It came from the Woods

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=892088429

"Woods" is an arcade first person shooter, run and gun mainly.
Inspired by the early 90s fps games.

Need some help from you guys, would be nice, if you could support my little game on greenlight.
Don't know, if it will pass greenlight before it ends...
If you have some questions.... feel free to ask me


Thanks.

Kind Regards,
MooKai

I've read some of the comments of Steam already. Greenlight is hell, no horror game can compete with the bloodthirsty Steam crowd.

To the vid....what can I say, looks like a well crafted single area captured from different sides and from within, filled with characters we have seen a bit too often (some for a decade now).

And it looks like your game suffers from the stock AI scripts that make the enemies suddenly stop in their tracks just when things become interesting - until you fall back a few steps, they come after you again - and hesitate again. Rince and Repeat.

If you can build a whole map of that quality (with different looking areas of course) and add some custom scripts that provide a bit of a challenge to the player, what now appears to be a simple shoot-em-up-as-you-like could become a marketable game.

Apart from that small advice I cannot support you, because imo both Steam Greenlight and Early Access are as beneficial as nuclear waste.

The AI was from before the AI update.
Yes, the video shows only 2 areas, but the screenshots show some more.
There're 18 levels in total, main theme forest of course. (Villages, swamp, caves etc... )
I will modify the enemies a little bit before final release (maybe some new edited textures).

Thanks for your comment.

The title is quite captivating.

The environment of the level in the video is simply stunning, really outstanding work.

I like what I see visually. AI needs work as stated. I advise some good VO (voice over) and storyline so there is more than just shooting fat guys.

Mike

Yes, there will be some nice voice over... Maybe Duke Nukem style... Lol
Thanks earthling45, still a lot of work.

Thanks for the help so far

Game looks good, could do with some more in depth info about the story line if there is one, it really could do with some more interactive elements, just running around killing stuff gets very old very quick, also, i know the stock characters/dlc characters look cool and all, but they've been used so many times in so many games, it's not a good idea to put them in a commercial game.

A little advice about dealing with the steam herd:

"I just reply to the comments, I don't have to sweet talk here, it's about the game..."

yes, you do, in fact that's exactly why you are there, you are presenting a game to your prospective customers, you have to present yourself and the game in the best light, arguing with the steam crowd will just turn them against you, and turn nasty.

Customer relations 101, rule 1: Be nice to the customers, they may not always be right, but treat them as if they are and listen to themm afetr all they're the ones with money that may or may not end up in your pocket.

I've noticed in a lot of your releases, the comment section is full of people making suggestions (the ones you didn't delete that is) and you basically telling them they're wrong and arguing with them, that's not great PR, try to tone it down a bit, even if you don't agree with them, just say "ok, i understand where you're coming from, i'll have a think about it, however i do thinks it's better this way because .... X Y Z reasons" and leave it at that, you don't need to make witty comebacks (as much fun as it is to do so ), and scything insults, the more steam users you can charm the quicker it will get green-lit, and the more sales you will get.

I'm not trying to insult you, or be personal, just wanted to try and steer you in the right direction, it's things like this that are the reason you have a bit of a bad rep in the steam community.

The characters will be edited again
Well, the story, yes the game has a story... A typical action game story.

The aliens have stolen your game collection, now you're pi..... And want your games back.
Btw. the Aliens have cloned all the people of the redneck land and now they're angry and are after u...

Well, a normal fps shooter story.

.... Well it's not the "steam crowd" ... It's the Greenlight crowd...
The Greenlight comments are always funny, I love it

Btw. my 2nd project passed Greenlight after 2 weeks...

The Greenlight crowd are the Steam crowd, they're your customers, don't alienate them.



not exactly an achievement if you know the right groups, which is why greenlight is going away now

What groups you mean?

There are groups on Steam that offer voting services for steam credit, basically you pay them a fee and they get their thousands of members to thumbs up your project.

(just to be clear i wasn't accusing you of that, just saying that it's easy to get green-lit no matter how good or bad a game is, that's why there's so many bad games out there)

One of the reasons they are shutting it down.

Dave

I never pay for votes or give away keys for votes.
The "toxic atmosphere" at Greenlight could be also a reason that it's soon history...

To be fair, there's a mainly toxic atmosphere mainly because so many games are being submitted and green-lit that shouldn't be, it's a bit of an ever decreasing circle.

Your level looks very lush and very good. About the rest has been talked a lot before and I too feel like you are wasting it on an ill advised game.



-Wolf

I will continue working on that game, still a lot of work to do.

You certainly have good design skills, MooKai!

Thank you

yes looks good Mookai, I'm sure you can do much with it. Good luck with the project

I know its PROBABLY NOT,,,but is

"It came from the Woods " part 2 of

http://store.steampowered.com/app/589620/It_Lurks_in_the_Woods/

First it lurked for a while then came out of the woods ?

hey...i'm half joking,,,,just thought the name seemed to match.

may i just say. to the above Quote, its hard for anyone that is not a model designer, to get unique characters in to game guru, i for one has no skills in making characters, people like me have to use what we have or maybe if one is lucky and know someone that can model and rig a character for him, but so far we have to use what we have. im also building a game, and so far using stock ai, so this comment makes me depressed. why do one still try.
if we do not get an easy character in port system very soon, in place , to import FBX models easily in to game guru , then a lot of us who is trying to make a games , is going to fall flat on their face, witch will again not be a good image for game guru.

i have to go and motivate myself now to keep on trying.

@ MooKai, nice job so far.

( Ps.; dont think il every show what im trying to make. )

@PCSKILLER: Don't be. Its just the reality and its always the most healthy to be realistic.

For example: I paint. I'm not particulary good at it and I know that I will never do it professionally nor will I ever reach the level of true artists. My entire collection of paintings will likely scorch to dust after my passing. However, I still enjoy doing so and I sold a few of these paintings to people that have them up in their house. I do artworks for family members and whenever I show them at art shows, people show up that really like them. I just like making them.

Its the same with making games. You might never be able to compete with professional standarts...likely not even middlemarket standards. However, thats okay if you are honest and you know about your own limitations. I've released plenty of games with purchased characters in them....and you know what? There where no complaints and a lot of reviews praised the way I edited them or at least mentioned that I modified premade assets. As much as a simple retexture to match the style of your game is often all that people ask for! (and that you make a game of reasonable quality.)

You should at least learn the basics of modeling and texturing. Especially texturing...it already allows you to do a ton of cool things.

I'm a terrible coder but I'm familiar with the basics of C++ and I can successfully modify LUA scripts. If you are more of a coder you should at least be able to do the bare minimum of editing art assets. This is a must for a title that you want to sell. As I recently said somewhere, making games is meta-art that combines a vast array of skills.

What matters in the end is if you or your target audience likes the game and if you enjoy making it. Thats the whole bloody point after all, now, ain't it?



-Wolf

Hi Mookai, honestly, graphics and visual are quiet impressive and very immersive. This demonstrate that, at this point, GG is a very powerfull scene maker. As stated, characters should be more originals than the previously used and re-used stock characters. maybe one day the Character Creator inside GG will allow to have realy custom AI characters. I wish you good look

Listen up everyone.

You DO NOT need to be an expert modeller to create games with custom or different characters.

Just buy them.

Go to www.turbosquid.com and look for a model you want to use in fbx format.

Buy iClone pipeline and use their character creator then 3D exchange to export to fbx.

Use Mixamo's characters by buying a monthly subscription to Adobe - comes with it.

Use MakeHuman if you wish to create human characters (not nearly as good).

Buy Poser Pro Game Dev - comes with game licenses for a wide variety of characters.

Buy a game license character off of Daz, Poser or whatever.

In any case, use these programs and resources to get your character in fbx format.

Buy FBX2GG.

Auto Rig and grab animations from Mixamo (or use GG animations from existing characters).

Export to fbx.

Bring into FBX2GG and then add each animation to the rigged character until your character is built up (be patient, can crash a lot) - whether Mixamo/Fuse or GG animations.

Export to Direct X model.

Edit FPE file.

Put all files (model, .dds texture, fpe, etc) in entitybank (I made my own folder and put stuff in there).

Put scripts in scriptbank

Then choose and drop them into your GG level.

Gtox has been helping me big time and I actually have two custom characters inside GG - never thought I would. Bought both from Turbosquid for a tiny price (with game licenses) and I already have a Adobe account due to needing it for my business, so Mixamo is included - for now.

That should allow you to bring in a zillion different characters.

Mike

@Wolf. yes you are correct, its just frustrating in knowing my limitations, i have learned a little lua, but thats about it.
hopefully one day i can show with what im bussy.

If you have passion there are no limitations, I had never used a modelling program before, I had never imported a character before, I had never scripted LUA before, in fact I had never tried to make a game before, but one year after picking up GameGuru and finding the passion look at me... I can model, I can script, I can gameguru!

The only limitation is yourself, if you don't let yourself grow and expand, you won't grow and expand

hopefully one day i do not need to work 12 hours every day , and not only have about 3 hours every night to try and do every thing i want to do with GG, then it would be nice

I have two jobs, my primary is 5 days a week, 12hr shifts, my second is sat/sun 12hrs

@UNIRD12B
No, that has nothing to do with my project.
It's from someone else.

@PCSKILLER
thank you.
I don't see a big problem to use these characters. Most steam user never seen them before somewhere.
Maybe you can edit a little bit the texture, then it looks already different.

@reyandekcire
thanks.
"This demonstrate that, at this point, GG is a very powerfull scene maker."
yes it is.
to get a good scene you must set the light and shadow right... and the fog... etc...

@World Class Multimedia
thanks for the good info, some of the tools I know, some are new to me
I learn something new everyday...


oh, 12hrs work would kill me... I just work from 8-5pm ... (sometimes fall asleep at my desk HA HA HA HA)

GG should have a visual scripting same Fusion 2.5 , that's a great and easy system

That was me years ago,I remember it well.all manual work,suffering for it now though.

Dave

And there lies the conundrum.

The late FPSC engine had severe limitations but everbody could come up with impressive screenshots where framerate doesn't matter and lighting can be tailord to look good. Over the years a ton of WIP threads accumulated that all had juicy screenshots but never resulted in anything playable so a few mean people (including me) started to call FPSC a "screenshot engine".

Now that GG is around for some time I start to see the same pattern here. It's easy to come up with a worthwhile youtube vid that actually contains only some shoot-em-up moments and has no playworthy game behind it.

If you want to promote GameGuru and not just use it to make a fast buck on Steam, I hope you don't go down the same road too many people have already gone (and started to give GG a bad name) and put up the effort to create a worthwhile game that will make other GG users proud and inspire them - before you try to sell it.

Good luck.

There is a partial truth to that.

I've only managed to release B grade games on FPSC. Thats fine but better games where possible in theory. Its just that the engine didn't allow games like that to pass as it gave you crashes and bugs when you dared to build a final product. I've been there loads of times.

Game Guru does not. It might very well be what we wanted FPSC to be back then. Sure! I've only released a simple test game so far, but I had no problems what so ever with the standalone.

*coughcough*

I should have said "rarely" or "only occasionally" (resulted in anything playable), not "never".

I apologize to all the developers who actually DID release their demo, partial or full game for FPSC.

Yeah, then you would have nailed it.

No aologizing needed, but it *WAS* possible to create a decent game in FPSC (I have to agree, not a very stable one!), and it *IS* possible to create such games in GG now.

I am not only talking about my own commercial games, but also the stuff wolf releases and released (ok, that was only a tiny fraction of his WIP, but whatever he released, was really solid B-style pro game) and Duchenkuke's stuff now.

The standalone games are very stable, I think I had no crashes so far (for final versions)... compared to FPSC...

Buy this buy that....Mmm, I would say learn blender or max. Blender has the easiest rigging Ive ever used. The animation is pretty simple too. Now getting custom animated characters into GG is another story, but I think there working on that. Blender is free and you can use BOV files to animate your characters or do it the old fashioned way and animated by frame.

Nothing has been easier than Mixamo. Blender is a nightmare to me. I have NEVER been able to learn it and i've had versions of it for decades.

Mike

I suppose it depends on how your brain works, i'm wired for shortcuts, so Blender was easy to pick up, but 3DS Max confuses the heck out of me.

The level design looks fantastic. You should at least reskin the AI quite drastically because a lot of the stock models have been used in other "greenlight" games.

Yes, they will get a texture update.

looks like greenlight is ending soon...
well, ok valve take the 100 bucks from me