Digital

I wanted to write this for a while, but felt I wanted to give it time for a little bit before I actually announced. Novilar, a site originally created by two members (one of whom is a member here, has been in development for a few years. It went on a hiatus for about a year last year. The previous owners decided that it was time to sell it. I was lucky enough to have the ability to purchase it. So yes, I am now the owner of Novilar. My first goal was to revitalize it, as it had fallen on hard times with a server move that broke its image generation, and several rather large bugs that had broken it's functionality. It has been a fun ride and the game now improves daily.

The reason I am writing this is to let this community know that I am now the owner, that the game is actually back to being relatively playable, and seeing regular updates. I will probably be posting more regular updates here as well as time goes on.

https://www.novilar.com

Wow, I am totally in love with that Wolf!

If your first game is any indicator, this one will be awesome too!

Thank you @Hare and @Pepper-Head!

I appreciate the support, and have always valued the wonderful input from you both as well as the rest of our members. It was not easy to say "Let's ditch these two sections." It took a lot of time to let it sync in that sometimes too much doesn't really make something better.

Just to back up what @Martyn added.

We are not going anywhere, nor are we "dying". In this industry things get slow, people get wrapped up with life and projects. It happens. The amount of time and energy that went into the Marketplace and Game Directory weren't wasted, but weren't valuable either.

I would rather spend time reading the amazing posts by you all, then trying to guess why this feature is working or failing. I would rather have engaging discussions over the merits of multiple accounts or no multiple accounts on your sites, then figuring out which game in the directory is being maintained or is incomplete.

This change is more to simplify and bring back the main focus of TGL, to be a place for new game development, and secondarily to what games are out there. The changes to the forums allow everyone to participate in game news and information more freely, which to me is more important then the Game Directory or Marketplace.

4 hours ago, Hare said:

Thank you, Digital! We've considered turning the genetics into a blob. We constantly view and update genetics, so that may not be an option. I can look into caching. 

And thank you for the info on Novilar's limits. I've been looking for any sites that have higher limits on allowed number of animals for basic players. I haven't found any that allow significantly more yet (i.e. in the thousands) but am still looking around.

http://wern-ancheta.com/blog/2014/01/26/getting-started-with-caching-in-php/

Could be a useful read on caching strategies. There are few different approaches, so have to do some digging to find one that works, or a set of them that provide you benefit.

Novilar has a max limit of 200 pets currently per user. It is also quite a challenge to increase your territory to that size (so it feels rewarding).

Users can go over their limit, but are unable to breed any additional animals until they are under that limit. Offspring is included in the counts.

There are some additional strategies, but they are strategic, and have pro and cons. Some can implemented easily, others not so much.

If you are not constantly checking the genetic values of the pets, you can serialize and gzip them into a Blob field in the database. This can save some space, but you lose the ability to see that data without ungzipping and deserializing. However if this data is only looked at every 3 days, it might be worth it. Serialization and compression are costly, so this is really only a good strategy for data that you need to access often or you know you only need it on occasion.

Another way, if you are finding your database is the one struggling would be to perhaps cache of this information outside of the database. There are a boatload of methods or this type of thing, so not knowing more specifics, I couldn’t recommend anything in particular. Caching your pages strategically or even doing some query caching for common queries can provide a boost also.

3 hours ago, juliet said:

 

Just wondering if anyone has used Stripe.com as a payment system?

I'm considering it for a project but have no experience with it.  Preliminary research of this site looks very promising.

One of the things that interest me is that it accepts Apple Pay and Android Pay.  My users are always asking for this functionality and paypal doesn't offer it as far as I know.

I have used it in the past, it is wonderful. Easy to implement and has the ability to be very powerful.

On 4/11/2018 at 4:44 PM, Terris said:

no problem, probably just some weirdness....things like this happen to me a lot because technology hates me

You have made some purchases in the past, so if you are looking at one of the items you previously bought, you will see a download link instead of a buy button. If you still have issues, please send me a screenshot of the page via PM and we will get you fixed up!

I went ahead and attached some of my rough sketches for items.

Starry

We are officially 1 year old as of today!

It has been a wild ride, with a lot of changes, a lot of fun, and it is all possible to each and every member of this community. Without your participation in engaging in topics and the happenings here, we would simply not exist, much less grown to what we are today. I wanted to drop this quick note to say that I appreciate each and every member here on the forums. I really do.

I look forward to another awesome year here at TGL!

@Artist @Game Owner @Writer @Members @Programmer

So, maybe I could get some pointers or ideas from all wonderful creative friends!

As some have read, I recently started to sketch a lot more. I am using an iPad and a Apple Pencil, using Procreate. One thing I still cannot seem to master is the art of coloring what I sketch to any reasonable detail. The art almost seems worse colored then it did as a bunch of scribbled lines. Any advice on how to choose colors, or how I can improve beyond just attempting relentlessly. I am looking for any guides or resources that people have that may have helped them in the past!

@Artist

7 hours ago, Being said:

Still working on Kalerrden! Hoping to get some of the basic coding squared away, hopefully get the breeding system done and dusted!

I can't to see or hear more! I know you have been working on this one for a while now.

2 hours ago, Reav said:

plan on getting my pigeon breeding sim, Virtual Loft, going again this year. Had to leave it for a while to wait until i had time to work on it again

 

Yay! It is always fun to back to projects you set aside!  

1 hour ago, StarSea said:

I've had a game idea and small plan for a few years now, and I would really love to be able to work on it further this year if I can. Unfortunately being indecisive about art style hasn't helped, but I'm really hoping some day I can start sharing my game!

If you have any questions about the pro or cons to any specific style, a post in our creative forums is all you would need to get feedback from our Artists here on the forums. Maybe it could help settle on an idea  

17 hours ago, Elm said:

Never considered it, although as a minimum I work at double the expected final size for a piece. I used to draw everything by atleast 400px as an item, but I found it to become unnecessary work. 

I was just wondering if anyone had, since retina displays (4k/5k) display graphics at a higher resolution.

I believe @Hare has done something similar with her site. She might be able to give you an idea of how it works (or how she did it).

Has any  @Artist here ever been asked to provide say 150x150 and another version at 375x375 for display with those with retina or high-dpi monitors?

7 hours ago, Onyx said:

Aethria needs probably about three more days to a week of programming before it is fit for account sales/beta launch.

Soo close! I hope you find a programmer to wrap it up, I am excited to see it out!

34 minutes ago, Enivi said:

I'm working on an ARPG that I'm hoping to build into a full brand.

Big plans, I look forward to hopefully seeing it come to fruition for you and your team! 

3 hours ago, Keptsoul2 said:

We at Mythodreas are continuing to work on the many things that we plan to do with the our site.  We no longer resemble Zeta and we prefer that people not compare us, as we are going a whole new route. Please feel free to join or visit as we are in open beta. 

 

Got a link for us?

3 hours ago, ilrak said:

Not quite a new game, but I am planning on trying to get Auratus Ghoti closer to alpha testing this year!

So far from your thread about it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun!

17 minutes ago, April said:

I am, I'm currently researching into my project (realistic meerkat sim). Tomorrow I'll be doing a few sketches and looking into coding for my site amongst other things.

It's my first project and im pretty hyped about it!

I cannot wait to see what you have in store, the concept that you posted here was wonderful!

I have enabled Tapatalk for this community for those who prefer an app to their mobile browsers. I will be monitoring how used it is over time, and will consider upgrading the plan for the forums to do stuff such as reduce ads or their other features if I see this used more often.

How many of you are planning to start a new game in the near future (this year)? I am curious to see how many new projects are being considered and thought about coming around the corner.

@Members @Game Owner @Artist @Programmer @Writer

2 minutes ago, chutkat said:

Probably 150 x 150 pixels, but then I make them 3-5 inches size for print purposes 8D

Have you ever been asked for smaller or larger generally. Is it always a good idea to draw larger/higher dpi?

How advanced are your item management systems in your games? Do you usually opt for a very simple item system, or do you go for something that is more advanced (and hopefully flexible for future use)?

Pro's and Cons?  @Programmer

@Artist

What sizes are most often asked for in terms of items for a game? What is the common size that you see the most requests for?

Just curious.... 

On 2/25/2018 at 1:34 AM, Corleone said:

Planet

Celestial

What are some odd things local to your local area that you have noticed?

For instance, having just relocated to Washington state from California, I have noticed they use what they call Arterials, which is a type of road that are not called such in California. Also that there are ton of roundabouts, where in California there are minimal.

So, what are some odd things you have noticed around you locally that make you go "oh", or "hmmm?"