Gamebuino Games

Hello, I though I should start a new thread for this...
I mentioned getting together a web site for us to upload, play, share and trade our games on and today I finished a "mood board" so I thought I would show you what I'm thinking to see what you think and get early feedback.

Believe it or not, but the longest part of todays effort was going through Logo design, I made so many changes to get it to where it is and I'm hoping that doesn't show as I want it to be simple, clean and in keeping with Gamebuino, with that in mind the logo is inspired (obviously) by Nintendo, in keeping and the colours chosen are that off the Gamebuino 'A' and 'B' button's albeit totally different shades :)
So without no further ado...



https://www.dropbox.com/s/5lgtqdoy2kug1kp/gameBuinoMoodBoard.png

under what agreements do developers need to take part in to publish?
(licence agreement)

Honestly, I haven't got that far; I'm still thinking about the web site and it's functionality, it's a good question though...

In my current mindset anyone can register and submit content for the Gamebuino, obviously to being with I'll have to do a lot of policing to make sure people submitting are submitting their own games, perhaps source code will be required but not published unless specified by the author.
But in all honestly I'll need to think carefully about agreements. I know I don't want to be anal or bog people down in small print, keep it clean and simple :)

My biggest concern at the moment is how we handle developers monopolizing if they wish too. One idea I have been given is a donate button, this would allow anyone to download you game for free or for whatever price they want to set.

The other idea is to have a straight out fee, so you as the developer can sell your game at what ever price and only user who pay for it can download it.

My personal expression is the donate option, being a game developer myself I know this option works well and people are less likely to ask for their money back, complain etc... They want to donate because they genuinely like your game and want to give something back, but honestly I'm open for ideas/suggestions on that front.

Before you spend all this time and efforts working on this site, you might actually want to do some kind of market study... say, ask Gamebuino developers if they are interested in such a system or if they are content with the wiki or whatever. Then, find out if players actually care, would donate, or would even buy a game for the Gamebuino. This is a very DIY oriented community, there won't even be 1000 Gamebuinos around until the second wave of production, and some of these are multiplayer packs going to only one person.

You might find out that there's no market for the product you are about to create... it is better to find out before putting too much effort into it. You are going to have to try to convince a community of hardcore DIYers and open source enthusiasts that your product is worth their time. Though one.

for policing u need a voting system and even flagging
but everything has to happen pretty manually if there is any money transaction u got to do that, as well to ensure there is no issues with the game

this why i was looking at games to be on the gamebuino website itself to be pay able and also quality controlled

i was wondering if u had any intentions in taking any % in earnings?

Hey Adekto, there's a voting system in place already, a flag system could easily be added to help raise "dodgy" content alert, something I was thinking about as well ;)

There would be no percentage taken from me or the web site if the ability to sell games is left in, 100% to the developer.

Hello Drakker
There's a market for it, people have been discussing it elsewhere in this forum. From my point of view as a developer and a "consumer" I know I would like a web site dedicated to the games, so that I can see what's new, what's looking good, throw in my two bobs worth and track my downloads.

From a developer point of view, I've been a member on a number of gaming forums and they are great for the development process, God knows I need the help :) However, in my experience game posts get lost very quickly and shrouded in conversation which isn't the best platform for promoting it. I'm looking at Stencyl here, they have hit the nail on the head with a great community but almost a separate entity for promoting, with the ability to have your game highlighted, comments posted, share options and voted added, it helps increase the visibility if only for a while.

Honestly, I'm not trying to take people away from the forum, far from it, just trying to expand the "experience". I've already shown a number of people at work the Gamebuino, some of which wouldn't even dream of getting into development but love the idea of the Gamebuino and one who will be purchasing one (well... that's what he say's) I'd really like to say "check out my game" and he can see a nice presentation of screenshots, votes etc...

Well, you seem convinced, I hope this project works out. I'll make sure to add my games to your site. Don't forget to include a prominent link to download the source code along with the game.

Thank you, it's going to be fun I'm sure ;)
Luckily for me, this is a development task for my brother so I can focus on my games :lol:

I talked about this on a separate thread slightly.

adekto wrote:for policing u need a voting system and even flagging
but everything has to happen pretty manually if there is any money transaction u got to do that, as well to ensure there is no issues with the game

this why i was looking at games to be on the gamebuino website itself to be pay able and also quality controlled

i was wondering if u had any intentions in taking any % in earnings?

I have to agree with Adekto on this one. Having a place directly on this website would make it so much easier to find everything in one place, plus some people might think it is sketchy to donate or download from an unknown site. Maybe you could partner with the rest of the team, and help make the storefront for the Gambuino website. you are the first one to try, and i don't see anybody apposing of you being the one to create it. Try getting the approval of rodot to make a storefront, it would be wonderful to see this come alive.
P.S. I think you should use the Gamebuino logo style font for the title (maybe even all text)
Looks great :)

I think WIP's should remain on the forums. This makes it a bit easier for people to find and play games. Most websites which allow WIP's on the main page suffer from a problem where it's saturated with a ton of half ready, good enough code/games.

Have you looked at GitLab? whenever I think of repos of things I think of it. It has a built in issue tracking system... and if you checkout digitalocean.com for hosting they have one-click deploy of it!^^ Hope that helps!

Thanks for this suggestion :)
I already rent a server so that's not the problem ;)
I didn't find any way to sort projects by popularity on GitLab ?

My two cents...

Have you seen TiCalc.org??? That to me is similar to this project in many ways (DIY'ers, Monochrome/Greyscale screens, Forum residence) and I see their community lasting so long because of the simplicity of their organization (Folders/SubFolders.. Tree system) and free programs/information.

If I need something I just go the site and use their tree system under my device model or search box it. I've never paid for a game but have given many thank you's to the developers that helped me understand something. There is no fee for any games/applications/utilities on their sites but some sell with links to other sites (Calc Made Easy, Davinci projects used to be for sale). However the applications that sell are mainly for math and rarely(ever?) do I see a game being sold.

As Drakkar said the Gambuino project is based on a community of DIY'ers and I for one wouldn't be anywhere if I had to pay for the info I've read on Arduino's website and other MCU blog's. Not to be too opinionated, but I for one am just ready to pay-it-forward so to speak with both my games and knowledge of making them.

... this is just my two cents though!

The current way that code is posted is horrible.

What happens is that someone creates a cool game, then decides to upgrade it by posting code in another post. Then someone else suggests a change. Suddenly the code is scattered everywhere, with out of date versions etc.

The simple solution is a code repository. Github is my favourite (because as a student I get a discounted subscription :) yay!). No only is the code the latest possible, but it records version history so that you can go back if you messed up. Also, you can really easily accept code suggestions and it automatically credits them. And if you don't know how to use git, there are plenty of tutorials and videos etc.

So I urge you to store code using some form of code repo please!

Moderator : topic moved to "Website & Forum" and merged

Yup I agree with you, that's why I already implemented that on the wiki for all the examples to be up to date with the latest version of the library.

About people games it's more complicated. It's not just about having your code somewhere, I would like to have an actual game gallery, with game categories, user rating, sorting by number of downloads and stuff like that.

BTW GitHub is free if your code is open source. Some people suggested GitLab too.

inversesandwich wrote:The current way that code is posted is horrible.

What happens is that someone creates a cool game, then decides to upgrade it by posting code in another post. Then someone else suggests a change. Suddenly the code is scattered everywhere, with out of date versions etc.

The simple solution is a code repository. Github is my favourite (because as a student I get a discounted subscription :) yay!). No only is the code the latest possible, but it records version history so that you can go back if you messed up. Also, you can really easily accept code suggestions and it automatically credits them. And if you don't know how to use git, there are plenty of tutorials and videos etc.

So I urge you to store code using some form of code repo please!

Moderator : topic moved to "Website & Forum" and merged

Just so you know, bitbucket is free for private projects ;)

zerosimms wrote:

inversesandwich wrote:The current way that code is posted is horrible.

What happens is that someone creates a cool game, then decides to upgrade it by posting code in another post. Then someone else suggests a change. Suddenly the code is scattered everywhere, with out of date versions etc.

The simple solution is a code repository. Github is my favourite (because as a student I get a discounted subscription :) yay!). No only is the code the latest possible, but it records version history so that you can go back if you messed up. Also, you can really easily accept code suggestions and it automatically credits them. And if you don't know how to use git, there are plenty of tutorials and videos etc.

So I urge you to store code using some form of code repo please!

Moderator : topic moved to "Website & Forum" and merged

Just so you know, bitbucket is free for private projects ;)

I have a bitbucket account, I just like github.

I do like the idea of gitlab tho. Rolling Gamebuino's own self-hosted solution would be nice.

I've been thinking about the best way for people to share their Gamebuino games and programs. For me the best solution seems to be the following:

- You put your game on GitHub. On your repo you include source code, binaries, and a nice README.md which presents your game in detail with pictures and all. This way people can fork it, etc.
- On the wiki, on the page "games" I'm gonna create a table/list template for everybody to be able to add their own game (a quick description, a small picture and a link to their GitHub). I'll try to add some sorting features too.

Does that sounds good to you guys?

Sounds like a plan Batman!

Here is my ongoing work on a new game list... wow, much fancy.
I'm pretty happy, I made everything, all the templates, style sheet, icons, etc. and it starts to look not that bad.

The new game list now has the basic features even if it still needs improvement. You can start to add your games if you want, I added instructions at the bottom of the page.

Hey guys, when you edit something on the wiki please don't forget to write a short description of the edit. Thanks!

Just a quick message to tell you I changed the picture height of the game gallery to 192px so it's the same size than the emulator.

Do anybody have tips about how to record gifs from the emulator? If found LICEcap but haven't tried it yet.

Hurray, the games gallery is now mobile-friendly, like the rest of the Gamebuino website.

rodot wrote:...
Do anybody have tips about how to record gifs from the emulator? If found LICEcap but haven't tried it yet.

You can use the likes of Virtual Dub or the easier Fraps to record a video or export a set of images.
You could them assemble it on an online tool like:
http://gifmaker.me/

If you are into pixel art animation, you may also wanna check this tool here (super cool), it also exports anim gif:
http://pixel.tools/
Author is also available here: http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_p ... ?TID=19225

There may be easier ways, but I´m not aware of any yet.

I used LICEcap to record the gifs of Crabator and UFO-Race, that worked well :)

I will check that one out. Thanks.
I notice some tearing on them, could it be the speed of capture?

That's a Vsync problem because the frames are not accurately rendered at 20FPS. I have this "tearing" even when I don't record. Not a big deal in my opinion ^^

Hey folks,
I there anybody good in javascript? The game gallery currently usesisotope for sorting, but it's case sensitive... I haven't found a way to make the sorting case-insensitive. Any suggestion?

Sort them using toLowerCase() or something, that will make sorting case insensitive.

Yeah of course but as I said sorting is made using Isotope, so I don't have control over the sorted strings. I only tells it using which attribute I want the sorting to be done.

Add an attribute which is the all lowercase names?

Well people are supposed to type their name in lower case (it's in the instructions) but nobody does. One day I'll make an actual database where you submit your game, rate people's games and all, not just a wiki page. But I don't have the time neither the skills for now. I'm already busy learning Java to make the tracker, we'll see later for mySQL and PHP :lol:

Well, a quick look at the code shows that it sorts by "date_updated" right now.

Code: Select all

  // sort by name
  $container.isotope({ sortBy: 'date_updated', sortAscending: false});

Technically you could patch it so that is does a toLowerCase() to whatever it is sorting, but the important part of the code has been made rather unreadable by a size reduction transformation. Since you use CSS to have the names display as uppercase, why don't you write a short javascript script that changes all those names to either lowercase or uppercase before isotope is called? That's a band aid type dirty fix, but that should work.

Drakker wrote:That's a band aid type dirty fix, but that should work.

Good idea, I like it!

The games gallery no longer requires names to be lower case \o/
Thanks for the quick & dirty solution Drakker.

It's so dirty it doesn't seem to work on minesweeper and snakeabcbuino....

Did you try pressing Ctrl+Shift+R to force refreshing of the browser cache?

It works... now that is weird. If the JS was not up to date, it should have shown the same mess as earlier, not sort them all but two. Oh well, weird things happen.

That's because they were already all lower case but two ;)

Oh, ok, it looked much more of a mess than that when I was toying with it. Maybe I'm getting old and my alzheimer is kicking in. ;)