There is no new SMILE GAME BUILDER tutorial until after Christmas 2019. However you celebrate it – and even if you don’t – have a happy 25th December!
Lots of changes coming in 2020, including to game development, YouTube (and Daily Motion/BitChute) and other game dev areas, more assets next year.
The game I’m working on for SMILE GAME BUILDER – for those who don’t already know – is entitled Starborn: The Fallen.
Its current game dev home (for now) is on Gamejolt. You can follow the project there if you want to keep up-to-date with its progress and development.
Here’s a game dev showcase video for the game’s intro scene.
The video is hosted on DailyMotion, but you can also view the YouTube version if you prefer.
Game development will continue with fleshing out the story first before focusing on graphics, 3D models and animations, so will use many default models for now. Over time, I’ll add more custom assets (including models) and will showcase them in future videos.
SMILE GAME BUILDER has a new update! I will do a tutorial or livestream (probably the latter) on Friday. We’ll continue game development the Tutoria maps created for the Campsite tutorials, utilising the new updates, including some tips and tricks.
A new SMILE GAME BUILDER tutorial, #62: Campsites Redux (Part 2), is on schedule for this coming Sunday, further expanding the campsite idea started in Part 1 – Setting Up.
I created a new page, RPG Maker Times Livestreams, for my live-streams.
I will mostly live-stream SMILE GAME BUILDER game dev, including my own game, Conflux, as well as games – Skyrim, Witcher, Fallout 4, and other games (including indie games) – which will usually videos from previous live-streams.
In the beginning, however, I’m going to start test-streaming various games, classic, indie and new to see what works on my mid-spec rig. Details will follow.
We’re looking at streaming from this page. It’ll be either here or on YouTube. Stream themes and times are yet to be decided.
My new project for SMILE GAME BUILDER is entitled Confluction. This is a working title only at the moment, and it might change during the course of its development, but it’s kind of sticking!
Confluction is an obsolete word for "confluence", the "coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point".
Our destinies are fixed, but we forge our own paths. We might make choices that cause us to stray from the path of Destiny and deviate from its course, but we’ll always return to it at some point. And that’s the subtext for the game.
Many events in the game are loosely based on events in my own life; I’ve taken certain creative liberties with them. The choices you make in life do matter!
I’m aiming for high-texture models and assets, so this is what will probably take the longest time to create since I create many of them by hand.
The focus will be on most of the models first, then the game itself. And then most likely at that point, I’ll work on character animations as and when they’re needed. This will be the biggest challenge for me; I’m not good at animation.
So when it comes to the perfectionist in me, I’d want to make sure all animations are smooth and fit well with the game!
I now have a Subscribestar account.
Patrons (subscribers) will start benefiting from additional perks, including tier-specific Discord roles/titles, and unique content, game dev insights, exclusive content, such as demos, and more.
If you would like to support me there, either as a patron or donator, it would be greatly appreciated. All moneys will go towards several goals and will give an extra incentive to continue with the project.
I will try and update this more regularly, with more regular content and some patron-only content soon!
The project I was working on before Confluction is Relationship Sim.
However, I decided to continue on THIS project first, and then resume with "RSim" when the new SGB is officially released to take advantage of some of its new features! (At the time of this post, no, I can’t say what those new features are outside of what SmileBoom has already announced publicly!)
Don’t think there haven’t been updates to SMILE GAME BUILDER?
SmileBoom has been busy but fairly silent on news about updates. However, they released a tantalizing sneak peak on their Facebook page.
TRUST ME! Although there is no official release date yet, it’s going to be something worth waiting for, so just be patient. And, of course, I’ll thoroughly go through it and tutorial-ize it!
As many of you already know, I started live-streaming SMILE GAME BUILDER on YouTube, specifically for developing Tutoria, the lands in which the game takes place.
Tutoria is a vast land mass sitting in the centre of the Primeval Ocean (a bit like Pangea before it shifted into the continents we know today).
It’s divided into two supercontenents: Aetios, the frigid ice-bound tundra in the north, and Kryuth, comprising more temperate climates in the south and the sweltering desert regions farther south and east.
Connecting them is a man-made bridge in the east, referred to simply as the Crossing, and an isthmus in the west known as the Dragon’s Causeway. The capital of Kryuth is Ancieryth and Aetios’s capital city is Cloverleaf.
The above image provides a very basic layout of what Tutoria is meant to look like. Details will inevitably change as development continues throughout the live-streams and the map itself might change over time. (The map was created on Inkarnate, an online map creator. You do need an account to use it, but you can still make some useful maps even with the Free version; the Pro version isn’t that badly priced either.)
The basic idea behind Tutoria – and the purpose of the live-streams on YouTube – is to create a game from start to finish (however long it takes) and then to post-process it in Unity so that it can then be downloaded and played by all.
It isn’t a serious attempt at game making! It’s simply to create a game over the course of one- or two-hour streams for others to watch. And that’s it!
As I develop Tutoria during the live-streams, I’ll also revisit some of my older video tutorials and bring them more up-to-date. Plus I’ll demonstrate how to create some of the graphics for the game, including icons, effects, and so on. This essentially makes it a tutorial live-stream with the end-goal of a completed game.
Incidentally, Sana of SmileBoom suggested the name "Tutoria" some time ago because I initially wanted to create a series of videos dedicated to creating a short game in SMILE GAME BUILDER based on my tutorials. And it stuck! Hence why it’s so named now.
During live-streams I’ll be giving away free stuff! Everyone likes free stuff, right?
This could be anything from Title screens to Game Over screens to assets that I create. In last week’s stream, I gave away a Title screen of a nice fairy sitting on a toadstool in a fairy ring.
In the beginning, these giveaways will be sporadic, pretty much as and when I feel like it, but over time, they’ll become a regular feature for all the Tutoria streams. I’ll usually announce this on Twitter and Facebook.
The rules for receiving these freebies (as they become available) are:
That’s it!
A final note about the giveaways: In time, these free assets will make their way in packs on the Gnome Treasure online store and Itch.io. So if you want free copies you can collect them in the live-streams only!
Live-streams for Tutoria were initially scheduled for Fridays. I had to fit this into my shifts at work. Now that they’ve changed slightly to Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, however, it makes it easier to work with as far as game development as a whole is concerned.
Starting this weekend, I’m rescheduling these live-streams for Sundays because, being the weekend, and based on the feedback I’ve also received, this seems to be a more convenient slot for a people to attend.
From now on, I’m going to live-stream SMILE GAME BUILDER only to continue building Tutoria, a game created from scratch, start to finish during the streams.
I’ve wanted to do this for quite some time; I just wasn’t in a position to do so. Since upgrading my computer and Internet speeds, it’s now viable to live-stream at a decent speed and quality, usually at 1080p.
As many of you probably know by now, I already started live-streaming SMILE GAME BUILDER, intending on creating a game from scratch, start to finish, during the stream. So far its schedule has been every Saturday at 10pm GMT/2pm PST/5pm EST, but I’m now aiming for twice per week to continue its development.
Next week the stream is scheduled for Friday and Saturday. However, as of the week commencing 25 March 2019, my work hours change, so live-streaming will be rescheduled for Thursdays and Fridays Sundays.
The idea behind developing Tutoria is to creating a full game from start to finish, including any necessary graphics during the stream.
It also serves tutorials and additional techniques in SGB, some of which are based on many of my old tutorials (updated to the current version) and some are new ones.
During live sessions, viewers will be able to offer suggestions for shaping the way Tutoria evolves. Although I’ve written an outline for the underlying storyline, in the beginning I probably won’t worry too much about it. As the game develops, however, that plot will be adhered to more as it’s gradually fleshed out.
Viewers can also ask questions about SGB in general in chat (or talk amongst themselves) and I’ll answer as many of them as I can – if I can!.
I will only live-stream this on YouTube.
The reason for this is simple: I don’t care for Twitch. Sorry!
I’ve tried to stream on Twitch – and, indeed, tried to like the platform – but I simply can’t do it. Until now, I’ve multi-streamed on both platforms, sometimes smoothly, sometimes with a few hiccups. Many people like Twitch; I don’t.
Twitch tends to "expire" videos after a set amount of time. One way to bypass this is to "highlight" videos, which is somewhat of an inconvenience. YouTube does no such thing. Besides, I’m more established on YouTube and, rather than having too many fingers in too many pies, as a sequitur being able to eat one pie is better and easier.
When the game is finished (however long it takes), it’ll be fine-tuned – including post-production through Unity – and released for all SGB users to play.
The link will then be available on my Itch.io account and it’ll be freely available for download.
