Sarah Hart @devharts@qoto.org

@trinsec Thanks!! I've found it pretty intuitive to work with, although I don't really have a frame of reference for how it compares to other game engines like Unity / Unreal / etc. -- The only other game development I've done was with SpriteKit (and between those two, I would say Godot is easier)

@gatooscuro@mastodon.la Thanks!! 😀

@freemo Aw thanks, I really appreciate it!! I feel like I'm in good company on here, even though I haven't gotten a chance to post that much so far haha

Random #GameDev update -- Here are a couple of things I've been playing around with in Godot Engine lately!! Creating a custom UI theme, and a mini HP meter using the GDScript "exports" feature, both intended for use in an RPG of sorts :)

@Sphinx No sorry, it's not a Dell - the black laptop is actually from a company called System 76 that manufactures nice Linux laptops! The specific model is called the "Lemur Pro": https://system76.com/laptops/lemur

So I've been breaking in my new Linux-powered laptop these past few days! Super happy with this sleek little machine so far -- here are some first impressions (also posted on Twitter in a more character limited way):

- As far as having everything "just work" right out of the box (my main motivation for going with System76 + Pop!_OS coming from a Mac background): so far so good! The biggest inconvenience I've run into so far was needing to install ffmpeg in order to get gifs to play on Twitter.

- Learning curve wise: the keyboard threw me off a bit -- I've been so accustomed to the position of the "command" key for hotkey purposes on the Mac that the "ctrl" key felt like it was in the wrong place. (I spent a few days seeing if I could get used to this, but ended up giving up and just remapped the "alt" key instead.)

- And finally, the biggest surprise: I hadn't looked at the measurements closely and just sort of imagined that the Lemur Pro with a 14" screen would be slightly larger than my old 2012 MacBook with a 13" screen, but it turns out it's actually smaller (in addition to being much thinner and lighter):

@2ck @bonifartius @Lwasserman Thanks for the replies! Really interesting how Debian and Lenovo seem to be a common theme here :)

@finity Nice, my current one is actually a 2012 MacBook too - these things hold up pretty well don't they? But yeah I'll plan to post some updates about how things go with the new System76 once it arrives and I get a feel for it :)

@joey_zozo Aww thanks for checking out my website full of my silly projects and progress updates!! It's been a fun time haha.

The moon cow planet sounds like an interesting premise for a game world (and like it could be potentially attention-grabbing from the title alone if that's worked into it). And the concept of active play sessions vs. in-between menu browsing is actually something I've thought about while playing Pokemon Go of all things -- specifically the possibility of having a better distinction between play modes. For instance, if I already spent some time in the active "walking around in the world catching Pokemon" phase, but now I'm sitting on the subway and just want to browse my newly-caught Pokemon and send the duds to be ground up into candies or whatever -- but the game is still centered around my avatar walking around on a real-world map and nagging me with warnings about how I don't have a GPS signal, so I would tend to engage with it less. So I could see something like that but cross-platform helping to increase engagement in an RPG with a strong management component.

When it comes to Stardew Valley and the general gameplay loop, it is somewhat of a cycle as far as the seasons go, with a sort of progressive building up of resources -- so for instance you might work hard and do a bunch of mining the first year, and then use some of those resources to build better sprinklers to water your crops more efficiently the next year. From what I've seen the multi-player features don't seem to have a competitive aspect (and instead are geared more toward multiple people working together to build up the same farm) though I could see that as an interesting twist on it.

As far as monetization strategies go, I think I would have some misgivings about subscription model on mobile in particular... Maybe part of that is just my own perspective, where I need to be really into a game before I'll consider doing a monthly subscription (I think there's actually only one game I've ever done it for) and it seems like it would be hard to get to that point without some kind of free tier... Although I suppose some sort of "first month free, cancel anytime" type of setup might be an option to get around that.

I don't know though, competing in the mobile game market is really hard, and figuring out how to make money without a mess of gameplay-wrecking microtransactions is even harder (and certainly not something I can claim to have figured out with any level of success yet, haha.)

Anyway it's been really fun exchanging ideas on this stuff -- I'll be cheering you on and looking forward to seeing more updates on your project, and will definitely plan to start posting some gifs and stuff on here once my current project starts to take shape a little more :D

So after 10+ years of happily being a Mac user, I decided to make the switch to Linux for my next laptop, and went ahead and ordered the Lemur Pro from System76 based on some research and recommendations (which I'm now eagerly awaiting the arrival of). In the meantime I'm curious what others here on QOTO use, and if you have any strong opinions?

@joey_zozo Interesting, I really like the idea of a single-player RPG where you can occasionally spin off multi-player quests, especially in the context of some kind of larger progression system or meta game. I'm actually curious if there are any existing games out there doing something similar or that you consider an inspiration? It seems pretty unique to me, though I may be out of the loop.

As far as my own game design philosophies... I've been focusing on mobile so far in my little #GameDev journey, and was motivated to try making my own game largely by disappointment in a lot of existing mobile games. Mostly due to the monetization tactics -- microtransactions, and "gameplay" that seems to be designed purely to try to manipulate you into spending potentially unlimited amounts of money on them. I envisioned "free to play" mobile games as functioning more like a free demo, where you could try it out and then optionally choose to pay some finite and knowable amount of money to get the full experience if you want... Which may be less profitable, but I felt like it would be a much less terrible experience for the player, and felt inspired to try making the kind of games I would enjoy playing myself.

Another thing I think about a lot for mobile is play session length... I think I read that the average play session is something like 7 minutes for mobile games, which seems pretty consistent with my experience -- there have been some good fun games I've played on mobile, but I would notice that if it takes a 15+ minute commitment in a single session or else lose progress, I would tend to not even start up playing them in the first place. (Though admittedly, this was probably more of an issue before all the quarantine lockdown stuff started, when I was mostly playing mobile games during my train commute and it was important to be able to pick it up and play a little bit on the fly.)

So taking all that into account, mechanics wise, I wanted to combine the short-term idle nature of typical mobile games (tapping on colorful things in puzzley and satisfying ways) with the longer term goals and progression systems of a more traditional RPG (so all that fun tappy gameplay wasn't pointless, it's a way of working / grinding toward something bigger). And even if the minimum play session length was intentionally kept super short, it would also be possible to string together as many of those as you want, with no artificial limits like "energy" or whatever that a lot of mobile games seem to do.

So far, I've experimented with prototyping an RPG with a sort of "match 3" based battle system, and more recently have been working on an idea where the gameplay / battle system would be kinda vaguely inspired by Tetris, though that's still in the super early stages.

Anyway I think that about sums up my general ideas / philosophies on all this, which got pretty long (although, this is making me really appreciate the higher character limit on here -- I keep thinking what an awkward mess of multi-tweet threads it would take to have this kind of exchange on Twitter haha)

@7pawn Neat, I'll be looking forward to seeing more about it :)

@7pawn Thanks!! :D What kind of game prototype are you working on out of curiosity?

@joey_zozo Thanks! When it comes to RPG's I really enjoyed the PS1 Final Fantasy games back in the day, and more recently the Final Fantasy VII remake (I'm about halfway through that now). Stardew Valley is actually my #1 most played game on Steam based on hours haha, and I think you're definitely right about it being more mechanics driven (or at least that's how I've tended to play it - focusing more on building up the farm than the narrative aspects like befriending the villagers / courting someone to get married / etc.)

I think you might be onto something when it comes to mechanics vs. story though -- I remember reading an article about how in recent times, it's a safer bet for developers to make games that are more like open ended "situation generators" rather than consumable games that you play through and complete. (Related to how games spread in popularity by word of mouth and streamers and YouTubers I think, vs. news coverage or other more traditional marketing strategies of the past.)

What kind of mechanics would you be most interested in creating for an RPG? (of either the single-player or MMO variety)

@Sphinx Thanks!! :)

@joey_zozo @lmedinar Hi there! Really happy to come across other hobbyist game developers on here so soon after joining :D Lately I've been playing around with some tile map related stuff in Godot Engine -- I'm also a fan of fantasy and would like to work my way up to making a full RPG someday, though so far have been working on smaller / simpler games for mobile and occasionally participating in game jams.

@design_RG Thanks for the warm welcome! Yep I'm super new to Mastodon, to the point where beginners guides are still helpful and informative haha. Thanks for sharing these :)

Hello world! Posting my first... toot? on this new account -- I'd heard about Mastodon in passing quite a while ago, but only recently decided to look at it in more detail, and am really liking it so far -- the idea of a decentralized social network built on open source software is super intriguing to me. Looking forward to browsing on here more, and probably posting about game development and programming related things :)