u/enders_workshop

Plinko Board for the Booth at the Expo (marketing)
▲ 4 r/gameDevPromotion+3 crossposts

Plinko Board for the Booth at the Expo (marketing)

At Enders Workshop we like to make stuff.

Video games is just one of those things (check out our Web page for more stuff) and as we are going to the SocalGamingExpo we wanted to promote our newest game TooneQuest

PLEASE come say Hi, we would love to meet you!

OK, lets get to the meat of this DevBlog.

Booth Promotion! Get people into your booth by giving away FREE stuff, like Stickers in our case, so hopefully they Wishlist your game or Follow the company on Social Media.

We want to give away prizes and our first thought was to use a Prize Spinner. Except they can be awkward and unwieldy. Often tipping over, or simply breaking from use.
Then we had a new idea!
Let’s go with a Plinko board instead! Lots less to go wrong. However when I looked on Amazon I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for. Most were really large and expensive. So as we don’t shy away from building stuff. We decided to make our own!

Here are 4 images showing the start all the way to completion!

You too can make stuff for your Booths! Once we have the rest of our booth ready, I will do another Blog post showing the full scale. Then later when we are at the Expo on June 6-7, I’ll try to post pictures and possibly some video! (follow me if you want to see them as they are posted).

All the bits measured and cut!

Most of the board nailed, screwed and glued together

And now with the bridge in place and spray painted

The FINAL product.

The board can be used by giant marbles called Boulders, or by some small ping pong style balls.

Come by and try your luck!

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 1 day ago

Optimizing the Demo of my game (TooneQuest) for Steam Deck

I like optimizing. I know a lot of people don't but every time you get another FPS, it feels like a huge win!

I have been working hard on the Demo for Steam Summer Next Fest, and the performance was not great when I first ran it on my Steam Deck.

However, once I discovered that my Forest was not LOD'ing and also not culling in the depth of the Fog, the first optimizations were obvious haha!

Always take the low hanging fruit! and in this case altering the forest took the game from mid-20FPS to double that.

Next was to find more obvious issues. I fixed a few effects that were just plain too intense, mainly because there were too many large overlaid transparencies. (smoke will do this to ya). This got new around 3-5 FPS more.

Next was to find all the other stupid things I had not paid enough attention to, my plants not LOD'ing properly (notice a theme here?). But the final crack was to simplify several of the more complicated materials/shaders. Then BOOM! 46-60+ FPS everywhere, but mostly high 50's to 60's.

I am very very pleased about this and I hope my diligence to performance on the Steam Deck might lead me to more sales, though more importantly before Next Fest, more Wishlists.

Here is me playing the game on my Steam Deck!

https://preview.redd.it/0t0t13wkgr1h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de1ef400f4701a2a97131db329d6fa4baa39bacb

https://preview.redd.it/35ntaojlgr1h1.jpg?width=3496&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9895857036144e153af546d32a2da33532f8fdc8

The game is TooneQuest on Steam

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 5 days ago
▲ 3 r/gameDevPromotion+1 crossposts

One of these is not like the Others! (Amusing)

We are doing an Expo at SocalGamingExpo next month and Enders Workshop has been busy preparing in all sorts of ways. Most normal, however we do have other ideas to have fun and hopefully get our Boothe some attention.

This is Tomatoad, one of our cute Toones in TooneQuest.

https://preview.redd.it/5uvxh27den1h1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9ed261b3bb40832e6590ac9742d24394feab2447

If ya wanna Wishlist it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2143690/TooneQuest/#game_area_purchase

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 6 days ago
▲ 2 r/gamedevscreens+1 crossposts

UE5.3: Line Drawn Sphere Cage is Visible in Release build, WTH!

Another amusing Dev issue on my game TooneQuest.

This is a picture of one of the Toones on the Island called Immortal Isles.
I had the game about done and was simply doing a Golden path playthrough when I came upon this little character.
I was a bit dumbfounded as to what the heck could be wrong in a release build.

https://preview.redd.it/wcd2kfply11h1.png?width=434&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c5da77339e954fea3a8e355aaff48e8276d9a04

Then before I finished solving the previous issue I came across this other Toone. Haha, the same issue. Why out of 50 Toones in the game did only these two have this line drawn cage around them?

https://preview.redd.it/8opcd2vly11h1.png?width=410&format=png&auto=webp&s=6e7ea1606fa578c4b9cacb653a5da142ec531c50

Well this time it wasn’t an Unreal bug. YAY!

It was in fact just a radio button not set to Hide the Collision primitive.I must have unset it to check that the collision was working as expected.

https://preview.redd.it/68usshply11h1.png?width=232&format=png&auto=webp&s=f1bdaa3ab54c02d8272963bd6a778245db85f6c4

How do ya fix it? Set the Radio button the way I did above and the problem will just disappear.

Links:

TooneQuest on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2143690/TooneQuest/
CartooneWaterShader: Unreal 4 Cartoon Water Shader: Update 2.2

I hope you enjoyed this sorta silly dev blog post, and I wish everyone success with their projects.

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 9 days ago
▲ 5 r/gameDevPromotion+3 crossposts

I read a post about marketing a different way. Infographic Style. Here is my effort.

I did some advertising on Reddit and the results were a little more expensive than I had hoped for. I am after Wishlists for my upcoming game for Next Fest etc.

I constantly read what is working for others and there was a post several days ago that mentioned they changed their advert Image from a picture of the game to an Infographic style. Then they got a huge increase on click throughs and more importantly Wishlists.

So I figured I would start up another Campaign in this style and see what happens. I have no numbers yet, but I will post once I do.

This is the new Image.

https://preview.redd.it/s2xkex0pqc0h1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=ad8e878282eb515605f597168cd03ad22951caef

And this is where I hope people visit. Though Wishlisting is another step beyond just getting a click through as I am sure everyone understands.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/2143690/TooneQuest/

Has Anyone else tried this style of advert, especially if you did it on another Ad service than Reddit?

Thanks for reading my endeavors in marketing.

Ender

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 12 days ago
▲ 1 r/gamedevscreens+1 crossposts

Strange Rock floating where it shouldn’t (amusing)

https://preview.redd.it/jnea3dri820h1.png?width=608&format=png&auto=webp&s=9958596ebfcc9e5d034137eed1eff8d34910ad90

So what is todays Post and the Image above about?

The ODDEST ROCK.

I was playtesting TooneQuest for the umpteenth time and came across this floating rock. I must have passed this way on the map so many times but had never noticed this floating wet rock.

I have no idea how it got here, or why we have never noticed it before. But yeah. Playtesting is important. Never underestimate how much playtesting you require.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and I wish everyone success with their projects.

Please Withlist TooneQuest on Steam:https://store.steampowered.com/app/2143690/TooneQuest/

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 14 days ago

Gatewayz - An in development game that only needs real art

Gatewayz First 6 Levels Reveal - YouTube

I have really enjoyed working in Game Maker, this is the first title that we will publish with this engine once we get the art completed. (we are in the middle of promoting our latest title, so a bit delayed ATM).
The Game itself is done, it has 50 levels all balanced and High scores and classic Arcade Game style features.

https://preview.redd.it/n6ra3jm54vzg1.png?width=411&format=png&auto=webp&s=0f21595722cf8ccc3e41e6fd856f0cd062a4ef47

I hope you like the look of the gameplay. I cannot figure out how to do an active link to a Youtube video, and I cannot seem to post a video in this subreddit, Ugh.

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 15 days ago
▲ 2 r/GameDevs+1 crossposts

After my previous posts about TooneQuest, I am going to complain once more about Unreal Engine issues.

What is todays Post about?

WOBBLY SHADOWS, Yup, not sure what else to call them. Hard to search for an answer on the internet as well as I just don’t know the Technical name for Wobbly Shadows, hehe.

Here is an example of Wobbly shadows in Omphalos.

https://preview.redd.it/wiehlv3of2zg1.png?width=472&format=png&auto=webp&s=d1d87ca09879a0b6238d33e985bf58fc2cd9c0ac

Notice how the Towers shadow is not straight, and yet the sides of the Tower casting the shadow are definitely straight.
But, also notice the edge of the water has also been shadowed.

https://preview.redd.it/bggz9b3of2zg1.png?width=769&format=png&auto=webp&s=e5c838d2da4e99ed1cd889a153b046cb04c3378b

In fact it is a wobbly shadow applied to the slope from the edge of the Island. And that shadow is around the whole circular island. Yet my Sun source is at an angle down. This is very weird.

Now this occurred when I used the Editors Build lighting option, as the screen told me to.

https://preview.redd.it/d9nxqq4of2zg1.png?width=405&format=png&auto=webp&s=ee39ce4721544821e026ea6c36a06bd80458eeaf

How did I fix it?

Well to be honest I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. So instead after a while I gave up and simply went back to an older backup.

So if Anyone knows how to fix this kind of shadow generation, I would be happy to know how to fix it properly. As I have accidentally made wobbly shadows in this level 2 more times. This problem does not appear on any of my other levels. To me, a Mystery!

You can Wishlist TooneQuest on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2143690/TooneQuest/

I hope you enjoyed this post, and I wish everyone success with their projects.

EDIT:

This is what it looks like as someone in the comments mentioned the edge and I am not able to reply with an image.

https://preview.redd.it/izciz3oin7zg1.png?width=430&format=png&auto=webp&s=20aff824aff3de2502af6bb03ea9c503dc3c43a2

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 19 days ago
▲ 2 r/gameDevMarketing+1 crossposts

OK, so that saying isn't quite right, here is a Link to the correct one.
Perfection is the enemy of good - Link

BUT...
We have that as the title to prove something to not only us, but hopefully other people out there procrastinating on jobs or tasks.

For Us at Enders Workshop, we are working very hard to obtain Wishlists for our new game TooneQuest.

We have not done a number of things that all marketing aficionados tell us to do. Not suggest, but tell us we have to!
For example:

  • Make a Press Kit!
  • Do Press Releases
  • Post on (name your least favorite Social media)

We didn’t know how to write a Press Kit? We didn’t know how to create a Press release. So we have spent an inordinate amount of time reading up on how to create them, the do’s and don’ts and it has paralyzed us. Why were we paralyzed? Mainly because we were trying incredibly hard to create what we now see as the Perfect press kit and press release.

We don’t need perfect, but we do need them done and posted.

So our advice now we have fought our way through these blockers is simply to try your best. We are sure people will kindly point out any deficiencies in what you do, but even a mediocre release is better than none at all,

Good luck
Enders Workshop

reddit.com
u/enders_workshop — 21 days ago
▲ 3 r/gameDevMarketing+1 crossposts

This Devblog is about making a Press Kit using Press Kitty for your game

A few nights ago I realized I had not created my Press Kit for TooneQuest and as I understand it this is essential to help me get Wishlists on Steam.

Anyway, once I realized I needed the Press Kit, I looked around for resources and I came across Press Kitty, which had some good reviews and some compelling descriptions saying it would be very easy to make the Press Kit.

IMPRESS – Indie game marketing, made simple!

Firstly you need to make an account, no surprise there. With that done I chose Press Kitty as my area of interest (Impress does more than just Press Kits).

Secondly I fed it my URL for the Steam store and it pulled a bunch of info on the game and presented me with a mockup of the Press Kit. WOW!  That was in fact easy.
This presentation is in Editor mode, so you can alter whatever is there and fill in some areas that it does not have data for. In my case that was the History of the game and Feature list.
And.. well. That was it.

Thirdly I published this and obtained the URL to allow me to share it in emails, on my Web site and Social media etc. Here it is as an example.
TooneQuest – Indie Game Press Kit | IMPRESS

It was that easy. And if you don’t have a Press Kit, I do recommend making one with Press Kitty.

Hope this helps,
Ender

u/enders_workshop — 24 days ago