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The drums sound okay, but you should look into the BFD or DFH plugins for acoustic drum simulations.   They sound the most convincing and have the most realistic options for humanizing velocity/timing.  Each drumkit piece is sampled dozens of times at up to 128 different velocity levels.  So it's very rare that each drum hit for say, snare, is actually going to play the exact same snare sample.  Repetitive sounding samples are the most unnatural sounding thing about sampled acoustic drums.

I have worked with various drum machines and sampled percussion in a punk context for years, and I've always been of the opinion that if you want real sounding drums -- play real drums.  Drum machines and sampled percussion are a different beast, and you have to make a different kind of music with them.  My old postpunk/nowave act Undoing of David Wright used drum machines exclusively.  Here's some links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-VtY9O0nDI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4saNL_Naf5s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oric-_Irda8

For a VST softsynth solution for NES sounds, try (the free and downloadable) TriForce... it sounds great and authentic.  I use this often for composing before I patch up more complex voices on my analogue gear.

You can download TriForce here:
http://www.tweakbench.com/triforce

I'll try to come up with an entry for this one.   Does the three layers include all drum sounds + all voices?

This is a great idea!  While in film school I studied new queer cinema extensively, and tons of these plots and stories would make excellent adventure games.  After all (and feel free to disagree...) both adventure games and a growing mainstream gay sensibility/awareness were both big parts of early 90's fringe cultures -- and the 90's are coming back again.  You wouldn't have to focus entirely on coming out as gay with this, either... I always thought Gregg Araki's films (in particular the more nonlinear ones like Totally F*cked Up and Nowhere) would make really great adventure games.  They were all about teen drama and sexuality with lots of different characters facing different issues.  But I'm a Cheerleader! is another great coming out story that would make a great adventure game.  At the very least, those films are all really good to look at for inspiration on this game concept, if you haven't seen them.

Those sketches are really helpful illustrations, Ryan -- thanks!

this looks great, but a couple things look weird to me -- first is the torso seems too thick for what i am guessing is a pretty skinny guy.  second is the gradient on the pants doesn't seem to match the shading on the rest of the image.  maybe you could try just using 2-3 shades instead of a radial gradient.  I love the hat/face/boots.

Some great info & replies, thanks a lot!

I'm going to widen and deepen the building on the right, so that the doors appears in the middle of the building.  Making it this small was originally an intentional exaggeration of the size of this building, but after seeing it in this style, I realize the proportions should probably be more realistic to work. 

The RGRS building is a bar.  In real life, it's called Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios and is a bar/venue/rehearsal studio here in town.  I've gigged there countless times over the past few years and always have thought it's a really weird space.  The building on the right is part of it (there is a rehearsal room upstairs and downstairs, so that's why they're small.)  Anyway, more on the actual game another time...   I don't see why I couldn't add some radio towers and satellite dishes, it would enhance the idea of the scene being in an industrial district on the outskirts of town, and any such structures and details I can add will enhance the post-apocalyptic mood of the scene, which is good.

Stefano, great links for perspective, I've bookmarked them.  I've got a great book, "Perspective for Comics" that goes through all of this too, and has some great troubleshoot-the-perspective-in-this-scene parts.  I had thought about doing curvilinear for this scene, but decided against it.  Maybe I'll try it for the next one... those are definitely some awesome template diagrams.

Ryan, the two buildings initially shared a common vanishing point in the center -- the reason they don't match up in your sketch is because I cheated the building on the left over a little bit.  When I was outlining everything, I remarked the vanishing points and drew every single line from the vanishing points out in photoshop.

pixelperfect: thanks for the paintover!   this definitely gives me some good ideas.  I do need to make the RGRS sign glow a bit, and the little blue light would be perfect for an animated flickering lightbulb kind of effect.  I like the moon too... just needs some cloudy haze over it to fit in with the sky I think.

I'm going to try adding some features that will bridge the space between the two buildings, like some cables running from roof to roof, and flesh out the road a bit. 

I agree that framing this closer would add a lot.  Features on the walls might be cool... warning signs, big glass observation windows?  The way the shading works now almost makes the room feel like it's underwater.    I like it, looking forward to seeing where it goes.

I ditched the car -- it was just in the original sketch to fill up some space.  You're right, it looked wonky.  Around here we have tons of different sized dumpsters, and this size is correct for the ones you see in apartment complexes or commercial areas.   

Here it is, "finished"...



I think it still feels very lifeless.  It's supposed to be dusty and apocalyptic, but I think some more details and background or foreground objects would do a lot -- but what?  Maybe power lines stringing along behind the buildings to break up the monotony of the sky?  I tried that but couldn't get it to look right.  The location's close to some railroad tracks, but I didn't have room to suggest that.   The texture on the road helps but the road also still feels incomplete to me for some reason.  Any suggestions much appreciated.

Photoshop file is here if anyone wants to peek/paint... http://www.larsattacks.com/rgrs-1.psd

you're right, there are three vanishing points (but it's 3-point perspective).  the two buildings are angled to each other and the road is curved.  maybe that's why the two buildings don't seem to occupy the same environment too much.  originally i tried to draw this scene in one-point perspective but it was very bland, and using the same two vanishing points wasn't giving me interesting angles composition-wise.  so adding the third vanishing point was just an attempt at cheating to give something more interesting to look at... i'm not sure how correct that is.

here's the original sketch...

Thanks again for the feedback.  Yeah, I think the car might be a little bit too small.  The "surgical clinic" will be very cramped and a bit nonsensical, yes.   It's an even more exaggerated version of a very tiny little rehearsal studio tower around here that I always thought was very odd.  I may try to remove the car and add some exterior stairs to the tower in its place.  The car is not necessary, just filling up space. 

Ryan, I wouldn't have thought of flipping the building.  I'd probably have to redraw it, but that angle sure is interesting.

Here's a new version with a bit of texturing on the sky and horizon (and corrected 320px width).  Maybe it helps a little.  Still not sure how to handle the road/parking area.  guess I need to dig up some reference photos.

Thanks for the encouragement.  I'll definitely save my progress at different stages on the next one.  Mainly I'm following the advice I've seen several places for doing this kind of stuff with Photoshop.  And while my Photoshop skills are great, my general art skills art, so this is still really new for me. 

I'm still trying to settle into a manageable background art style for my game, and finally decided to try classic 320x200 res and see if it worked.  Here's where I'm at right now...




Obviously this is unfinished, but I've put several hours into it so far and it would be great to have some feedback.  I'm having a hard time conceptualizing certain easy things, like how to draw the horizon and make the road look right.  Also I'm looking for general critique on the buildings/objects.  Does it (the finished parts anyway) look sloppy?  How can I improve? 

Thank you,
Lars

This looks absolutely gorgeous.  Did you just paint over it in MS Paint?  What process are you using?

Yeah, really good read!  I like how it reads like a narrative, and yet it cohesively breaks down and organizes all the pertinent information relating to items, locations, characters, puzles, etc. 

Rick, I'm extremely interested! I spend my dayjob hours working with dynamic XML-based learning interactions in Flash for a university, and developments in nonlinear storytelling/information trees has been a lifelong interest of mine.  Labyrinths, Designing Virtual Worlds, Hamlet on the Holodeck are all fascinating books on the subject if you haven't read them yet.  Definitely PM or e-mail me if you're interested in potential development help.   At the very least I'd love to be kept updated by your project.

I'll check out the links you've posted, for sure.  I've got Notepad++ but hadn't taken the time to explore it's featureset, fully.

Ditto -- Great interview.

Can someone explain mind maps?

It's a node-based way of looking at information.  Kind of like headings, subheadings, sub-subheadings in a traditional document, but you can visualize the entire document more easily and move things around.  You can also tag certain things.  For example, in my design doc, I have a node called "Locations", which is then divided into all the rooms in the game.  Then I further tag/colorcode each of the Rooms to denote exterior or interior locations, and then underneath each room I have further nodes which describe my notes about that room, what items are found there, etc.

I'm glad some of you are finding this useful!  Please share your experiences and maybe we'll come up with some neat tricks on how to design for adventure games this way.

Snarky, thanks for the link.

Has anyone experimented with using mindmapping applications such as MindJet or FreeMind for use in writing nonlinear design documents?  I have started playing with FreeMind (it is open source) and am very impressed.  I always have a hard time "building up" from an initial idea without going crazy second-guessing and keeping all the details in mind.  This is basically the same as using color-coded index cards for notes, pieces of string, and a giant bulletin board to arrange everything... but I've never had the space or organizational skills to really do that before.

I'll post more thoughts as I continue to play with FreeMind, but I was just wondering if anyone else had experience or tips for writing design docs in this fashion.

Presumably, the flame(s) would be animation frames, so I didn't draw them as part of the background.  As far as realism goes, I think it would depend on the game as a whole, whether or not the candle's lighting would hurt suspension of disbelief at all.  Probably not, in this case. 

auriond -- i really like the direction of your edit, it's very atmospheric and spooky, which is definitely more in lines with my original intentions.  thanks for taking the time.

i'm going to go back to my design docs again pretty heavily and hopefully have some more finished backgrounds to share in a few weeks.