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Show HN: Mazelit - My wife and I released our first game

517 points by janosd 2y ago

Hey folks, About a year ago my wife and I, both closing in on 40, quit our jobs at Red Hat to start a games company and learn game development. Many things happened along the road, and about a week ago we released our first (small) game on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2816120/Mazelit/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2816120/Mazelit/ The demo is free to play up to level 8 (the final game plays up to level 80) and we'd appreciate any feedback you have, whether it's for the store page or the game itself. We made the game in Godot 4.2 in roughly 3 months and I was working full time next to it. Since we ran into a bunch of roadblocks, we decided to also offer the entire source code up as a DLC in case someone wants to go look how we implemented the game, mod the game, or compile it for a different platform. The only thing we can't redistribute with the game code is the Steamworks SDK, which is available for download from Steam. (The game minus integration is fully runnable without the SDK, though.) Cheers and happy weekend!

abustamam 2y ago
I'll be honest, I have no intention of playing your game (I just don't really play PC games; if it were ported to console I'd probably play it), but I love supporting indie devs so I purchased it. It looks fun and innovative though!
hipjiveguy 2y ago
hey... wondering why you haven't posted this to the Godot reddit? I went looking for this again, and thought I read it there, but didn't find it until I went to steam and looked at my wishlist, then searched for it on the web :D https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/ https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/
nhggfu 2y ago
great work OP + mrs OP. good luck w/ the project.
juice_bus 2y ago
Did you end up using GDScript or C#?
- laserDinosaur 2y ago
  In the screenshot of the DLC it shows GDScript.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  We used GDScript, more than 5000 lines of it.
mysterydip 2y ago
As someone transitioning from traditional programming to Godot and running into a myriad of "I know what I need to do, just not how to do it", I appreciate adding the source as an option.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- teaearlgraycold 2y ago
  That’s something GPT4 is usually good at helping with
  - lkschubert8 2y ago
    It’s a little rough around the edges for godot 4. It’s still only trained on godot 3 docs and examples as far as I can tell.
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      Shader code though, that's a different story.
  - owenpalmer 2y ago
    GPT is basically useless for Godot 4
digging 2y ago
How did y'all find working in Godot? Any DX or workflow recommendations? I've bounced off it a couple times after getting impatient with slowness and other minor frictions, but I really want to like it.
- xyst 2y ago
  switched to bevy
  - digging 2y ago
    You're downvoted but I've seen similar sentiments frequently, tbh. I've indeed looked at bevy - I don't know Rust yet, but I guess I also don't really know GDScript yet either.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Can't speak to Godot 3, but v4 has some infuriating bugs, unfinished features and idiosincracies. The interaction between scenes and code caused us to lose data more times than we can count and the dev team seems to be completely overwhelmed with the number of issues. That being said, it is an engine that works and is used by enough people that you'll find bugs reported on the things that bother you, so you'll at least know if something is broken. We found that doing as much as possible in GDScript and as little as possible in the editor is the way to go. The only time we had performance problems was when adding nodes (for some reason adding nodes is insanely slow). The multithreading is also still in need of work, but thread groups will, hopefully, solve the problem in the future. We are currently looking into Bevy and Fyrox for BlockBawks since it needs a custom simulation engine, but we are still unsure. (It currently has a semi-working version in Godot, but spawning several 100k nodes is creating problems and will need optimizations.)
  - nkrisc 2y ago
    For 100k of anything in Godot you will likely want to skip the node abstraction layer altogether and just use the various servers (PhysicsServer, RenderingServer, etc.) directly.
speps 2y ago
Congratulations, it must have been a difficult decision! Shipping a game is an amazing achievement and I like the creative way of releasing the source code! Make sure you've properly licensed the code, people have no conscience sometimes and will release your game again without crediting you...
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Thank you! Apart from the Godot engine and the Rubik font (which are correctly attributed with detailed licenses in the game in the "Credits" section), we made everything in the game ourselves (code, graphics, sounds, music). The source code includes 3 MIT-licensed libraries we made, too. These are available in the source code DLC. As far as people re-releasing our game is concerned, the source code DLC is licensed under the Steam Subscriber Agreement with a few added grants for mods and making videos, so legally nobody is allowed to re-release our game as a whole or even reuse the non-MIT parts without asking first. If anyone wants to re-use parts of the game in their own game, they are encouraged to contact us. (We definitely won't make a fuss about minor parts of the code when asked, but re-releasing the entire game is out of the question.)
spxneo 2y ago
Congratulations this looks really slick and wish you many sales
- nate 2y ago
  Same. Nice work!!!
Hexigonz 2y ago
My story is similar to yours except I'm a little younger. My game comes out this summer. I'll definitely grab your demo, and I just want to say you should be really proud of this accomplishment.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Good luck! We learned a lot simply from the process of releasing the game. Wish we had done it earlier since now we feel ready for slightly larger projects and know we can push it over the finish line.
nikolay 2y ago
Is this inspired by Bolo [0] on Apple ][? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_%281982_video_game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_%281982_video_game%29
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Not really, we're old but not quite there yet. :)
  - nikolay 2y ago
    One doesn't have to be old to know and appreciate classic games.
    - janosdebugs 2y ago
      True, true, but we did not know this one :)
SCUSKU 2y ago
Congrats on the launch! I would say though I think you should up your price to at least $9.99. A $3 game makes me think it's low quality, which it's not. So you ought to price your game appropriately.
- tysam_and 2y ago
  Or even $7.99, that or $8.99 is sort of a nice line between signaling "very cheap game" and "potentially short but enjoyable experience for the evening worth the gamble to find out if so". I can't speak to it in general, that's just my 2c on the matter/issue without really knowing too terribly much about the game (or game development in generally, really, I'm just a consumer here! XD). <3 :'))))
- LZ_Khan 2y ago
  Pricing is a funny thing. You'd think lower prices would lead to more demand.
  - VS1999 2y ago
    It is strange. Games have well defined pricing tiers that players and developers have worked out over time. $3 is generally considered somewhere between "trash you buy as a joke" and "a very short game without much in it". Does anyone know if there's any other markets that work like this? I can't think of any. Games going on sale at launch also makes me assume its just because no one is buying it, but apparently more people buy games at launch if it says they're on sale. I don't get it.
    - selfie 2y ago
      Err... most things. Furniture for example.
    - jamilton 2y ago
      When I was looking for a mattress recently, I wanted something affordable, but I shied away from really cheap options, because I was afraid they'd be very low quality. Similar reasoning could apply to many things.
1123581321 2y ago
Just bought it. Looks like a nice little game. Wishing you many more successful releases. I am curious what roadblocks you ran into if you'd like to share more about your Godot experience.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Godot was fine, for the most part, it's a good engine for small games. The main issue was around working together and resolving conflicts with git (Godot isn't really working and constantly kept changing IDs in resource files), and it kept losing data in scenes when the code changed so we had to rebuild things several times. On previous test games we also ran into huge performance issues in the editor when we wanted to do too much work in scenes, so we had to switch to doing most of the work in code. The worst part was when I had to rip out a bunch of testing code that used @tool for release as it seemed to cause issues when doing a release build. The engine is generally not great when you want to follow clean software engineering (e.g. dependency injection is not possible, I opened a proposal to that end here[1]). [1]: https://github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals/issues/8850 https://github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals/issues/8850
rileytg 2y ago
Out of curiosity, why not release for mac if its made with godot?
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  We don't have a Mac and couldn't justify the cost of getting one for now. It's not just Godot, we also have to compile the C++ gdextension and we also want to only release on platforms we have actually tested the game on. (That's why there is DualSense support, but not DualShock. In theory it should work, but we couldn't verify it.) With the source code DLC it should be possible to compile everything for a Mac regardless, even if it's a bit of work. If we make enough money from the game, we might reinvest it into a Mac. :)
  - dimava 2y ago
    According to PirateSoftware (who makes Heartbound), just compiling the game for Max is going to cost you at least $1000 (Mac Mini + XCode license + time) The number of sales is, however, negligeable - Mac has just 1.38% Steam users PirateSoftware told [1] that the Mac was 0.02% of their sales - one in 5000 sales (and thus he dropped Mac support) Don't reinvest in Mac for sales before you do the math. If you just want a Mac, get a Mac. If you don't want a Mac, don't bother [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qRQX9fgrI4s https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qRQX9fgrI4s
    - janosdebugs 2y ago
      Thank you for the additional confirmation. We have seen the same stats, which is why we didn't buy a Mac so far. We could build it on GitHub actions, but we wouldn't be able to test it that way. However, depending on the game, the target audience may have a higher percentage of Macs. BlockBawks, our upcoming game, may have a disproportionately higher number of Mac users who are interested in the game because it's dealing with a programming topic. Ultimately, I'm afraid you may just be right and getting a Mac Mini may not be worth it.
    - kevincox 2y ago
      I run into this dilemma a lot, not even for profitability. I would happily test my software on macOS and Safari, but I'm not paying for that privilege. So a lot of my stuff just doesn't work. But Windows, Edge (and previously IE) and Chrome and Linux are all easy to test on so I do even though personally I only use Linux and Firefox.
mantovanidaniel 2y ago
Amazing, I just bought.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Hey, just noticed your comment about OSX above. If you bought the source code DLC and you are having trouble downloading the source on Mac, please drop us a mail: make@something.pink We are just now trying to figure out a short-term solution for downloading the source package on Mac.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    Update: we did a little digging and there might be a way to force Steam to download the source code DLC: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3221158777 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=32211...
abroun_beholder 2y ago
Congratulations for completing and shipping your game! It looks good. Also an interesting idea to provide the source as DLC. I hope that the sales go well and now best of luck for your next game. :)
ThinkBeat 2y ago
I watched the video on the Steam site and I dont understand the game at all. At one point it sort of looks like a modern version of snake. But that it is not. It sort looks like they are running over a circuit board. What are those green v shapes mean? Then perhaps Pacman Seems a bit Pacman. Gobble energy pellets?
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  Whether the game mechanics are totally obvious from a video or not is pretty game-dependent. The voiceover made it clear enough what was going on to me.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    Wow, that is really valuable feedback, I suppose we should rework the trailer to work without voice-over too. Thank you!
mantovanidaniel 2y ago
I would to play in OSX :(
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Once the game makes enough money, we might reinvest into a Mac to ship it for that platform, too.
rdl 2y ago
Just ordered, although the low price buckets it into "probably not worth it". I'd price it ~$10 and do a discount instead.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, we were debating this a lot.
fairramone 2y ago
Does it work on a Steamdeck?
- mh- 2y ago
  Per this thread linked from their store page, yes. https://steamcommunity.com/games/2816120/announcements/detail/4203620759368817386 https://steamcommunity.com/games/2816120/announcements/detai...
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Yes, I have 5+ hours in it on the Deck. The only thing worth mentioning is that the in-game key bindings menu works slightly better than the Steam overlay because we didn't integrate Steam Input.
barfard 2y ago
How'd you stay motivated enough for 3 months? Were you'll really that passionate about this game idea?
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  My wife was annoyed at not having released a game for almost a year and she set a hard deadline with the smallest game idea she could think of. It became fun when the game became playable and if we had to do it again, we'd focus on getting to that stage much earlier. The game was finished before the deadline, so we even had time to polish, balance the game mechanics against each other and add a touch interface for the Android release that never happened, but made it into the source code DLC anyway. Previously, we had spent way too much time switching back and forth between Unreal Engine and Godot, not being able to decide or finish anything. Kicking each other's behind to finally get it done also helped a lot.
  - pac0 2y ago
    Hi! Why did you decide to go with Godot instead of Unreal or Unity? Are you happy with your decision?
dilyevsky 2y ago
Off-topic since I'm not a gamer - I checked out your website and it reminds me of early 2000s when these sort of cool websites were popular. Nicely done! Just one nit though - shouldn't News and Privacy rooms be swapped tho? =)
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Had a good laugh. Now that you mention it, we can't quite decide ourselves.
selfie 2y ago
The website is something else! https://something.pink/ https://something.pink/. It is really fun to use. Privacy being the bathroom is funny!
- tracyhenry 2y ago
  +1 really well made. I wonder if there's a framework for making these kind of websites?
  - maxdaten 2y ago
    found in the sources that babylon.js (https://www.babylonjs.com/ https://www.babylonjs.com/) is in use.
    - janosdebugs 2y ago
      BabylonJS indeed. We had a tutorial up on our previous YouTube channel, if there's interest, we'll reupload it.
      - Atotalnoob 2y ago
        I’d love to see it
        janosdebugs 2y ago
        We'll upload it here today or tomorrow: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXF--ktsN0t97W9R0GN6_3Q https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXF--ktsN0t97W9R0GN6_3Q
        tracyhenry 2y ago
        looking forward to it!
        janosdebugs 2y ago
grugagag 2y ago
Congrats. The game is pretty!
090rf 2y ago
[dead]
hazebooth 2y ago
Congratulations on the launch!
m3kw9 2y ago
Looks decent and could be fun
m3kw9 2y ago
Send some codes so streamers can give it a go
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  We did send it to a few, haven't received any replies yet. Do you have any in mind?
kakashifr 2y ago
Congrats and good luck on the launch!!
SingAlong 2y ago
Congrats on releasing the game ~! A year is a very short time to release what looks like a polished game from the screenshots. Just got the game to read the source code. Looks like Steam requires that I install the game in order to view the source, and that isn't possible because I am on a Mac. Hopefully some day :)
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Oh wow, that's not good. We'll get in touch with Steam support and see if we can do anything about that. Would you mind dropping us an e-mail to make@something.pink so we can contact you when we sort this out?
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    @SingAlong thanks for the email, we responded, please check your mail.
- nottorp 2y ago
  You can force Steam for mac to download purchases that are windows only from the command line somehow... https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manuals/installation/install-game-files.html#morrowind https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manuals/installation... This is for OpenMW so you'll have to change the app id of course.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    Thank you, we've done a little digging and found a way to force Steam to download the depot. We've published a guide here[1] and are currently waiting for a friend with a Mac to test it. [1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3221158777 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=32211...
wg0 2y ago
This could be a unique company idea and business practice that sells source code as DLC under a restrictive license. Imagine Rockstar selling GTA-5 source code as DLC priced at 99.99.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  If it was buildable from source, I would buy a source code DLC for a great many games. However, I imagine that would not be possible for a lot of games because their engine is proprietary and their legal department would have something to say about that, too.
asp_hornet 2y ago
I love everything about this. The shareware, the price, the source code. It reminds me of how software was in the 90s.
butz 2y ago
Huge thanks for providing a demo.
sjagoe 2y ago
Congratulations on your launch! I went to have a look and maybe wishlist it, but at that price it was an easy impulse to just buy with DLC to support you. Good luck with your future games.
_flux 2y ago
Wouldn't it make sense to release it on Android as well, given it should probably be quite easy with Godot, or is that market just too saturated and attract cloners? Though you'd need to think about how to do the controls on touch screen.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  We tried, the source code DLC has a full touch interface, but we ran into a Godot issue when doing the testing in the Google Play Console where we'd have to switch back to the GL renderer which, unfortunately, makes the game unplayable. It works on our devices, but we don't want to ship something that is likely to break on a number of devices.
tjungblut 2y ago
Two gaming Hatters from Austria? Of course it had to be Sanja and János. I will check your game later on deck, but congratulations on launching :)
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  LOL small world indeed. :D
- dobsonj 2y ago
  I had exactly the same thought (Hi Tomas and Janos) :D The game is really cool, well done! It feels like a modern twist on pacman, but with space alien snakes and upgradable super powers. Should make for a good lunch break game.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    OMG we love that description, that kind of summarizes the game perfectly. (Also: :waveemoji:)
cliche 2y ago
Very cool. I love the idea of source as DLC. I might need to give it a go after failing to build my own game in Godot.
txomon 2y ago
Wow this looks good! Any chance you will be distributing for native linux?
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Yes, the Steam version already includes a native Linux binary and we tested it on both the Steam Deck and Ubuntu 22.04. If you run into any trouble, please let us know.
marcelfahle 2y ago
I love this, looks really well done. I don't have a windows computer or steam deck but just got a copy anyway because I like the whole story and vibe around it. Also great that you offer the source as DLC as well, I will def check it out! I wish you both the best of success with this! :)
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Thank you very much! If you have a Mac, you may have trouble downloading the source code DLC so drop us a mail if that is the case: make@something.pink
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    Update: we might have found a way to get the source code DLC downloaded on a Mac: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3221158777 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=32211...
- vertis 2y ago
  I'm a Mac user as well, and I bought the Game and DLC. It's such a great idea. Congrats on the game launch (I'll wait patiently for a Mac version rather than trying to get the DLC working), but it was more about supporting the concept than anything.
anArbitraryOne 2y ago
This looks great! I'm going to add it to my steam wish list and buy it when it's more than 50% off because that's what I do with everything
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Now the pressure is on, summer sale it is then.
Perroboc 2y ago
[dead]
edanm 2y ago
I can't play this cause I'm on a Mac, but I have to say - the video is very impressive. Almost instantly clear on what the idea is (or at least it feels that way) and looks very fun. Great job and good luck!
developer1000 2y ago
well done good luck with it!

517 points by janosd 2y ago

abustamam 2y ago

I'll be honest, I have no intention of playing your game (I just don't really play PC games; if it were ported to console I'd probably play it), but I love supporting indie devs so I purchased it. It looks fun and innovative though!

hipjiveguy 2y ago

hey... wondering why you haven't posted this to the Godot reddit? I went looking for this again, and thought I read it there, but didn't find it until I went to steam and looked at my wishlist, then searched for it on the web :D https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/ https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/

nhggfu 2y ago

great work OP + mrs OP. good luck w/ the project.

juice_bus 2y ago

Did you end up using GDScript or C#?

laserDinosaur 2y ago
In the screenshot of the DLC it shows GDScript.
janosdebugs 2y ago
We used GDScript, more than 5000 lines of it.

mysterydip 2y ago

As someone transitioning from traditional programming to Godot and running into a myriad of "I know what I need to do, just not how to do it", I appreciate adding the source as an option.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
teaearlgraycold 2y ago
That’s something GPT4 is usually good at helping with
- lkschubert8 2y ago
  It’s a little rough around the edges for godot 4. It’s still only trained on godot 3 docs and examples as far as I can tell.
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    Shader code though, that's a different story.
- owenpalmer 2y ago
  GPT is basically useless for Godot 4

digging 2y ago

How did y'all find working in Godot? Any DX or workflow recommendations? I've bounced off it a couple times after getting impatient with slowness and other minor frictions, but I really want to like it.

xyst 2y ago
switched to bevy
- digging 2y ago
  You're downvoted but I've seen similar sentiments frequently, tbh. I've indeed looked at bevy - I don't know Rust yet, but I guess I also don't really know GDScript yet either.
janosdebugs 2y ago
Can't speak to Godot 3, but v4 has some infuriating bugs, unfinished features and idiosincracies. The interaction between scenes and code caused us to lose data more times than we can count and the dev team seems to be completely overwhelmed with the number of issues. That being said, it is an engine that works and is used by enough people that you'll find bugs reported on the things that bother you, so you'll at least know if something is broken. We found that doing as much as possible in GDScript and as little as possible in the editor is the way to go. The only time we had performance problems was when adding nodes (for some reason adding nodes is insanely slow). The multithreading is also still in need of work, but thread groups will, hopefully, solve the problem in the future. We are currently looking into Bevy and Fyrox for BlockBawks since it needs a custom simulation engine, but we are still unsure. (It currently has a semi-working version in Godot, but spawning several 100k nodes is creating problems and will need optimizations.)
- nkrisc 2y ago
  For 100k of anything in Godot you will likely want to skip the node abstraction layer altogether and just use the various servers (PhysicsServer, RenderingServer, etc.) directly.

speps 2y ago

Congratulations, it must have been a difficult decision! Shipping a game is an amazing achievement and I like the creative way of releasing the source code! Make sure you've properly licensed the code, people have no conscience sometimes and will release your game again without crediting you...

janosdebugs 2y ago
Thank you! Apart from the Godot engine and the Rubik font (which are correctly attributed with detailed licenses in the game in the "Credits" section), we made everything in the game ourselves (code, graphics, sounds, music). The source code includes 3 MIT-licensed libraries we made, too. These are available in the source code DLC. As far as people re-releasing our game is concerned, the source code DLC is licensed under the Steam Subscriber Agreement with a few added grants for mods and making videos, so legally nobody is allowed to re-release our game as a whole or even reuse the non-MIT parts without asking first. If anyone wants to re-use parts of the game in their own game, they are encouraged to contact us. (We definitely won't make a fuss about minor parts of the code when asked, but re-releasing the entire game is out of the question.)

spxneo 2y ago

Congratulations this looks really slick and wish you many sales

nate 2y ago
Same. Nice work!!!

Hexigonz 2y ago

My story is similar to yours except I'm a little younger. My game comes out this summer. I'll definitely grab your demo, and I just want to say you should be really proud of this accomplishment.

janosdebugs 2y ago
Good luck! We learned a lot simply from the process of releasing the game. Wish we had done it earlier since now we feel ready for slightly larger projects and know we can push it over the finish line.

nikolay 2y ago

Is this inspired by Bolo [0] on Apple ][? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_%281982_video_game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_%281982_video_game%29

janosdebugs 2y ago
Not really, we're old but not quite there yet. :)
- nikolay 2y ago
  One doesn't have to be old to know and appreciate classic games.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    True, true, but we did not know this one :)

SCUSKU 2y ago

Congrats on the launch! I would say though I think you should up your price to at least $9.99. A $3 game makes me think it's low quality, which it's not. So you ought to price your game appropriately.

tysam_and 2y ago
Or even $7.99, that or $8.99 is sort of a nice line between signaling "very cheap game" and "potentially short but enjoyable experience for the evening worth the gamble to find out if so". I can't speak to it in general, that's just my 2c on the matter/issue without really knowing too terribly much about the game (or game development in generally, really, I'm just a consumer here! XD). <3 :'))))
LZ_Khan 2y ago
Pricing is a funny thing. You'd think lower prices would lead to more demand.
- VS1999 2y ago
  It is strange. Games have well defined pricing tiers that players and developers have worked out over time. $3 is generally considered somewhere between "trash you buy as a joke" and "a very short game without much in it". Does anyone know if there's any other markets that work like this? I can't think of any. Games going on sale at launch also makes me assume its just because no one is buying it, but apparently more people buy games at launch if it says they're on sale. I don't get it.
  - selfie 2y ago
    Err... most things. Furniture for example.
  - jamilton 2y ago
    When I was looking for a mattress recently, I wanted something affordable, but I shied away from really cheap options, because I was afraid they'd be very low quality. Similar reasoning could apply to many things.

1123581321 2y ago

Just bought it. Looks like a nice little game. Wishing you many more successful releases. I am curious what roadblocks you ran into if you'd like to share more about your Godot experience.

janosdebugs 2y ago
Godot was fine, for the most part, it's a good engine for small games. The main issue was around working together and resolving conflicts with git (Godot isn't really working and constantly kept changing IDs in resource files), and it kept losing data in scenes when the code changed so we had to rebuild things several times. On previous test games we also ran into huge performance issues in the editor when we wanted to do too much work in scenes, so we had to switch to doing most of the work in code. The worst part was when I had to rip out a bunch of testing code that used @tool for release as it seemed to cause issues when doing a release build. The engine is generally not great when you want to follow clean software engineering (e.g. dependency injection is not possible, I opened a proposal to that end here[1]). [1]: https://github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals/issues/8850 https://github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals/issues/8850

rileytg 2y ago

Out of curiosity, why not release for mac if its made with godot?

janosdebugs 2y ago
We don't have a Mac and couldn't justify the cost of getting one for now. It's not just Godot, we also have to compile the C++ gdextension and we also want to only release on platforms we have actually tested the game on. (That's why there is DualSense support, but not DualShock. In theory it should work, but we couldn't verify it.) With the source code DLC it should be possible to compile everything for a Mac regardless, even if it's a bit of work. If we make enough money from the game, we might reinvest it into a Mac. :)
- dimava 2y ago
  According to PirateSoftware (who makes Heartbound), just compiling the game for Max is going to cost you at least $1000 (Mac Mini + XCode license + time) The number of sales is, however, negligeable - Mac has just 1.38% Steam users PirateSoftware told [1] that the Mac was 0.02% of their sales - one in 5000 sales (and thus he dropped Mac support) Don't reinvest in Mac for sales before you do the math. If you just want a Mac, get a Mac. If you don't want a Mac, don't bother [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qRQX9fgrI4s https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qRQX9fgrI4s
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    Thank you for the additional confirmation. We have seen the same stats, which is why we didn't buy a Mac so far. We could build it on GitHub actions, but we wouldn't be able to test it that way. However, depending on the game, the target audience may have a higher percentage of Macs. BlockBawks, our upcoming game, may have a disproportionately higher number of Mac users who are interested in the game because it's dealing with a programming topic. Ultimately, I'm afraid you may just be right and getting a Mac Mini may not be worth it.
  - kevincox 2y ago
    I run into this dilemma a lot, not even for profitability. I would happily test my software on macOS and Safari, but I'm not paying for that privilege. So a lot of my stuff just doesn't work. But Windows, Edge (and previously IE) and Chrome and Linux are all easy to test on so I do even though personally I only use Linux and Firefox.

mantovanidaniel 2y ago

Amazing, I just bought.

janosdebugs 2y ago
Hey, just noticed your comment about OSX above. If you bought the source code DLC and you are having trouble downloading the source on Mac, please drop us a mail: make@something.pink We are just now trying to figure out a short-term solution for downloading the source package on Mac.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Update: we did a little digging and there might be a way to force Steam to download the source code DLC: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3221158777 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=32211...

abroun_beholder 2y ago

Congratulations for completing and shipping your game! It looks good. Also an interesting idea to provide the source as DLC. I hope that the sales go well and now best of luck for your next game. :)

ThinkBeat 2y ago

I watched the video on the Steam site and I dont understand the game at all. At one point it sort of looks like a modern version of snake. But that it is not. It sort looks like they are running over a circuit board. What are those green v shapes mean? Then perhaps Pacman Seems a bit Pacman. Gobble energy pellets?

shermantanktop 2y ago
Whether the game mechanics are totally obvious from a video or not is pretty game-dependent. The voiceover made it clear enough what was going on to me.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Wow, that is really valuable feedback, I suppose we should rework the trailer to work without voice-over too. Thank you!

mantovanidaniel 2y ago

I would to play in OSX :(

janosdebugs 2y ago
Once the game makes enough money, we might reinvest into a Mac to ship it for that platform, too.

rdl 2y ago

Just ordered, although the low price buckets it into "probably not worth it". I'd price it ~$10 and do a discount instead.

janosdebugs 2y ago
Thanks for the feedback, we were debating this a lot.

fairramone 2y ago

Does it work on a Steamdeck?

mh- 2y ago
Per this thread linked from their store page, yes. https://steamcommunity.com/games/2816120/announcements/detail/4203620759368817386 https://steamcommunity.com/games/2816120/announcements/detai...
janosdebugs 2y ago
Yes, I have 5+ hours in it on the Deck. The only thing worth mentioning is that the in-game key bindings menu works slightly better than the Steam overlay because we didn't integrate Steam Input.

barfard 2y ago

How'd you stay motivated enough for 3 months? Were you'll really that passionate about this game idea?

janosdebugs 2y ago
My wife was annoyed at not having released a game for almost a year and she set a hard deadline with the smallest game idea she could think of. It became fun when the game became playable and if we had to do it again, we'd focus on getting to that stage much earlier. The game was finished before the deadline, so we even had time to polish, balance the game mechanics against each other and add a touch interface for the Android release that never happened, but made it into the source code DLC anyway. Previously, we had spent way too much time switching back and forth between Unreal Engine and Godot, not being able to decide or finish anything. Kicking each other's behind to finally get it done also helped a lot.
- pac0 2y ago
  Hi! Why did you decide to go with Godot instead of Unreal or Unity? Are you happy with your decision?

dilyevsky 2y ago

Off-topic since I'm not a gamer - I checked out your website and it reminds me of early 2000s when these sort of cool websites were popular. Nicely done! Just one nit though - shouldn't News and Privacy rooms be swapped tho? =)

janosdebugs 2y ago
Had a good laugh. Now that you mention it, we can't quite decide ourselves.

selfie 2y ago

The website is something else! https://something.pink/ https://something.pink/. It is really fun to use. Privacy being the bathroom is funny!

tracyhenry 2y ago
+1 really well made. I wonder if there's a framework for making these kind of websites?
- maxdaten 2y ago
  found in the sources that babylon.js (https://www.babylonjs.com/ https://www.babylonjs.com/) is in use.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    BabylonJS indeed. We had a tutorial up on our previous YouTube channel, if there's interest, we'll reupload it.
    - Atotalnoob 2y ago
      I’d love to see it
      - janosdebugs 2y ago
        We'll upload it here today or tomorrow: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXF--ktsN0t97W9R0GN6_3Q https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXF--ktsN0t97W9R0GN6_3Q
        tracyhenry 2y ago
        looking forward to it!
        janosdebugs 2y ago

grugagag 2y ago

Congrats. The game is pretty!

090rf 2y ago

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hazebooth 2y ago

Congratulations on the launch!

m3kw9 2y ago

Looks decent and could be fun

m3kw9 2y ago

Send some codes so streamers can give it a go

janosdebugs 2y ago
We did send it to a few, haven't received any replies yet. Do you have any in mind?

kakashifr 2y ago

Congrats and good luck on the launch!!

SingAlong 2y ago

Congrats on releasing the game ~! A year is a very short time to release what looks like a polished game from the screenshots. Just got the game to read the source code. Looks like Steam requires that I install the game in order to view the source, and that isn't possible because I am on a Mac. Hopefully some day :)

janosdebugs 2y ago
Oh wow, that's not good. We'll get in touch with Steam support and see if we can do anything about that. Would you mind dropping us an e-mail to make@something.pink so we can contact you when we sort this out?
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  @SingAlong thanks for the email, we responded, please check your mail.
nottorp 2y ago
You can force Steam for mac to download purchases that are windows only from the command line somehow... https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manuals/installation/install-game-files.html#morrowind https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manuals/installation... This is for OpenMW so you'll have to change the app id of course.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Thank you, we've done a little digging and found a way to force Steam to download the depot. We've published a guide here[1] and are currently waiting for a friend with a Mac to test it. [1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3221158777 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=32211...

wg0 2y ago

This could be a unique company idea and business practice that sells source code as DLC under a restrictive license. Imagine Rockstar selling GTA-5 source code as DLC priced at 99.99.

janosdebugs 2y ago
If it was buildable from source, I would buy a source code DLC for a great many games. However, I imagine that would not be possible for a lot of games because their engine is proprietary and their legal department would have something to say about that, too.

asp_hornet 2y ago

I love everything about this. The shareware, the price, the source code. It reminds me of how software was in the 90s.

butz 2y ago

Huge thanks for providing a demo.

sjagoe 2y ago

Congratulations on your launch! I went to have a look and maybe wishlist it, but at that price it was an easy impulse to just buy with DLC to support you. Good luck with your future games.

_flux 2y ago

Wouldn't it make sense to release it on Android as well, given it should probably be quite easy with Godot, or is that market just too saturated and attract cloners? Though you'd need to think about how to do the controls on touch screen.

janosdebugs 2y ago
We tried, the source code DLC has a full touch interface, but we ran into a Godot issue when doing the testing in the Google Play Console where we'd have to switch back to the GL renderer which, unfortunately, makes the game unplayable. It works on our devices, but we don't want to ship something that is likely to break on a number of devices.

tjungblut 2y ago

Two gaming Hatters from Austria? Of course it had to be Sanja and János. I will check your game later on deck, but congratulations on launching :)

janosdebugs 2y ago
LOL small world indeed. :D
dobsonj 2y ago
I had exactly the same thought (Hi Tomas and Janos) :D The game is really cool, well done! It feels like a modern twist on pacman, but with space alien snakes and upgradable super powers. Should make for a good lunch break game.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  OMG we love that description, that kind of summarizes the game perfectly. (Also: :waveemoji:)

cliche 2y ago

Very cool. I love the idea of source as DLC. I might need to give it a go after failing to build my own game in Godot.

txomon 2y ago

Wow this looks good! Any chance you will be distributing for native linux?

janosdebugs 2y ago
Yes, the Steam version already includes a native Linux binary and we tested it on both the Steam Deck and Ubuntu 22.04. If you run into any trouble, please let us know.

marcelfahle 2y ago

I love this, looks really well done. I don't have a windows computer or steam deck but just got a copy anyway because I like the whole story and vibe around it. Also great that you offer the source as DLC as well, I will def check it out! I wish you both the best of success with this! :)

janosdebugs 2y ago
Thank you very much! If you have a Mac, you may have trouble downloading the source code DLC so drop us a mail if that is the case: make@something.pink
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  Update: we might have found a way to get the source code DLC downloaded on a Mac: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3221158777 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=32211...
vertis 2y ago
I'm a Mac user as well, and I bought the Game and DLC. It's such a great idea. Congrats on the game launch (I'll wait patiently for a Mac version rather than trying to get the DLC working), but it was more about supporting the concept than anything.

anArbitraryOne 2y ago

This looks great! I'm going to add it to my steam wish list and buy it when it's more than 50% off because that's what I do with everything

janosdebugs 2y ago
Now the pressure is on, summer sale it is then.

Perroboc 2y ago

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edanm 2y ago

I can't play this cause I'm on a Mac, but I have to say - the video is very impressive. Almost instantly clear on what the idea is (or at least it feels that way) and looks very fun. Great job and good luck!

developer1000 2y ago

well done good luck with it!