vidogääms 16: cute edition

[Tinister]

i think kickstarters great for things where most of the creative heavy lifting's already been done and you just need the money for polish or production, like if you want to publish a webcomic or give your already prototyped + planned out game Graphics or More Levels or something.

a bad kickstarter would be something like "yeah we're thinking of making a game, give us money and we'll think a bit harder about it", ie 99% of videogame kickstarters since and including the doublefine one.

Which category do you think Yooka-Layle falls under?

[SquareWheel]

I backed it so it's gonna be good.

[hubol]

seems like an idea (and some models and animation rigs) theyre gonna think harder about 2 me imo

[hubol]

2 me imo

[SquareWheel]

Justification time.

Even if the game is awful, I'm super excited about a Grant Kirkhope, David Wise, and Steve Burke OST collaboration.  The first track released is already the most Rare thing I've ever heard.

https://grantkirkhope.bandcamp.com/track/jungle-2

[cati]

yeah, i think it's in a kind of middle ground where the core gameplay and things like the camera already look a lot more polished than some fully complete games, but some of the stretch goals seem like they maybe should have already been prototyped and playtested (co-op especially) before they made any promises. also the one area they've shown off is very playgroundy, which doesn't say much about how the actual level/mission design's going to be.

im not a big fan of stretch goals in general, because there's an obligation to deliver on them, even if it turns out the budget could be put to better use elsewhere, or the promised feature sounded better on paper or doesn't end up working out (im very skeptical about the n64 shader)

[SquareWheel]

Agreed on stretch goals.  Pretty sure they commented on not overdoing it during the campaign.

Okay, found this from an email:

From the start of the campaign we also pledged to do best by your amazing support by only setting stretch goals that would improve the game, without negatively affecting core development.

Our next stretch goal, if reached, will be used only to further improve and polish Yooka-Laylee, and give something back for your amazing support. Namely, we’ll release our first post-release DLC pack free of charge for all backers.

When – and only when – we’ve finished and shipped the full version of Yooka-Laylee, we’ll start work on additional content that will be distributed to backers free of charge for their platform of choice. And again, all additional funding will of course go towards improving and polishing the game.

Compared to something like Star Citizen, they kept it a bit more realistic.

The idea of DLC in a traditional Rare platformer title still feels weird to me though.

[hubol]

(im very skeptical about the n64 shader)

maybe this is a joke but i dont think shaders are a big deal.... all they have to do is create a shader that emulates that effect right? unless there are additional gamplay implications i dont really see how thats really much of a stretch goal to begin with..

[hubol]

like a shader is 90% harmless to other code and could probably be knocked out within a day

[SquareWheel]

Shader language spooks me.  I've looked into how writing shaders works and I'm still convinced it's a form of witchcraft.

[hubol]

we are using gl3 for sbw2 and you can write cute shaders using glsl.... basically you manipulate or throw out the incoming pixel data with a fragment shader and you manipulate the vertex data with a vertex shader. you can also pass a variety of different variables into the shader, like maps of additional textures (for example in one of the stages there is a map and u pass a texture for the grass and a texture for the heightmap) or float values (theres one dumb shader i made thats an alpha test that throws out pixels with alpha < input float)

[SquareWheel]

Huh cool.  I was wondering if it was bitmap or vertex data you were manipulating.  I guess both.

Shaders are usually written to be pretty game agnostic, aren't they?  So I imagine reading game-specific values would reduce portability in that respect.

[hubol]

the only game specific values would be like, texture and transformation related. if you have different ways of sending that data from the game to the shader between platforms then that would be awful. maybe youre talking about that maybe the shaders would have to be rewritten due to potential gpu incompatibility. idk how unity shaders work but i would imagine/hope theyre basically the same concept as glsl and that theyre cross platform

[cati]

(im very skeptical about the n64 shader)

maybe this is a joke but i dont think shaders are a big deal.... all they have to do is create a shader that emulates that effect right? unless there are additional gamplay implications i dont really see how thats really much of a stretch goal to begin with..

its not so much the amount of work making a shader is, more the fact that now it's something theyve attached a funding amount to, and it's not just a fun surprise when you check the options menu, people are probably going to have higher expectations from it.

that, and im having a hard time thinking of what a shader could do to make something look like an n64 game. i guess blurring the textures and adding fog, but i dont know how well the effect'd work on high poly models.

[hubol]

yeha thats why it didnt sound like much of a stretch goal to me? weird