At 8/16/17 02:41 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 8/16/17 12:32 PM, Gimmick wrote:

Yes. [...] you're still writing those bits with Haxe.

Hmm, I see.

Was there something in particular you wanted to contribute?

No, not particularly. Just been interested in it and wondering where to start.

At 8/17/17 10:37 AM, Gimmick wrote: No, not particularly. Just been interested in it and wondering where to start.

Have you looked at HaxeFlixel? It's the lib I mainly use, on top of OpenFL.

I'm actually looking at a demo I could create (and maybe upload to the Portal) to get more people interested in the lib. Not sure what to make yet, but none of the existing demos have an audience like this.

At 8/2/17 12:35 PM, Gimmick wrote:

At 8/1/17 02:57 PM, Rustygames wrote:

At 7/30/17 02:10 PM, egg82 wrote: Instead here we are with JavaScript being the next gamedev language for web. How the hell did we do this to ourselves?

Typescript is awesome, use that :)

Looks vaguely like AS, nice

Because AS was basically JS with some 'grown-up' stuff added. TS is that but even further.

At 8/2/17 02:45 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 8/1/17 02:57 PM, Rustygames wrote: Typescript is awesome, use that :)

I took a quick glance at it. Looks pretty good, actually!
Not sure how it handles multithreading, file I/O, or generics though.

Generics are supported.
File I/O is more of an implementation thing; since Typescript just transpiles to js, you can use any js file I/O lib you like (node or electron or whatever, not browser of course).
Multi-threading not sure about, let me know if you find out anything

(PS sorry for late replies, I don't check in often)

Is anyone doing this game jam?

https://itch.io/jam/a-game-by-its-cover-2017

I absolutely love that it's just like Austin Breed's jam idea many years ago where we had an art jam for a week for artists to create screenshots of fictional games and then a game jam to actually make those games!

At 9/8/17 08:45 PM, OmarShehata wrote: Is anyone doing this game jam?

https://itch.io/jam/a-game-by-its-cover-2017

I absolutely love that it's just like Austin Breed's jam idea many years ago where we had an art jam for a week for artists to create screenshots of fictional games and then a game jam to actually make those games!

"Many years ago" wow it was, wasn't it. Maybe NG could do one like that, individual art/audio/writing jams that all inspire a game jam (@TomFulp). http://austinbreed.newgrounds.com/news/post/848488

I'm getting a lot better at coding up prototypes quickly, so I might have to jump in on the next one.

Alternative: my graveyard of prototypes is growing, so I have many to pull from

At 9/9/17 10:37 PM, MSGhero wrote: I'm getting a lot better at coding up prototypes quickly, so I might have to jump in on the next one.

Alternative: my graveyard of prototypes is growing, so I have many to pull from

Speaking of which, Pizza Jam hosted by some people in r/gamedev starts tomorrow and lasts two weeks.

At 9/14/17 04:33 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 9/9/17 10:37 PM, MSGhero wrote: I'm getting a lot better at coding up prototypes quickly, so I might have to jump in on the next one.

Alternative: my graveyard of prototypes is growing, so I have many to pull from

Speaking of which, Pizza Jam hosted by some people in r/gamedev starts tomorrow and lasts two weeks.

Free pizza!

why'd y'all let this fall off the first page of the forum?

At 10/22/17 07:53 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: why'd y'all let this fall off the first page of the forum?

Sorry Tyler.

I made my first successful game jam game recently: https://xendran.itch.io/transmute

It's a bit of a mess, so I'm probably going to fix it up a bit to be more playable before uploading elsewhere. Got 3rd in the jam, and it's the first game I've finished in a few years, first game made with Haxe. CPP export helped us out a ton, as the designer was able to rapidly iterate the level data CSVs, but then we also had a web version for easily sharing builds.

I just finished moving across the country, so I haven't had much time to program or post since then (I used less than half of the allotted jam time), but I'm getting back into things now. Probably time to start posting again on Twitter and here.

Working with a dedicated designer was pretty fun. My previous projects have had an artist+designer person, which is different. We used OpenGameArt in the jam, which isn't ideal, but who cares.

At 10/22/17 08:55 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 10/22/17 07:53 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: why'd y'all let this fall off the first page of the forum?

Sorry Tyler.

I made my first successful game jam game recently: https://xendran.itch.io/transmute

It's a bit of a mess, so I'm probably going to fix it up a bit to be more playable before uploading elsewhere. Got 3rd in the jam, and it's the first game I've finished in a few years, first game made with Haxe. CPP export helped us out a ton, as the designer was able to rapidly iterate the level data CSVs, but then we also had a web version for easily sharing builds.

I just finished moving across the country, so I haven't had much time to program or post since then (I used less than half of the allotted jam time), but I'm getting back into things now. Probably time to start posting again on Twitter and here.

Working with a dedicated designer was pretty fun. My previous projects have had an artist+designer person, which is different. We used OpenGameArt in the jam, which isn't ideal, but who cares.

*drunk post*

I died 20 times before I could get more than 10 tiles up. Game looks cool. But too many mechanics are introduced too fast. I had no clue what any of the tiles were. In the first screen. I see spikes (?). Moving tiles that took many tried to figure out how to cross. Tiles that block my path. Purple (pink?) tiles that shoot and kill me. Water tiles (blue tiles?) that fill the bottom until I am dead. And more tiles I think. I don't expect this to be a modern Super Mario Stage that perfectly teaches me a mechanic and expands on it. But I cant be introduced to so many mechanics in the first screen so fast. Makes for a frustrating introduction.

Making Game Jam games is cool though. I need to make moooore.

I quit my current employer this week. Moving to a smaller (50 person?) mobile company. Thank Christ. I might be a sellout, but godamnit, I am trying to make better games as an adult. That's all I can ask for I suppose.

At 10/29/17 02:09 AM, 23450 wrote: I died 20 times before I could get more than 10 tiles up. Game looks cool. But too many mechanics are introduced too fast. I had no clue what any of the tiles were. In the first screen. I see spikes (?). Moving tiles that took many tried to figure out how to cross. Tiles that block my path. Purple (pink?) tiles that shoot and kill me. Water tiles (blue tiles?) that fill the bottom until I am dead. And more tiles I think. I don't expect this to be a modern Super Mario Stage that perfectly teaches me a mechanic and expands on it. But I cant be introduced to so many mechanics in the first screen so fast. Makes for a frustrating introduction.

Yeah I can barely play it as well. I gave the dedicated designer the ability to quickly iterate levels, so he came up with this complicated “you almost need to be frame perfect” one. I had to disable dying to test the features that occur later on because I couldn’t get there otherwise.

At 8/2/17 02:45 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 8/1/17 02:57 PM, Rustygames wrote: Typescript is awesome, use that :)

I took a quick glance at it. Looks pretty good, actually!
Not sure how it handles multithreading, file I/O, or generics though.

A lot of those things is up to the browser implementation, because Typescript is just a transpiled superscript of Javascript. If you can't do it in the runtime (browser implementation) you are using, then you won't be able to do it in Typescript, but re: generics, since that is actually a language feature, you can talk more about it--Typescript was made to strongly type Javascript (it looks a lot like C# in practice, actually) so generics are supported in a way that is very reminiscent of C#, a strongly typed language

I use Typescript in the V8 runtime through Node.js so I have a lot of access to multithreading (deferred function execution in a different thread despite JS being single-threaded) and great file I/O (V8 has interfaces for the C++ implementation underneath the hood and therefore native file I/O) -- but it's worth noting I don't make games and Node isn't used for games, I just felt like talking a little on Typescript because I really enjoy it and think it's a great tool even for web game devs

Wow, I didn't know Swivel was written in Haxe and would be open source! https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel

Neato @Mike

At 12/7/17 06:40 PM, MSGhero wrote: Wow, I didn't know Swivel was written in Haxe and would be open source! https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel

Neato @Mike

Sorry it took so long! I've been meaning to open source it for a long time. Stupidly I had lost a bit of the source, so I'm working on getting it up and running again so others can help maintain it.

At 12/8/17 03:20 PM, mike wrote:

At 12/7/17 06:40 PM, MSGhero wrote: Wow, I didn't know Swivel was written in Haxe and would be open source! https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel

Neato @Mike

Sorry it took so long! I've been meaning to open source it for a long time. Stupidly I had lost a bit of the source, so I'm working on getting it up and running again so others can help maintain it.

Did you get many messages from users using Swivel, regarding bugs, etc.? Do people still email/PM you about it, or has it largely fallen by the wayside? It'd be interesting to find out how things are 5 years after release.

At 12/9/17 12:40 PM, Gimmick wrote: Did you get many messages from users using Swivel, regarding bugs, etc.? Do people still email/PM you about it, or has it largely fallen by the wayside? It'd be interesting to find out how things are 5 years after release.

Has it really been 5 years? Felt like two ago. Then again, I'm coming up on 7 years so I might be forgetting in my old age.

God damn, just looking at the source of AS3YAML makes me shudder. Spent 2 hours trying to remove its dependence on the AS3Commons Collections framework, and I think I fucked everything up. It doesn't help that the source of the YAML parser is stacked upon layers upon layers of abstraction, so I can't even figure out what the fuck the data flow is. Revolvers, Configurations, Factories, Parsers, jesus. This is great for a generic parser, but I just need a simple YAML parser (and other simple YAML parsers don't even work properly)

Layers of abstraction are good for high level stuff but it's like a goddamn Gordion knot, half the time I just feel like cutting the whole thing and starting from scratch.

edit: the kicker is that this parser chokes and loops infinitely when trying to decode an empty string. lol

At 12/9/17 12:40 PM, Gimmick wrote: Did you get many messages from users using Swivel, regarding bugs, etc.? Do people still email/PM you about it, or has it largely fallen by the wayside? It'd be interesting to find out how things are 5 years after release.

Oh yea, I still get daily messages about it that I unfortunately haven't kept up with, which is why I want to open source it. The app itself is not so important now due to a) the decline of Flash and b) Animate CC finally has an okay video export, but it's still useful for converting old SWFs (AS2) and people still use it.

Take a lesson from me, don't let your app rot, open source your code right away, and add CI so you get automated builds!

At 12/11/17 03:20 PM, mike wrote: Take a lesson from me, don't let your app rot, open source your code right away,

I remember someone (probably Tom) mentioning that when Swivel was released it was usually paired with encouraging people to join Newgrounds, but there were a lot of cases where people would, (it was either a quote, or paraphrasing, I don't remember) "take the software and run".

I don't recall Newgrounds Supporter being a thing back then; how would things have unfolded if Swivel were available only to supporters at the time of release (with, say, a concession that the limitation would be removed after X period of time)? I'm guessing that it would have largely been ignored (seeing as how people - myself included, heh - like free stuff)?

and add CI so you get automated builds!

How would you go about doing that with flash projects? I usually only see them for C++, Java, and more popular languages. Also, does CI make sense if you're not working on OSS, or are the only developer?

At 12/11/17 02:08 AM, Gimmick wrote: God damn, just looking at the source of AS3YAML makes me shudder. [...] Revolvers, Configurations, Factories, Parsers

Resolvers*, guess I was subconsciously thinking of shooting myself at the time :p

At 12/12/17 12:15 AM, Gimmick wrote: I don't recall Newgrounds Supporter being a thing back then; how would things have unfolded if Swivel were available only to supporters at the time of release?

So, firstly, I wanted to help people out, and I think it's cool to provide software for free. Particularly since all of the SWF->video converters out there cost money and were absolute garbage.

But more importantly, lots of video/audio codecs are patented (including H264), so you're asking for trouble if you try to make a profit from video encoding software. Legally NG would have had to pay license fees to the MPEG group if we sold the software.

Also, as soon as you sell software, you have to provide support, and that's not really something NG had the manpower to do (particularly since Swivel was my 'going away present' to NG).

How would you go about doing [CI] with flash projects? I usually only see them for C++, Java, and more popular languages. Also, does CI make sense if you're not working on OSS, or are the only developer?

If you can build your app on the command line, you should be able to do CI with it. Pure Flash would be tough, but I used Haxe. The AIR SDK has command line tools to bundle the app into an EXE. Unfortunately the big CI providers like Travis and Appveyor cost money if you are closed source. But if you are open source, there is zero reason why you shouldn't be using those services, they're super helpful.

The important thing is to make it as easy as possible to build and package your app. This gets very important once you are developing for multiple platforms. For example, Swivel had to be bundled using an NSIS installer for Windows and by creating a DMG disk image on Mac. Can you imagine doing a game for 3-5 different platforms? Not just Win vs. Mac, but even things like packaging for Steam vs GoG vs Windows Store.

So you want to minimize the steps and automate this stuff as much as possible, even if it's just by making scripts to package your app.

At 12/12/17 06:43 PM, mike wrote:

At 12/12/17 12:15 AM, Gimmick wrote:

So, firstly, I wanted to help people out [...] you have to provide support, and that's not really something NG had the manpower to do (particularly since Swivel was my 'going away present' to NG).

I see, good to know.

But if you are open source, there is zero reason why you shouldn't be using those services, they're super helpful.

How do those CI services on Github work? Do you upload the script to Appveyor and they run it each time a commit is performed, or so?

For example, Swivel had to be bundled using an NSIS installer for Windows and by creating a DMG disk image on Mac.

I'm currently looking at Inno, hadn't heard of NSIS before. Why did you pick NSIS? Was it familiarity, or something else? (because from what I recall Inno is somewhat easier to use)

So you want to minimize the steps and automate this stuff as much as possible, even if it's just by making scripts to package your app.

I see, thanks!

At 12/13/17 01:23 AM, Gimmick wrote: How do those CI services on Github work? Do you upload the script to Appveyor and they run it each time a commit is performed, or so?

It's actually super easy -- you just commit a .travis.yml (or .appveyor.yml for AppVeyor) to your GitHub repo that lays out the commands to build your app. From then on, Travis will automatically build and test your app on each commit and pull request. GitHub will show you green if everything passes on Travis and red if something breaks. This makes life sooo much nicer once your project gets complex or has a lot of community involvement.

Travis has nice integration with most popular tools, too. Here's the script to build a Haxe project.

I'm currently looking at Inno, hadn't heard of NSIS before. Why did you pick NSIS? Was it familiarity, or something else? (because from what I recall Inno is somewhat easier to use)

Mostly familiarity, don't know anything about Inno but see NSIS used a lot. It wasn't too bad to set up, I mostly copy+pasted the examples, and it's nice and lightweight. Also Justin Frankel of Nullsoft is one of my heroes!

At 12/13/17 01:58 PM, mike wrote:

At 12/13/17 01:23 AM, Gimmick wrote: How do those CI services on Github work? Do you upload the script to Appveyor and they run it each time a commit is performed, or so?

It's actually super easy -- you just commit a .travis.yml (or .appveyor.yml for AppVeyor) to your GitHub repo that lays out the commands to build your app. Travis has nice integration with most popular tools, too. Here's the script to build a Haxe project.

I see, thanks! Looks like I might use it for my next project if I use Haxe.

Side note, which is better for creating desktop applications (in terms of ease of development, not necessarily portability): Haxe, or Java? I've used Java in the past and while getting a UI up and running is very easy with JavaFX, it's a pain in the ass fugly language to deal with. I'm looking at C# which may be a better option, but I'd like to know more about Haxe beforehand.

At 12/14/17 03:36 AM, Gimmick wrote: Side note, which is better for creating desktop applications (in terms of ease of development, not necessarily portability): Haxe, or Java? I've used Java in the past and while getting a UI up and running is very easy with JavaFX, it's a pain in the ass fugly language to deal with. I'm looking at C# which may be a better option, but I'd like to know more about Haxe beforehand.

I used Java only in class so I don’t have much to say about that. But HaxeUI is a new(ly remade) UI lib that’s super easy to use. It requires a backend, like OpenFL or flixel or kha or whatever, but yeah easy to use. There’s even a command line backend where the same UI xml and css work in OpenFL as they do in a legit cli with mouse interactability.

At 12/14/17 12:35 PM, MSGhero wrote: I used Java only in class so I don’t have much to say about that. But HaxeUI is a new(ly remade) UI lib that’s super easy to use. It requires a backend, like OpenFL or flixel or kha or whatever, but yeah easy to use. There’s even a command line backend where the same UI xml and css work in OpenFL as they do in a legit cli with mouse interactability.

Looking at it, HaxeUI seems to be similar to JFX in that all the UI components are OS-independent. Ideally I'd prefer something like Swing with a native look-and-feel, but it seems like the Waxe project hasn't been updated for quite awhile now. It's not a dealbreaker though so I guess I might move to Haxe, it'll be a good way to learn it I suppose.

I'd go for a WPF application but Visual Studio Community requires too much space on my harddisk :(

At 12/14/17 08:31 PM, Gimmick wrote: Looking at it, HaxeUI seems to be similar to JFX in that all the UI components are OS-independent. Ideally I'd prefer something like Swing with a native look-and-feel, but it seems like the Waxe project hasn't been updated for quite awhile now. It's not a dealbreaker though so I guess I might move to Haxe, it'll be a good way to learn it I suppose.

There’s a HaxeUI-native which uses native components. That may not be the exact name of it, and Mac support is currently iffy due to their restrictions.

At 12/12/17 06:43 PM, mike wrote:
If you can build your app on the command line, you should be able to do CI with it. Pure Flash would be tough, but I used Haxe.

One place I worked (back when Flash was relevant) we did pure Flash builds automatically (although we didn't have CI at the time). It was achieved using jsfl, which was a javascript API for interacting with the Flash IDE. It was pretty unstable though, bit of a nightmare to work with.

You know what's fun? Having a function that essentially just basic math by subtracting 0.1 from 1.0 down to 0.0 completely break for no apparent reason, when it has worked for months without issue. After several headaches and god knows how long of confusingly tinkering with code, I found out that PHP is just fucked. God dammit do I ever fucking hate PHP.

So that's how my day at work was today. :(

At 1/11/18 05:54 PM, Diki wrote: php sux

So that's how my day at work was today. :(

I spent my day at work doing some work but also learning that OpenFL is on its way to plug n play swfs. That’s not the actual goal, more of a side effect: js and typescript users can now use OpenFL as a library and can embed swfs as assets. Pretty much AS3 for js. But with a bit more bytecode work, it’s possible to also get the code out of the swf. With the AS3 to Haxe conversion library and all of that, maybe just maybe that could be a swf -> native js pipeline.

I kinda want to play around with that idea, but I also don’t want to deal with bytecode.