Do not learn C++ for game development. Nobody in their right mind will be using C++ for that within a few years. It's on the way to being a niche industrial language, it takes years to get genuinely good at it, and there are way better options now. Learn C++ for learning C++, not for any other reason! It's an "interesting" language in every sense of that word. If what you really want to do is learn C++, then small-ish game projects (e.g. roguelikes) can be a good starter.
Out of "traditional" languages, Python, Javascript, and C# seem to me like the best choices right now, depending on whether the engine that you want to use supports them. You can write code that is "fast enough" in all of these if you know what you're doing, and until you know what you're doing then any language can produce slow code. So you want one that is relatively easy to use, and try to make something which the available hardware can easily run with only a fraction of its power.
Always start from something that already works. I.e. find someone else's source code which isn't too big or complicated, does something remotely close to what you want, and already works when you build and run it. Then start working out how to change its behaviour in various ways.
Don't post too many separate submissions at once, the site has some automatic anti-spam defences. And also the front page works better if submissions are spread out.
Well, since the necromancer has visited this thread...
Don't forget that Diablo 2 was actually a really early iteration of that genre. As far as I know, the genre barely existed until developers started being "inspired" by Diablo 2. Not sure why that didn't happen with the first Diablo.
Don't think that people play these games for any one reason. Some will be more motivated by the story, some by exploration and discovery, others will be more motivated by min-maxing, some will want pretty art to look at (and look forward to looking at). Some will even be motivated by the gambling aspect; more direct gambling is a huge industry for a reason, people who do it are not just motivated by money but by more fundamental biochemical reward loops, and any game with "drop tables" is a kind of gambling with your time towards a different end. The full list of reasons is bound to run into double figures. I expect that the games which aspire to be big hitters in this genre will have to try and tick at least the top ten or so boxes on the list. Indie devs don't have to do that, they should probably pick 3-4 boxes and focus on those.
Since there are hundreds (at least) of "Diablo clones" now and quite large amounts are invested in developing more, it is probably approaching an exact science. Go back two decades and you couldn't even do a university degree in "game development", but now you can specifically do a degree in "game design" at lots of universities. Some of those graduates have probably done entire courses on how to balance Diablo clones for maximum appeal! All of that expertise may be floating around on the internet somewhere, if you can find it.
I've been playing TES:Blades lately, and the fine balancing of the loot system in that game is really noticeable... partly because this is something which TES games have historically done very badly, so it's a huge jump. At the very least somebody has spent some serious time with spreadsheets refining that. I wouldn't be surprised if the most serious gamedev studios are playing with using ML to refine the balance of their games by now, since that stuff has really come of age in the last decade. Hire the right expert and they can show you the whole spread and distribution of ways that players can proceed through the game, including which builds are over- or under-powered and even some of the 'sploits that TAS types will find, before a genuine end user has ever seen it.
The quality here looks to me as good as GBA- and DS-era pokemon games.
Some pretty sweet stuff here. That innkeeper sprite in particular is gorgeous.
That twig girl is seriously good. Could be a new character made for a Flintstones SNES game with a more chibi-leaning art style.
I love the tiny ghost as well. He deserves to be in some roguelike tilesets.
Oh wow, this is an old and long-running thread.
Do not learn C++ for game development. Nobody in their right mind will be using C++ for that within a few years. It's on the way to being a niche industrial language, it takes years to get genuinely good at it, and there are way better options now. Learn C++ for learning C++, not for any other reason! It's an "interesting" language in every sense of that word. If what you really want to do is learn C++, then small-ish game projects (e.g. roguelikes) can be a good starter.
Out of "traditional" languages, Python, Javascript, and C# seem to me like the best choices right now, depending on whether the engine that you want to use supports them. You can write code that is "fast enough" in all of these if you know what you're doing, and until you know what you're doing then any language can produce slow code. So you want one that is relatively easy to use, and try to make something which the available hardware can easily run with only a fraction of its power.
Always start from something that already works. I.e. find someone else's source code which isn't too big or complicated, does something remotely close to what you want, and already works when you build and run it. Then start working out how to change its behaviour in various ways.
Don't post too many separate submissions at once, the site has some automatic anti-spam defences. And also the front page works better if submissions are spread out.
Doesn't look like you can get close to doors?
No neon? No giant gaudy advertisements everywhere?
It's a very nice "20 mins in the future" city background set. But it looks like the whole city has a power cut...!
Oh, these look very versatile.
Office buildings full of rave parties :-)
It does look cool though! And a nice atmospheric animation.
Well, since the necromancer has visited this thread...
Don't forget that Diablo 2 was actually a really early iteration of that genre. As far as I know, the genre barely existed until developers started being "inspired" by Diablo 2. Not sure why that didn't happen with the first Diablo.
Don't think that people play these games for any one reason. Some will be more motivated by the story, some by exploration and discovery, others will be more motivated by min-maxing, some will want pretty art to look at (and look forward to looking at). Some will even be motivated by the gambling aspect; more direct gambling is a huge industry for a reason, people who do it are not just motivated by money but by more fundamental biochemical reward loops, and any game with "drop tables" is a kind of gambling with your time towards a different end. The full list of reasons is bound to run into double figures. I expect that the games which aspire to be big hitters in this genre will have to try and tick at least the top ten or so boxes on the list. Indie devs don't have to do that, they should probably pick 3-4 boxes and focus on those.
Since there are hundreds (at least) of "Diablo clones" now and quite large amounts are invested in developing more, it is probably approaching an exact science. Go back two decades and you couldn't even do a university degree in "game development", but now you can specifically do a degree in "game design" at lots of universities. Some of those graduates have probably done entire courses on how to balance Diablo clones for maximum appeal! All of that expertise may be floating around on the internet somewhere, if you can find it.
I've been playing TES:Blades lately, and the fine balancing of the loot system in that game is really noticeable... partly because this is something which TES games have historically done very badly, so it's a huge jump. At the very least somebody has spent some serious time with spreadsheets refining that. I wouldn't be surprised if the most serious gamedev studios are playing with using ML to refine the balance of their games by now, since that stuff has really come of age in the last decade. Hire the right expert and they can show you the whole spread and distribution of ways that players can proceed through the game, including which builds are over- or under-powered and even some of the 'sploits that TAS types will find, before a genuine end user has ever seen it.
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