Messages

Wreck, your trees look like they resemble the tree graphics from Zelda games. I really like this piece, very simple yet incredible. AND to top it off, you've blown Dual's mind!

Heh thanks, I have never played any of the zelda games (not a nintendo fan tbh) but I can't take the credit for the technique. It was something I saw on this piece http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/39173.htm when I was mulling over how to do trees for the leaves etc. I took a look at that and thought it would be quick to do using photoshop and a wacom with using the pencil tool set to size variation on a square brush. There was another piece on that sites gallery I took some of the green colours from as well for the palette I'll try hunt it out as as reference if I can find it again.

Well I've never made anything in AGS, but am planning a bit of a slow burner of a project in my spare time. So far I have a grand total of 1 background, but I though if I made a couple of sprites next to put on it, I could start experimenting with the engine. The rate I am going it will probably take a couple of years, but hey at least I have started.

The game setting with be Fantasy, swords and sorcery, an evil Warlock, a damsel in distress and all that. For reasons not known to myself I started with a central place on my world map, which is just a crossroads but I thought it would give me a nice base to link other locations from, I have the rooms mapped out and a plot roughed out so next up will be creating a character, animating it and then seeing how everything fits together with AGS. Definately not enough done for a GIP thread so I guess it goes here in the spirit of releasing stuff in July



Style wise I took insperation from a few places, but I wanted to keep it feeling fairly old school ish but not be too strict about colour depths (so no anti-aliasing but still adding things like depth hue to give it a more modern feel).

[Amélie]

Right the difficult bit for me, picking a winner! Firstly let me say awesome entries to all, really enjoyed seeing what you all came up with.

Trophies are bee's on spires to go with the competition title, which is the best idea I could come up with while hung-over this morning hehe.

So without further ramblings:

4th place: Amélie
Really nice animation there, made me laugh a lot. It would have placed higher I think if the sprites started as your own rather than taken from the original work itself, but still nice work

3rd place: Tabata

Love the ghostly quality to the girl and fits with the background very nicely too. I think the way you have used the highlighting and the slight transparency to the figure really work well, not an easy thing to get right. Good one

2nd place: Mad

Really nicely captured 304s style and a great backstory to go with it to. I loved the choice of colours on Sevens suit as well. Sadly you may have created a load of work for yourself by having to do a load of sprites for Mr. 304 as a result of this though hehe.

1st place:Ghost

Creepy-thin skittering thing is creepy. I can't now walk near trees, tree cobolds will get me, so thanks for that! Fits really well with the style of the background and I love the way it appears to be looking out for the threats to the base of it's tree home. Very nice work

So once again thanks all for the great entries and well done to Ghost for winning, next competition is yours matey

Nice Ghost

Yeah I probably should have said, if it is a background then I have no problem people posting stuff on it as well, it's just nice to be able to see the sprite on it's own as well for clarity


Last day of the competition folks, I'll leave it open today to see if we get any more entries
then announce the winner tomorrow morning when I crawl out of bed

Looks Cool Tabata, I think you are being a bit hard on yourself as I think it's very good

Fits perfectly in the rules as well, so no deleting the post for you! In this instance it makes sense to show it on the dark background as well as it shows up so light on the forum background colour.

Thats very cool Mad, love the backstory to go with the character!

Now the good news is you are currently sitting in First place in the competition, however being the only entry it also means you are in last place. So either good work, or 'must try harder' depending on if you are a glass half-full / half-empty kind of person

What this means in practice however is More entries people .... get busy with the pixels!

Mr. 304 posted in the general forum a fantastic thread to get people to showcase bits and bobs they are working on, if you haven't read it yet go check it out:

Link to the thread of many awesome things

In fact even if you have read it before, go read it again, it's worth it


Anyway this gave me an idea for the new sprite jam, seeing as that thread is so inspiring:

1) Select a peice of work and author from that thread and create a sprite inspired by that persons project, so a character that would fit with the setting of that persons background / music / video etc. If it is an epic space background then perhaps the sprite would be a dashing space hero for example.

2) Sprite must be AGS compatible.

3) Put a link with your entry to the post in the Release something thread so we can see exactly who and what has inspired your sprite.

4) If at all possible keep the sprite drawn seperately from the original authors work (i.e. if they have created a background, just post a link back to the original work, don't put your sprite directly into their picture).


Obviously some of the works posted there you will have to use your own imagination to guess some of the setting and genre as backstories are not always present but that's half the fun of it.

Hope I have the timing right on this, I believe these competitions run for 2 weeks or so.

Have fun

Nice one, enjoyed getting back into throwing some pixels around for a change

I'll get my thinking cap on and post a new topic up later today.

Cheers
Wreck.

Zanthia surely has done a lot of workout. Not to mention the breast augmentation ;-)

Thats all down to Evil Alchemist in chief Dr. J Halls' patented Emozonian potion*.



* Now available in strawberry flavour from all good stockists.

Sword and Sorcery setting with a fair princess, an old alchemists potion...and err the result.

Wanted to try out a different style drawing to what I am used to doing, good fun


edit: Changed image host.

Hi Folks,

Found this today on the BBC site, its a documentary about 'Games Jam', making a game in 48 hours and indie gaming development.

Not sure if iPlayer works for folk outside of the UK, but thought a few of you might find it interesting if you can listen to it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011jx07

From the bbc website:

Ellie Gibson joins the participants and organisers of a 48 hour "Games Jam". Why are events like this becoming the place to be for video games designers and musicians struggling to find their next contract? Ellie ventures into the exciting creative cauldron which is shaping the future of the gaming industry.

Designers Tom and Adam Vian, alongside artist Catherine Unger, try to design and programme a game in 48 hours based around the theme of extinction. Ellie chips in with helpful suggestions and tips, before eventually testing and indeed breaking their final game! She speaks to other participants and finds out why they spend their spare weekends in windowless rooms, tapping away at keyboards and surviving on plenty of caffeine and just a few hours sleep.

Even in the offices of major games companies there's an indie ethos, with designers walking around barefoot and listening to music. But the world of marketing is never far away. Consultant Nicholas Lovell explains how it's vital for the industry to make sure people spend money while they play.

Ellie gets interviews and opinions from the BAFTA Video Awards where the next big things in games development are recognised, and industry veteran Peter Molyneux explains how the indie games scene marks a return to the spirit of his early years.

Forgot to say, it will be available for the next 4 days on iPlayer

I agree L.A. Noir looks very interesting, will probably pick it up at some point when I have more time.

On the subject of P.C. Piracy vs Console second hand sales (and touched on by Layabout a couple of posts back) Lionhead studios gave a very interesting interview recently to Eurogamer as they have just released a PC port of Fable III:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-17-lionhead-pre-owned-worse-than-pc-piracy

I didn't want to make a new thread for this, and it seems a little far fetched, but this game has been on my mind for years and I don't know what it is...

I could be wrong as it's been donkeys years since I played them, but this sounds a lot like a mid 90's game called Witchaven, or it's sequel the imaginatively named Witchaven 2 (which both used the Duke Nukem 3d engine).

A lot of the drunk effect would come I guess from varying the speed of the walk-cycle between cycles.

However as that would likely be a pain to do, one thing I remember from watching Billy Connoly the other week (he did a whole section on different drunk walks) is that the front / back motion is not even.

As it looked to me, it was a case of the Drunk trying to defeat gravity, and every time 1 foot is off the floor there is a problem for him. So the motion of the back foot coming forward through the air is very rapid, to try and get it back on the floor as soon as possible. The reverse is true once the foot is on the floor so the foot stays on the ground as long as possible for the backwards track (I know its not actually going backwards but I hope you get what I mean). This makes the motion less even and more (i guess) like a chicken strut, e.g. it's not a smooth cycle, lots of little bursts of speed.

So foot/leg travel forward = quick. Foot/leg travel backward = slow.

In addition it is common to mis-judge where the floor is so the leg snaps to straight forward and possibly misses the ground by a fraction, jarring the drunk as the foot hits the ground. I think Mr Connoly refferred to that walk as the 'Straight legged' drunk who always looked like where-ever he had to go was a long long way from where he currently was

I seem to remember the head/gaze was pretty static when he was prancing around the stage like that, I guess in an effort to keep the horizon straight from the drunks perspective

Next step in drunkeness would be an all out forward/back/ side stagger which would be a bit of a nightmare to do I guess.

Hope this helps, probably not the best description in the world.

Quick question regarding resolutions:

What sort of aspect ratio is recommended these days?

I am pondering having a play with ags in my spare time (never used it before), and before I start planning anything it occurred to me that although I will probably go with a fairly low res (640*480) kind of size, is that the right approach to take with monitors these days often being wide screen (my new one is). I don't want to go any higher as I am well aware of the time sink that would create for assets.

Would 640*480 distort horribly on such a screen? or when ags puts the thing into full screen does it maintain aspect ratio and 'block out' the borders, so perhaps something like 640*400 would work better (if that is even a valid resolution).

Any advice apreciated, thanks in advance.

Have you tried the inbuilt photomerge option in photoshop?

I'm only on CS3, but I assume its the same on CS4.

Go to File -> Automate -> Photomerge.

For details on what it does I guess check the help documentation, it's pretty straightforward.

I haven't played with the function really so I don't know how good the results are, but it's worth a shot.

Hope this helps you anyway.

No Problem Kastchey, you can use the graphic if you ever do anything with the game, was great fun entering the competition, I think I will try a few more in the future as I enjoyed it so much, and congratulations Wyz

Heya,

I tend to lurk around the forums and watch the awesome work everyone does here, so I thought I would have a crack at this as it looked like fun.



sprite on its own:



A kind of mutant plant that although limited in mobility has a series of flexible stalks tipped with poison which can latch onto it's prey then drag the body in to be used as compost from any creature stupid enough to get near it.