Dreamcatcher Games Blog

Restructuring and the new beginning

Dreamcatcher Games - September 19, 2023

It went through the ranks of developers like a wave.
The price changes of Unity.

I worked with Unity for years and was very happy at first. In the last few years, unfortunately, one or the other times with the engine has been ticked off.

The price changes are not necessarily the problem, which bothers me personally. Rather, it is the external communication and the uncertainties that go along with it.

As an indie developer from Germany, but also outside of Germany, you don't have it easy. Developing a game is an immense effort that saps your strength and your psyche.

I don't want to give up on this dream, but the trust in Unity has been exhausted for too long.
Even though Unity may now row back once again, I have decided to change the engine.

I will build up new knowledge in the Unreal Engine and implement future projects with this engine.

Even though the development of the horror game has made good progress, this project has to be paused for the time being.
If the horror game will be the first project in the new engine I can't guarantee. But the game will definitely not be thrown away but will be developed again in the Unreal Engine. But I can't say yet when this will happen.

But I'm also using the change as a chance to make a fresh start and maybe share with you one or the other fail that happens in the new phase.
I hope we'll still reboot together and of course I'll keep you posted on the launch of the new projects development.

Until then stay healthy.

Important old blog entries:
Catch dreams - Behind the scenes - ShaderGraph+Hack

Kickoff to "make the most of dreams"

Dreamcatcher Games - December 17, 2022

Our new website is live. This dev blog has seen the light of day. Now it can go. We can start to develop more games.

With this blog we want to take you with us on our journey. Our journey, in which we catch dreams and make the most of dreams.

First steps in ShaderGraph + UI-workaround

Dreamcatcher Games - March 07, 2023

We have now dared to try out ShaderGraph.
It is a really great tool to quickly and visually create shaders over nodes.

We used this as an opportunity to build a small UI sprite shader for ourselves.
It was great fun to get to grips with the subject matter.

However, with the Unlit-Sprite Shader we have chosen a shader that is not officially supported by Unity with a canvas.

However, the great community has fixed this bug itself with a small workaround. We will present this to you again at the end.

In the following picture you can see the used properties of the shader.
The shader allows you to color the main texture with a hue value.
A mask can be used to set a separate highlight, which can also be limited with a texture.
You can set your own color for this texturing.
If you want to have it a bit more exciting, you can activate a noise that acts on the texture.

Here you can see the current ShaderGraph.

We simply took a small Pokemon for testing and quickly (and not nicely) created a mask.

Here you can see the simple masking with the noise.

The following is a variation with an additional texture and a different hue value.

Now you can use the shader for 2D sprites but unfortunately not with the image component in Unity. The transparency of the sprite is ignored by the image component.
To do this, the user jessmwoodward has found a solution in the forum.

"I noticed that the generated code from the 2020 version of one of my Shadergraphs seems to behave properly in 2021. Looking at the difference in generated code between the two, it looks like 2021 introduces two extra passes - titled SceneSelectionPass and ScenePickingPass.

I copied the generated code from one of my Shadergraphs into a standard surface shader doc, deleted those two passes out, saved it, and now my UI alpha is rendering properly again."

If you remove these two passes by saving the ShaderGraph as a normal shader, you can now also use the shader for image components.

We use version 2021.3.20f1 and it works as we had hoped.

Unity - Tools - Behind the scenes

Dreamcatcher Games - March 02, 2023

Our prototype is taking shape.
We are currently working a lot in the background on the mechanics and on some tools that support us in the development.

In today's blog we want to briefly touch on what we are currently doing and how we are doing it.

Due to years of experience, we decided to use the Unity3D engine.
We are satisfied with the performance and quality of the engine and will therefore limit ourselves exclusively to Unity3D for the time being.
As usual in Unity3D, we develop in the programming language C#.

We are making good progress in terms of our work behind the scenes.
We have already been able to create a good basis for mechanics and implement some mechanics as well.

As already mentioned, we are also working on small helpers to support us in our work on the game.

In the picture above, you can see a section of a tool that we have developed - our translation tool.
This will enable us to add more languages as easily as possible at a later date.

We want to make sure that this is the case in the future, that more players can play our games in their native language.
Of course, this is also a cost factor, which is why we cannot and do not want to make any promises at this point.

Last but not least: the story
We are still working on our story and will soon be putting the finishing touches to it.
We are nearing the end of the pre-production phase and look forward to starting the production phase soon.

Let us catch dreams

Dreamcatcher Games - January 27, 2023

In 2023, we will really take off. We are currently working on a concept and a prototype for our next game.

We can't reveal much yet, as we are of course still at a very early stage of development.
However, we hope to create something great with our next project.

We are currently planning for an atmospheric horror single player experience.
We try to get the best out of our resources and want to get the most out of our game.

As the development will certainly take a long time, we ask for your patience until we can provide you with further information.
If you want to help us, you are very welcome to use our support options.

We are looking forward to this dreamlike journey with you.