Messages

When's the deadline for this? I'm out of town, and won't be back to my nicer audio set up until Wednesday.

The words "04.07.2068 - You, Eric and Ellen near Münster, love, Tanja" are hand-written on the back.

This was a very good trip. I remember it well!

CQ?

Should you ever need a ukulele (or an extraneous guitar player)....

I think it would be cool to take a game background, print it, then print copies of all the objects and sprites separately, mount them on foamcore or craft wood, and arrange them at different depths in a shadowbox, creating a 3D version of whatever game you choose.

Implying that it's men you enjoy hearing and smelling?

Edit: That explosion of smileys was an accident, but I'll leave them for posterity.

the intention isn't really to teach you anything about the human condition

I highlight this part of what ProgZmax said, because I think it's a better description of what he's getting at than "message," which might be too easily equated with "moral." I think "M" is a good example, a fine piece of cinematic art (The Lang version, at least. I'm not as big a fan of the Losey remake.). It's not moralistic in tone, but it reveals loads upon loads of human character. Just the "court" scene at the end is a masterful look at the nature of "evil," our interpretation of justice, our ability to compartmentalize our sins, etc. etc.

It's interesting too -- one of the things that Lorre calls out to the lynch mob is that they've all committed their crimes with intent, whereas he can't control himself. To me, that's where the question of "too far" is answered: boundaries must be pushed and broken with intent, purpose, deliberation. This doesn't mean simply to be aware of doing it, but to have reason for doing it.

Gore for gore's sake alone is often juvenile (though I do think there are some societal functions that it performs). But the violence in something like Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" has a purpose, and whether or not you agree with the purpose, or approve of the execution, it's worth interrogating that purpose. I also think we should be able to discard the point-of-view of the author, ala Barthes, and consider the text on its own terms. Thus both the pushed boundary and the reason for pushing it should be found within the text itself; i.e. I shouldn't have to go read an interview to find out what it all means.

For cast shadows, there is a rule called halfway to black that some people use to help determine what value to use for the core-shadows and cast-shadows.

Thanks for this, Moresco. I hadn't heard of this rule before!

>If Emma has eaten all the mac n' cheese, give her something to really cry about
(Not a real suggestion)

Am I the only one who's picking up a vibe that Emma and Andrei may have a romantic history, and how horrible it would be to be one of the last two people alive and have the other not know you at all?

While we're picking on your perspective, make sure you fix the lid flaps of the box too.

Not to derail the thread (You can pm me.) But does anyone have any recommendations for some movies that are dark?

I just adjusted my list to take out Grave of Fireflies, and I second all of Ali's other recommendations. Here are some others:

Come and See
Happiness
Bad Lieutenant

In the interest of helping out and getting a thread started for you, I'll try and point out some ideas that I think are correct, and hope that if they're incorrect, someone will correct me and we can both learn something from it.

First thing I'd do is figure out what your light sources are. Looks like you've got a handful: the window, two desk lamps, and probably an overhead light (otherwise that corner with the door will be pretty dark. I'd start by shading according to where those lights wouldn't hit.

(I didn't realize there was a window until re-reading -- I thought it was a blackboard, so add it to the lightsources I demonstrate below.)

First, figure out where that overhead light would cast shadows. I'm working on my wife's Netbook, and I hate touchpads, so this is really, really, really rough:



I work in Photoshop, and use layers. I've made this one purple so you can see it more easily. I think there's a rule about warm lights casting cool shadows, and vice versa, so you should figure out what kind of overhead light you have, and where it is in the room.



Back off the opacity of that layer, and you've got a nice clump of shadows that start giving the room some depth. You might want to not make all of these the same opacity. I'm pretty sure the rule is something like shadows get shorter and softer the further they are from the light source. I might be wrong on some of that.



Now, figure out the other light sources. I've done a very basic circle + Gaussian blur on these desk lamps. You can do this much better than me, even if by just having a mouse. Can we trade back computers, honey? She says no! Carry on!



Find where shadows would be cast by these light sources. You can see them in purple again!



Back those off in opacity, but not as much as for the previous shadows. These shadows will be shorter, but darker, because they're closer to the light source.



The computer monitor will give off a soft diffuse light, but fairly weak shadows. I didn't even bother to draw them in here.

These are some very, very basic, rough, and in many cases, incorrect shadows.  Were I you, I'd look around for some basic tutorials on light and shadow. DeviantArt might be a good place to start. I haven't even gotten into highlights, or textures here. Hopefully someone more helpful than myself will chime in soon!

I only feel comfortable doing so because I know my prompt won't be the one chosen! Same reason I can do this:

>WHILE EMMA'S BACK IS TURNED, MAKE FAKE NOSE FROM BLUE STICKY TACK
>WEAR FAKE NOSE

If you want to 'ask' your answers do so and I will complain every time or do you want to impose your views on me?

Nope. Like I said, if it's not fun, I just won't play. By the way, the name of the thread is "Guess the movie title," not "Aggressively assert the movie title." Maybe you should start your own thread?

Yeah, I stopped visiting this thread when certain folks started imposing rules -- about how to answer, about what movies were eligible to be used, about the timeframe for posting a new screen before they felt obliged to skip your turn, etc.

>Say, "Emma, for God's sake, I already had amnesia and then I got shot in the head. You may be able to tell from my utter uselessness so far, as well as this macaroni and cheese, that I could use some guidance. Where the heck are the good fuses?"
>Say, "But seriously, cook me some of this mac n' cheese, please."

Hey guys, I wanted to draw your attention to a post on Kickstarter best practices that I've just made, in case it's helpful at all.

[KICKSTARTER BEST PRACTICES]

I know a few of you are doing crowdsourcing campaigns, and are soliciting some advice. I put this list of best practices together for a (webcomic) project that I'm helping some others take to Kickstarter. These bits of information were culled from the Kickstarter blog, write-ups by folks who have had successful and unsuccessful campaigns, and third party analysts. Some of the stats might be a little out of date now, but should still be good guideposts.

In case it's of service to anyone, I thought I'd share:

KICKSTARTER BEST PRACTICES

General

• Build a narrative around the Kickstarter drive. It's a campaign. What's your story?
• Prepare to invest more time in cultivating / maintaining the Kickstarter drive than expected
• Commit to other Kickstarter campaigns. Be a part of Kickstarter community, not just a leech.
• The more people give, the more others will give. Success begets success.
• Better to be almost finished with project before Kickstarting than to not have started.
• Don't ask people to invest in all stages of project. Fund just the 1st stage, draw rewards from 1st stage.

Numbers / Data (From Kickster presentation and blogs):

• Projects that reach 30% of their goal will be funded 90% of the time.
• $20-$25 is the magic tier, large numbers of 'casual' donors.
• $70 mean donation. $25 median donation. (No word on mode [I've honestly forgotten what mode even is -- the most repeated number?]).
• Seven = optimal number of (beginning) reward tiers.
• $4500 = average successful goal. $6000 = average successful raised money.
• 30 day campaigns = highest number of successful projects.
• Projects with a reward less than $20 succeed 54% of time. Projects without succeed 35%.

The Drive

• Soft launch before the drive starts.
• End project on a Sunday, in the second part of a month (for people paid monthly, first paycheck = bills, second = fun).
• Donation curve during drive: Heavy 1st quarter, slow 2nd and 3rd quarter, heavy final quarter. Don't be discouraged by fewer donations in the middle! This happens to nearly everyone!
• Interact with donors. Build your own sub-community.
• Multiple social media battlefronts
  
  
  • A shared link via Facebook or Twitter is almost as good as a donation

Presentation on Kickstarter Page

• Clear description of where money is going - i.e. a semi-transparent budget
  
  • Profit is allowed, but make sure project funded first.
  • Give some idea of how extra money beyond goal might improve project before your take home profit, especially as you near reaching the goal.
• Clear production / rewards shipment schedule. Keep backers posted, re: changes.
• Introductory video - get your big info out front. Use the inverted pyramid, ala newspaper story. Keep video short. One or two minutes.
• All info (inc. video) must be embedded in the page. On-the-fence donors don't follow links.
• Frequent updates
  
  • Steady stream of thanks and new material
  • Any additional developments
  • New tiers! Capitalize on the fact that they've signed up for email updates to convince them to up their donation.
  • Build community! Who are the backers? Engage them! Make them engage with each other!

Reward Tiers

• Factor in cost of production and shipping reward tier items into donation!
• Dynamic tiers - be prepared to add incremental tiers in middle of drive, based on popular donation levels. Convince people to change donation from $25 to $40.
• Have a dirt cheap tier at $5 with a low stakes reward.
• Have the tiniest stakes reward at $1 (thanks on a website?).
• Higher-level tiers demonstrate the cost benefit of middle-level tiers. They're being thrifty by not spending $400, not being extravagant by spending $70.
• Limited access, i.e. intimacy = low cost for creator, high demand from donor.
• Charge extra for int'l shipping (include in tier description).

After the Kickstarter Drive

• Digital deliverable to all backers as soon as Kickstarter drive finishes, as a show of goodwill / thanks.
• Prepare for 'no-shows' -- people whose donations, for whatever reason, aren't accepted or don't go through (Kickstarter offers no stats on this).
• Amazon takes 5%. Kickstarter also takes 5%. So take home = 90%.
• Update after successful project, once a month, to keep backers informed.

Duje -- This game looks lovely, and I'm back-burnering a noirish P.I. game I've been working on simply because it looks like yours would blow mine out of the proverbial water!

In what style and medium of music are you interested for the game?

[Call of Duty]

I've been dealing with this issue myself lately. I'm taking a break from sharing work on the forum, because, as I wrote to ProgZMax when I asked him to temporarily lock up my art thread, I realized I was posting in order to post, setting arbitrary deadlines for myself, and working hard on things that looked good to share, but weren't necessarily needed for the game I was working on. Feedback, whether positive or negative, can be stimulating, even addictive. For someone like me, who works out of the home and is a stay-at-home dad to a 10-month-old, it's fairly easy for that feedback to start fulfilling some of your delinquent social needs as well.

I also don't think it's safe to say that every man has an inner circle with which he can share everything either. My poor wife has to bear the brunt of it, as I share everything with her, and she kindly at least feigns interest in my hobbies (in return, I could probably earn myself a Master's in Special Education, her field, with little effort, just based on what I know from talking to her). But my friends who are interested in gaming play Call of Duty, my parents and sister think everything I've done up to and including my dissertation is "cute," and my acquaintances who are artists are all so talented and accomplished that I'm too anxious to share anything with them.

I think many people (like me) post here because it seems like, of all the places, this is where you should post adventure game-related things, and that the sharing of these things might engender goodwill with others who share interests in such games.

I also agree with Ben when he says that constant feedback drives the production of games, especially when they're otherwise created in solitude. I'm a typical Gemini, and my attention wanders easily. While posting in that art thread, I created a false sense of accountability for myself. Feedback from others allowed me to semi-consciously believe that people were waiting for updates from me, and so I should keep working, and specifically on that project (since starting my hiatus, I've indeed switched the game on which I'm working, though that was more a result of coming to terms with my art style [I may switch again after seeing Duje's lovely new game that looks to cover similar ground]).

As to the generational aspect, I'd ask a few questions for context. The first is a question of technology. When I was 14, and I was an adventure game junkie, I would have loved a program like AGS and a site like this. I didn't have that opportunity. I'm not sure there is a widespread older population that had the capacity to create and share at this level, but were only prevented by modesty. New media removes all sorts of creative and distributive barriers that I didn't even recognize existed when I was younger.

Why not share everything, just in case? As Paul Newman said in Harper, "Only cream and bastards rise." These half-made games often get much, much more attention than something like what is probably my favorite AGS game so far this year (though I admittedly haven't yet played Resonance) Kitten Catastrophy.

The second question is one of maturity. As I've posted in another thread, semi-defending one of the users I'm assuming is tacitly being referenced here, when I was 16, I was in a horrible garage band that played pop punk cover songs, and I thought we sounded amazing. I also used to enjoy Kevin Smith movies, have massive sideburns, use a wallet chain, and all sorts of other things of which I'm now a little ashamed. Time and experience have opened and developed my tastes. I will probably feel the same way about 30-year-old me when I'm 60 as 30-year-old me feels about teenage me now. I'm daily relieved that I was never a teenager with access to YouTube.

The third question is one of motive. In my main line of work, academia, there are some folks who sit on an article or book and polish, polish, polish, until they find they missed out on getting tenure because they haven't been published. Whereas those who put out less polished material, even if they're criticized, still usually get tenure because they've at least done something. The first person's book might be better, but no one ever sees it. In looking at these games that are "looking too terrible to believe they are serious," I'd ask whether they intended these games to be played and enjoyed, or are rather just releasing them to show that they did something, as opposed to toiling in solitude, keeping your work in solitude, and playing it in solitude.

The basic threshold for participation here at AGS Headquarters is taking part in some aspect of the creative process, whether that's through sprite making (like I did), competitions, MAGS, full-on game releases, joining production teams, or critiquing others' work. Perhaps these malformed, stillborn games are seen as a way to gain a foothold in the social sphere of the forum, and not for providing actual entertainment?

This isn't necessarily a defense of those games, but rather an attempt at explaining their existence....

TL;DR: Too long, didn't summarize.