IamA Indie developer who just released his first game + Ontario teacher AMA!

If you're a teacher, how much of a facepalm is realizing that your game description:

Defeat endless waves of evil ninja's using quick reflexes and skill in this fast-paced action game. Challenge and track your friends with the leaderboard to see who is the ultimate samurai.

uses an apostrophe for a plural? (emphasis added)

Not an English teacher :)

This is an excellent example of the education system in Ontario.

Thank you for being honest.

The Ontario education system is among the best in the world. It obviously has problems just like any other large organization but we do our best.

I'm sure you teach other stuff real good though. Nice job on your game :-)

I definitely do :) Thanks!

Worst experience with a student(or Co-Worker)?

I've had for the most part very positive experiences. Worst experience would probably have to be getting a student suspended for not handing over a phone.

London ontario represent! What gave you the inspiration for this game?

Got inspiration from all over the place. Main character was somewhat inspired by Samurai Jack. Chose an 8bit style mostly because it's easier to animate. Design-wise I wanted controls similar to dojo of death. Originally there were supposed to be a ton of extra features but had to cut a ton of them. Edit - Geometry Wars was also a big inspiration, wanted to do a ninja version.

Graduated teachers college a couple years ago from OISE and now work in Southern Ontario.

You actually managed to get full time work as a new teacher? I have sooo many friends that are teachers that can't get full time work since the old teachers refuse to retire.

I'm LTO at the moment, getting a contract will be another couple of years. Yea a lot of people are having trouble getting hired. Once you get hired as an occasional teacher the trick is networking. Getting principals to know and recommend you is a huge advantage. Having a teachable that's in need is useful as well.

Also, I don't think it's just that older teachers won't retire. Many young professional today can't find proper employment in their fields.

Edit - Elaborated on answer

Was this your inspiration?

I love that game. I started this a long time ago but I think my main inspiration was to try and create something like geometry wars but with a ninja theme. After tons of iterations it ended up very close to Dojo of Death. There are obviously similarities but I hope Super Koken has enough of it's own character.

Admit you're a hack who tried to pass off the concept as an original idea?

Wasn't trying to pass anything off. I tried to make a fun game, that's all. If you think I ripped the idea off then there's not much I can say to change your mind. Keep in mind though that's there's only so many combinations of control schemes and themes.

If it's anything like Dojo of Death, I'm sure it's a fun game. In addition you've got the benefit of being the android equivilant ($$$). Congratulations on completing your first game.

Thanks :)

What was the hardest thing to learn coming from "non-game coding" to coding a game, inside a game engine? I am curious as I want to start teaching myself coding games, too, and I've only coded databases and macros so far.

I've only ever really done "game-like" coding, but using the engine is a big help. Does a lot of the boring stuff for you to let you work and prototype with just the game itself.

There's definitely a big difference between php and sql but the fact that you know some languages is a big help. The best thing you can do is start following some tutorials and get stuff happening on the screen. I recommend you start with 2D rather than 3D. Vectors can get pretty weird :)

Alright man, thanks for the answer, I hope to find some time to get into that soon again:) Well I've also coded in C, Java and VBA so far, so coding in C++ etc. isn't too much of a language difference for me:)

No problem. btw you will be using c# or javascript if you're going to start using Unity. Shouldn't be a big difference anyway.

What language did you use to code? C#?

C# I think I used someone else's script for a camera fix which was js though.

Nice, I just grabbed it and I could see myself spending too much time slicing ninjas. Good one! What else do you have planned for the game?

Originally there was a princess that you had to protect from being captured. I also had several types of enemies, like spearmen and guys who would throw fire bombs. I'd like to work on those features soon but next is the IOS version.

In your opinion, what's the biggest differences between Canadian and American education?

I don't really know enough to comment, sorry :(

No sound? :( Also, the game keeps pausing, no Idea why.

That's odd your sound isn't playing. Check the volume in the options. The game pauses when you do two simultaneous taps. Gonna change it to 3 when i get home. Thanks for the feedback :)

Options? Can't find them. I have a Oneplus One with a custom rom based on 5.0 if that helps.. Edit: Fixed it! Menu button for the settings, sound was off. Suggestion: Google Play Leaderboards

Haha goods stuff. I haven't looked into Google Play leaderboards, but I'll see if it's feasible.

Will this come to Steam?

Don't have any plans to bring it to steam. I want to get an IOS version working before anything else.

I can understand that. If it ever gets popular, don't forget us.

I won't :)

I haven't downloaded it yet but I thought this would be the best place to ask, what do apps like this use picture permissions for? Always wondered. Because some of them are profile pictures etc. But I never see my photos in some games that require it

What permission specifically are you talking about? I didn't think I had a picture permission.

Photos/media/files. I suppose its not only photos

Honestly, I have no idea. I assume because the game or any app itself will need access to files.

Ya I figured that. Some apps don't require it though. Got the app and I don't know why it's not super popular, it's a blast

Thanks, that's awesome to hear. Play store gets hundreds of game submissions a day, most games get completely buried.

As an app development student in Ontario I find this really cool. What were some of the key tutorials you found most helpful?

Also, where is this invisible pause button I keep hitting during gameplay? Or is it this shitty BlackBerry charger falling out that might be causing it?

This tutorial by grey zoned was excellent for getting facebook integration going. Using Facebook was the most difficult thing I tried to do.

This was one was good for learning how to do sprite animation and using the animation controller in unity

You can pause the game by doing two presses at once. Maybe I should change that to simultaneous 3 touches.

Awesome! When I saw the Facebook login I figured it must have been a hassle for you to make.

As for the pause, maybe I'm a button masher, but definitely not the only one. A 3 finger tap would be great. Thanks!

I'll upload the fix in a couple hours, thanks :)

How do you think that technology will impact education in the next 10 years?

I think that we might start to see online classes for high school. Some kids just don't have the ability to attend school during normal school hours. I also think schools will start supplying students with their own laptop and go paperless. I don't believe overall education will change that much. We will still have traditional schools and classes.

Edit - rewrote a sentence

they give ipads for elementary students here in Finland. Not sure if its nation wide, but still pretty interesting.

We have laptops and Ipads carts that teachers can use. It's just not all the time. Teachers are still trying to figure out the best ways to use them in class though.

Do you think it is possible to get Game-Development/Game design into the curriculum and do you think it could proof to be valuable to students?

That's something I've been thinking about trying to pursue but it'll be a long road. Getting anything into the curriculum takes years. I think it has a good chance getting in as some kind of interdisciplinary program though.

I would be amazing for students. Game design requires a ton of teamwork, critical thinking, and many sets of skills.

When and how did you get started with programming?

I got started with a couple university courses using a language called processing. Then last year I learned about unity and decided to give it a try. Most languages are relatively similar so it wasn't too hard of a transition.

Was this your first large scale programming endeavour? What were some software designing challenges that you faced and what advice would you offer to amateur developers.

In university I developed a game for a 4' x 3' touch table/screen which was a huge project. This is probably the second most complex thing I've ever had to program. The biggest challenge would be that I'm new to unity and didn't know a lot of the tricks and things I could do with it. I didn't really start using Corountines near the end of development for example. Although I'm an amateur as well my advice would be to start off small. Plan out your project very well, think about how you're going to actually code it. Boil your project down to the absolute basics. Once you get that working then add features.

I'm getting started with Unity myself, and having trouble "getting" Coroutines. What did you use them for in this project, and how do you wish you'd used them earlier on?

To be honest I don't have a deep understanding of coroutines but I mainly used them for the behavior of my enemies. I used them like a state-machine for each type of behavior (Run toward player - charge up - attack). You can use them for pretty much any type of function that you want to run for a limited time. If I knew about how to use them earlier I would've used it for spawning, timers, and a ton of other things.

These are the tutorials I started with I think: http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/intermediate/scripting/coroutines

http://unitypatterns.com/introduction-to-coroutines/

When you have issues with your game and u are unable to solve it, where/how do you look for solutions?

Those kinds of issues happened almost daily. I usually just do a Google search and try a bunch of different search terms. Stack Exchange is often where those searches lead me. If I can't find the answer I will post a question to the unity forums as a last resort.

How long did it take you from start to finish to get the game to its current stage?

Started developing it on and off for a year probably. As I've said its gone through a ton of iterations. I would say that its taken about 3 months since i narrowed down what i wanted and started to code seriously.

What are indie games so simple yet so shit? And you continue to build them?!

I'm assuming you mean "why are..." Probably because 'Indie' is a nice way of saying amateur or alone. People continue to build them because they are passionate about gaming.