Jason

Jason

@json.codes

Software Developer. Trying to make indie games. Pessimistically optimistic. Not very enthusiastic. There’s no way this could possibly go wrong.

128 followers464 following67 posts

Spent this evening bringing things together and tweaking lighting to make the game a bit darker and seedier (and to hide the background so I don't have to model that) #godot #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

Progress is slow on my blackjack game where you gamble with your blood. Here is the updated version of the device used to place your bet. #godot #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

Created a shader to replace the basic labels for cards with actual textures and some grimey effects so they look more worn and fit in with the dirty table #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #godot

Finally got round to giving the blackjack dealer some clothes and a (temporary) hairstyle #gamedev #godot #screenshotsaturday

Twinkle twinkle little star 🎶⭐ Adding a basic open/close hand animation for the card dealing #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

Jason@json.codes

After pausing effort on my previous game I started work on this new game which basically blackjack but with a bit of a twist. Recently I've been working on my dealer movement using the new IK functionality in #godot 4.6 #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

After pausing effort on my previous game I started work on this new game which basically blackjack but with a bit of a twist. Recently I've been working on my dealer movement using the new IK functionality in #godot 4.6 #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

No that isn't the final dealer mesh. Or it might be one of a set, this one has kind of grown on me.

Here is an earlier version which I enjoyed but I forgot to save the texture in Blender because I had no idea what I was doing.

After pausing effort on my previous game I started work on this new game which basically blackjack but with a bit of a twist. Recently I've been working on my dealer movement using the new IK functionality in #godot 4.6 #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

I use TwoBoneIK3D for each of the arms with CopyTransformModifier3D to control hand rotation. Originally I tried this with CCDIK3D but the elbow was sometimes bending backwards in a painful looking way, TwoBoneIK3D solved this by allowing me to to specify a "pole" for the elbow bend

I also use LookAtModifier3D and CopyTransformModifier3D to create the lean and twist effect by moving and rotating their target based on the positioning of the hands. The head can move using a LookAtModifier3D too.

It would be easy to look back on this as a bit of a waste of time as it didn’t result in publishing my first game like I wanted but I think I can be pretty positive about it because I learned a lot about #gamedev from the project

Jason@json.codes

It's been a while since I posted about this. I actually decided to put this game on hold because it was simply going to take too long to build the game I wanted to make. I have other stuff I'm working now which I'll be sharing soon

It's been a while since I posted about this. I actually decided to put this game on hold because it was simply going to take too long to build the game I wanted to make. I have other stuff I'm working now which I'll be sharing soon

Jason@json.codes

Manually placing buildings for my city level felt like a lot of work so I created a custom editor instead which can randomly place them for me. Now I smash "Randomize Seed" until I get a layout I'm happy with #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

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As it turned out it was the environment and world design work which was taking up all of the time. I had imagined these rich and varied levels but I told myself that it wouldn't be too much work because "the ship is just flying past quickly anyway so I don't need too much detail"

My current project is definitely much smaller than this one, and I'm determined to have it published in some form in 2026.

It's been a while since I posted about this. I actually decided to put this game on hold because it was simply going to take too long to build the game I wanted to make. I have other stuff I'm working now which I'll be sharing soon

Jason@json.codes

Manually placing buildings for my city level felt like a lot of work so I created a custom editor instead which can randomly place them for me. Now I smash "Randomize Seed" until I get a layout I'm happy with #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

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I actually think I realised this earlier in development but I was determined to see it through an publish a game. It was going to take me 6+ months to finish this one level and I had a target of building 12-15 levels for the game all with varied environments and little reusability.

It's a good lesson for me though. I chose this idea specifically because I thought a rails shooter would be "smaller" than my other game ideas. Smaller because it was mechanically simple, less 3D animation, less story writing, and naively I thought less environmental work.

It's been a while since I posted about this. I actually decided to put this game on hold because it was simply going to take too long to build the game I wanted to make. I have other stuff I'm working now which I'll be sharing soon

Jason@json.codes

Manually placing buildings for my city level felt like a lot of work so I created a custom editor instead which can randomly place them for me. Now I smash "Randomize Seed" until I get a layout I'm happy with #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

I spent every evening for a couple of months building out the first level alongside my day job as a software developer. Progress was slow and steady, but I eventually realised it was going to take several more months just to finish this one level.

Manually placing buildings for my city level felt like a lot of work so I created a custom editor instead which can randomly place them for me. Now I smash "Randomize Seed" until I get a layout I'm happy with #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

Here's a really minor update to improve the aiming and lock-on targets. It's much less jarring than the earlier prototype version #gamedev #indiedev

Here is the missile system in my #indiegame with added missile trails and explosion effects #gamedev #indiedev

Jason@json.codes

It's been a while since I posted about my #indiegame but here is a work in progress for target lock for missiles (complete with debug overlays so you can see what is happening) #screenshotsaturday #gamedev

It's been a while since I posted about my #indiegame but here is a work in progress for target lock for missiles (complete with debug overlays so you can see what is happening) #screenshotsaturday #gamedev

I had originally tried to use some of my steering behaviour implementations to have missiles dynamically seek their locked targets but the missiles would sometimes miss unless I allowed them to turn at extreme angles. Since this is supposed to have an arcade feel, I didn't want them to ever miss

What I do now is generate some splines with three points (start, mid, end/target) and have the missile follow this. When doing this I have some parameters to control the "fan out" of the missile paths but also can add some random jitter if I want.

Moving this into the game has been slow progress with lots of tweaking of behaviour settings. Gradually coming together but it's hard to actually figure out how aggressively the enemies should move without having some semblance of an actual level so I might do that next #gamdev #indiedev

Jason@json.codes

Getting the enemy movement to work in 3D space went pretty smoothly. A couple of funky glitches in certain scenarios but this is probably good enough to start bringing into the game #gamedev

I was hoping to complete the gameplay loop of my game by the end of the month but instead I started a new farm on Stardew Valley #gamedev

Jason reposted

calling all developers, if u have a steam page, itchio page or what ever . please link your games, that way we can check out your work and increase your wishlists ^^ #indiedevelopers #indiedevs #indiegames retweets appreciated , help gain exposure to developers

Jason reposted

To my #GameDev / #DigitalHoarders folk, if you have not claimed the free Megascans assets yet, you have a couple of hours left to do it. approx 18k assets for free. do it in both places, because they are used differently. www.fab.com/megascans-free and quixel.com/megascans/home go now. do it now.

fab.comGet all Quixel Megascans for free on Fab.comAll Megascans are free for everyone under Fab’s Standard License until the end of 2024, for all engines and tools.

Today is the deadline I set for myself for releasing a demo of my game. I'm happy to say...that I am absolutely no where near that milestone but I have learnt a lot along the way. I can't wait to come up with a new milestone and miss that one too #gamedev

Getting the enemy movement to work in 3D space went pretty smoothly. A couple of funky glitches in certain scenarios but this is probably good enough to start bringing into the game #gamedev

At some point I might experiment with some of the classic Boids behaviours to get enemies behaving in small groups

Now I have multiple behaviours combined, including obstacle avoidance, it's time to get this running with full 3D movement #gamedev

Did a bit of work on nearby object detection this evening, should just need to calculate some some steering forces and the enemy should be able to *attempt* to avoid other obstacles in front of it

Here is an example of pursuit, wall avoidance, and wander behaviours combined. Different behaviours have different priorities so, for example, enemies will try to avoid crashing into walls above all else. Next I need to add avoiding crashing into the player or other enemies #gamedev

Once I get all this working I will have to make sure it all works correctly in fully 3D space with enemies being able to fly up and down. I'm hoping this "just works"...but of course it won't

This morning while doing something completely unrelated (sitting in my dentists waiting room), I had a theory about what was going wrong with the wander behaviour and now I've got an initial version. Needs a lot of refinement but happy to be at this stage #gamedev

The enemy AI movement behaviors were a pain to work on with the third person view and steering controls in my game so I created a separate scene as a test bed to provide a better view to observe the enemy behaviour. Here they are plotting a basic intercept path to the player #gamedev

I’ve had this book on my shelf for years and I’ve skimmed it periodically. Now that I’m actually doing some #gamedev this is proving to be a fantastic resource

Jason reposted

The most unreasonably priced service AWS offers is a hosted zone. It's only 50¢ a month, but still, I can't get on board with paying for DNS when I can do so much compute in a free tier

I had been considering adding a sideways "dodge" movement to avoid incoming projectiles. But it might be best if I stopped pissing about with random stuff and actually implemented something to shoot those projectiles at the player and *then* decide if this is fun to have

I have a whole bunch of ideas for games I want to work on and one I’m actively developing. It’s currently taking all my willpower to continue to focus on the active game and not get distracted by the next idea which comes along #gamedev

One of my favourite things about #gamedev is my ability to accidentally create effects in minutes. If I intentionally tried to do this I would probably require 3 evenings work and a bottle of wine

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