Samer Hills Progress?

     Huh? What have we here? A cowboy uniform and another uniform that looks very very familiar...

Also, a farm setting?

Sorry. Not a very informative or content filled post. This is more of just a nod to confirm that I am still working on a game project. But yeah, overall I would say that I am making good progress on the project. I will have more updates and posts with more information soon. Okay bye!

Steam Direct, The Fee & Thoughts.

     It's funny because just yesterday in my latest post I mentioned Steam Direct and how the fee was still a mystery. Today, it is no longer a mystery and if you haven't already heard the news from Steam's blog or any other gaming news website already, then you probably are not a game developer who want's to publish a game to Steam. Or you just don't care.

     Anyway, today Valve officially announced that the Steam Direct fee will only be $100 per game. Also, this $100 fee is recoupable according to Valve.
Steam Blog: Link

     After weeks of indie developers stressing out and being on edge about the Direct price point and waiting for the news to come out, everyone can finally relax.

     At first, I was really surprised to see Valve's decision. Personally, I was expecting the fee to be between $300 and $500 myself actually. However, Valve decided to set the fee at the lowest price point possible so that smaller indies (me being a small indie as well) wouldn't get barred out and that is pretty awesome of them. I am really happy with this price point and I am sure many other indie developers are as well. This is a very fair and more than reasonable price to pay to have your game on the largest PC gaming store front in the world. I believe that this small fee gives every indie game developer the opportunity to shine and possibly become a success on Steam. Also, it just makes everything so much more simpler for everyone. No more running Greenlight campaigns, getting votes and waiting months to see if the game passes. Developers simply pay the fee, fill out some paper work (I think there will be paperwork), set up the game page and release on Steam.

     Of course at the same time this low price point might worry some people because now the Steam platform is available to publish on to anyone with $100. It brings up the argument that the platform could possibly become over flooded with low quality games, joke games, asset flips, etc. The argument that shady developers might abuse this new system and exploit it to set up cash farms just like they did with Greenlight. Developers worry that their games will just become buried under the hundreds of other games submitted making it hard to become visible to potential customers. And gamers worry that they will become overwhelmed with loads of games flooding the storefront pages making it more difficult to browse for games that they would be interested in.

     With a low price point of just $100 it is possible for any of these points that I brought up to happen however, no one knows for sure yet. With that said, the people over at Valve have also taken these potential possibilities into consideration. I have been keeping up with Valve's more recent blog post and it truly does sound like they are working hard to avoid any possible exploitation of the new system. Valve has already made changes to the trading card system, navigating the site, what content is recommended to which users depending on their interest and making changes to the sites algorithms to just make the entire platform the best it can be. Valve really does care about giving the end user an enjoyable store browsing experience and giving the developer the best platform to work on and it shows that they are working hard to constantly improve the site. And this is why in my opinion they are the best. Why they are the number one storefront in the world. With all that said, nothing is perfect and I am sure there will always be users complaining about something and users giving praise.

    Only time will tell how the Steam Direct system will perform so we just have to wait and see.
As for me, I will definitely be using Steam Direct to publish my upcoming future games. I am excited about it and am really looking forward to seeing the changes Valve continues to make. What are your thoughts about all of this? Tweet at me @snowconesolid

See you all on Direct!

Update: 6/6/2017

Steam Greenlight official retired. Steam Direct confirmed for June 13th, 2017

I made this turtle... His name is Frog.

Found my HAPPY ZEN place.

Was bored the other day. Cracked open Blender3d and created a new character. Made this turtle you see here. His name is "Frog".

Early WIP Blender Renders

Why is his name Frog? Isn't it a turtle?

Final Model In Unity Engine.

Look at that constant facial expression it has. So chill. So relaxed. This turtle is obviously either super high or really drunk to the point where he doesn't even know what he is. So... lets just call him Frog from here on out. My newest character. Frog the turtle.

Also, I made it possible to customize his skin for unlimited color variations and combos!

What am I doing with my life.......................

Virtual Snowconesolid Avatar Version 2!

Not too long ago I introduce one of my newest character models Virtual Samer Khatib as well as a complete "Making Of" blog post which covered the full process of how I created the character from start to finish. In my more recent blog posts such as this one and this one I have been talking about a new game project as well as sharing a ton of early screenshots from the games development. In the blog posts I talk about focusing on quality texturing and modeling this time around. I also mentioned that I want to use my new Samer Khatib character model for the new project.

After focusing a lot of time on the new game environment, I looked at my character model and began to notice how out of place and inconsistent he was with the rest of the scene. After all, I did originally just do a very basic texture job on the original character model which only included solid colors. So I decided to go back to the character model and re-work a lot of areas that could be better or improved. 

Before showing the new updated version of Virtual Samer Khatib here are some screenshots of what version 1 looked like:

Blender Render

In Unity Engine

Boxers model

Clothes model

So just simple basic clothing and regular solid colors. I liked it. It still looked good in my opinion. But for the purposes of my new project, I want to be as consistent as possible with the visual art style. I took some time and experimented around with a variety of image textures

until I was able to properly get down a good efficient texturing style that would work out for my model. 

Experimental texturing screenshots:

not final

Virtual Samer Khatib V2:

Originally I was planning on just re-working the textures, but I actually ended up re-reworking almost the entire model and then some. I fixed a lot of clunky areas in the model, added new geometry and adjusted verts to give the model's body a more defined shape, the hair has been adjusted and isn't as flat, I modeled new clothes with multiple materials for the model, the feet are better, I optimized the model to work better in game and made the entire thing more unified and easier to customize in the future.  Okay, time to stop bragging. Drum roll please....

Alright, here is V2 of Virtual Samer Khatib:

NOTE: This is without any lighting or post fx in Unity Engine

V2 Boxers outfit

V2 Striped pajamas outfit (also made color variants of this.)

V2 Badass leather jacket outfit (was originally suppose to be suit/tux. I might ditch the bow-tie. I guess it can be both a suit and a leather outfit really)

I spent waaay more time on re-working the new and improved model than I wanted to but it was very well worth it and i'm glad I did take the time to improve upon the original model. I am very happy with the results. This is a very nice update to the original character model and I might continue updating him even further in future projects as well.

More soon!

Something New!

     Hello everyone, it is update time. I recently had an idea for a new game project and have already began to work on it. It is not related to Samer Hills, but is something entirely new. I mentioned last month that I was going to be taking a break from that (Samer Hills) project for a while. I also mentioned that I might even have a different new game out before I release Samer Hills. Judging by how things are going, I will most likely stick to what I said and have a new game out. Truth is, ever since I created a early demo build of Samer Hills and posted the campaign to Steam GreenLight, I have not worked on it at all. Not since that time at least. Not really sure when I will go back to that project, but it might not be for a while. I wanna work on my other ideas right now. 

Here is some early wip screens of something new I am working on. Nothing crazy going on. Just screens of house room type scene. 

     The game will feature Virtual Snowconesolid (My new persona gimmick I'm going with).

     As for Samer Hills, I might revisit it in the future, maybe even completely re-work it as a completely different project from what I had originally planned. Looking forward to sharing more on all my projects! 

Honestly, one of my big goals is to make many games. I don't just want to stick to one big project or become known for one thing. Like just the guy who made Potato Thriller for example. No. I want to make lots and lots and lots of games! I want to keep creating forever! 

New GAMES and content coming soon. I PROMISE! 

Valve Killing Greenlight...

     Hello everyone. This is kind of a surprise post, but I just had to take the time to write about this news. If you are an indie game developer and plan on submitting your game to Steam GreenLight then you might want to hurry up and do so quickly. I am sure many developers using the platform or want to use the platform have heard the news already, but if you have not this is whats going on - Valve is shutting down Steam Greenlight for good.

Source - From Valve themselves:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/announcements/evolvingsteam

Almost every other major gaming site has also covered this already such as kotaku and Polygon
I am sure that many YouTubers will also probably discuss this soon enough as well.

Anyway, Valve is shutting down Steam Greenlight and plans to replace it with something called "Steam Direct". This will be the new program that indie developers will need to go through if they want to make their games available on the Steam platform. Valve didn't release much information on the new submission process and it seems that most of the plans aren't finalized yet but if you are an indie developer hoping to get onto the platform there could be some things to be worried about. For example, it only cost $100 dollars to sign up as a developer for Steam Greenlight. This was a one time submission fee that allowed you to submit as many games as you wanted. Steam Direct aims to remove this and it sounds like Valve will be charging a fee per submission. There is no official price setup for the new fee as of this writing. Valve will be sharing more information about the new process later on.


For more information and questions not answered in Valve's news update I recommend checking out this topic about the upcoming changes in the Greenlight community forums:

Changes coming to Steam Greenlight

According to this post, if you are a Greenlight developer and still have not submit anything, you may request a refund.

For those of you interested in submitting to Greenlight, there is still time and you can do so. If you get greenlit before the changes are made, then it's safe to say that you will be able to release your game on Steam without having to go through Steam Direct or paying another fee price. However, if your game is still hanging in Greenlight by the time Steam Direct takes over, then you will have to resubmit and possibly pay a fee based on the new on-boarding process.

indies worried....

     If you are an indie developer don't worry, you will still be able to bring your product to Steam even after Greenlight is taken down. However, if you are worried, it is understandable. Actually, after reading through the comments and seeing what other developers have to said expresses that many other small time indies are worried.  I personally am worried myself since I am an indie game developer who currently has been through Greenlight once already and planned on submitting more games through it in the future. Actually, I was planning my second Greenlight campaign for my next upcoming game. The game I have been talking about for months now here on the blog. This news about Greenlight shutting down has got me so worried, that I might even launch my next Greenlight campaign sometime next week hoping that it will get green-lit and reserve me a launch spot on Steam before the big changes happen. It might become harder to get on Steam's platform. I don't know yet. We will see. 

Once again, don't get too worried. Valve themselves still haven't really given any final answers on how the new changes will work, how much it will cost etc. In the meantime, it is probably best to submit your game to Greenlight before it's completely gone. 

This news isn't all bad. Valve is obviously doing this in the best interest of their customers and developers. This is a new way to add in some sort of new level of quality control. Steam Direct could mean less poorly designed, broken unfinished games and more quality content for people to buy. 

I will most likely be posting an update about my current game project within the next week or so. 

ONLY $1 WOW!!!!!!

Need some 3d characters or environment props to quickly populate your Unity game but don't have the art skills or don't want to waste anytime making your own!?!? Look no further! As of today all of my asset packages that are available on the Unity Asset Store are $1 and less!

Beach props, rubber ducks, blocky looking characters, cartoon models, etc! Its all there! everything you need to make a game!!!! (Well not really, but you could use all of these for the art aspect of your game at least)

Check out my Unity Asset Packages here on the Asset Store: https://goo.gl/tctGqd

Feel of Atmosphere and progress update...

Gamedev and chill.....

Posting a quick update (mostly more screenshots) to share some new progress for my upcoming game "Samer Hills"

Early Lighting Test

The Atmosphere...

This game will be different from any of the other games I have created up to this point and creating the right atmosphere is very important. This new game will have many different themes to it such as dark, horror, etc. However, one very important theme, which also will serve as the main focus of the game is the idea of loneliness and isolation. 

Hello friend....

There won't actually be any real people/characters in the game to interact with other than the main character (PonyTail). I won't explain much of the story and the truth is that the plot to this game will be very open. One of my main goals with this game to leave a lot of room of individual interpretation. I want each player to have a different experience and attempt to understand the game in their own way. To better express the idea of loneliness and isolation, throughout the game you will find these wooden mannequins in different poses. The wooden mannequins are symbolic in many ways such as contributing to the theme of loneliness as well as symbolizing "fake" people. They don't move or do anything when the player tries interacting with them. This represents the idea of being ignored constantly.

What's up?

I am also aiming to creating a post-apocalyptic vibe in the game. So you will be placed in different scenarios that show this. Throughout most of the game you will notice really heavy grey fog everywhere, weird creatures and so on.

Look at that bug!

Foggy Forest

I don't want this post to be too long so I am going to end it here. I am making great progress on the game. It is all coming along nicely and I can't wait to share more of it down the road. Here is some more screenshots to end with.