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[I will accept inquiries and submissions until Thursday June 21 @ Midnight GMT]

CHARLIE FOXTROT & THE GALAXY OF TOMORROW requires the services of a musician.  This project is a full length game that has already undergone Beta Testing and is essentially complete except for music and sounds (see the GiP thread here for more information).

REQUIREMENTS:
-a Star Wars Cantina theme spoof
-an Elvis Presley "Hound Dog" spoof
-7 loops of 30-120 seconds for ambient music in the distinct zones of the game (a space station, a small-town, the
    desert wilderness, a post-apocalyptic jungle, the primordial plains, a secret base and the final epic finale).
-A one-off theme that doesn't have to loop for the introduction sequence and the credits afterward, but should be
    around 30 seconds long with a 30 second fill-up-the-time extension for the end.
-A five second "impending death" suspense build up.

Interested applictants should PM me with a sample of their own original work.  In general I'm looking for a cheesy sci-fi retro style reminiscent of early Space Quest or arcade games from the 1980s.  MIDI is the preferable medium but I am flexible if you can make a convincing argument. 
All applications are appreciated but I am interested in collaborating with one or two people at the most.  Interest and ability to create science-fiction type sounds is a definite asset and may be considered as a separate position.

I will accept inquiries and submissions until Thursday June 21 @ Midnight GMT .  Then I'll make a decision.  Thanks in advance to any interest shown,

BaRoN

[I will accept inquiries and submissions until Thursday June 21 @ Midnight GMT]

Well now......*Baron puts hands in pockets, stares sheepishly at the ground and kicks up some dust

I'll come right out and say it: I've encountered a bit of a snag in publishing this game, and that snag is music.  Originally I thought I would be able to do it myself but the task proved, over the course of a month of trying, well beyond my abilities.  So I contracted a musician friend of mine to do it, but after yet another month of NDP (No Discernible Progress) I've had to cancel our arrangement.  Which means I'm essentially where I was at the end of April, which is immensely frustrating given this game's advanced state of completion.

So, I'm now in the market for the services of a musician.  Interested parties should PM me for specifics and with a link to a piece of their work (doesn't have to be anything special) if they are interested.  In general I'm looking for pretty cheesy sci-fi retro stuff (like early space quests or even Commodore 64 style) -for that reason MIDI is probably the preferable medium, but if you've got a compatible/complementary artistic vision I'm flexible.  The only thing I absolutely must insist upon is some spoof music that is at least vaguely reminiscent of the Star Wars Cantina theme for my bar scene and a short Elvis spoof.  Other than that the requirements are open to interpretation but will include:

-30 sec -1 min loops for 7 distinct zones (a space station, a small-town, the desert wilderness, a post-apocalyptic jungle, the primordial plains, a secret base and the final epic finale).

-A one off theme that doesn't have to loop for the introduction sequence and the credits afterward, but should be around 30 seconds long with a 30 second fill-up-the-time extension for the end.

-A five second "impending death" suspense build up.

-If you're into doing sounds too that's a huge bonus.

I will accept inquiries and submissions until Thursday June 21 @ Midnight GMT .  Then I'll make a decision.  Thanks in advance to any interest shown,

BaRoN

A man, a plan, an adventure: AGS!  :

I don't know, that's pretty close to "A man, a computer and a dream...."

My two cheesy cents   -mmmmmmm, cheesy cents - are:

"Yesterday's Future, Today!"
"Rebuilding the past since 1997"
"Let's do the time warp, again."  etc. etc.

This whole tagline idea gets me thinking about Arachnospores: the fatal spores with the funny name.  Is it possible to select the twenty/thirty best taglines and have them randomly cycle?

Well, he's kind of already made his decision.....

I would have thought that the majority of American recruitment these days would be for.... more conflict ridden regions than Germany.  Just so you go into it eyes open.

Anyhow, good luck!  It'll definitely build up your inner strength.  And remember BaRoN's two rules of soldiery: 1) don't get killed, and more importantly 2) don't get mostly killed -you'll have longer to regret it.

I took German in high school!  Let's see.....

The mineral business entwicks itself quickly. 
Look (you) at it on the 7th of June.

Stock listings?

Don't lose any moglichkeit.
Sell will it very late.

More numbers and dates.

The hour, there my Augen saw a Heiligen.  But she didn't answer him.

When he can wait, when he can fasten.  But you can not plf the stars.
He was the smallest of all.  I will send to him a Geheimnis.
Why are your schXnen dresses so lXstig?  But not too modest....

It seems like one of those Viagra e-mails that takes a snippet of real text so that it can attempt to fool your spam filter.  I had  a free read of most of a Harry Potter chapter once by reading this sort of spam from the same company on subsequent days....  Then I discovered AGS and subsequently had better things to do with my life.

Congratulations Maverick!  This means that you get to start the next competition.
One Dollar: that was pretty fluid looking -good work.  I look forward to seeing more of your work!

I am taking this opportunity to say that I will for sure be entering this competition, in this spot, at some point over the next week.  If you're reading this I challenge you to do likewise.

EDIT June 7:  Well, I had a bunch of ideas that all seemed to be dead ends, so I just strung them all together and voila!:


Geeze.... Now that it's up in public it seems even scarier.....

I don't think we're have anything planned for that last day: I was just assuming that I'd have a bit of a hangover and that 10am would therefore be a couth hour for departing Bayfield.  We can certainly leave earlier (say 8am) and head directly to Pearson (arriving c. 11am).  Or we can delay leaving T.O. on the first day, since we're not heading to Munroe Int'l.  I'd say that's the preferable option, since I'd rather stay up later than get up earlier.  But we can accommodate you either way.

I like the idea of the bell curve for the cup ratings -at least it puts the games in the context of their peers.

The word "original" comes up a lot in your rating criteria but it disadvantages games that intentionally borrow work from other sources (i.e. for the purpose of parody, etc.).  The music in the movie Fantasia was not original, for example, but the main point was that it suited the movie well.  And artists shouldn't be punished for recycling graphics from their own previous works, especially for a sequel which would seem entirely appropriate.  Qualifiers like "appropriate" or "suitable" should be added, so that a game with just one non-original component isn't locked two cups below where it would otherwise deserve.

And why not one seat open for people of 6mo. to 2 years standing?

I'm entirely in favour of the librarian role of an expert panel, and self-selected volunteers of two or more years standing in the community would certainly be qualified to sort the games by theme(s).

Rating by "experts"....

Since this is going ahead anyway I will refrain from questioning the decision itself and limit my curiosity to the details of the new system.  Will there be transparency (i.e. evaluation for each component of the game: story, graphics, interface, music, etc.)?  Will there be an overall rating or ranking, and how will the component criteria be weighted?  Will there be room for dissenting opinions, such as in a judicial panels (the American/Canadian supreme courts can have a divided opinion 5-4 or 7-2, for example, with dissenters publishing their opinions).  Who will watch the watchers (or evaluate the evaluators....)?  How will a panel drawn from a comparatively small pool of candidates - many of whom know each other - remain impartial when evaluating projects that their acquaintances and friends have produced?  Won't there at least be the temptation to rank such a game just a little better than maybe it deserves?  Are there procedures in place for declaring conflict of interest?  Will the specific criteria used to evaluate the games be published so that game makers eager for a better rating can conform to the systemic values, and game makers who seek to make a revolutionary name for themselves can do the exact opposite?  Will experimental material that is initially ranked poorly be re-evaluated in hindsight?  As this is a community of learners who generally improve over time, can "bad" games not simply be categorized as "training" or "early work" so that they will be seen for what they really are?  Will the panel be able to "farm out" their evaluation powers where they are not qualified to make an evaluation, such as in a foreign language game or a game that caters to a unique cultural context (in the interests of being fair).  Since "Newbies" are the source of this community's future, shouldn't one seat on the panel be open to them as a group so we can take advantage of their fresh perspective (and make them feel that their opinions are valid)?  Same thing for sub-18 year olds: don't they have the most time to commit to a project like this anyway?

I don't mean to be an agitator, but this thread was unlocked to promote discussion on the subject.

As an amateur game maker in an amateur game-making community I have to say I'm a little leery of "experts".

I never would have thought of shrinking the random value like that..... it's brilliant!  I couldn't use your script exactly (due to the complicating factors I alluded to earlier), but your ideas definitely put me on the right track.  I used your array idea in its entirety, then bumped all values of variables "behind" the used one up the queue, while sending the used one to the back -something like this (I don't have the code in front of me at the moment):

rank = Random (14 -turn); //there were only 15 graphics per loop and the multiple loops were the complication
cGuy.Frame =reorder[rank];
used =rank;
while (rank>14) { reorder[rank]= reorder[rank +1]; rank ++}
reorder[14] =used;
turn ++;

Thanks a million!

BaRoN

Greetings,
       I have a situation where I have three characters that must change their graphic (actually loop & frame of the same view) over the course of ten changes.  I don't want their graphics to ever be the same (thus I need thirty graphics) and I have a healthy pool of 75 graphics from which to draw.  There are a few complicating factors that I'm not going to go into, but basically I want to write a random function that will not recycle values once they have come up.  This is pretty easy to do once or twice by re-randomizing if the value equals a variable that stores historical values, but as the percentage of options left available decreases the engine has to do the random calculation exponentially more times to find a fresh value (which is just messy).
      If anyone has any ideas or code snippets they'd like to share on this matter it would be much appreciated.  Thank you in advance,

BaRoN

[VERTIGOADDICT!]

Well, it's the 26th and this Tweak Week has been going on for waaaay too long as it is, especially considering the scarcity of entries.  My apologies to Twirly, but the competition needs to be renewed if it is to survive and (hopefully) thrive. 

TWEAK WEEK POSTMORTEM
I guess my experiment with animation tweaking didn't really attract the interest I thought it might, so perhaps just supplying the one-framed 'traditional' sprite is the way to go.  I had thought that the tweaking option would make the competition more accessible to those who are just learning how to animate, but I guess it was a little too intimidating....or something.  Anyway, I'll leave it to the winner to decide how to run the competition next time around.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Can I get a drum roll, please?  I know you're all on the edge of your seats in suspense....  The winner is: VERTIGOADDICT!.  Don't let the fact that you won by default get you down -I like the ballerina's warm up moves.  The hair bob isn't quite accounted for in her actions, but for movement matching the costume I give you a hearty thumbs up.  Congratulations!  Here's your trophy:  -Display it with pride!  And I hereby pass the torch on to you to start the next competition: I look forward to it.

I beat it!  It only goes to level 39, and my score apparently ranks 274th (within the last 5 hours, which is as long as records last.... ).  My secret?  Only a pair of maxed out (upgraded) cannons, fire towers as necessary to survive, and then cash everything in for combo towers from level 21 onwards.  Try to live on the edge so that your interest accrues, 'cause you have to spend a lot of money in levels 37-39 to stay alive.

     ......and now back to work.

Perhaps it's because I'm on a laptop, but the arrow keys do not move/jump the character.  I don't know much about Actionscript but I assume there's some pretty universal ASCII keycodes involved -any idea what I (or you) might have done wrong?

I kind of forgot about the deadline too -it's been a holiday weekend here in Canada, so I haven't been checking the boards.  I'll extend the deadline just to make a competition out of the competition.  Is Friday the 25 alright for you, Twirly?

And of course anyone else can feel free to enter in that period!

BaRoN

[This time around your challenge is to tweak a pre-existing animation, making it your own.]

Welcome to the first ever Animation Tweak Week!

Interested in improving your animation skills?  Like to see pixels bob and weave?  This competition is for you!

This time around your challenge is to tweak a pre-existing animation, making it your own. 

The sprite:
And the frames used to make her:

All you have to do is make the Jitter Bug dance differently.  You can use as many or as few of the frames I've provided, and change them as much as you want (except that the character should still be recognizable in the end, of course).  Feel free to switch clothes, add accessories, change hair-styles or colour, etc.  to suit her new dance steps (for example if she is ballroom dancing maybe give her a gown and a tiara).  The best original dance moves will win the grand prize, but there will be a commemorative token for all who enter.

Have fun, and best of luck!



Oh, and let me reiterate the traditional rules of the Animation Competition so that they may be perpetuated:

A sprite is supplied, with a theme.
Participants must use the given sprite for their animation  (In this case only kinda...)
Each competition will last 11 days (-ish)
The starter of each competition will decide on the winner.
The winner, who will decide on the next competition's theme, must also supply a sprite.

Ah, the two greatest words in the English language:  De  Fault!

   .....except when it comes to the Animation Competition -c'mon people!  It only takes an hour to make a reasonable (if not exceptional) entry, and the practice will make your games so much the better.  Plus, the more you practice, the quicker you get at it.  Quite frankly I'm not seeing a downside to participating.

Alright, enough haranguing for now.  I'm going to change my name to COACH and harangue you more in the new competition I'm about to start.  See you there!

Well, I'll be first to cross the line.....

I'll also be the first to buy CJ an appeasement beer at Mittens.  Er.... make that two beers.