How to Prototype an Indie Game

How to Prototype an Indie Game
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/ apox-fox
Hey guys! Today is the day we finish the prototype for my game! It's been a weirdly long prototyping journey because a lot has changed, but we finally got there. I think it's important to show you all parts of the process, even the stuff that doesn't work, and even if it feels like we haven't made a huge amount of progress so far lol. Luckily I think next week will be a big step in the right direction :D

[@E_Fig05]

Okay, I understand why some people don't think speedrunning and bullet shooting will mix, but you should watch a Yoshi's Island speedrun. They're awesome and have all the shooting while speedrunning.

[@BigBossRazz]

Great video! I’m working on a prototype myself at the moment, and I’ve been wondering: at what point in the prototype phase do you reach out for player feedback, and how do you go about collecting that feedback?

[@apoxfox]

Thanks! I would say there are no rules on when you should start, start as soon as you can if you’re able to. As for how to get feedback, post dev logs like these and ask for it 😁 we’ve also got a discord server where you can share your game and get feedback!

[@caliburnleaf9323]

Something that stood out to me while watching this video is that for a game that ostensibly wants to encourage speedrunning, your character physics come off as very floaty. Your jumps get a lot of air time, which typically isn't conducive to making a platformer with tight controls. I would suggest messing with some higher gravity values and see if you like it better.
To retain approximately the same jump height when adjusting gravity, you just have to maintain the ratio h = v^2 / 2g, where h = jump height, v = starting jump velocity and g = gravity. Or in a more actionable form, v.new = v.original * sqrt(g.original/g.new). This formula isn't perfect (it doesn't account for gravity being computed in discrete intervals rather than a continuous curve like real world physics), but it gets close enough that I've actually used this method to adjust character physics even late in development without any issues.

[@apoxfox]

Woah thanks for the suggestion! I’ve messed around with the gravity a bit since then but what really helped was designing levels and seeing what works best. I like the idea of having a slightly floaty jump because it gives more hang time when dodging low projectiles and hazards if that makes sense. Appreciate the feedback though!

[@_xtel]

Nice to see a simple question you asked turn into a full video. I guess I’m a World Platform creator now. To all my non-dev friends that want to see updates I explain to them I spend more coding things you won’t see than things you will, like coyote time.

[@apoxfox]

Thanks Xtel! And that is so true, I’ve tried explaining Game Dev to my parents and it was quite the challenge lol

[@the_grass_trainer]

I am trying to force myself to work on learning Godot's GDScript for a small project in mind. But am worried of failing or having the idea stolen.