What, in your latest game, was most promising effect?

So I have made a game. It works without bugs. I wont share what theme it is though, I hope you guys will understand.

But I need some fascinating stuff to enhance the polishing/fun factor of the game. In the morning I implemented trails behind objects. I am looking for more stuff like this. I will be implementing stage shakes and particle effect whenever ____ hits ____ too later in the evening. And already the game is looking much more grand. I just wanted to ask the awesome and experienced people out there what other effects will make a game cool. what do you personally do for polishing the gameplay.

Does changing the theme color, effect the “polishing” of game. I changed today from white theme to black and it looks much more better than previously. Maybe I was bored of white color theme having played it so many times. What do you guys say? ever had any similar experience?

Also I need to get some sound effects. Can you recommend some sources to me (free of course). Thanks in advance.

I think this video actually talks about what you want. I don’t agree with every single thing they did in the video, but it makes a good point / provides ideas at least.

Oh wow, Thanks for sharing that video Bob!
Just like those guys, you have to find little things you can change to make it more exciting. If your having trouble thinking of anything, thats ok. Look up examples, play some games, pay very very close attention to every detail. Because sometimes its something so small, that makes a difference.

Just try not to over juice it ; D
Also, we can’t necessarily know what advice to give you if we don’t know at least the most general type of game it is. You won’t be giving anything away to say its a shooter, or a side-scroller, or even getting a little more detailed and saying its a side scrolling shooter or something like that.

Hi bob. Well I got the idea of trails and other stuff from that video only. :) It was linked in LocalIndieGameDevs forum.

I googled “polishing effects in game” and it turns up blank. Maybe I need to search something else. Ok I think I can mention the genre of game which is shooters. It also has lots of weapons and upgrades. :)

I asked a pretty similar question some weeks back: http://www.kongregate.com/forums/4-game-programming/topics/268614-atmosphere-boosters

Especially craksy’s post may be interesting.

Oh wow. I got 2 new things to do from craksy’s post (score one and coins one). Kudos to him. And thanks ErlendHL for pointing out the thread.

What, in your latest game, was most promising effect?

My pause screen….. :(
http://danishdragon.com/Racer.html

Yeah bob already linked this one. And surprisingly I saw this one previously itself. This video seems famous.

@Danish whats Arduino setup. Also I cant seem to steer. Wow pause screen is awesome. Love the blur effect.

It’s an exercise game which you controls with real life sensors on your legs and in a mattress.

Press down_key in order to enable keyboard control.(more information in the instructions below the app)

err… I thought I saw craksy post above…

Are these forum kinda glitchy??

@Danish Like kinect. :) Best of luck with the game. :)

He could have deleted his comment again… Craksy is such a Bøllemis.

But an Arduino is just what I’m using in order to get the computer and sensors to talk together. You can read about it on their own site:
http://arduino.cc/

The project is my semester project, which I’m gonna defend at the exam next monday – so I probably won’t work further on it. I don’t own the sensors and etc. myself, It’s property of the university :P

The blur effect is by the way, very easy to implement. I can share the code if you’re interested.

Ah. Interesting. Where and what do you study?

I study Medialogy at Aalborg University in Copenhagen.
Seems like you can read about it here: http://media.aau.dk/ The site seems to a bit outdated though.

Wow. Keep up the good work. Does it also include animations?

(I need to try and keep tabs on promising artists, maybe a successful collaboration in future :) )

I remembered seeing a list of random polish-y effects here.

• Parallax Backgrounds(Different Layers of the background are moving at different speeds)
• Items on the screen that do nothing but add aesthetics to (Clouds, Bubbles, Etc..)
• Particle effects added where needed
• Transitions between different screens (Fading In/Out, Coming in from the bottom of the screen)
• When a screen displaying how much score/money you earned after a certain time period have it start and 0 then rise up until it gets to the actual number
• Sound effects when an event happens
• Background Music
• Button Hover Effects
• Tremors
• Glowing Items
• Font Choice
• Health Bars
• Game talking to you
• Red Flashing Effect when you get hit by an enemy
• Enemies flashing white when you hit them with something
• Blood spouting from an enemy when hit
• Death Animations
• Explosions when appropriate
• Displaying How many points you earned on the screen (+10 showing up somewhere when you kill an enemy, or the words “Headshot” appearing when you get a headshot)
• Indicators telling you what enemy is about to come
• Don’t leave any ugly solid color backgrounds, change them to stylish gradients
• Instructions being displayed at the beginning of the game
• User Interface being readable and using more than just plain numbers (Gauges, Bars, Etc..)
• Item Descriptions and upgrade graphics
• Simple and intuitive to navigate through the game.
• Pause Button, Mute Button, Quality Button
• Logical Controls
• Changing from Day to Night

Originally posted by LearningAS3:

Wow. Keep up the good work. Does it also include animations?

(I need to try and keep tabs on promising artists, maybe a successful collaboration in future :) )

1st semester: AS3 programming, Animation, Graphic design, 3D animation & modelling, General stuff about working in teams and etc.
2nd semester: Physical interface design (sensors and stuff), Interaction design (theory about how to make a design intuitive and such), Math for multimedia applications (relevant math)
3rd semester: video stuff
4th semester: audio stuff
5th semester: Audio-Visual Experiments
6th semester: … all of the above. Or something like that. The final Bachelor project.

Is how my semesters are planned, 2 first are the only detailed, as those are the only I’ve been through. I’m not so good at looking what is to come xD

But yeah… the 3D stuff I did for my exam is:
Sinking Titanic (Animation): YouTube link , Gotta love how all in the comments are whining that it isn’t historical correct.
Napoleon’s Tomb: 1 2 3
Taking in regards, that the Tomb was close to the first 3D thing I’ve ever done, I like it… Titanic was made right after.

Aaaand, back to topic, I suppose.

How dare you not portray the Titanic’s sinking accurately!

LOL youtube comments are so derpy sometimes. It’s like they type with their elbows or something.

Originally posted by Aesica:

LOL youtube comments are so derpy sometimes. It’s like they type with their elbows or something.

Originally posted by Aesica:

LOL youtube comments are so derpy sometimes. It’s like they type with their elbows or something.

ii noe rite? is st0opid. l1ke dis if yhuu cri evertim..

Thanks for the link truefire.

@Danish wow amazing artwork man. Your course content is amazing. Seems like you are going to be one man army for any game project. :)

Hats. Cats. Bunnies. Intro screens. Tutorials. If your game is not character based, still make some character to explain things or maybe talk to players, encouraging them on good play and sarcastic when they play badly.

Oh wow, didnt think about adding hats. Thanks for the tip simplegoogly.