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Might as well jump on the bandwagon. This started out as a terribly drawn 3-panel comic I admit, but I'm quite proud of the direction it's gone in recently. But the judge here is you, not me!

http://stickmanandrat.smackjeeves.com

Having completed the game twice I hereby declare myself the grand authority on all things Blackwell and am more than willing to offer subtle pushes in the right direction for anyone who may happen to get stuck.

Have at it!

[Let the games commence!]

A burglar breaks into a lifeless building in the dead of night. His target: a priceless diamond.

To his dismay, when he makes his way further in, he finds that he accidentally broke into a pretzel factory! Oh no! That priceless diamond has evaded his grasp, and now he hears security guards fast approaching. What a pickle!

-------

Sometimes, the best laid plans just go completely up the creek without a paddle, and that's the topic of this fortnight's writing competition.

Write about someone ending up in a seemingly hopeless situation, and how they get themselves out of it (or not).

General rules:

• The length of the entry isn't important.
  
• All entries should be in by the 30th of July.
  
• Voting will start on the 31st of July and end on the 2nd of August.
  
• The winner will decide the topic of the next fortnightly writing competition.
  

No trophy unfortunately since my graphical skills are utter garbage.

Let the games commence!

English is a funny language. There are so many rules that need to be followed, and some words that don't follow the rules, and some that only apply on Tuesdays when there's a full moon and Jupiter is aligned with a hotdog. Enter Trihan, stage left.

I've been around the block a bit when it comes to the English language. I've studied it at great length, and have always been fascinated by the nuances of it, like the fact that the meaning of a sentence can change completely depending only on how you inflect or stress the syllables in words.

I know that for some people here English isn't their first language, and some others who just have trouble with certain aspects of it, so here's what I'm going to do:

You tell me what aspect of English you don't understand/have trouble with/want to know more about, and I will do the best I can to explain it in a way you can understand that will hopefully illustrate the uses of that aspect and why it is the way it is.

Maybe nobody will actually reply to this, but it's just something I wanted to do for fun so if there's no interest it's not a big deal.

Just found this short, cute little adventure game on Miniclip.

http://www.miniclip.com/games/anikas-odyssey/en/

Enjoy! Took me about 10 minutes to finish it.

So Within Temptation are pretty badass. Much better than Evanescence IMO. Anyone else big WT fans? I dare anyone to listen to Memories and not love it.

http://www.theshadowfang.uwclub.net/splicer/splicer.html

This is officially one of the greatest things on the internet.

So I used to do this comic on paper whenever I felt down, about a stickman called Stickman and his pet rat, Rat. It's not really -about- anything, there's no storyline, there aren't even many real jokes, it's just a silly random comic but it's mine and I like it. And now I have decided to share it with the world! Lucky you. So here it is:

http://stickmanandrat.smackjeeves.com

If you like it, let me know. If you don't like it, let me know. If you wish people who put tripe like this on the internet would just die already...let me know that too. And hopefully, it's inane and horrible enough that you'll keep going back for more (it'll update daily)

Enjoy! Or don't. Your call really.

Okay people, the topic for this competition is "Write about anything you like in the style of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy entry".

For those of you not familiar with the writing of Douglas Adams, WHAT ROCK HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING UNDER? Just kidding. Here's a sample entry for "sleep" by DualNames to give you an idea of what we're talking about.

Sleep:
Sleep is an essential process to all beings. Except from the duradindi people on Viltvodle 5. They're beings that lack of insomnia and therefore they never sleep. A fact that the ruthless marketing division hadn't really taken into mind, but by curious facts managed to sell a very decent amount of alarm clocks.

Basically, it's completely random, and that's what makes it funny.

Get going! (pixel trophies may or may not be doled out at some point)

As with the last one, 12 days for submissions, 2 days for voting.

Okay, I had a fit of inspiration today and have roughly drafted the first chapter of my novel Tundra. I'm never really sure how long a "chapter" should be, but this seemed to be a fairly decent length. As always, comments, criticism, death threats, marriage proposals and anything else you feel like saying are welcome.

------
Tundra: Chapter 1

Imagine if you will a world much like your own, where there are people who look just like you. There is plant and animal life on this world more or less the same as that to which you are accustomed, and the people eat pretty much the same things as you. Unless you were to really dig under the surface, you might not notice any difference between this world and yours at all.

One difference that you might notice when digging under the surface (as is human nature to do) is that the concept of religion doesn't exist in this world. Oh, there are of course theories of how the world came to be - two in fact - but the believers and practitioners of these two theories live in perfect harmony with each other and both acknowledge the possibility that the other one might be right after all.

The first theory, generally known throughout the civilised world as Zodiac, stipulates that 12 beings of immense power created the world and that each of them placed a part of their essence into its core to shape it. They were Aquarius, Capricorn, Sagittarius, Scorpio, Libra, Virgo, Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, Aries and Pisces.

The second, known as Serpentalis, stipulates that the world is the shed skin of a giant serpent - one of many such worlds, though nobody has ever produced proof that more exist - who watches over the people and ensures that there is balance in all things.

They both have their places in the world, and are united in the fact that neither of them are true. But I digress.

Now that you've imagined this world (which is called Gaia, by the way), imagine that upon its mass lie four continents. All have names, but the only one on which we need currently focus is called Danero.

Imagine that somewhere on this continent is a small, dense forest. Imagine that in the middle of this forest is a wooden hut, with plumes of smoke rising from its chimney. Imagine a large wild boar roasting on a spit next to the door.

Imagine two men outside this hut engaged in heated swordplay.

It is here that our story will begin.

Metal clanged on metal. Swords danced in a fluid display of skill, as did the men wielding them. To the trained eye the elder of the two combatants held a slight upper hand, but the younger was more than holding his own and indeed to the untrained eye they would have appeared equals. They parted briefly, each appraising the other, warily circling with blades at the ready in case of a sudden attack.

"You're improving more every day, boy. Keep this up and you might even best me someday!" the older man chuckled, the laughter in his eyes belying the cautious fighting stance he remained in.

"And on that day, sir, there will be a banquet in my honour!" laughed the youth, relaxing.

In a flash of movement quicker than the boy could register, he was on the ground with the tip of his opponent's sword kissing his throat and a long slash in his plain white tunic.

"Tell me, boy," the old man began as he offered his fallen adversary a hand, "what has just happened here."

"You knocked me down while I was distracted."

"Oh, is that the way of it? Yes, of course that is what occurred here. You were distracted and I, a simple old fool, played a dirty trick upon you." the man's demeanour suddenly changed and his eyes flashed momentary anger as he clipped the boy on the ear. "I thought I had taught you better than that, Giya Vantana, but evidently I was mistaken. What happened, my boy, is that you got cocky in the heat of battle and your dishonourable foe gave you a red smile."

"But you said-"

"NEVER let your guard down! Not for a well-intentioned word, not for the promise of riches or food, not for an instant! Do you understand me? Never."

"I'm sorry sir, it won't happen again." said Giya, wiping a brunette lock of hair out of his eyes.

The time that the boy had spent training with this man had done nothing to dampen the awe he evidently felt at the man's skill with a blade in his hand. After all, he wasn't much to look at: grizzled, unkempt features; tattered brown robes; dirty bare feet. Many were the lithe young men who fancied him an easy target for a few extra gold coins and ended up less an ear for their trouble. Tyrias Magamei was not a man to be taken lightly.

And Tyrias Magamei it was who met his young apprentice once more in a clash of steel - the impact jarring his old bones more than he would ever have admitted - and the training continued.

Wait, perhaps I was getting too far ahead of myself. To truly tell this tale we will have to head back seven years or so, to when Giya Vantana was but a child...and the planet wasn't on the verge of turning to ice.

I was just sitting here reading various things and contemplating life's great mysteries when suddenly the idea flew through my head to write a poem about a stagnant AGS project that is mysteriously completed by an equally mysterious benefactor. As with all throwaway ideas I have, I decided to write it down, and it turned into this. Enjoy!

------

Jolting awake from my long night-time slumber
My head felt akin to some freshly-felled lumber
With coffee in hand and sawdust in my head
My course had been set for the thing that I dread
Pushing my monitor's on and off switch
My palms were both sweating, my eyes gave a twitch
At the prospect of one more day pointless and lame
Where no progress was made on my AGS game.

Imagine my shock when on came the display
And an .exe file lay there enabling play!
My game had somehow been completeted, hooray!
But how was it finished in less than a day?
And then my elation was turning to fear
And a presence I felt, and I felt it quite near
Though I needn't have worried, a friend did appear
For Cuppit it was, and I let out a cheer!

He'd finished my game while I slept overnight
And I whispered his name then I screamed my delight
The storyline laid out for all folks to see
The game itself played out and beautifully
The graphics were great and my heart it did sing
How could he create such a wonderful thing?
The soundtrack was magic with many-layered graces
The dialogue tragic in all the right places.

I sprang to the forums and thanked the blue cup
As he struggled to get to my window up high
So I gave him a hand and I helped him climb up
And he spoke as he left and he winked his blue eye
"I'm just glad I could help, the idea was ace!
I thought I should make it; so the forum could see
Just remember one thing as I leave from this place
I'm full of blue helpfulness, and helpful bluosity!"

------

Each part of the poem utilises a different rhyming scheme by design. The first one obviously uses a fairly standard AABBAABB, then it switches to AAAABBBB, then I attempted (because I've never really done this much before) a dual AABBAABB with two rhymes per line, and finally ABABABAB.

(Also it won't make much sense if you haven't seen/played/heard of META, by Crystal Shard, in which Cuppit appears. I loved the character and decided to incorporate it into the poem with a paraphrased quote from the game as the end line)

Why am I posting this topic on a forum centered around the indie adventure games community? Who knows. As of this sentence, I don't even know what I'm going to say.

Suffice to say that while I acknowledge that there are many people around the world who lead far worse lives than I do (in third world countries especially, I'm not arrogant enough to even imply that I have it worse than some poor starving kid in the middle of nowhere who might not live past 5) but my life SUCKS.

First of all, I'm more or less stuck in my job. It isn't exactly dead-end, but I really have no choice but to stay there. There isn't really anything else going around here, and I have neither the money nor the time to move. Even if I did, I'd then have to find a job wherever I moved to before I ended up homeless.

I'm more or less hopeless socially. Sure, I have "friends", I go out, but there's always that little niggling voice in the back of my mind that says they're only putting up with me because I'm there, and they'd rather I wasn't. I hesitate to do anything in company that I haven't already mentally put on my list of "approved" actions. In short, I don't take risks, even when I probably should.

I vastly downplay my talent. I think I'm rubbish at everything, yet I still try to write, do voice acting, play music, sing, just about every creative pastime you can think of. People tell me I'm good, and yet I can't convince myself of the same for longer than a fleeting moment.

I'm a ridiculous perfectionist. I never think anything I do is good enough, so I keep redoing it until I get bored, and end up with nothing.

I'm mortally afraid that everyone I've ever cared about, or currently care about, will someday realise just what a waste of space I am and leave me forever.

I know that everything I've just said is complete bollocks.

I know that I'm probably going to be relentlessly flamed for posting something like this here.

I know that I probably shouldn't have.

But I did it anyway.

[Trihan's idea]

Okay, this competition has two potential themes. I haven't put in specific dates for the start and end because Dualnames and I have both come up with ideas for a topic and we wanted to let you guys choose which one you wanted to do.

Trihan's idea
Write about a memorable day from your own life in the style/point of view of your favourite adventure game character. You can have some artistic licence here and edit specific details to suit the character you're writing about as if it was a day that happened to them instead of you.

Dualnames's idea
Write about anything you like in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy style.

Let us know which one you prefer for a contest!

Just wondering if anyone had started planning for it, I might attend the next one if I can.

For many years now I've been fascinated - nay, enthralled - by the subtle nuances of the English language and the myriad opportunities it affords for wordplay. To that end, I've ever been a particular fan of the humble limerick, and so I offer this.

Give me any topic in this...uh, topic. Any topic at all, and I will create a triple limerick based on it. That is to say three limericks about the same thing. For example, if someone were to say "Do a limerick about pink polkadot elephants!" I would perhaps submit the following:

They're certainly not grey robots
And they aren't green rectangular pots
They're not tiny worms
They are huge pachyderms
Which are pink and all covered in dots.

They only exist in your head
And they probably fill you with dread
If you walk out your door
You will find three or four
And there's seven of them in your bed.

So what's to be done, do you know?
Against this imaginary foe
If you just don't believe
They'll all turn round and leave
Then they'll only exist in dumbo.

------

No idea how popular this'll be, if anyone replies at all, but if you like the idea then by all means post! Post post post! Now! Yeah, I'm talking to you! *points*

Okay, this time it's voice clips. I recorded myself doing a few lines in various accents for your perusal and subsequent shred-ripping. A few things before I open the floor up:

My best accents by far are Scottish, English and Irish. My Welsh in this clip is terrible, my American isn't great, but I'm pretty proud of Australian. I know it says Jamaican in my profile as well but it's quite late at night and I'm intentionally being quieter than I could otherwise be while recording to avoid embarrassment. I'll put up some better ones tomorrow or Sunday.

If anyone is impressed with my work and wants to use me for voiceovers, or even if you just want to hear what I sound like reading a particular line in a particular accent (not limited to the ones listed, I'm always willing to try something new so go wild) just give me the line, character reading it, and desired accent and I'll do my best to give you a sample of what I'm capable of. Now here are the clips!

Scottish
Irish
Welsh
American
Australian

Note that the Scottish clip is using a Glaswegian accent. I can also do milder Scots and Sean Connery-esque speech.

Edit: Also, here's one of my unfinished RPG themes (for a boss battle). I'll put it in here instead of making a new topic.

Serpentine Clash

Okay, here's my next attempt at spriting, using a photograph as a reference. Here's the photo I used:



And here's my really pathetic attempt at spriting him, at 1x and 4x:



I'm aware of most of the glaring flaws. I don't have a very good grasp of shading with sprites this small, and there's no detail in the face. I couldn't really figure out how to get any real detail in there. Any comments, criticism, requests for my deportation and dismemberment, death threats, marriage proposals or random poetry are, as always, welcome.

But go easy on me, this is the first sprite I've really done "by myself" in years.

Edit: And now that I think about it, it's entirely possible that I made the sprite -too- small by not realising that the background I compared him to wouldn't be the same size in-game as it is in the editor... oh well. Feel free to comment on my tiny sprite while I make one that's actually a normal size.

Edit: Here's my latest attempt. It's a bit bigger and more detailed. I'm still not all that hot with shading, but I think it's an improvement. The face looks horrible, I couldn't figure out how to salvage it so maybe you guys can give me some pointers. (As a challenge to myself I limited it to 16 colours for this version)

Okay, so I've taken my first little tiny baby steps into the scary world of pixel art once again, and thanks to a couple of wonderful tutorials by luckylinx and Spaarghy on DeviantArt I've churned a few out, and then I had a go at a couple of my own design. Basically I just want some feedback on the colours I used (I pretty much suck at choosing palettes right now and probably have some issues with saturation), which shading "style" looks best and whether the two I did by myself are any good. So without further ado, let the emoticon parade begin! (All are posted at 1x and 4x)

Okay, I've had this idea brewing in my head for a couple of years now, and I would dearly love to be able to make it a reality. I'm currently trying desperately to improve graphically or hire someone to do graphics for me (preferably the former, I like being self-sufficient) but that's a moot point and not at all what this topic is about. So let's get to the meat and potatoes of this thing, shall we?

Basically what I have in mind is a wacky character-centric game in a similar style to Day of the Tentacle about a laid-back, procrastinating schoolkid called Jeff who, as a result of accidentally locking himself in the school late at night, uncovers a plot by the government to demolish his hometown to make room for the world's largest car park.

He's not alone in this endeavour, however! Earlyish in the game he will encounter, and subsequently join forces with, a wisecracking talking rooster named Harold. A great lover of practical jokes and sarcastic retorts, and one hell of a guitar player.

Together (although their relationship is more love/hate than friendly at first) they must gather clues and evidence involving various key government figures and ultimately stop their plan before they're made homeless.

------

I don't exactly have a full game script laid out here or anything, but I've put a great deal of thought into both characters and how they will interact with the world (and each other). Some of my inspirations and references will be pretty obvious (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the aforementioned Day of the Tentacle, Beneath a Steel Sky and Invader Zim to name but a few). Don't ask me where I got the idea of Harold playing guitar. I just figured it'd be a suitable silly thing for a rooster to be capable of.

Feel free to make all and any critiques, suggestions, words of praise on my ingenuity and obviously superior wordplay skills, and/or death threats. It's all welcome! And ladies, I'm single. Form an orderly queue, please.