Messages

Xenogia:

Spoiler

Can you ask the first guy in the police station where Yoshi is yet?

[close]

Ok, I'll edit my post. I didn't use spoilers because I didn't think I'd give too much away.

dg:

Spoiler

Use the note from the message board (with yoshi's signature) with the request form... Simple as that...

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I played it through yesterday. It was great, I absolutely loved the atmosphere! I really can't see if it was better than Case 4, but it was definitely a great follow-up. First I kinda fell for your April Fools joke, but then I realized how finished the version was that your created user posted...

Some constructive criticism: First of all it may be a good idea to increase Ben's walking speed or make it user-customizable, because he walked a bit too slow for my taste. Your cutscenes (that are skippable with ESC) are placed strangely - it's great that you can skip the elevator scenes with ESC but there were still a lot of times, where I had to wait way too long for my taste (for example you can't skip the intro for the TV-show and I had to watch it over and over, because I wanted to win it). Then I managed to get that

Spoiler

poisoned fish from the sushi bar twice

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somehow and I analyzed it twice and got the same dialog resuluts, which was kinda strange. One more thing about dialog lines: After

Spoiler

Shinobi is found dead

[close]

Ben still wouldn't want to search through the cabinets etc., because "it would be kinda rude to go through his stuff while he's right there watching you"...

But I don't want to sound overly harsh, it was an absolutly great game once again! Very worthy to wait for (I already can't wait for Case 6). I loved the TV-show and all your other creative ideas. Nice work!

EDIT: Another bug, on the day after I could see the

Spoiler

poison fishes in the acquarium

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in the backroom of the sushi bar, there were some kind of splash sprite instead of the fishes at the acquarium. I couldn't really make out what it should be and the description text still called it "fish", on looking at it, Ben said "those are those poisonous fish" or something.

EDIT 2: Added [ hide ] - spoiler tags on request...

But what has Wintermute that the AGS 3D plug-in doesn't have!?

Hehe, thanks Nikolas! No, I spent hours on mixing it. I was talking about "mixing it down" - which means the time it takes the program to calculate all included samples, plug-ins etc. into one final mp3 file. This process is called "mixing down" in Fruity Loops, while it's referred to simple "saving as .mp3" in Cool Edit Pro. Don't know how other tools call this...

EDIT: And more entries! C'mon everybody!

[HERE]

HERE is my entry (length: ~3 minutes / size: ~2.7MB).

Hopefully this will drive some participation into this competition!


Some facts about the song:

> Created in two days using Fruity Loops and various plug-ins and samples as well as Cool Edit Pro and my acoustic guitar.
> It's one of the few productions in which I actually combined guitar music with electronic elements.
> I don't think I ever made a song that took so long to mix down considering its length (this track is 2:08 minutes and it took almost 10 minutes to mix it down) - that's probably because I used a lot of effects such as Reverb, Compressor etc.

I found it quite hard to describe a night through a song by the way - I hope that  I managed to let some of the night feeling shine through the music, but I am really not sure whether everybody can receive the same night feeling from the song...

Wow, that's really good. The big bend was a bit strange at the beginning but I started loving it after a while! The track sounds very psychedelic to me (which is a good think). No critique so far.

Additionnally you gave it quite a good, modern sound considering that it's midi - it doesn't sound so typical if you know what I mean.

And good luck with your "abitur" (the tests he was talking about) too, that's all gonna be next year for me...

dkh: You mean musical describe or gneerally. Cause if you can generally I can shape it musically (hoping to anyway).

I DO believe that you can recreate a feeling musically (and you are definately able to do that very well, Nikolas), but I don't think that a counter-feeling to angry for example can be found. Is it happy? Glad? Nice?

To me it seems that feelings are unique for everybody and our words do not give us the possibility to describe them correctly for everybody. You CAN however - as said before - let other people know how sadness or anger feels for YOURSELF (for example you could express that musically or lyrical or whatever).

EDIT: Additionally, I think that there are infinite feelings, because do you really think that its the same sadness I feel after losing my girlfriend and after my mother died? No, those feelings aren't even comparable (although they might be wrongly categorized as "sad" both). In order to have a correct and complete lists of feelings or emotions, you'd need to seperate them like this: "sadness-after-losing-girlfriend", "sadness-because-close-person-died" etc. and of course there are infinite situations in ones life in which one can feel sad. Thus there are infinite emotions...

Ugh, feelings don't work that way in my opinion. Really, you made me think about it, but I don't think that there is a way of describing emotions at all.

[Wrong]

I didn't read through all your code, but one thing you can't do is connecting lines of code with "&&".

Example:

Wrong

Code: ags

DoSomething ( ) &&
DoSomethingElse ( );

Right

Code: ags

DoSomething ( );
DoSomethingElse ( );

Wait, do you mean the font in AGS, in Windows or here on the board/forum?

If:

AGS - did you change any resolution settings recently? Do not only check your game settings but also the "winsetup.exe" in your game folder.

Windows - check your windows control settings (look for display settings and move on from there, I believe - this might be different depending on your windows version).

Board/Forum - do you happen to use a browser that supports scaling of font on holding CTRL and cycling with the mousewheel? Try it out!

[The Darkest Of All Winters]

Hell, why not... I'll present to you:

The Darkest Of All Winters

This is a short guitar solo (<2 mins). Consider that it was completly improvised as well, please. I would've certainly done some things better if I would have written it out before. I believe that electric guitar with the right effects can seriously scream out and express sadness/pain to the point.

EDIT: And sorry for the sound quality. It was an awful effect preset I used, because I thought it sounded good at the time I recorded this (actually this preset sounds great when played through real cabinet speakers or guitar amps, but it doesn't sound good when recording directly into the pc soundcard).

Nikolas: I loved your piece. Actually it was so good, that I felt the need to try and enter with something completly different to what you did.

[Version 3]

Thanks to Sinsin and Dr. Scary!

Here is the latest version. Not much changed, I made the ramp more interesting by adding the lines that Dr. Scary suggested on his paintover. Additionally I made some more color-modifications to the walls on the right side and the ramp.


Version 3 - 320x200 (2x zoomed)...

Some more clear-ups:

- Make the tables more interesting.

I thickened the additional, supporting lines on the right table. I can't think of anything more that I could do the tables. But I could put an objct underneath the right one, that the player can pick up.

- Add someting outside the window. Will give the bg more depth.

Allright, either you think the window frame in the middle is the window or the door to the right. 

- Fix the handle on the filing cabinet. Correct perspective is not always what looks best. I found that out with my filing cabinet handles.

Ah, I'll have to play around with those when I have more time.

Thanks again for all the feedback, guys. Make sure to keep on mentioning anything that bugs you about the image or whatever should be fixed.

Thanks, buloght!

Big Brother: Thanks for your comments. I agree about the edges on the right side. I didn't see it before somehow, but now that you mention it, they are really way too bright. I'll darken them for the next version. You are also right on the arch. It's not really absolutely correct in perspective. I just took some points and then estimated the rounding... I am not sure on how to correctly draw an arch in perspective other than taking the corner-points and estimating the rest. Does this error stand out, though?

I wonder that nobody mentioned those awful boxes underneath the left table yet. I think they look terrible and the noise-filter made it even worse... I only drew that table to hide them actually.

Thanks, Don. Well, I really do not consider myself an artist at all. I just spend some time on "pixel pushing" those last months and it's just impossible how much it helps to develop a certain technique and style for backgrounds/sprites.

This isn't meant for any game yet. I am just trying to practise. Whenever I have some time and inspiration as well as an idea I might turn the sprites and backgrounds I have practised with into a game, but god knows when that will be.

[Version 2]

Wow, thanks for the replies, InCreater and Steve.

Steve: Thanks for the photoshop-tip. I'll check it out asap. I'll also take all your points you mentioned into consideration for the next version.

InCreator: Ah, yes, I agree whole-heartedly. All your changes make it looks better a lot. About those panels at the ceiling: I am not sure myself. I just drew those. I'll make sure to pay attention to everything you pointed out in your reply while drawing the next version.

EDIT:


Version 2 - 320x200 (2x zoomed)...

I took InCreator's color suggestions and removed the ceiling panels and the sticking out objects from the foreground (actually I had to change the space, because MS Paint doesn't support layers making it impossible to erase stuff from the foreground in a simple manner).

I am not sure about the way the bottom of the door looks and how it reflects on the floor. I'll see if I can somehow change this.

Some comments:

- add some detail to the ramp
- add some detail to the door.

How? I would love to do that, but I don't know what to add exactly.

- remove the noise from the windows - it looks like the windows are covered in paper.

Actually the right door is supposed to be made out of some paper-like material. Pretty much like those japanese-styled furniture!

- centre the room on the screen - move the whole thing over 6 or so pixels.

Did that, thanks for spotting and pointing out.

Thanks to everybody and keep the comments comming please!

Thanks Corey and Peder. Corey: I am not sure, but I think you misinterpretated the "space behind the left character" - it's actually a door! 

Here is the background without sprites:

[Version 1]

I want to present to you my latest outcome of unexplainable inspiration.


Version 1 - 320x200 (2x zoomed)...

Some facts for the curios:

> I only used my mouse, MS Paint (and Photoshop for textures, gradients and the noise-filter).
> Took me five or six hours.
> Got heavy inspiration from a background by Neil Dnuma and one by Dr. Scary.

Allright, I think I am stuck. Somehow, the colors (lightness or saturation) got messed up while saving as PNG. I would be very happy if somebody could give more tips on how to improve the background.

Feel free to do paint-overs as well.

Thanks for your time.

He isn't joking, I heard about this project before. Great stuff - can't wait to see it!