gamedev

Okay, I finally finished my first tease video. I've posted it on reddit and am gearing up to drop it elsewhere this afternoon. And I'm giving myself an ulcer worrying it's gonna flop completely.

All I really wanna do with my life is make cool stuff and help people get off. Why do I gotta do marketing!

But, all that being said, I'm pretty happy with how the video turned out, hopefully people find it funny. I threw a tank in at the last minute, see if you can spot it!

https://comradeoohaah.itch.io/freshbullswanted

https://patreon.com/ComradeOohAah

I was trying to process a database of star data and export it to a texture which I could then use in a sky shader (instead of pre-rendering a cube map like a rational person), but Pillow does not seem to work well with color channels greater than 8 bits, so I thought... what if I just inline hundreds of kilobytes of data in an array? This isn't variable data. It doesn't need to be a uniform. It is not like the game is going to run long enough for these stars to move.

I have a feeling this won't work, but I want to see if it will almost work. The shader compiles and runs, though it is not yet processing this data. It takes a pretty long time to compile though. Every time I type in the Godot shader editor the CPU cooling fans spin up to maximum. The editor also seems to really hate text files where lines are 340,000 columns long

Update: It took about five minutes to render one frame, and then Godot crashed.

Phew, I have been a busy pervy propagandist. This video is an in progress of a template I'm working on so that I can drop teasers of FBW's features on reddit and social media. I'm shooting for a Travel Destination advertisement vibe, so I'm making a set of intro and outro vids that are going to sandwich the individual feature descriptions. My goal is to hit them hard with the features about The Handy integration first, and as I move on to the less interesting features, more "interruptions" will occur giving people an idea of the brainwashing that's actually going on in the milking dungeon.

Yes, that is actually me doing the voice, and it's killing my throat. I think I'm channeling an old-timey prospector crossed with a southern gentleman. I don't typically do voicework so it's hard to maintain a consistency. I'm just being silly with it.

Non-FBW News: I've got 3 patrons and BuzzyBody (my LoveSpouse toy android app) has reached 128 downloads, which isn't too bad considering I'm only on itch and haven't really been doing any social media work beyond a couple reddit and forum posts. I really need something to kick things in gear for patrons which is why I'm going so hard on these teaser vids at the moment. I should be coding and finishing up BuzzyBody to put on the Play store, instead I'm making "content."

Hope y'all dig the vid. This is my first time working with Canva and I think it's going pretty well, all things considered. I'm gaining transferable skills at least.

https://patreon.com/ComradeOohAah

http://comradeoohaah.com/

I don't really think of myself as a competent programmer or game dev as I know some basic stuff with C and Python. So some input would be appreciated.

I live! Lol, apologies for the long delays. It's been a busy year since my last Milker update in March?!

Well, shit. So what had happened was, since my end goal is to build up a Patreon in the hopes of doing this Lewd VR dev thing full time. I figured that by creating an app that supports those inexpensive aliexpress toys for the app known as LoveSpouse would allow me to quickly gain access to an existing audience... Jury is still out, but...

Mistake #1: Since my last updated I've released BuzzyBody an Android Media Player that let's you use those cheap toys with FunScripts (which are basically files of haptic instructions to sync more expensive toys with videos and audio). I started developing it in April, released it in October. I didn't bother y'all with it because it's not commie themed (besides a communist bee as its icon) and I wasn't sure anyone was interested. I released it on a couple of websites and made a post on the LoveSpouse subreddit. This kinda bombed. Whether it's the app's fault or not, I'll never know because...

Mistake #2: I created my reddit ComradeOohAah account 4 days ago last year, and then did nothing with it! Much like here on hexbear, I try to keep my shitposting separate from work stuff. This meant that when it was time for me to post for my app, I had no karma and my posts were immediately relegated to the void. I got very little activity. And what little comments I did get, I couldn't respond to right away because I had to go and build up Karma in other subreddits.

So, since I'm afraid of getting my account banned for spamming, I take the L and decide to add a new feature that would give me a reason to post.

This week I released v0.2 of BuzzyBody, it now can act as a relay between ButtPlug.io's Intiface Control Software and the LoveSpouse toys. This means all those folks out there with cheapo aliexpress toys can now use their toys with all sorts of PC lewd stuff. As far as ButtPlug is concerned, all those toys are now emulated as a Lovense device. Not as many features, but like 20% of the price. This turned out reasonably well. I haven't gotten any additional Patrons off of it (I got one while posting this!), but I got about 26 downloads in the past 3 days. Putting me now at 86.

And qdot, the guy who created ButtPlug.io, messaged me on reddit and gave me props for using the Device Emulation feature! I was very stoked.

However.

Mistake #3: I still have not really built up the ComradeOohAah reddit account, so when I tried to post in the NSFW Oculus subreddit, I got very little traction. 33% upvoted, 0 comments. Maybe because I'm a low karma account, maybe because I'm competing against actual porn sites, idk. Just didn't hit. Admittedly, it's not a VR app, but there are enough buttplug.io vr apps out there that they would benefit from having a cheap toy. Their loss, really.

So my next steps for BuzzyBody is to create a VR version. A very generous friend gifted me some bHaptic TactGloves for my birthday and I'm going to attempt to figure out a way to create a DepthMap from adult 3d 180 videos so that when people are watching these videos they can reach out and "touch" the performers. I'm reasonably optimistic about being able to do that, but who knows the timeline. The second thing I want to do with the VR version is create reactive environments that sync to the user's music and their toy so that the sensations of pleasure in your body have room to build and expand outside your body and into the virtual world. With me, there's a lot of opportunity with this feature to play around with synesthesia and Homuncular Flexibilty, which is kinda my passion. I really want to explore and push past the limits of how people experience pleasure by using technology to expand the mind's boundaries of the body. Once you do that, it opens a lot of interesting doors.

So, that's kind of my postmortem on BuzzyBody, the app you didn't know exists. Oh! And it made me $2 on itch.io. I'm a capitalist now. Sorry, not sorry.

Another, not really a mistake, but it was a hurdle in that I wasn't able to really get any social media up and going until this month. Again, I didn't want to connect the lewd stuff to my personal accounts and risk losing access to all my friends I barely see irl. That meant getting a new phone number, which meant spending money I couldn't spare, etc. I think doing social media and building a brand is going to be the way forward in the future. I'd prefer not to have to market myself like that, but I suspect reddit is gonna be a dead end which means building a presence on tiktok and insta and bluesky and whatever. We'll see. (Insert rant here on how we live in a post-scarcity world with post-scarcity type jobs, but its a capitalist dystopia)

SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE COMRADE XI'S SPECIAL PROJECT?

Well, for one thing, I've been calling it Fresh Bulls Wanted.

Here's my last video from March [nsfw]

And I'm getting ready to start up on it again. Since that video / before I started on BuzzyBody I had added a Head Shake/Nod Recognition ability, rearranged the start menu components into a Consensual On-boarding, and the start of a dialogue playback system for what I have now decided is going to be a good cop, bad cop dynamic for the Comrades in Charge. I'm not going to get to deep into details but I think there's gonna be a CCP General as the judging overseer, and then a friendly, unseen Milker Controller that whispers in your ear.

Big Hurdle #1: This is going to require dialogue, and I think that's what caused me to stall and divert to BuzzyBody. I was talking with a friend of mine recently and I think the major speedbump was my concern of just how much of myself am I willing put out there, you know? It's one thing to do things in private, it's one thing to make something like this with generic dialogue, but if I'm gonna make this something people can resonate with I probably need to put it all on the table, and for some reason that's far more intimidating than openly telling people I'm buying adult toys and building stuff like this in the first place. IDK why. Am I afraid of being judged, rejected. Is it an intimacy thing, idk. Conquering that is the big hurdle.

Big Hurdle #2: I need to learn video editing. I've got a bunch of ideas for making some social media reels and things for both apps, but I know F all about video editing software. So I've gotta sit down with Davinci Resolve or Canva or whatever and learn my butt off.

So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at and how my year went. I do have a Patreon now, and a single (2!) Patron(s)! I'm trying to post far more stuff over on there, if anyone is interested. But I'll try to keep y'all updated so that when Xi decides it's time to put all these gooners in the virtual milking gulag you won't be surprised.

https://patreon.com/ComradeOohAah

http://comradeoohaah.com/

​Hackers have used new GodLoader malware exploiting the capabilities of the widely used Godot game engine to evade detection and infect over 17,000 systems in just three months.

As Check Point Research found while investigating the attacks, threat actors can use this malware loader to target gamers across all major platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.

It's also used to leverage Godot's flexibility and its GDScript scripting language capabilities to execute arbitrary code and bypass detection systems using the game engine .pck files, which package game assets, to embed harmful scripts.

The attackers delivered the GodLoader malware through the Stargazers Ghost Network, a malware Distribution-as-a-Service (DaaS) that masks its activities using seemingly legitimate GitHub repositories.

Between September and October 2024, they used over 200 repositories controlled by over 225 Stargazer Ghost accounts to deploy the malware to targets' systems, exploiting potential victims' trust in open-source platforms and seemingly legitimate software repositories.

Throughout the campaign, Check Point detected four separate attack waves against developers and gamers between September 12 and October 3, enticing them to download infected tools and games.

What you see here is just the chassis - the tracks, guns, etc. are separate objects and will get their own graphics. The blue spots indicate where "active" objects (primarily weapons) will go.

I mostly drew inspiration from WWI-era tanks for the design - boxy look, riveted armor, etc. This is an experimental weapon, and I wanted its appearance to reflect that.

Not sure about the level of detail on this, whether it's too visually busy or too sparse or just right.

There's still a lot of sprites left to do for this guy, but the rest should be much easier now that I have a base to work off of.

Tagging @[email protected] because they liked the WIP.

One month game jam running the month of September, targeted primarily at users of the Fediverse (that includes us )

No prizes, and the rules are pretty loose. I know we had a game jam on here once (with multiple entries!), so I figured I'd share this. Hell, I might try to think of a feasible project myself.

The character's actual walk cycle uses the first frame twice, so the pattern goes 1-2-1-3.

A little over 2 weeks ago, I had once again started working with Godot, determined to finally learn the software so I can bring my many game ideas to life. And then I stumbled and failed as I usually do as my ideas were lofty and my skillset meager. I think it was the Mark Brown video that finally made the (obvious in retrospect) idea sink in that there was no way I can do the more complex games I wanted to make without first having made a bunch of simpler projects to nail down the fundamentals. So instead of trying to follow a grand plan, I just opened up a old tutorial I did and started adding stuff purely by vibes. And it fucking worked because after 2 weeks of intense hyperfocus I was able to put together an actual game that works (so far) and has most of the basics of the genre! Sure it's only 5 minutes long and full of stolen assets but I'm still very pleased with the outcome.

I started with the GDQuest Vampire Survivors tutorial and first decided to change out the graphics and give it a theme. What would be an amusing communist theme? Stalin crushing hordes of fascists. I decided to use Metal Slug assets for most of the characters and weapons (which had the bonus of getting a lot of practice in with animation because holy shit those spritesheets are huge). After I changed the graphics, I gave the solider a death animation instead of just disappearing. I thought the same death every time was boring since the soldiers had so many death animations in Metal Slug, so I made a system for randomly choosing a death scene each time. Then I got nostalgic for cheat codes from old games so I figured out how to add a text input box and made some effects for code matches. Every time I got bored or frustrated with an element I was working on I would come back and add another cheat, sometimes even it was just a bit.

And it sort of fed into itself after that. I went back to the soldier. I wanted an leveling system, so first I needed gems to fall from defeated enemies. Those gave XP which needed to be tracked, then I needed to trigger a level up screen where random options can be chosen. It started with a basic screen where 3 upgrades could be chosen. Then I added dummied weapons into the mix. At first the options could be infinitely chosen, but I was able to limit each option to 5 levels, which each level being a unique upgrade.

I got bored of working on that so I went back to enemies. I made 2 new variations: ones that I thought could have interesting attacks (though I never got around to adding an attack for the pirate variant). Since I didn't want them to appear at the start, I made a game timer and assigned a difficulty counter that increased every minute that changed the enemy loadout and spawning ratios. With all this game info to be tracked I created a UI to track important info. Then I made a boss with multiple attacks, 2 phases, adds, and a custom health bar.

I was creating larger challenges but with my hero only shooting a simple gun, it was time to add weapons. I added 7 in total. An 8th was originally planned for parity with the 8 upgrades, but I never got around to fully implementing it lol.

Then it was just some polishing left, so I added a title screen, credits, game over screen, music, and any sound effects I didn't get around to adding yet. Oh and options, so volume levels and fullscreen mode could be adjusted. And then any last passes for animation adjustments, bugfixes, sound balancing, etc.

I probably did more that I mentioned because it all starts to blur together towards the end. It's still a little janky in areas and I'm sure a lot of my methods and solutions are inefficient but in the end, it still seems to work and that's good enough for a learning project

Here's some screenshots!

Title screen:

Swarmed by enemies:

Using the "gorbachev" cheat:

Level up overlay:

Boss fight:

I have a packed exe that I can put up on a file sharing site if that's allowed here and anyone expresses interest in trying it out

Links to the game:

Windows version

Linux version

Forgive me for the lack of dedication to the Revolution, Comrades. I'm afraid I've had some non-milking related work that needed doing. So, while I've gotten plenty done, I've not had time to do a devlog.

Today is a general gripe session, no behind the scenes CCP secrets today, just wanted to share some of the fun that comes from developing for the Meta Quest.

If you've been keeping up with things at all, you know that the Adult Toy I'm developing for is an internet enabled stroker that connects to a remote server for it's instructions. It uses a Connection Key to interact with this server, which means that for at least one part of my app's configuration a keyboard of some sort is required for the user to enter their Connection Key. Because the Meta uses Android, there's a built in keyboard option available that Unity uses. It takes a bit of finagling, But it works.

UNTIL META BROKE IT A COUPLE MONTHS AGO!

Luckily I found a workaround. Kinda.

https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/Unity-VR-Development/System-keyboard-not-opening-every-time-in-Meta-quest-3-device/td-p/1179306

Which introduced a new problem. This workaround messes up the input box so it doesn't make the inputted text readily available. Now I have to a manually get the text from the child of the input game object. Fine, I'm doing it!

Today, as I'm working my way through this and having half rewritten my API interface because for some reason, despite getting the Connection Key, it's still not working.

THEN MY APP SUDDENLY STOPS HAVING INTERNET ACCESS WHEN RUN ON THE QUEST!

Hours of troubleshooting later...

OH LOOK, ANOTHER KNOWN PROBLEM!

https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/Unity-VR-Development/UnityWebRequest-Not-Working-on-Quest-3-quot-cannot-resolve/td-p/1093537

Apparently when I updated the XR plugin a while ago, the most up to date version available from Unity still has the bug. And months later it just decided to fuck my shit up, fam.

So eventually, I do all the steps, upgrade the XR plugin to non-public version, I reboot a couple times, I manually update my manifest, I get internet back. What a day... My API still isn't working properly when I manually enter the Connection Key. wtf... Then I look at what my settings script is saving and there's some sort of new line or a line break in my JSON. Weird, but fine whatever, hazards of the keyboard workaround. I trim off new lines and returns and whatnot, IT'S STILL THERE!

Eventually, I figure out that for some reason the android keyboard or TMPro is adding Unicode character 8203 to the end of my Connection Key, which is a Zero Width Space character. I don't know what that is, but it's clearly reactionary. So now I'm Trimming that along with \r \n and that does the trick. Suddenly my Connection Key input flow is working. I can now test all the other stuff I've been working on that came to a screeching halt last month.

Bleah. I'll get a "real" OohAah devlog up one of these days. I've done some pretty cool stuff and despite being way past when I want to release the alpha for testing, things are coming along. I've also been buying cheap adult toys off AliExpress for a future project and have been messing around with that when I should really be working on the milker. Turns out using them are not going to be as easy I hoped. Long story short, for some reason the company making them set their bluetooth up in reverse, so they're not pairable and can only be controlled by making your device broadcast an advertising packet or something. Which is not easy in Unity. Bleah, I'll figure it out tho.

Thanks for reading, just had to vent. Hope y'all are doing well.

Brain hurty but I'm gonna keep at it

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16304400

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16304397

Check out a story about thought processes going awry after ecstasy born from early successes and personal issues hitting.

Still, I decided to release the result of my work so far as a prototype for Fuck Capitalism Jam 2024, to be worked on in the future until it is done. Alongside part 1, which was basically developed within the time frame anyway, and is more than fitting for the theme as well.

Downloaded a sample DEM tile from the NASA SRTM dataset, scaled it down to 1024x1024, and used it to control the height of a 1024x1024 grid of vertices. I am kind of new at this, but 2,093,050 is definitely a new personal record for number of triangles put on the screen... by a LOT. The normal generation needs a bit of work, but it is not too far off. Doesn't make sense to waste too much time getting it nailed down for a proof of concept.

Before I start messing around with LOD algorithms, I need to get my hands on the entire dataset and figure out a pipeline to pre-process it in QGIS.

In a previous post, I mentioned that my schedule for each temple was as follows:

• 1st month: Plot dungeon map, design and implement dungeon's unique enemy's puzzles, and other mechanics - with placeholder art and sound assets, build and test entire map except for the boss
• 2nd month: Art assets, sounds, and animations for the dungeon.
• 3rd month: Program and gameplay test boss; once satisfied, create art, sound assets, and post-fight dialog for the boss. Give the dungeon to a few close friends for playtesting, then make adjustments based on results.

I started the Unicorn Temple at the beginning of April, and it's now close to the end of May.

• 1st month goal has been met. Dungeon mechanics were fully implemented late in April, giving me a bit of a head start on next month's work. That ended up being a good thing, because...
• 2nd month goal will be met or a few days late. The assets for this dungeon ended up being more elaborate than expected, and I struggled with some of the graphics. Most of the work is done, though, with only some enemy sprites remaining.

Visible in the screenshot are a few different features of this dungeon: certain sections are flooded with both shallow and deep water. Shallow water can be safely walked through, but falling in deep water is functionally the same as falling into a pit. Godot doesn't natively support animated tiles (plus I needed to implement little splashes that happen when you walk through shallow water), so this took extra time to take care of.

Also in the screenshot is one of the three new enemies, thornspitters, whose sprite sheets I have completed. Every couple of seconds, these spherical pods spit thorns in four directions. Some of them, like the ones you see here, are placed such that they're impossible to kill.

The streams, the wheel with a handle, and the little caves are part of a water routing puzzle that will form the centerpiece of this dungeon. This puzzle encompasses many rooms, and solving it is required to collect the Master Key that opens access to the Unicorn's room.

I'm currently working on a sprite sheet for another enemy, the Foxfolk. These magical menaces constantly teleport to your position and emit bursts of magical fire, forcing you to stay on the move. Here is one of the completed sprites:

Just wanted to leave an invite link here. I created the Hexbear Gamedev server about a year ago, so if you're interested in chatting, or want a place to do show and tell, or ask questions, come join us! https://discord.gg/YcrK7gsu

I'm picturing a game where you take the role of an arcology planner and are given a certain number of ingame years to prove the viability of the concept as fully as possible. Game takes place on an isometric grid, where you build your arcology out of predefined modules such as living quarters, industries, power plants, greenhouses, etc. You have to manage things like the flow of resources between districts, transit, waste management. You can connect your arcology to the wider world to do things like import resources and export waste, and you will need to do so especially in the early game, but you also gain a growing ability to handle these things within your arcology as you expand its capabilities. Maybe also have the player have to deal with structural soundness and making sure the arcology doesn't collapse. Scoring would probably be based on population, land footprint (smaller is better), and self-sufficiency.

Hmm. Maybe after Guardian Cry.