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I dont see this as an issue.
RON was made with the pupose of creating a universe spread among many games.
It dosnt matter who uses the graphics thats kinda the idea behind it.

Hm. Not really.

The story is spread out among many games, true, but they all take place in the same universe.  Anyone can use the graphics, but only if they take place within that universe.  Taking the Davy Jones sprite, putting him in another game, and making him a detective or  something would not work.  Nor would it be right.

Progz nailed it.  Ripping sprites is lazy at best.  Most everyone will recognize the RoN sprites and judge your game accordingly.

Bernie!  Thanks for the perspective help.  An artist friend game me some useful info about "vanishing points", something I was  obviously neglecting.  I decided to start this over from scratch.



Here's my preliminary line art.  The blue pixel at the top (might be hard to see) is my vanishing point.  I also included two of the character sprites for reference.  (sprites not drawn by me, obviously)

If anyone has any comments about the composition of these lines, I'd love to hear them before I venture forth.

S.O.S!  Game progress halted due to perspective suckiness! 

I've played around with the perspective lines of this until I see em with my eyes closed.  I don't want to add any more to this picture unless I get the perspective sorted, so I appeal to the gurus of this forum.  Any help, as always, is appreciated.

Realized that the walls should be white. :-o  Kept the floors wooden and incorporated the floorboards and shading.  I'm not 100% happy with the shading but Khris thank you for giving me a nice head start.

My home!  :o

Poor city.  Why is it always New York that gets destroyed?

Thanks.  Wider is good advice.  And yeah, I realized this morning that the backgrounds should be white!  The ship exterior BG I posted here is white also. Doh!  This is what happens when I'm rushed.  I'll post updated versions soon.

Hi all.  Thanks again for the help with my other BGs. 



Bleh.  I spend three-and-a-half hours on a background and it looks like some 13 year old kid vomited it up in ten minutes. 
As this is for MAGS, I am going for as simple-and-fast as possible, but I think that shading could improve it immensely.  Any tips appreciated.

I'm on a roll.

Thanks everyone who helped me with my last BG.  Here's another one.  I'm hoping to use these BGs in the january Mags comp.

Anyway, this is the deck of the ship:



Simple, but I'm under a deadline.   Any advice appreciated.

Yep! It'll be animated.  The smoke was easy.  I'll try adding a wake and see how that works.

Oy, am I out of practice.   

This is supposed to be a 1930s style cruise ship.  It is for a title screen (title yet undetermined), which is why the ship is kind of pushed down toward the bottom of the screen.

I am happy with the basic shape but could use some advice on detailing.  Something that suggests movement.  It sort of looks like it's plastered over the water and I don't like that very much. 

Any advice appreciated.

What a pleasure to watch. 

Scummy you must post the rest. 

Nothing gives me more disappointment than to see the state RON is in right now.  Two years ago, when I was an admin for RON, I did everything in my power to try and generate publicity for the site.  I contacted various webzines and managed to get us a write-up on adventuregamers.com.  I posted on every game and adventure usenet group I could find, encouraging folks to check it out.  I came up with games and activities for folks in the RON community to partake in (polls, art contests, even a round-robin short story) in the hopes of generating enthusiasm, but nobody was very interested.  I kept this up for a year and a half, yet the number of released games dwindled and the overall quality dropped like a stone.  Eventually, even *I* had so much trouble maintaining my enthusiasm that I gave up my status as admin. 

I remember, back when RON was in its infancy (you know, a whole 4 years ago), folks would refer to RON as a "newbie training ground."  At the time, I didn't like the term as it implied that the games were amateurish.  But, in a way, it's very accurate.  RON games ARE a newbie training ground, but that doesn't mean they should be bad.  If anything, it should be an ideal place for new game-makers learn the lay of the land in terms of proper game making.  Look at "Treasures of RON," "III Spy", "Cabbages and Kings" - these games were written by three well-known members of this community (Grundislav, Creed, and Steve McCrea), but they were virtually unknown at the time of their release.

I wish I could come up with a clear-cut explanation as to why this happened.  RON had some great characters, a mythos that was slowly building, a large number of resources folks could use, and then pffff.  Nothing.  This community certainly has a steady stream of newbies coming in.  I wish there was a way to direct them towards RON and give it a try.

Only played for five minutes, but I LOVE what I see!  Such a unique location, character, and story.  You really captured the atmosphere well.  Please don't do a english voice translation, as it really sounds authentic the way it is.  Reading it with english subtitles is perfect.

I will comment more when I play more, but for now I am very impressed.

Dahr! Why the bloody heck haven't you edited that whole "Rosella is a Whore" thing?
I LOVE the game, very original, but I remember talking to you on MSN about the Rosella thing.

What's wrong with it?  I found it kind of funny.

I found this animation on the web (one of the frames is kind of jerky, I know).  I really like how smooth the animation is, but the cycle is 16 frames long.  I am trying to prove my animation skills, and I was wondering if all these frames are necessary?  Can some of the frames be removed without losing the overall smoothness?  (Especially considering that a game sprite will be much much smaller). 

Thanks.

That show was on the air when *I* was 15.   Man I feel old now.

I'm hungry and want a fish, so...
Screech from "Saved by the Bell."

Nord and Bert is one of those games that couldn't ever work as a graphical game.  The puzzles are too verbal.  If you can think of a way to portray a head louse as a lead house, or a gritty pearl as a  pretty girl, then you will have truly impressed me.

Hiya,

Played this (and #4) and enjoyed them. 

You are obviously going for some kind of Pulp-Fictionesque storytelling, with events being told in different order.  I admit to being confused at playing #4 and wondering where 1-3 were, but that was soon sorted.

#3 is a worthy effort, and leagues ahead of #4.  The multiple characters were a neat idea, but aside from some superficial differences I never felt like they were three different people.  Frank is just kind of bland and neutral with no personality, and the king never really acts like a king (He is all-too-willing to go on quests for people).  The best character by far is Roberto, but he's only given a few places to shine.  These characters could be more developed by adding more hotspots to the backgrounds (most of the backgrounds seemed to be one large hotspot in terms of "look" interactions) and having the character's react to them.  Different descriptions of inventory items would also help.

The highlight of the game was the sprite animations.  They were cute, subtle, and hysterically funny.  Since the supporting cast was so brilliantly drawn, I was a bit disappointed that the MAIN character sprites were such blatant ripoffs of Sierra characters.  Will you be redrawing them for the next game?  It would go a long way in seperating the game from its obvious Sierra roots and make it more your own.

There were a few bugs in the game, and the pathfinding is just awful.  It's really hard to discover just which point of the screen you can walk off.  I was stuck for a long time because I never knew you could walk right from the "billy dog" room.  It looks like the edge of a cliff.

Some more dialog with the NPCs would also have been nice.

I'm being very harsh here, but I liked the game!  Honest!  It just can go from "good" to "great!" with some extra effort.  Since you've improved so much between #4 and #3, I think I can expect an even better game with... #2?  or #5?  Which are you doing next?

-Dave

Hello Mr. Blunder!

As you know I am also in your shoes. I am working at an English school in South Korea as well.  I have to be honest when I'm not sure if the kids would really be interested in something like this.  It's school.  It doesn't matter if it's a game - if you assign it, it automatically becomes WORK and therefore not fun.   Plus, gaming seems to be a social activity here, as opposed to a solitary one (as seen by the multitudes of people gathering in PC cafes and yelling at each other).  Of course, that's just my observation based on my 6 weeks of being there.   I think a game set at an ESL academy would be interesting, though.  Good luck to you.