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  • How to create a legally valid timestamp of unpublished game artwork

    - by mm24
    Before publishing promotional material of my first indie game I wanted to mark all my artwork with a legally valid timestamp. There are two ways I know to do this: 1 go to a sollecitor/lawyer and pay for them to certify the document 2 use an online webservice to mark any given file/folder readable to the service Anyone has already done this and if yes how (e.g. which website have you used? which type of solecitor have you contacted? etc..)? Kind Regards PS: I know that there is always the good old "send yourself a mail with a stamp and a date" but is not very strong as proof.

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  • Kickstarter "last minute cold feet"

    - by mm24
    today I scheduled the publication of a video on kickstarter requesting approximately 5.000 $ in order to complete the iPhone shooter game I started 1 year ago after quitting my job. I invested more than 20.000$ in the game so far (for artwork, music, legal and accountant expenses) and I am now getting cold feet about my decision of publishing the video. The game is "nearly finished", in other words: the game mechanics are working but I still have some bugs to fix. Once I will have finished this (I hope will take me 1 or 2 weeks) I plan to start working on the actual level balancing (e.g. deciding the order of appearence of enemies for each level and balancing the number of hitpoints and strenght of bullets that the enemies have). Reasons for not publishing the video are: fear that the concept can be copied easily: the game is a shooter game set in a different environment (its a pretty cool one, believe me :)) and I am worried that someone might copy* the idea (I know, its the usual "I am worried story.."). A shooter game is one of the easiest game to implement and hence there will be hundreds game developer able to copy it by just adapting their existing code and changing graphics (not as straightforward). It took me one year to develop this because I was inexperienced plus there are approximately 6/7 months of work from the illustrator and there are 8 unique music tracks composed. The soundtrack of the video is the soundtrack of the game wich is not yet published and has not been deposited to a music society. I did create legally valid timestamps for the tracks and I am considering uploading the album on iTunes before publishing the video so I can have a certain publication date. But overall I am a bit scared and worried because I have never done this before and even the simple act of publishing an album requires me to read a long contract from the "aggregator company") which, even if I do have contracts with the musicians do worry me as I am not a U.S. resident and I am not familiar with the U.S. law system Reasons for publishing the video are: I almost run out of money (but this is not a real reason as I should have enough for one more month of development time) ...I kind of need extra money as, even if I do have money for 1 month of development I do not have money for marketing and for other expenses (e.g. accountant) It will create a fan base I could get some useful feedback from a wider range of beta testers It might create some pre-release buzz in case some blogger or game magazine likes the concept Anyone has had similar experiences? Is there a real risk that someone will copy the concept and implement it in a couple of months? Will the Kickstarter campaing be a good pre-release exposure for the gmae? Any refrences of similar projects/situations? Is it realistic that someone like ROVIO will copy the idea straight away?

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  • What is a legal way to use music from registered authors in a game?

    - by mm24
    I have recently asked a question about music in games like Guitar Hero. I have found that that in Europe (at least) if I do want to use a track composed by a musician member of a royalty collecting society I need to pay a flat fee to the society and not only to the member. So a "one-to-one" agreement is not valid and the society can come up to me and ask me for money for each download. Even if for FREE! This is a fee sheet list of the UK agency: for fee, see "Permanent download services" It is about 1,200 GBP for less than 22,000 copies and they DON'T specify anything more and they said me on the phone that I need to wait and see how many downloads I get before knowing the price. This is kind of crazy as If I give away the App for free I will have to PAY 1,200 GBP!! I am shocked and I feel very bad. One agency suggested me to use a fake name of the artist, but in this way is not fair to my collaborators as what they hope is that the App gets lots of downloads and in this way that other people will get to know about them and hopefully commission them more work. The other solution is to work only with non registered musicians. The question here to you is: Has anyone found a legal way to use music from registered authors in a game?

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  • 2D animations frames vs 3D animation for small indie project: timing considerations

    - by mm24
    pretty lame question but was wondering.. I am developing a 2D game using Cocos2D for iOS. The art work till now is all 2D (is a shooter game) but some of the characters would benefit of complex animations (eg. 20 frames). I feel a bit stupid because I came across only now that there is the chance to do 3D to 2D frames exporting and then to use them in Cocos2D. The thing that put me off on 3D gaming at first was that it takes more than one person in a team to do so properly (Illustrator, 3D modeller, 3D animator and programmer). Now I feel a bit stupid because having a 3D model I could do and modify the poses whenever I wanted (I should ask to the 3D animator which I guess would be time expensive). Instead now is me and two illustrators (as I require many frames per character). Is my impression that it would have been much longer right or not? Are there any other project management considerations that can be done on this? Sorry if for some this might be trivial but is my first "indie game developer experience".

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  • Smarphone Apps. music, licenses and fees .. nightmare

    - by mm24
    I have recently asked a question about music in games like Guitar Hero. I have found that that in Europe (at least) if I do want to use a track composed by a musician member of a royalty collecting society I need to pay a flat fee to the society and not only to the member. So a "one-to-one" agreement is not valid and the society can come up to me and ask me for money for each download. Even if for FREE! This is a fee sheet list of the UK agency: for fee, see "Permanent download services" It is about 1,200 GBP for less than 22,000 copies and they DON'T specify anything more and they said me on the phone that I need to wait and see how many downloads I get before knowing the price. This is kind of crazy as If I give away the App for free I will have to PAY 1,200 GBP!! I am shocked and I feel very bad. One agency suggested me to use a fake name of the artist, but in this way is not fair to my collaborators as what they hope is that the App gets lots of downloads and in this way that other people will get to know about them and hopefully commission them more work. The other solution is to work only with non registered musicians. The question here to you is.. has anyone found a legal way to do use music from registered authors in a game?

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  • Algorithm for optimal control on space ship using accelerometer input data

    - by mm24
    Does someone have a good algorithm for controlling a space ship in a vertical shooter game using acceleration data? I have done a simple algorithm, but works very badly. I save an initial acceleration value (used to calibrate the movement according to the user's initial position) and I do subtract it from the current acceleration so I get a "calibrated" value. The problem is that basing the movement solely on relative acceleration has an effect of loss of sensitivity: certain movements are independent from the initial position. Would anyone be able to share a a better solution? I am wondering if I should use/integrate also inputs from gyroscope hardware. Here is my sample of code for a Cocos2d iOS game: - (void) accelerometer:(UIAccelerometer *)accelerometer didAccelerate:(UIAcceleration *)acceleration { if (calibrationLayer.visible){ [self evaluateCalibration:acceleration]; initialAccelleration=acceleration; return; } if([self evaluatePause]){ return; } ShooterScene * shooterScene = (ShooterScene *) [self parent]; ShipEntity *playerSprite = [shooterScene playerShip]; float accellerationtSensitivity = 0.5f; UIAccelerationValue xAccelleration = acceleration.x - initialAccelleration.x; UIAccelerationValue yAccelleration = acceleration.y - initialAccelleration.y; if(xAccelleration > 0.05 || xAccelleration < -0.05) { [playerSprite setPosition:CGPointMake(playerSprite.position.x + xAccelleration * 80, playerSprite.position.y + yAccelleration * 80)]; } else if(yAccelleration > 0.05 || yAccelleration < -0.05) { [playerSprite setPosition:CGPointMake(playerSprite.position.x + xAccelleration * 80, playerSprite.position.y + yAccelleration * 80)]; } }

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  • Cocos2d: Moving background on update: offsett issue

    - by mm24
    working with Objective C, iOS and Cocos2d I am developing a vertical scrolling shooter game for iPhone (retina display models with 640 width x 960 height pixel resolution). My basic algorithm works as following: I create two instances of an image that has exactly 640 width x 960 height pixel of resolution, which we will call imageA and imageB I then set the two imags with exactly 480.0f of offset from each other, as the screenSize of a CCScene is set by default to 480.0f. At each update method call I move the two images by the same value. I make sure that their offsett stays to 480.0f However when running the game I see a 1 pixel height line between the two images. This literally bugs me and would like to adjust this. What am I doing wrong? This is a zoom in on the background when the "offsett line" is visible. The white line you can see divides the two background images and is not meant to exist as both images are completely black :): If I change the yPositionOfSecondElement value to 479.0f until the first loop the two images overlap correctly, but as soon as the loop starts the two images starts having an offsett of -1.0f. Here is the initialization code: -(void) init { //... screenHeight = 480.0f; yPositionOfSecondElement= screenHeight;//I tried subtracting an offsett of -1 but eventually the image would go wrong again yPositionOfFirstElement = 0.0f; loopedBackgroundImageInstanceA = [BackgroundLoopedImage loopImageForLevel:levelName]; loopedBackgroundImageInstanceA.anchorPoint = CGPointMake(0.5f, 0.0f); loopedBackgroundImageInstanceA.position = CGPointMake(160.0f, yPositionOfFirstElement); [node addChild:loopedBackgroundImageInstanceA z:zLevelBackground]; //loopedBackgroundImageInstanceA.color= ccRED; loopedBackgroundImageInstanceB = [BackgroundLoopedImage loopImageForLevel:levelName]; loopedBackgroundImageInstanceB.anchorPoint = CGPointMake(0.5f, 0.0f); loopedBackgroundImageInstanceB.position = CGPointMake(160.0f, yPositionOfSecondElement); [node addChild:loopedBackgroundImageInstanceB z:zLevelBackground]; //.... } And here is the move code called at each update: -(void) moveBackgroundSprites:(BackgroundLoopedImage*)imageA :(BackgroundLoopedImage*)imageB :(ccTime)delta { isEligibleToMove=false; //This is done to avoid rounding errors float yStep = delta * [GameController sharedGameController].currentBackgroundSpeed; NSString* formattedNumber = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%.02f", yStep]; yStep = atof([formattedNumber UTF8String]); //First should adjust position of images [self adjustPosition:imageA :imageB]; //The can get the actual image position CGPoint posA = imageA.position; CGPoint posB = imageB.position; //Here could verify if the checksum is equal to the required difference (should be 479.0f) if (![self verifyCheckSum:posA :posB]) { CCLOG(@"does not comply A"); } //At this stage can compute the hypotetical new position CGPoint newPosA = CGPointMake(posA.x, posA.y - yStep); CGPoint newPosB = CGPointMake(posB.x, posB.y - yStep); // Reposition stripes when they're out of bounds if (newPosA.y <= -yPositionOfSecondElement) { newPosA.y = yPositionOfSecondElement; [imageA shuffle]; if (timeElapsed>=endTime && hasReachedEndLevel==FALSE) { hasReachedEndLevel=TRUE; shouldMoveImageEnd=TRUE; } } else if (newPosB.y <= -yPositionOfSecondElement) { newPosB.y = yPositionOfSecondElement; [imageB shuffle]; if (timeElapsed>=endTime && hasReachedEndLevel==FALSE) { hasReachedEndLevel=TRUE; shouldMoveImageEnd=TRUE; } } //Here should verify that the check sum is equal to 479.0f if (![self verifyCheckSum:posA :posB]) { CCLOG(@"does not comply B"); } imageA.position = newPosA; imageB.position = newPosB; //Here could verify that the check sum is equal to 479.0f if (![self verifyCheckSum:posA :posB]) { CCLOG(@"does not comply C"); } isEligibleToMove=true; } -(BOOL) verifyCheckSum:(CGPoint)posA :(CGPoint)posB { BOOL comply = false; float sum = 0.0f; if (posA.y > posB.y) { sum = posA.y - posB.y; } else if (posB.y > posA.y){ sum = posB.y - posA.y; } else{ return false; } if (sum!=yPositionOfSecondElement) { comply= false; } else{ comply=true; } return comply; } And here is what happens on the update: if(shouldMoveImageA && shouldMoveImageB) { if (isEligibleToMove) { [self moveBackgroundSprites:loopedBackgroundImageInstanceA :loopedBackgroundImageInstanceB :delta]; } Forget about shouldMoveImageA and shouldMoveImageB, this is just for when the background reaches the end of level, this works.

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  • Guitar hero clone and music

    - by mm24
    I am an indie game developer and I am doing a game similar to guitar hero. I am using tracks composed by musicians and I contacted them to sing a licensing contract. As is my first indie project I have no idea on how I should deal with the royalties aspect of this because each track as an ISRC code and each time a track is played in public there is a fee to pay to the "local" registration authority. An iPhone game it is downloaded and not played on air (or physically distributed), and hence I think there is a specific legislation for this that specifies how much one should pay. I own some of the tracks composed and for this I think I won't have to pay a royalty (even if the track has an ISRC code) but for other tracks I just have a license "to use". I wonder how a game like Guitar hero can sell on iPhone for as little as 0,99$ and then have "in app purchases" for packs of 3 songs (for about 2 dollars) and make a profit (I imagine they will have to pay a ISRC royalty). Does anyone of you have any idea of this can work or if there is a section in this forum where I can ask this question? I understand is not about coding but I think is about development of a game in the broader sense.

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  • SDL 2.0: is there a library to create 2D particle effects rapidly?

    - by mm24
    I would like to create an light/explosion particle effect using some in built library. I am used to Cocos2D where there are specific classes that you can simply initialize in a certain position and producing a certain particle effect. Is there a way to do so in SDL 2.0 C++? I have found this tutorial but it seems to go for a "build it yoursefl" solution, which is ok but I do not want to re-invent the wheel if someone else has already built it.

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  • Cocos2d v2.0 and OpenGL 2.0/1.0: where to start

    - by mm24
    I started developing my very first game 3 months ago using Cocos2d 2.0 for iPhone. I am now in the stage where I'd like to add some cool effects to the bullets and some special weapons (see my waveforms question here). I got a good answer in the cocos2d-iphone forum (see this one). Unfortunately I am a bit paralized now. I don't know if I will be overdoing by learning OpengGL 2.0 or if I should just stick ot the old 1.0. There is a good intro on various tutorial's written in Steffen Itterheims blog (see this post). I would like to add to my game: a blur effect to the bullets (here is a tutorial for OpenGL 1.0) a waveform (see above) some realistic water ripples (here is a nice sample code) So now, given that I don't want to overdo things but at the same time I want to achieve those effects, from where should I start? Should I discard the OpenGL 1.0 tutorials? OR should I use only OpenGL 1.0 code? How can I avoid confusion? I mean, it seems that the compiler recognizes both, but that there are some conflictual calls in some circumnstances, I am fairly sure this has some explanation, is there some reference to this somewhere?

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  • Kickstarter and 2D smartphone games

    - by mm24
    I am about to launch a Kickstarter project as, after 14 months of full time development on my first iOS game, I run out of money. I developed an iOS game that needs few more months to be ready (the game structure is there but haven't yet worked on balancing the difficulty of the various levels). I have a feeling that most of the computer games founded on Kickstarter are for console, PC or Mac and not for smartphones. The category that many people seem to like is RPG style games. I have done tons of work over a year and collaborated with musicians and illustrators to get top quality graphics and music. The game looks cool to be an iOS 2D game but, compared to what I've seen on Kickstarter, I feel so little and humbled. I have searched for smartphone game projects on Kickstarter but haven't found many. I believe that the reason is that people are not keen in backing an APP that is normally sold for 0.99$ as they perceive is not something big. Am I the only one having this feeling? Could anyone please share a list of references to some successfully backed kickstarter smartphone game projects? (In this way the question will not become a "chat" and will fulfill the requirements to be a gamedev question). Any other article or authoritative answer will be welcome.

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  • Cocos2d: is it good practice to use a shared GameScene when having various levels?

    - by mm24
    In my code (based on the ShootEmUp example in this book, which I highly reccomend, source code in chapter 8 available here) I often use the trick of accessing the GameScene via: +(GameScene*) sharedGameScene; which returns a reference to the static instance of GameScene. Is a static instance of GameScene as in the book still a valid pattern in case I want a MainMenu calling GameScene initialized with different level data each time (e.g. different enemies)? (I have created a sceneWithId:(int) method where I load different level data each time. Or should I pheraps create a GameScene class and then sublcass it? E.g. FirstGameScene : GameScene

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