sinbad Thanks for that review (and for buying it!) - you really do rock!
😎👍👍

Die for the Economy! performing as expected on Steam, then... 26 sales in the first day (Friday) annnd already dead by Saturday just like the last game did. Dumped into the abyss of dead indie games within 24 hours! 😖

Oh.. maybe there *isn't* a crash bug in the release version after all. Turns out I was looking at the last version that went into cert and it's crashing as they're trying to certify it 😖 I have to fix that of course but since the live version is one behind, the live version *doesn't* seem to be crashing after all and I can calm down a bit.

I'll do a proper post from my other account later but I just wanted to say that my game Die for the Economy! launched today and it wouldn't be as good without the help of @Bobbins and @Fivesprites - Bob did magic making the cover art and also took my original (ugly) game graphics and turned them into something lovely to look at. Andy helped me get it out the door in a solid state and also helped with some brilliant suggestions to improve odd bits here and there. I had some great help!

My final game comes out tomorrow. I'm never making another *

*we'll see about that!

There are some terms I hate unnecessarily. One of them is ‘juice’. I don’t like the phrase at all. It’s not ‘adding juice’ it’s just polishing your damn game. We had a term for it already, it was polish. It still is polish. Juice is a stupid term. Thanks for coming to my talk.

I’m awarding myself the prize of not having to watch the game awards.