Hello everybody! I just got back from something I didn't tell you about. I popped to the Isle of Man at the weekend. I went on a trike tour with my brother and sister around the TT race course - something my dad was a huge fan of - and we stopped at Windy Corner to deliver his final wish and spread his ashes there.
We're sure he picked it on purpose, because it's called windy corner for a reason. His ashes definitely got spread out a lot I'll say that much. I reckon he'd have found it all hila...
2018-10-01 12:05:01 +0000 UTC
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Hello! Yesterday I suggested (although only via a parenthesised "(Tomorrow?)" but hey it was implied) I'd be streaming submitted games today but I'm going to push that back to tomorrow. Hopefully early afternoon UK time through to around 5:30ish. I'll pop a thing on YouTube so people can see it coming too.
Want to prepare a little better, vet some of these entries a bit, etc. I'd be rushing it out if I did it today, and usually that's cool w/ Livestreams but I have a wild amount of stuff here ...
2018-09-25 16:55:26 +0000 UTC
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I'll be honest, it's been a bit of a weird and rough week. I've developed a a not-too-painful but very persistent headache that seems to come and go especially in the evenings. Its been screwing with my sleep a lot and leaving me feeling very tired throughout the day. Painkillers help but I always feel very reluctant to use them unless I have to. I think it might be related to pains in my back and neck from my awful posture over the years. I've invested in a back brace thing to help encourage me...
2018-09-24 14:35:51 +0000 UTC
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As requested, as mentioned in recent updates, and as above!
2018-09-18 17:37:24 +0000 UTC
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Last week we wrapped up the Platformer Series, at least internally we did. Publicly that video comes out this week.
If you're a $5+ supporter I've just launched a new topic poll for your consideration, so please go leave a vote.
So if we're polling for the next topic, and the platformer is finished, what a...
2018-09-17 15:06:39 +0000 UTC
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This list mostly covers options related to topics I've encountered myself in recent projects that I think with a bit of research and editing flair I could deliver a super good video on. This is hopefully where the work I've done on my own games and my own growth as a developer can feed back into my teaching work!
"Melee attacks" is the exception, but it remains a very popular subject and was the original second place winner of the last poll so I'd be very remiss to not include it. I said previ...
2018-09-17 14:47:28 +0000 UTC
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Source code: https://shaunjs.itch.io/shauns-complete-platformer-tutorial-series
This part handles 3 small tweaks that I managed to cram into one feature-packed episode. We improve the hit sparks, make the signpost input & feedback better and also add strafing!
Each individually a small thing, but each one adding quite a lot to the final product.
People have asked about see...
2018-09-14 18:18:04 +0000 UTC
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Hallooo!
Last week we put out another Platformer episode. This week we'll be doing the same! If there's any *small* features you'd like to see in the platformer or polishing touches you want to know how to accomplish. Now is the time to speak up because we are rapidly wrapping this thing up and tying the loose ends.
After the platformer is done and dusted, the next thing should be for me to go back and t...
2018-09-11 11:29:19 +0000 UTC
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TL;DR: Patreon have had issues lately, please just take a second to check that your payments are going through ok. The vast majority of you should be fine.
Hello! Video is on its way, just wanted to drop some info about some issues I heard Patreon is having with payments recently in particular.
This is what they told me:
"You may be aware that [In August] there were some issues with declined payments, and confusion caused by patrons seeing a new ...
2018-09-07 13:35:00 +0000 UTC
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TL;DR: This week I'm working on a platformer episode again, it might be the last one, it might be the second to last one. Not yet sure! After that we'll do some Patron selected topics.
The platformer series will be wrapping up with either one, or two more episodes. I have at least a couple of things I want to touch on but it depends how much I want to get into one video. Will see once I dig into it.
I had talked before about following up the Platformer series at some point with a "Season...
2018-09-03 12:52:31 +0000 UTC
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Bit later than usual on this one. Sorry about that!
Setting up a couple of different simple endings to the game. Covers showing multiple lines of text, variables within text, quotations marks within strings and also manipulating sprites on asset layers.
This rounds off the project quite nicely I think but there's some loose ends I'm hoping to tie up with parts 26 and maybe 27 depending. But then I think it'll be time to Move On! More info on Monday :)
Enjoy!
Code will b...
2018-08-31 22:54:22 +0000 UTC
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So it's been a pretty big couple of weeks in terms of my patreon 'growth'. We're suddenly within reach of a goal I wasn't sure we'd ever hit with Patreon revenue alone. So I want to talk a bit about how exactly my $1500 goal will work should we hit it.
So as described, with $1500 a month my ad revenue from YouTube becomes trivial enough a part of sustaining my work that I can drop it completely. But the important caveat here is that it won't happen immediately.
Any of yo...
2018-08-27 13:53:35 +0000 UTC
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The code is now more-or-less ready for this part, but the video will be at least a couple(?) more days. We have branching endings based on a couple of variables. Scrolling text, scrolling multiple lines of text - which I know some people have wanted since the signpost video - and mostly a combination of previously covered things. We also learn how to interact with asset layers a bit more.
It's a bit of a "messy" part in that it doesn't really focus on any major learning goal but...
2018-08-24 14:28:39 +0000 UTC
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Hope y'all like blue* text because we got links for days in this update.
Last Friday saw the Complete Platformer Tutorial part 23 go public and part 24 go up for $5 Wizards. I don't want to jinx it but we're pretty on schedule tutorial wise! This week's part 25 will be looking at putting an ending (or two) into the ga...
2018-08-20 15:23:51 +0000 UTC
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So this is a quick part. It's something I wanted to put into the game to set up the "Endings" episode, that is almost not enough to put in its own episode, but enough to make mixing it with the next episode produce a really bloated video. So here it is in a ten minute piece instead.
This mostly reinforces the lessons of part 23, using the persistency of globals to create, save and load long term consequences.
Now go make your own Undertale!
-S
2018-08-17 18:40:20 +0000 UTC
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Last week we got not one but two videos out! Look at me go. All just in time for the weekend where I streamed Ludum Dare 42 and it was a HOOT!
It's a local multiplayer (only, sadly) game about breaking the ground underneath one another (Minecraft Spleef! With Fireballs!).
The game - and source code! - are availab...
2018-08-13 13:47:42 +0000 UTC
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So we've already covered drawing text to the GUI, but this part looks at how to include variables in that text, how to transform text, and how to track a simple score across levels & save files.
A simple part with important lessons and our first global variables!
Live to the public next Friday. Enjoy!
-S
2018-08-10 20:05:57 +0000 UTC
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So I mentioned making a quick video on the new 2.1.5 collision functions? Here it is! It actually kinda was quick.
It's mostly what I did in the livestream explained.
Enjoy!
PS: Also, LUDUM DARE 42 is this weekend! I'm not totally sure if I'll be doing it yet, but I might be. If I am, I'll be streaming over the weekend!
-S
2018-08-08 14:06:25 +0000 UTC
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Some of you might have seen my livestream that shortly followed the going-live of the latest Platformer episoder. We checked out a bunch of the changes to GMS2 in the newest update. Go check out the footage of that stream here.
Most excitingly for me, new collision functions have been added that allow you to return a *list* of co...
2018-08-06 10:35:39 +0000 UTC
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What's slightly maddening about this episode is that to look at it, you'd wonder what took so long? But yeesh. Lots of silly issues both easily avoidable and less easily avoidable to dodge and fix and re-record with this one. In the end I did the whole thing more or less from scratch but now I'm happy that it's pretty solid.
It's not particularly "special", there's not really any fancy or difficult editing, but anything involving the application surface requires me taking some time to be sure ...
2018-08-02 13:46:07 +0000 UTC
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I don't know if I ever explained the week count that I apply to these updates. I count the weeks mostly for myself, starting with the first week of the year. Part of doing these updates is for myself, too. Even though plans ebb and change constantly it helps a lot to keep track of what I've accomplished in a given week and what my plans are. It also weirdly helps stem the feeling of time passing faster and faster and stops me from losing days to that sort of strange, inertia life takes on when y...
2018-07-30 13:36:45 +0000 UTC
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Part 21 has just gone live on YouTube but part 22 is going to have to wait a few days. What was supposed to be a very short tutorial about making a few quick code changes to allow full screen in the platformer avoiding the draw gui glitches that come with using the built in options, has unfortunately been harder to make than I thought.
The code I have works but recording has been a pain. OBS doesn't handle going from fullscreen to windowed well and my first solution was to demonstrate the effe...
2018-07-27 14:38:42 +0000 UTC
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In the last poll, Raeldor suggested a video on "A proper resizeable GUI". This got a lot of interest but similar to the "Rope swing" stuff I think it's possible that a lot of people interpret that topic as meaning whatever is most useful to them which could be many different things. I'll do my best if this is selected to cover what I think is the most useful, widely applicable contexts for this topic. But you can't expect from this to come away with the ability to write a fully ...
2018-07-25 14:45:45 +0000 UTC
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But despite forgetting to run a poll I'm pretty happy with the steam I've picked up again with videos. Rather than run some sort of 24 hour poll and gun straight into work on the next patron topic video, I'm going to take some time to curate the topics for the poll, put it out tomorrow and spend the rest of the week working on the Platformer series since we're close to rounding that off. Following week will be a Patron Topic.
What will come after the platformer is wrapped up?
I lik...
2018-07-23 15:33:07 +0000 UTC
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This part covers having the enemies shoot back at the player.
Public on Friday as always!
Will be updating the itch page with the new source code later today.
2018-07-23 11:59:36 +0000 UTC
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I wasn't originally going to cover this, enjoying how much the game unambiguously posed the player as the Villain All Along but it's been requested a lot and I think it's worth showing how to tackle the concept of having the enemy Fight Back.
After all, the approach to creating something that responds to player input is quite different to creating something automated. I'm hesitant to refer to this kind of thing as "AI" anymore than you'd refer to an alarm clock or a microwave as "intelligence"...
2018-07-18 14:40:41 +0000 UTC
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New video has just gone out to $5 supporters and will be live publically on Friday. Source code is also up here if you're in a massive hurry to learn how rope swings work and you can spare the one off fee (or you're a $5+ supporter). I had a bit of a cold recently too so I might sound a little weird in this video.
Looping back aroun...
2018-07-16 14:42:28 +0000 UTC
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Bit of an epic journey towards what ended up a relatively straightforward twenty five minute video, but we finally got there.
Source code: https://shaunjs.itch.io/shauns-rope-swinging
For $5+ supporters, click the link at the top of the page to link itch to patreon and get instant access.
2018-07-16 13:38:11 +0000 UTC
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The ropeswing video is fully edited, I just need to sort the audio levels out and render the thing. (Then Thumbnail, source code page, upload, description, yada yada) Unfortunately Adobe Audition is refusing to start. And most of my other Adobe tools (Premiere, et al) have been stalling all day. So given it's now... 7pm here I'm going to call it for today and set my computer about grabbing some updates/reinstalling some things and hope to have the video out to you all on Monday.
That'll then b...
2018-07-13 18:12:11 +0000 UTC
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First of all: Thank you all so much. Thank you for the support you've given over the past few weeks while I've not been able to do the work I usually could. As a creator in a time where there is so much pressure to never-stop-putting-things-out, to have only made one video in the last.. four? five weeks? Feels atrocious no matter how well I might understand the toxicity of that kind of mindset.
Because while I've found peace with taking-the-time-I-need to work on complex videos, i...
2018-07-10 15:00:03 +0000 UTC
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