Messages

Shouldn't let your feelings get in the way .
This is only the internet .

Yeah, it's perfectly okay to be misleading, condescending and ironic on the internet.

what's discouraging is how mediocre the art of the artist is. Call me old-fashioned but I expect a high level of artistry from a person who elevates himself to the position of a teacher.

no offense and that's great and all, but editing pixel art in non-pixelly means doesn't help the artist besides academically in a 'what would it look like' fashion. You're obviously very skilled as an artist, and in the usage of photoshop, but pixel art entails a host of specifics which do not benefit from putting on layers and going in with opacity brushes.

This is GREAT. No crits.

It's awesome how, by following the advice in this thread you now have a background that's ten times better than the original. Good work.

Minor nitpick: the beams of light, the more they stray from the originating source, should blur out, creating more of a 'fog' effect towards the counter than straight lights. Think a room full of people smoking. Just a little bit, don't overdo it.

The idea is that people will play all of them, not just those of people they think are awesome game designers. Maybe be suprized a bit, give a chance to other people they might not know. Partly that. Besides that, the idea is that people will vote on the individual merits of these games, not based on who their friends are. In action, it was proven that people voted great on all categories on the games they liked. This made the top few games come out with boosted scores across the board, whereas I think it would make more sense for some games to win scripting and graphics, others music etc. This was also the paradigm in the AGS Awards, with Apprentice sweeping most awards ( in my opinion) needlessly. People don't seem to understand the concept of categorical voting on any other level than rewarding the creators for nice 'gaming experiences' on the whole.

I am also in for the second time. As long as there's an orow competition around, I'll be making games.


And a plea to scotch/CJ/moderators: Give a little more visibility to the compo this time. Something more than a sticky. Put a message above the boards or something. And when the games are made and scotch/aga/whoever puts them in a rar and posts them, make that .rar very visible. First page of the thread, not 5th.

I am confused. If you're thinking of going against your instinctual drive if it ever manifests with a strong urge to have children, then why don't you go against the same leanings that urge you to have sex right now? Since you seem to favour freedom over instinctual behaviour, and you mentioned you almost hate your body for forcing behaviours on you, how do you draw the line on which things are ok to do and which are not?

Can I just take a moment to say that I love your swfs, inkoddi

thanks

Yup.

(They Long to be ) Close to You - The Carpenters

well I mostly dabble in style-bending myself, but it's for different reasons: www.locustleaves.com/hellokitty.ogg for example. Your songs are not  'pushing it' as far as i can tell. They're mixing modern genres in an almost post-modern way were 'everything we like can be together' but I personally dissagree. Each genre and style of music operates under different assumptions and to switch from one to another realistically and without it being cringeworthy is very difficult. If you want to sound sincere too, even moreso. I don't claim I can do that easily, but as I've been writing extended suite pieces with no 'chorus' or verses, that genrehop so much I've had many thoughts on the subject. The way you change from style to style is in the 'density' of elements you introduce. A generic metal riff with death vocals, or with power metal vocals over it can change the hue of the music, and that's what you do, you play your riffs, and introduce elements from genres, at different dencities, with the brutal vocals, the harmony leads, the clean vocals. Beneath that is a metal band playing things they like, however.  But for me, to go from death metal to power metal, everything, from the ground up, has to shift from the prime maligant beauty of death metal to the hopeful anticipation of power metal. It's very difficult, and between them there might need to be bridges that constitute a lot more than just  a new riff or something. You might even have to play stuff you don't like, to twist the music in ways that isn't comfortable etc

sorry to ramble

LGM: The guitar reverb effect is making your guitar sound as if it was playing in a deep cauldron, half-filled with crap. No no no. The vocal isn't bad, somewhat out of tune in places. Get a backing band, or invent one or something because the guitar-vocal thing won't work out. I found your entry suprizingly non-racist and bigoted. You can do better than that.

Rincewind:

schizo: the intro tapping isn't as good as it should be. In fact, given the type of music you're playing, use more accidentals. You're not a power metal band, you don't need straight minor scale. Warp it around a bit, add some minor seconds etc The vocals are mixed too high. I get that this is an actual band recording so I know how difficult these can be to get right. The rythmics of this song are charming, and some of the guitar playing, as machinehead-chugga-chugga-pinch-harmonic! as it might be, still is cool.  Oh no, this song just turned into a power metal song. You might think nu-metal-ish death metal, then power metal is a good idea. I don't really agree. I guess each to his own. It's not that I don't like power metal, in fact I love some of it. The two genres just do not go well together unless you're Hammers of Misfortune or something. The vocals are too much to the front again, and very dry. A little reverb to create a 'space'. The clear vocal is note-wise pretty good, but in my opinion doesn't add anything to the song. Not enough conviction, I guess? I'm sick and tired of the 'brutal verse, clean chorus' thing by now. The tapping thing, when it comes back, suits the song, but the bit where the same note is played twice sounds as if the player just skips a note. Not good. Play picked sixteenths throughout is my ssugestion. Forget the tapping there, even if it's a crowdpleaser effect.

Parasite: Okay, I'm not trying to sound condescending or mean at all, but this is your first band here, right? I'm saying this because you're trying to do many different types of music within the context of one band. This isn't bad always but in this case it does sound a bit strained. Like the one guitarist thinks iron maiden is the shit and the other is into killswitch engage. Really, it's not pleasing to me to put the two together, but again, tastes differ. The playing is competent enough. If you were signed and this were recorded with better guitar sound it would be cool. Again, clean double vocal: I don't know, not for me. Pinch harmonic! Fun. That 'together with you' thing really sounds cheesy to me. I generally like the chromatic bridge in this song. Also: overlong. But I guess that's me again? I don't like too much chorus-verse-chorus in my music. At least the song ends with the part I like, and then you harmonize it, neat. I wish the guitar sound wasn't so muddy so the harmonics sounded out more.

Between:

chuggachugga-pinch! Modern thrash metal. The drums need to be more up on this one to accentuate the polka beat otherwise it's all lost. I like the shredded vocal more than the deep one, although I guess this grates too after some time. Nice legato runs. Gragh! double clean vocals! I really don't like. The riff after it's lifted from 'Painkiller' by Judas Priest almost Unintentional? The drummer needs to work on his rolls a little bit. Generally the drumming lets this song down most of all. Thrash needs a totally tight 'tu-pa-tu-pa" thing going on for it to work. Otherwise it's just muddy. This is more muddy than tight, which is a shame. Oh oh, bass breakdown in a thrash song. Now SOAD tricks. I... I just dissagree. At least the tricks are harmonized and I'm sucker for inventive guitar playing so I guess ok.

Overal, I dig how white power-ish your songs are. Aryan Hatred! Good job on that end.

Also, thanks for liking my song. I really don't like Nasum or any other clear-cut grind bands. I like Autopsy, Demilich, Brutal Truth and Gorguts though, so that's where I'm coming from.

Nihylist:

german song 1: Wonderful. I like the drunken friend you have doing the second vocals with ( undoubtedly, the mastermind of the sponta-band) you. I like to think the song is about a german farmer's daughter and her fervent affair with a cow. Something in the farmer daughter breaks at the end of the song.

german song about pigs: What's with the classical guitar cadence! I hope you rape it later.

...

Turns out you don't.

german song number three: the fact that you talk before songs start makes me giggle. I guess you're presenting the song and talk a little on what it's about for people with short attention spans? Kinda like having a song called "Sixth Sense" and prefacing it by saying: "hi, we're this band, and this song is about the movie, sixth sense. Turns out he's a ghost!" I like the jazz touch here even if you can't play jazz. I guess that's even better? I was expecting something abrupt to happen, I'm not happy that it didn't. The first song spoiled me.

Also, given that you're a german band, I take it all the songs are about hating jews and/or liking soap, which pleases me very much. White pride!

Here's my entry.

Recorded especially for this thread. It's named 'Nazi Propaganda' and the lyrics go 'Nazi propaganda. Nazi propaganda."

I hope gosh, this doesn't go against the rules!

Great interview. Nice idea. Didn't dwell on ags-community self-referencing too much, which is good because outsiders can read and enjoy too.

I thought both the idea and the execution - although definately spielbergy-fairytailish - were good. AI was very weak, though.

In my opinion it was from somewhat bad to quite bad at times, but I've debated the matter in another forum already (and it was in greek so I can't copy paste) so I'll just go suck my egg also.

damn if it weren't for that copyright notice I'd have totally stolen that poem

Thanks.

If at first you don't succeed, pick up another rock and try again.

maybe it would be a good idea to focus on developing technical skills, presentation, the lyrics (in the front, or in the ass, I just can't pass??) and stuff and leave the actual content for last. That way, after a few years when you're good and ready (and very different people) you can start writing music which has a content more relevant to you as matured people. Just a thought.