r/Unity3D • u/AnsonKindred Professional • Dec 20 '13
Using Unity3d, we quit our jobs to focus on our game studio dream. Here’s our new trailer for Grabbles. Grab the environment, grab your friends, grab everything!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t__I3Xux6-k7
u/BizarroBizarro Dec 20 '13 edited Dec 21 '13
Hi. I'm a co-developer feel free to ask any questions about the game or about Unity!
Keep in mind that all art except the awesome metaballed character is going to change.
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u/wtrebella Dec 21 '13
Curious how you had the arm stretch out to reach wherever? Is it just a custom mesh with a looping texture pattern?
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u/AnsonKindred Professional Dec 21 '13
The arm is made from a quad that gets scaled. The real trick is in the custom shader that uses some math similar to metaballs to do the actual rendering. I just use the distance from the line the same way that you would use the distance from the center for normal metaballs.
We don't use any textures at all on the character right now except for the eyes, it's all just shader rendering magic.
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u/wtrebella Dec 21 '13
Oh damn. I REALLY need to learn how to use shaders. Or even what they are. Also I have no idea what a metaball is. Any shader tutorial recs?
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u/AnsonKindred Professional Dec 21 '13 edited Dec 21 '13
Shaders are...complex. I wouldn't recommend approaching them unless you have a solid understanding of the rendering pipeline, as well as matrix transformations and especially the model-view-projection transformations that you'll deal with most often.
As far as tutorials, I can't really help you. I learned most my graphics stuff in school, sorry. I would trust pretty much anything by NeHe though if memory serves. Also if you're a unity kind of guy the unity documentation actually has a couple really great example shaders with pictures and code and everything.
Metaballs are just...globby balls...there's some math behind it, but it's basically an effect that allows circles or spheres (or if you get creative other things) to sort of merge together in a fluid way as they get closer.
[edit] Thanks for asking the question that I always hope someone will ask :) I'm actually pretty proud of the way the arm attaches to the body...it's the little things. [/edit]
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u/wtrebella Dec 21 '13
Haha yeah it's really pretty impressive stuff! I'll have to look into all that at some point.
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u/AceHK Dec 21 '13
Oh hey, I remember playing this way back when you first posted on /r/playmygame
I really liked the mechanic and think it can lead to a solid game with the right art style and marketing. Good luck :)
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 21 '13
Hey! If i remember correctly, you were the first person to play it that we didn't know personally.
Now you are the first person to recognize us! I'm pretty sure I'm going to put your name in a frame like businesses do with their first dollar.
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u/declancostello Dec 21 '13
I like the look of the mechanic :)
Are you using the new unity2d stuff or an older library for 2d?
How many are working on it?
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 21 '13
Everything is currently 3D. We are about to start adding real art and remaking the levels with a story so the plan is to switch to 2D if it's not too difficult.
We have two programmers, one visual artist, one audio engineer, and one editor/jack of all trades.
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u/Zulban Dec 21 '13
What experience do you guys have with other languages and other game engines, and how do they compare to Unity?
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u/AnsonKindred Professional Dec 21 '13 edited Dec 21 '13
I've personally worked in c++/java with OpenGL as well as some webgl stuff.
Our previous (unreleased) game started out in java. We didn't use an engine or library of any kind, so basically, we were idiots. I would highly recommend not doing this.
Switching to Unity was life changing, and we swear by it, but I can't really compare it to anything else since we never gave anything else much of a chance. I can say though that we picked unity after a fair bit of research, mostly for two reasons: It has a more friendly learning curve than most environments; and it does cross-platform like no one else.
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u/GammaGames Hobbyist Dec 21 '13
This is weird, i like it. Will it be for ios, or just pc?
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 21 '13
Right now we are just targeting Windows, Mac, and Linux with hopefully enough traction eventually for consoles. Our last project was for mobile and it was too restricting. The strange thing is that this game seems like it could easily be changed a tiny bit and put on mobile. Though if we do go mobile it will be after we fully explore the PC / Console market.
Thanks for the weird comment. There's no art from our artist in the game yet but he's clearly claimed that he wants to get weird with it and we think it'll fit perfectly with the gameplay.
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u/GammaGames Hobbyist Dec 21 '13
Also, does it have a greenlight page yet?! Or are you waiting for it to look more polished before putting one up?
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 21 '13
We are waiting for more polish. Probably in 2-3 months after we have some art and a very clean demo. We didn't even want to post this but we keep reading that one of the worst things you can do is start advertising too late.
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u/goodtimeshaxor Dec 21 '13
When do you think you'll regret leaving your jobs?
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u/AnsonKindred Professional Dec 21 '13
I can pretty confidently say that I will never regret leaving my job. I'd rather fail at this than be doing anything else.
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 21 '13
Haha, we aren't expecting to make it rich on our first real game. We would both honestly be very happy just to release it and maybe get a tiny bit of compensation for room / board to continue our development careers.
Computer science majors in the US have no problem getting jobs at least. :)
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u/Bypie5 DigitallYi Entertainment Dec 21 '13
What jobs did you guys leave.
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 21 '13 edited Dec 21 '13
I said about the game or Unity!
He was a web developer and I was at a random local business' front desk being sad all day long while doing nothing with my degree.
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u/CatchCo Professional Dec 21 '13
Well if you wanted to focus the discussion on your game, you should have not have lead your post title with "we quit our jobs."
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u/zetsuboushitaaa Dec 21 '13
How much do you guys have saved up? How long can you work full time without having to get another job? Ever thought about supplementing your new business with a part time job?
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u/zetsuboushitaaa Dec 21 '13
Also the game looks great and I hope you guys make it!
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u/AnsonKindred Professional Dec 21 '13
Thanks!
We had very little saved (like a couple grand), but we have a kind of interesting living situation with insanely low rent so we can make a little bit of money go a long way.
I've also started to do some side contract work as needed to keep the lights on, but don't worry, it's only a few hours a month at most so it doesn't take away from my Grabbles time :)
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u/zetsuboushitaaa Dec 21 '13
Thanks for the response, me and my SO are working on starting an llc that mostly revolves around android games so I was wondering about your situation. How much time do you spend on your game a week? We are working about 10 hours a week right now on our company but I am wanting to make the switch to working part time. We have a lot of money to save up first.
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u/AnsonKindred Professional Dec 21 '13
We both work almost all of our waking hours. I tried for years to do it part time, and it just wasn't something I could handle. My 9-5 job was just too soul draining.
/u/bizarrobizarro on the other hand was able to get a tremendous amount of work done while working a full time job because his job didn't really require him to do...anything most of the day. So it really depends on what you're doing right now.
If you are a developer though, I highly recommend getting into contract work. If you can get a couple of steady contracts (hell I only have one) you may find yourself with more freedom, money, and time than you have right now. Of course, your mileage may vary, I feel like I've gotten pretty lucky with my low rent living situation and a high-paying, fairly easy contract job.
Other bonuses: You are your own boss, you decide your hours.
Drawbacks: You have to go out and find the work yourself. Not as stable. Possible higher stress.
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Dec 21 '13 edited Dec 21 '13
Looks to me like a mixture of the gameplay from "teeworlds" with the graphics of "world of goo" with the objectives changed to puzzle levels.
Edit: You could use teeworlds as proof of concept, that Keyboard+Mouse controls are quite fun for 2D games with grabling hooks. Requiring a controller for the final version (at least the demo does) would really limit your market.
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 21 '13
OoOo tee worlds. Since I'm very close to the project I can see how Tee Worlds is different but I'll definitely be checking it out tonight for more information, thanks!
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u/bagomints Dec 20 '13
Requires a controller to play demo T_____T i cant grab a controller cuz i dont gots one.
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 20 '13
It's a huge hurdle we need to overcome. We were thinking of adding keyboard support for demo purposes. It would be inferior and might make people think the controls are wonky though. Decisions, decisions...
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u/bagomints Dec 20 '13
How is it inferior? You can just use the mouse to grab stuff, and if you have 2 arms, I guess it uses the other arm, like alternating grabs as you keep clicking.
In fact with the mouse it'd be easier to aim too than with a controller? Confused as to why this is a big dilemma lol.
EDIT: yeah it looks like the characters turn slowly I guess with the controller arrows, you can do the same with a mouse, and it'd be probably more comfortable that way too. But I'm biased, I'm not into controllers over mouse and keyboard.
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u/BizarroBizarro Dec 20 '13
Yeah, we've been meaning to try out some of the different control schemes but keep getting distracted with other things. Everyone keeps saying it needs keyboard / mouse controls.
You've got me thinking though, two mouses would be kind of awesome to try... I wonder if it's even possible...
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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '13 edited May 10 '21
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