Topics

I'm looking for someone to help translate the last 15-20 lines of text for a serious game from English to German. Shouldn't take long. If you're interested, please reply here, or in pm. 

I'm drawing a spaceship that'll be part of my next game.  Here's what I got so far:



I'm looking for feedback on shape and shading. It would also be cool to animate the fire, but it seems difficult, so any kind of ideas and advice will be appreciated.

I just discovered www.igLoader.com 

"igLoader is a cross browser plugin that allows virtually any windows based software to be delivered and operated within the browser window. igLoader is unique in its implementation and simplicity; igLoader is compatible with Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer and other Win32 browsers"

Has anyone tried if it works with AGS executables?  I should add that my own first attempt didn't work, but maybe I did someting wrong  - it still might be worth a try if anyone has spare time for it.

Here's an evil boss portrait for the game I'm working on.



x2

I'm wondering how to make the beard stand out  more - is there any general technique for shading hair and beards at this resolution? I think it's quite difficult without some method to rely on.

Also, don't hold back on general critique - palette, lighting etc.

I've been pixelling this (main) character portrait for a game, and I'm looking for general feedback on his facial expression. Which version should I use, and what mood or personality do you think the different pictures express:

1.

2.

also, any other c&c is of course appreciated, including paint-overs or advice on colouring 

I just stumbled upon this adventure game made in Flash. Makes absolutely no sense to me so far, but interesting to see how a different dev tool affords different style and interaction. Too many cutscenes, too little interaction imo. Also the first Flash game I saw that has a traditional adventure game gui (look at, get, walk to etc.)

If anybody avoids getting elctrocuted here, please provide the spoilers

Shabba Dee - The Wrong Face

Here's a dragon I've been drawing. It's supposed to be a boss monster for a top-down perspective rpg. I feel I need some fresh eyes on it, so any advice is welcome, especially on how to fix the scaly areas on the wings, as well as the face:



Also, here's the lineart in case someone wants to start from scratch. It's heavily inspired by an old citadel figure, btw:

I'm ecstatic these days!Ã, 
Tuesday night I was awarded the Golden Joystick Trophy at the Nordic Games Conference in Malmö, Sweden! A game I made won the In the People's ServiceÃ,  Game Competition, and I got a bunch of prizes: a super cool new casemodded powergamer pc, bundles of games, software and pro licenses for game development tools, free office space, and money and industry contacts that will help me start a game company. It's overwhelming, I've been interviewed for the radio and magazines, and finally feel somewhat reassured that my games are being noticed.

Værdikamp(battle of values), the game is now hosted at the Danish national radio and television service's game site, but it's in Danish, so only the Scandinavians here will understand it. It's a fairly simple flash game where players fight the evil mind police in lifting censorship on thoughts in the 'Outer Mediasphere'. The players are then asked questions about the thoughts they free from censorship, and asked to express their own opinions on them. Players' opinions are remembered so as to update the overall statistics on how people relate to different thoughts, ideas and dilemmas. Players can also enter their own thoughts that will then become part of the game. Simple concept, but potentially an interesting sort of uncontrolled sociological experiment.

Next year, this competition will be open for participants from all the nordic countries, so bear it in mind - winning or just entering the contest is a sure way of attracting attention from the industry, academia, press and fellow developers. My thanks to this community for all I've learned, and still hope to learn, here - and for AGS, the first tool that made it seem even remotely possible that I couldÃ,  be making my own games.

I got around to doing another end-game screen for my space game, same series as the ones posted here: (first 4 images) and here: (5th image)

The picture is not a background, but shown at the end of the game, if the player has achieved the overall rank of 'Captain.'

C+C? How does it read? Ideas for improvement? Paintovers?



Here's a less compressed version of the same, on a black backgroundÃ,  (700kb): Captain

I messed around with midimaker a while ago and made these two little tunes.

1: Short tune, almost a sound effect or sound caption of sorts - could be used on 'game over' in a karate game or similar.
Chinese

2: Happy tune, jid-pop inspired. I imagine it used for a fast-paced side-scrolling game.
Jidpop

Any crits? Oh.. and feel free to use these tunes, I'm mostly just posting them to get opinions and because they'll probably go to waste otherwise.Ã, 

I just recently set up a php script that reads in information from a .txt file to php arrays, does some sorting and displays the data in a html table.

Now, this works fine in IE, but in Mozilla Firefox, some text strings are read in (and displayed) wrong. Some of the strings are displayed correctly, while some have inserted special characters looking like little squares = ⌂Ã,  in between *all* the original characters, making the text very hard to read.

To complicate this furhter, extra linebreaks are inserted in the strings by firefox at random, it seems, and only some of the new lines have the extra special character squares inserted.

If anybody knows what this could be, please give suggestions, I tried a lot of things already but best 'fix' so far is a "Best viewed in Internet Explorer"-comment on the page.Ã, 

Hm, I'm not sure I'm actually going to make a game with these, but once I thought up the concept I had to try and draw them. The story, if any, is vague - something about a girl (the player controlled character) having to deal with monastery full of these suspicious nuns:

Ã,  x2

...yes, they're nuns.

They are led by this character:

Ã,  x2

...and all must answer to "the god", a beaked and bearded semi-transparent floating head with watery eyes that I still have to draw. I imagine he communicates by birdlike squeaks, interpreted for the congregation by the tall goat mistress, and always to a bitter end for the main character.

... Well, now that I painted them - any crits on the sprites?

-------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: Here's the deity/floating apparition thing:

x2

It's supposed to have transparent background - don't know why it shows up like this - but the apparition itself will also be semi-transparent in the game.
--------------------------------------------------------------
NEXT EDIT: Here's a new version of the deity where I've tried to fit it more in the style of the other sprites, mainly by lowering color-count and cleaning up the outline. I also made the ear less obtrusive, although it's still in an arguably weird position.Ã, 

x2

Seems some of the core AGS'ers are from Brighton, so I'm wondering if anyone's planning to attend the Develop Conference in Brighton this July?

I don't think I'll be able to go myself (thesis/projects), but if somebody else is, I'd love to hear a little of what went on. There are so many interesting things on the program - like this:

Indie Developers Group Gathering
Thomas Arundel, Introversion Software
Group Gathering, 60 minutes · Thursday, 13 July · 13:30-14:30
What makes a game developer independent? Do you have what it takes to make a great game and do it all?Ã,  If so, come 'meet and greet' other independent game developers. This is a time to network, share ideas, talk games, and learn more about the 'Indie' scene. How can we make it easier for Indie developers to create compelling games and profit from their ideas? Helping each other at forums like this, independents can not only survive but also thrive in the gaming industry. Come share your opinions, experiences, and stories. Come meet someone who is doing what you want to be doing or mentor others with fresh ideas but a lack of experience.

How can Indies get their games out to the players and into the stores? How do we move beyond 'downloadable games' and 'shareware' to compete in a global marketplace?Ã,  How can we juggle work/life balance issues that come with 'doing it all'? We welcome constructive debate, and look forward to seeing you at this group gathering!

and this...

Design by democracy: How to keep your vision - while taking on board everyone else's

Peter Molyneux, Lionhead Studios
Track: Design · Theme: Winning with Creativity · Lecture, 60 minutes
Thursday, 13 July · 13:30-14:30

After years of fighting omnipotent programmers and recalcitrant artists, games designers have finally carved out a solid role for their profession at the heart of the development team. But equally, games design has come of age at a time of unparalleled pressures. Not only must designers balance marketing's views on trends on the high street with their CEOs desperate desire for original IP, there's also a million hardcore voices on the Internet scouring every press release, and commenting on your every design decision. How does a games designer cherry pick the best input from these disparate sources and reject the rest - whilst keeping the team and the community on board?

Btw. is this conference a new thing, or is it there every year?

Last week, my girlfriend went to a party at her old design school, and she met this guy she knew from when they were studying there - at the time he was learning pixelart, copying from printed photos for photorealistic resultsÃ,  - I guess the hard work payed off, now he's got a job as some kind of lead artist for a Canadian game developer. Looking at his website I can see why. Awesome stuff, hope it can be of inspiration.

www.pringleart.com

Here's a new end-game screen, shown if the player becomes a trader/merchant at the end of his sci-fi career.Ã, 



Here it is on a black bg, like in the game:
On black bg

Think I've come to the point where I need fresh eyes on it, and suggestions on how to improve it. Paintovers especially welcomeÃ, 

Hey - remember Pirates! and it's open-ended gameplay where at the end of your career you would get a detailed description of your life after the retirement from privateering? Whether you became a barkeep or an admiral of the Queen's fleet, or something else?

I always thought it was a cool feature, so I'm doing almost the same thing in "Space Darling", an AGS sci-fi game. I've rendered some end-game pictures to go with the different rankings (4 out of 10 by now), and any crits would be appreciated. The pictures will go with verbose descriptions of their depicted stations in life, the score and some stats. I haven't decided how much to resize them for in-game use,Ã,  but they're probably going to be somewhat smaller than they are now.

In my own opinion, the pictures have some atmosphere - but also, something seems to be missing. I'd like (also very particular) suggestions on what to do with each or any of them that will make them better.

I've compressed the pictures just a little, but they're still around 500k, so here are the links:

Junkman

Miner

Smuggler

Barkeep

This animated banner is supposed to be at the top of every page on my upcoming game website. I didn' use web-safe colors for it, so I'm wondering if it turned out alright for people with non-windows or non-internet explorer systems.



You can check it out on a black background (as intended on the site) here: Banner on black bg

Do you think it will work as a banner?

I find this stuff pretty amazing - especially "Inside the Bomb"

http://message.sk/abstractarium/index.html

I just handed in a small game for a Flash course at my university. It's online, so try it out if you feel up to it. If there are some great pixel-artists out there, who are just dying t get their graphics in a game, let me know - I did the graphics for this game myself, and I'm getting punked for the retarded style by my friends, so if you feel you can do this game's graphics better than I did, let me know, and we'll show'em!

Snow fight here:
http://itu.dk/people/hermund/Flash/SnowFight

(mind, if you don't have a flash plugin for your browser, you wil be re-directed to where you can get it before the game launches)

Btw. any c&c on the game as such is welcome.

I've been working on a game for quite a while, maybe one and a half year, in AGS version 2.62, and it's grown so big that I've been reluctant to upgrade to newer versions of AGS, despite the  general reassurances of backwards compatibility. I've put so much work into this game that I would hate to see the project set back by some unknown backwards compatibility bug. But now it's been a while since the first object oriented AGS version, so I'm thiking maybe it's time I upgrade my version 2.62 to something newer. Are there still unresolved issues in the newest versions, and should I get the newest or some older 'stable', but still newer than 2.62, version?

I'll wait awhile and read the responses to this mail before making a decision, so if you've been in a similar situation and have something to say about it, please do.