Digital

I would love to learn more, I have only played with it in small amounts, but loved what I seen. It has been on my radar for a good while now.

Has anyone played this yet on the PS4? Any comments, reviews, spoilers, rants or raves?

I know it was pushed back a little in the release dept, but I wonder if it came through as worthwhile?

From a technical standpoint, what is the hardest feature to develop for your game, and why do you feel that way?

Howdy!

And Welcome!

Pokemon fan, nice! What got you started with Pokemon?

I will definitely have to check out Simon Stalenhag's art (I also love poster art, although I own almost none)...

I will get Twitter setup later today. My apologies, I forgot to get that one setup when I doing all the API setup stuff.

21 hours ago, SingSong said:

As you know, Judda and I own the in-development game HellKeepers. Judda also owns Icepets. I wouldn't mind some kind of interview if you want to do one. 

I will shoot the questions to you in a Message  

17 minutes ago, Pepper-Head said:

I'm about to launch my own game, Kasaria, if you were interested in an interview for that!

Awesome, I will also shoot you over a message as well!

8 minutes ago, Pepper-Head said:

I absolutely love sneaking little tidbits around (like in item descriptions), and I definitely hope to do that in multiple areas in Kasaria.

I wish more games did this. I really enjoy running across the quirky item description on Neopets. It makes the game feel more human and enjoyable.

2 minutes ago, Pepper-Head said:

Not sure if I 100% understand the forum adoptable thing yet though, and it sounds like that would be a future thing anyway - but just throwing some discussion in there about it!

Forum Adoptables for this would be as a unique pet award for participating. I would agree that the games that we put up for this would be free, or we would have to procure keys to allow those participating gain access for free. I would not want any member to pay for a game to play it to just review it here.

I wouldn't mind adding some more forums for off-topic threads, anyone have any suggestions of general off topic genres that they feel they could post about regularly?

2 minutes ago, PaulSonny said:

I cannot write with my left hand though. Always baffled me!

I am the same but opposite, I cannot write with my right hand at all. However, my right hand is stronger at gross motor skills (opening jars for instance), while my left hand is much better at find motor skills (writing or delicate stuff).

Welcome, glad you made it!

ASP.NET and MSSQL, nice, that is primarily what I work in professionally too. On my own I tend to favor PHP/MySQL though for a change of scene.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview @Hare, who runs a wonderful Sim for rabbits that has been in development for a few years. Her interview can be read here:

And I also greatly thank her for her time to answer the questions !

I had a chance to ask a few questions of @Hare, who runs http://leporidae.org/, a sim site revolving around rabbits. If you haven't had a chance to check out http://leporidae.org/ yet, please do. If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask @Hare, or respond to this thread.

1. Give us a little insight into your game such as what is it about, player base, and when did it start?
   
   http://leporidae.org/ is a browser-based rabbit showing and breeding SIM that began development in late 2014. You can own various breeds and species of rabbits, build your ideal rabbitry, and compete with other players in an online community.
    
2. What hardships faced your team early on when getting your game going?
   
   The greatest hardship early on was getting started with coding. Back then, I did not know any coding beyond HTML and CSS. Leporidae was planned three years before anything got started, since I didn't know where to begin at the time. 
    
3. What feature of your game do you think was the hardest to develop or add?

   The most difficult to develop feature is our genetics, image layering system, and color name system—which are all working together to render the proper names and colors for rabbits. This code is complicated, and so are how we save the image files that have to be formatted to work with it. It required a thorough understanding of genetics to really get the code working efficiently. 

4. Any failed features that you thought would be great additions to the game, but turned out not to work with your users?
   
   One thing that was planned for the site early on, and which still hasn't been added (and might not) is magic stats and features that use it. While this idea seems like a lot of fun, it isn't the selling point our demographic joined the game for and we might end up putting our time into something else. We do have some fantasy breeds and colors, and alien species, (which are popular and fun for many players), but our main emphasis is on simulating realistic livestock related activities.
   
   Also, I had wanted to incorporate more features for people who prefer pets over livestock (since rabbits are considered a dual-purpose animal), but I've come to realize that our butchering feature will probably scare away most of the people who would want alternative features. We do have players who keep some bunnies as pets, but the main focus of the game, again, is on livestock. 
    
5. What do you think is the most important factor that keeps your game’s team going to provide new content?
   
   Working with the community is a huge part of what keeps us working on Leporidae. There are a lot of dedicated players who love our game just as much as we do. It's also important for the site owner to keep everyone motivated, organized, and happy. 
    
6. What advice would you give a new game maker who is starting out?
   
   I recommend being open to learning code. It only took me about 3 months to get the hang of it. It was very hard at first, but gets much easier later on! I also recommend (if you can) having a general idea of your game and your demographic. Planning is a great way to start. Start writing stuff out and brainstorming ideas (with or without a team), make an outline, draw ideas for your site's layout and navigation. Lastly, definitely get to know people here on TGL! This community is a great resource. 
    
7. I wanted to thank you for your time to do this interview, is there anything you feel should be added to that you feel would be helpful or a great resource for new game makers aspiring to create a game?
   
   You're welcome and thank you! The only other thing I can think of might be, if you are going to be doing an advanced genetics system with your animals' colors, Imagemagick is a great resource. I wished we had used it in the beginning because it's taking about 6-10 months just to transition everything over to it (which I am more than happy to do because it is so worth it). 

All Fixed , this is why I should never be allowed to add emoticons late at night

@SingSong was nice enough to spend some time providing a large range of nice emoticons for the forums! Much thanks to her, !

There are a set of 40 new emotions!

So here is my quick preview. Please note this is really only about 4 hours of work, and is a complete work in progress. Right now it is only front displaying of data, I still have to actually make the functionality of evolving a pet, or changing a pets name, or even getting an egg work. This is just the start of displaying database information on the front-end.

Seeing your pet on the thread:

As you can see, your active pet displays on the postbit under your avatar. Please note that I used the Pokemon Go graphics since I needed something that works closely with the idea of how things will work. You can see my little Bulbasaur egg sitting there. I called him MyBulba cause I am not original like that .

You will have an Adopted Pets tab on your Profile:

As you can see, this will display your pets in a list (I only have one at the moment), and gives you the image, the name (and current stage of evolution which is Egg in this case - and the description for that stage), current power, and some options. Right now he is my active pet, but if you had more then one, there would be a link instead to set the pet to be your active pet. Evolve will only show up if you can Evolve the pet. Evolution is based off how much Power the pet has absorbed, so it will only display if there is an evolution(s) that your pet has enough power to evolve into.

The WIP Evolution Modal:

Here you can see what happens when I click the Evolve from the previous screenshot. You see my pet in it's current form, then you can see the form (or forms if more then one next to it). When done, there will be a radio button next to the available forms to allow user choice, as well as a tooltip with a description for that form.

To explain where I am going with Evolution:

Here are my thoughts on Power and Evolution... and feedback is welcomed.

I want users to be able to choose the route of evolution, and even choose to not evolve. So that is why Evolution is this voluntary feature, and isn't necessary. Now, this can complicate matters, as if you choose not to evolve your pet, you can continue to absorb power well beyond the stages of evolution. To handle this, the evolution screen will only show you the next step in your evolution tree at a time. If you choose not to evolve for a very long time, you can always play catch up by evolving multiple times in a row. I think that is a reasonable system that won't punish users, or force skipping of stages of a pet because a user chose not to evolve a pet.

As a thought -- I am toying with ideas to provide (most likely in a premium option) items that will provide power boosts to a pet, or even allow the pet to be reset to the first stage (usually egg) for those users who wish to reset their pets. Normally, I would expect most users to just grab a new egg of the species and level it up, but for those who want to skip the time and effort, for a price and cost they can basically do so. Ideas?

I do have a project in development although it is on hiatus at the moment which is okay. I really don't have the time I thought I had for a full blown project.

It all started really with Pokémon to be honest. Turned into a short period of Tomegotchi keychains... leading to me find Neopets. The love affair was set after that.

6 hours ago, SingSong said:

Okay, awesome. And would there be a thread on the forum that shows people all the different evolutions and appearances or would this be somewhat secret, and people would have to wait and see for themselves (or figure it out by looking at people's evolved pets on the board)?

Either/or? Some probably want a guide, and some may want to figure it out. I am okay with either really. I personally am a fan of seeing what happens myself.

6 hours ago, SingSong said:

I would like it, too, if TGL had "official" adoptables done in a set style. That way if the favorite adoptable artist stops uploading stuff on TGL, there are still quality adoptables to buy. I don't like the idea of the adoptable system being completely in the hands of members, because what happens if no one posts new adoptables for a couple months? Then there's nothing for people to get excited about. But it sounds like this is something you were aiming for, Digital, because you said some may be premium?

I agree and had this in mind. I am open for members to submit them, and hopefully members will want to. But there will always be pets or new evolutions added by staff at the boards through either purchasing or commissioning to keep things updating.

The benefit about using a tree form of evolution is that the tree is not set, instead of a new species every week, one or two more stages can be added to existing adoptables to. As I will explain later, players will have a lot of power when it comes to evolutions and getting to the pet they want. Some of those options are easy to accomplish, some decisions will cost more to achieve, and for those so inclined to want instant gratification they can have it too. But more on that later this evening when I show the very start of the progress.

Of course! If you don't provide an URL to the script on your side for the forums to notify then you'd have to go about it manually. The automatic part is designed to make things more automatic and easier as well as Potok totally provide the player posting the review or comment some instant reward vs waiting on a game owner. It really is up to the game owner.

I will have a small update on my progress in coding the system this evening. I was able to make good progress yeasterday night and can share some of it. ?

Thanks for creating the set, I will get them up and on here for all as soon as possible!

Show off some of the art you have been working on recently!

12 hours ago, Matthew said:

I don't know. I think people regularly clear out apps on their mobile devices (I know I do) and an app is a significant investment that's pretty much lost if someone decides it's not for them and deletes it to make room for something else, whereas a responsive design will always pay dividends, in my opinion.

I would agree, however I would say the larger user-base on mobile these days look in the app stores. I have a nine-year-old that would love to play pet like games, however if it isn't in an app store, he will never find it. Granted a lot of teens may or not be more savvy, but I think the newer or next generation will probably a lose of the ability to use the browser as a means to find stuff to do, and rely on apps.

12 hours ago, Matthew said:

Mobile apps also require a split of the codebase (or at least moving to an API-backed model, or developing an API for the app) compared to a responsive design which can be implemented, changed, etc. relatively quickly with no codebase split.

This is definitely a consideration, however over the past several years tools have come out that make it easier and easier to do this.

Just wanted to take the time to thank each and everyone of our members. We have reached 50 topics, and have 183 posts as of my writing this. 

I am personally extremely happy with the community that is growing here, and am greatful to each and everyone of you. Celebrate this milestone with me, for although it seems small it is actually big!

I just remembered and seen I never did one of these myself. So hi!

I am obviously an admin here, but I am also a father of 2, software engineer by career, and love anything game development, but with pet sites taking my heart.