Since nobody answered yet, let me give you some general response.

The game industry is full of good ideas. When you ask the question, what makes a good game, the answer should be, that it is one, where its core idea is executed well. Notice that there is no judgement of the core idea. Even a bad idea can be turned into a good game. Maybe you know some memes about how silly some sound on paper.

So when you came with an idea to game developers, they might label you as an idea guy and ignore you, since the hard part of game development are all the details and most dont think things through. (Not speaking about the big amount of work and roles you have to fill) In your case, i have the feeling, that you did quite some planning, so the label seems not to fit. You also seem to be aware, that that what you want, is nothing of a small scope game. However, it is still unclear what you actually want,

Are you looking for someone to refine your idea? Than it would be better, to ask a single specific question than in general. As the game devs are probably working on their own project, they will not  intend to join someone unknown or unheard of. However if it is a specific question about a topic they excel, they probably dont mind to share their opinion.

Are you looking for experience in the industry? Joining someone elses project could work, but what do you bring to the table? There is a whole section "Help Wanted or Offered" you can try there your luck. But i can also recommend to do a small scope project yourself. Pick a single narrow part of your game and create a prototype. Let people test it and you will already learn so much. Also reading game reviews of games that fits your aim or simply talk with players of such games, what they like or dislike, so you know what to focus and have an eye on. Search for game dev channels, quite some dev use their channel to promote their game, so you can learn from them directly. Some other are not devs themself but have a good understanding of what works and not. So there is plenty of information to absorb.

If you really new to game development, you shouldnt start straight with an mmo, but feel free to aim for it as a later project. First thing is, that there is so much to learn, that even a small unrelated game will teach you so much, that will influence your game design. Second an MMO lives of their users, especially when you talk about consequences, but how do you plan to get these users in? You can look through this forum a bit and will see some complaining about visibility. The game market is quite saturated, check the releases per year on steam f.e. Even triple A games have problems to get enough players. So do you have a plan for it?

Speaking about things that challenge your idea. How do you deal with players that play 24/7 and players that only play one hour per week, if at all? Should the decision of the new / occasional player matter? Can one account block a whole route? How about the prevention of domination of a fraction? Some games introduce fractions and after some time one is dominating and everybody already know who will win. Also take a look at MOBAs, the lower ranks need different balancing than high ranks. Can you ensure that these 0.01% top players dont ruin the fun for everyone?

Do you plan to have every consequence implemented? If yes, how do you ensure that not to much ressources get wasted on an unchosen path? Are you aware, that this will make your game quite big and complex, because you have to maintain all possible paths which can result in exponential possibilities? Games like "Long live the queen" or "Slay the princess" require lots of writing and will be hard to keep the quality of the story up.

If the game is succesful, how do you plan to keep the servers running and stable? What about continuing the story? Will be there constant pressure to deliver new content or do you plan short repeating cycles? Speaking of short repeating cycle. I was first the opinion that your game will be way to big for one person to handle. However i remembered "Realm of the mad god", the original game was abandoned, but some retro guys revived it, not sure if it is still playable. Basically a top down 2d game, where you defeat some bosses and based on which bosses where defeated the endboss or some other event is triggered. i was more the casual player there but it has a lot of depth im unaware of. The cycle of the world was pretty short and you had multiple worlds running. This would sound more doable for a small team than a competitor to WoW.

Sorry if i got a bit off track there. All in all, start with a small game to gain some experience, if you have not yet. And dont shoot straight for multiplayer, start with a singleplayer. If you can build a community there, take the next step to multiplayer. Best of luck with your project.

(Feel free to answer in german, if that is easier for you, i can read both, but I will answer in english, so other can learn from it as well) 

You have not defined what kind of game. You know sudoku would probably the easiest as it is just text. But hey even card games are possible. I have a spider solitaire in the making. The  index.html (which has all graphics inside the html) is 175kb, the js file is 17KB , the css is 7KB and since i use a special font, the font file is 19KB. So with that i'm below even 1MB overall and i did not zip it yet. To be fair, its not complete yet, but the main game is finished, its just all the side stuff, like option menu. And as you can see with the small js size, adding the missing code will not expand it much. It will be even smaller at the end, because it is before minifying (which is where i stopped) . Although i skipped audio, which is like pictures a bottleneck.

The last question of yours is a whole other topic. I do it as a hobby, so no, i will not bother about money. Earning money in the gaming industry is very hard, independent which limitations you give yourself. If you deliver a great game, you can earn some, but the way to that is long. Not wanting to discourage you, but checkout some people what they say about the industry or even try yourself to get some attention for your games and you will understand.

Uhm, thats called a bug. And unless we have your code, we cant help you with that. So we can only give you hints, how to find the reason for it, called debugging. Add logs to your code and check where it goes wrong. If you really wrote the code to delete them, are you sure it really is executed? Happens to often, that you write a new feature and everything looks fine, but it does not work, because you forgot to do the first call. If this does not help, add a breakpoint and check your variables step by step. Maybe they dont get deleted, because you cleared the container to early and lost therefore the reference. Debugging can take some time.

Happy bug hunting!

I first thought, you wanted to offer your service as an artist, but rereading it a couple of times, it looks like anything works for you. You might want to clarify, what you want as a focus and add it to the title, as most will filter by that, like artist, developer, composer, ...

I would advise also to focus on one thing first and then expand it later. F.e. Artist will make a game where graphic is the most important part like a visual novel with only "primitive" logic behind. An programmer on the other side will make a game, which heavily relies on mechanics and uses only "primitive" sprites. Even when it is not artist, developer or composer, you will find a way to just to focus on that. If  level design is your  strength, try f.e. mario maker. After these 11 years i would expect, that you have some kind of feeling, what part of game development you enjoy the most and with time will be good in it. Because as you are probably aware, you have many hats as a one person team, so there are many different skills needed.

Another tip could be to focus on small projects. An MMO as a starter will fail.

And to promote yourself better, show us a bit, what you have done so far. Especially as artist the different styles are again a big filter.

I agree with Evolutionary, that you should check the popularity of your engine. It is only a question of time, that you will have to look something up and then its helpful, when it has already a big community with many questions already answered. I have the feeling, that Pico-8 is a bit hard for to find answers.

Most engines will have a coding option. So your assumpttion, that GameMaker is ui only, is not correct. You can add your own code to it. It is a bit tricky, what to recommend, as the ui will do the better job, when you are new to it, but if you want to get the last performance out of it, the code option is better, but then you have to be knowledgable enough, how to do so. So maybe configure the basics with the ui, like drawing the tileset, and do the logic of a tile via code.

If you plan to move to another platform, i would recommend to do it from the start. As migrating a grown project can be troublesome and you have to figure out again, how thinks work. If you do a fresh start, then moving is no issue.

Also a hour a day sounds not to much. I dont want to discourage you, but you should then focus on using templates instead of doing all by yourself. Im not sure, how deep you want to dive, but i would not recommend to do everything at the start by yourself. Use the ui where its simple, if it gets more complex, check for templates for free and only after that code your way to it. But of course, if the developing journey  is what you like to do, feel free to ignore this advice. Only if you want quick results, then this advice is helpful. You will soon enough learn, that game programming needs lots of time :P

I think arkanoid is a good beginner project, so go for it.

I was about to argue, that developers from other fields could also join a game project. But then i remembered, while it doesn't matter what software a artist uses, as the result can be used anywhere, it does matter on the developer side. One can not easily switch from C# to C++ (taking libraries aside).

Also good point, that Artist might prefer other sites.

Do you think it is easier to find an game artist or a developer? Feel free to differentiate paid and unpaid.

I surf lately more around itchs community and get the feeling, that there are mainly people searching for a artist. But im not sure if this impression is representative, as i also know that quite some artist are looking for work. So  maybe unpaid is harder and  paid easier?

For Developers (meaning programmer) i have not to much data. It might be that unpaid is easier, when it is for a hobby/side project, but probably harder when it is paid.

I agree with DarkBloodbane that the ceiling feels off. Main reason will be, that your ground fades and your ceiling not.

I would also say, the top is too bright. We are in a dark cave lighted by lava and yet i somehow feel blinded by the ceiling.

But i have to say, i like the non pattern like border of the ceiling. i can easily spot the pattern on the ground, though i dont really mind it there.

Also good is, that it is not a clear cut ground, the plants sticking out make it better.

The contrast between walking border and background is also high enough, i would say. Saw it as a recommendation to use contrast to tell player where they can walk.

What feels a bit off is the inner corners of the ground. if i take the vertical axes it is two tile before fading, but in the inner corner it is just one diagonal wise.

Your preview text makes it a bit hard to judge, but i think the background in the middle is a bit too monotone. I assume it is just one color with no details? Maybe add some small cracks and shades.

Found this video about Platformer Tiles. Think it has not all the tips i heard but nevertheless might be a good start for best practices

Good luck with your game

Since i was scrolling a bit through and you have no answer yet, let me leave some hints.

First, it might be wise to share more remarks on your issue. i see some google drive links there, but i will not check them out, out of security reasons. So describe your issue in more detail and somebody with actual knowledge might be able to help you.

I have no knowledge about RPG Maker or your add on. So i will give just some general advice.

In my experience the best you can do with performance issues is to benchmark them and double check what you were measuring. You mentioned that the performance gets better on smaller maps. Did you try something more, like f.e. there is only one tile. Did you disable all events and loading new elements to check the idle time? Are you familiar with certain techniques, like out of view means disabled for rendering. Did you load every tile again and again instead of resource sharing? Since i have no insight in your code, there are many places where things can go wrong. So with a benchmark you get a good idea where your issue is. As i mentioned double check what you were benchmarking, as it can happen, there is something else influencing your benchmark (in my case writing the logs to console during measuring was bad).

Also checkout tutorials how they do stuff, they might give you an idea how to do something different and with a new benchmark you can see if it helps you or not. I found f.e. 

So i can not solve the issue for you, but i can at least give you some general direction. Dont let yourself be discouraged by it. See it as a challenge, that you will beat with enough willpower. Have fun.

As the title says, i m looking for anyone who can provide me the structure of Laserix 2 levels. The best way would probably be via picture (can be low resolution, i just need the level structure).

I saw it years ago but never got it myself and want to recreate the game.

I found the creators page: http://degling.free.fr/LASERIX/indexUK.html (Take the screenshots there as what i'm looking for.)

but the files don't work for me and I am unable to extract the level structure from it.

Google searches for videos or pictures are also very frustrating, as the term is to general. I was able to find some internet archive pages, but they couldn't solve my issue as well.

I only found screenshots of level 01, 02, 13, 20, 25, 37 and 42. So if anybody has some more or maybe even the complete collection, i'm highly interested in it. (I'm no interested in Laserix 3 or 4 because as far as i understand, they have different levels, but feel free to mention, if you have them as well and if you can recommend them)

For the mods: Hope this category is right, feel free to move me. i am looking for players of that old game (2006) and wanted to reach a wide audience.

If your number look a bit odd, that is because you seem not to have the correct font installed.

1. search for "Rubik .ttf" and download the font file
   
   1. f.e. from https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Rubik
2. right click the file and click on install
   
   1. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-a-font-b7c5f17c-4426-4b53-967f-45...

Implemented and waiting for release

1. -

Mainversion.Subversion.Buildversion

• Mainversion changed some fundamental of the game, like framework
• Subversion extend current implementations on a small Level
• Buildversion is mainly for bug fixes and minor quality of live changes

last edit: 2024-10-12

Feature Requests in general are welcome.

i am a console player, so i might be not aware of certain standards for pc games. So feel free to point out obvious missing things.

Also i want to highlight, that there is no guarantee, that your request will be implemented. As you can see in the tech stack, i don't use a game engine, hence i have to program most things myself. So for some requests the overhead/cost might be to high for me. And again the disclaimer, that this is just a hobby for me. I will not have always time and implementations can take months before released.

1. Check the roadmap and other feature requests, if it is already covered somewhere else
   1. if that is the case, please use the voting function to give it more weight
      1. feel also free to add a comment there, with your further details or own reasoning
2. If there is no fitting thread, please open a new topic
   1. Please provide a clear description of what you want
   2. Please also provide the reason behind it
      1. for some requests it will be clear, but for some it might be not so obvious

Everyone hates Bugs, but there will be always some.

What a developer hates even more is, when somebody just says "it doesn't work"

So if you want me to fix your bug, please provide as much information as possible. In the best case a list, how you can reproduce the bug 100% of the time.

Sadly there are some bugs, which can not be reproduced all the time, then it is more important, that you give as much details as possible. As the game runs not alone on your computer, please make sure in such cases, that the cause are not resources or other programs.

I will try my best to fix bugs ASAP, but please keep in mind, that this is just a hobby for me and i have sometimes simply no time to touch the code. Thanks for your understanding and sorry for the inconvenience.

All the GPU logic uses OpenCL. Please check if your GPU supports it,  maybe a driver update is needed.

You can use the following to check your GPU:

1.  open https://developer.nvidia.com/opencl
   
2. download and execute OpenCL Device Query

You can also check the gpu directory in case, you can select the gpu but errors are thrown:

1. Click on Settings > Open save place
   
2. Navigate into the gpu folder
3. all files should have a size, else something went wrong during compiling

In case your game wont start, i will give you the list of the used libraries and the framework. Try to check with that information, if you have everything

• .NET Framework 4.8
  • should be automatically installed through the setup.exe in the zip
  • check if your system is compatible https://learn.microsoft.com/en-en/dotnet/framework/get-started/system-requiremen...
    
    • i only have win10 available currently, so other windows versions are untested
• Libraries
  • gdi32.dll
  • kernel32.dll
  • User32.dll
  • OpenCl.dll
  • all libraries should be under C:\Windows\System32 or C:\Windows\SysWOW64

How to create your own translation

1. Click on Settings > Open save place
2. Navigate into the translations folder
3. Copy the translation.eng.xml file to a place of your liking
4. Open translation.eng.xml in a editor of your choice
5. Replace the values with the ones you want to have
   1. the word Custom in "<name>Custom</name>" is the name that will be shown in the program
6. Rename the file to something unique, but keep the name pattern.
   1. the middle part is used by the program to determine the used setting, so make sure it stays unique with other designs

How to share your translation

This might change in the future, i have yet to collect experience, what the best way is on itch.io

Please stay in line with the ToS and Community Guidelines of itch.io! This is a page for 13+ year olds. I don't want to see here anything, which is not suited for a 13 year old!

1. Create a new Thread with a title, that tells others what to expect from your translation
2. Post the file content there (to my knowledge no file upload is possible here)

How to install a translation

1. Create a new file with the name pattern "translation.name.xml"
   1. the middle part is used by the program to determine the used setting, so make sure it stays unique with other designs
2. Open the file in a editor of your choice
3. Paste the posted content there and save it
4. Start the game, when it is not running yet
5. Click on Settings > Language> Add language file
   1. pick your file

How to create your own design

1. Go to Settings > Design > Edit Custom Design
2. Put your own values there
   1. Image values support transparency, the first 2 characters are for that
3. Click on Settings > Open save place
4. Navigate into the designs folder
5. (Optional) copy the design.custom.xml file to a place of your liking
6. Open design.custom.xml in a editor of your choice
7. Replace the word Custom in "<name>Custom</name>" with the name that should be shown in the program
8. (Optional) make use of the hidden features you see there, like your own characters that are shown on the field
   1. keep in mind, that there are limitations and changes may break the game
9. (Optional) Rename the file to something unique, but keep the name pattern.
   1. the middle part is used by the program to determine the used setting, so make sure it stays unique with other designs

How to share your design

This might change in the future, i have yet to collect experience, what the best way is on itch.io

1. Create a new Thread with a title, that tells others what to expect from your design
2. Post the file content there (to my knowledge no file upload is possible here)
3. Make sure to mention the used Fonts in case somebody has them not installed yet
4. (Optional) add a picture of the result of your design

How to install a design

1. Create a new file with the name pattern "design.name.xml"
   1. the middle part is used by the program to determine the used setting, so make sure it stays unique with other designs
2. Open the file in a editor of your choice
3. Paste the posted content there and save it
4. Start the game, when it is not running yet
5. Click on Settings > Design > Add Design file
   1. pick your file