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GTA is not an adventure game. And yeah, adventure games are still mostly dead. A few sub-par games being put out each year do not exactly constitute a glorious comeback.

photoshop

It would be suggested you didn't use the edit as it is. Try to remake yours, using what you think is right in the edit. That way, you learn more, and improve your art skills on the whole, instead of just using a better sprite head than yours.

I think it's lots better! Here's an edit to show how I'd shade the second panel face. It seems complicated, but it's not. First of all, I shaded with a purplish darker flesh shade from an overhead lightsource ( even at night there is one) without oversharpening. Then I used a secondary lightsource to the left ( ours) which I imagined to be some neon signs flashing or something. This is for the mood, mostly. Did a few highlights where the edges of the contours would give some off. Don't forget to shade in the opposite direction when you use secondary lightsources. Where there is light, there will also be darkness. I shaded the right side of the face a bit more so the secondary lightsource could be balanced. Then I decided to use the enormous cigarette as a third lightsource, but I think it's a bit overdone. Could do without it.

I must say I really dig the shadowrun setting you've used and am eagerly awaiting for more of your work on this.

Hello. This is cool. I think your palette might benefit from more earthly tones, not so much primary colours, and not so dark. I know the subject matter in this case calls for it, but it seems you're using a selected range of colours in your pieces. Maybe experimenting with hued palettes ( where all the colours have a slight tint towards a direction in the colour wheel) or even very desaturated, almost gray stuff, just to see how it works over your lineart? In any case, I really think these are too dark. If this is a night scene, you should tint in blue and purple, and go for an almost baroque-ish monochromatic effect. Right now it's just gray. A gray night. In the first panel, for example, the gray on the floor and the gray on the wall really flatten the frame, because they're the same gray ( as eric pointed out in irc). My opinion is, avoid TOTAL gray at all costs for colouring. It doesn't exist, it real life. Just by the fact that a gray surface is hit by a tinted lightsource ( all of them are, besides cold, hard clinical flourescent lights) it adopts that colour. If it's night, blue, or neon purple or whatever. If it's day, yellows and rusted orange. Generally, you seem to be colouring thinking "if I need to paint something green, I have this ONE green I'm going to use!" which shouldn't apply since you're colouring in PS, and you've got dozens of discernible hues you could apply. Don't use the same colour in two spots unless it sequentially means something (like, the colour of someone's suit shouldn't change from one panel to another, whereas two different walls should not be the same shade of gray). Experiement with your colours a lot, brighten them, tint them, bring out the volumetric aspect of your designs by altering hue and saturation.


There are some noted pacing issues. If he's thinking the third panel, you need a storytelling device to signify that. Otherwise, the reader is just transported from panel two, to a whole different place in panel three without warning, which is really disorientating. Even a thought bubble, or a gradient fade would help, here.

I really don't think that kind of 'arcade sprite' colouring suits these. I tried a different, softer approach, on the girl. 8 colours:



(note, the background in these forums is too bright. In proper backgrounds, the jagginess of the selout goes away.)

You were using too many colours. In pixel art, forget opacity brushes. Handpick each shade on your own. You don't need many, really.


Hmmm... issues. At actual pixel size, your sprites are too small for these backgrounds. I did some colour tests, and at about 70% size of my edit, these fit pretty well (need pixel tweaking, but oh well).



I think Bernie's sprite punches out too much? If you plan to use that sort of shading, the backgrounds could stand about 20 less lightness, 15 or so more saturation.

oh, didn't know you knew Gustav. Say hello from me. He's one of the best pixel artists I've ever seen.

Cngrtltns.

In that sort of game making, I'd suggest Game Maker over MMF any day. But this is very competent in every respect.

This is excellent work. I have a similar project lying around on my hard disk

Nice graphics, smooth gameplay, pretty music, lovely aesthetic. Do something with this at some day.

It was me. I came up with the instagame idea.

Hello. Try to avoid soft airbrushed highlights, unless the texture you're highlighting calls for it. Most cases, you're better off with stylized sharp 'vectorish' highlights, and a (controlled, good heavens!) grandient here and there. On skin, the soft airbrushes are ok, but otherwise avoid because it makes stuff look like it's wrapped in plastic foil or something. Furthermore, I'd suggest you do not highlight using gray values (that'd be the dodge and burn tools fault), even if the body of colour you're highlighting is gray itself. Natural tints go a long way to make stuff look more interesting.


Edit: and for what it's worth, I really dissagree with those tutorials above and really don't think you should invest much effort into learning to colour like a second-rate Image Comics colourist. Even the mainstream american comics industry has slowly but surely moved away from that sort of work, into more artistic styles of colouring.

wub, danny/

hello. pretty much any mid-quality a4 scanner will do. This is line art. You will scan it, auto level it, threshold it and all that stuff so it doesn't matter to get a zomg amazing scanner. I suggest you work in real comic art format ( something big, like a3) then scan it in two pieces in your new scanner at 300 dpi or 600, colour it at that res, and when you're done, rescale it for 75 dpi 800x whatever res, and put the words in and arrange the layout if you haven't before. I mean, don't work at small res from the go. like most webcomic artists.

The only thing that comes to mind is an interactive movie that pauses when the player has to  make choices. Or possibly timed-puzzles like Dragon's Lair. One could make something like that in AGS. The upside is, rediculously easy scripting, can get as involved as you desire. The downside, lots of artwork to be made, the gameplay device is very shallow, but I guess that's inherent to one-click design philosophy.

Computer games are games in that they are challenging the player, and rewarding him or her according to how well they do, by the continuation of the storyline, extra background information, new options, new fun stuff to do and the like. In that sense, when the player fails to reach an objective, he should be also punished, or set back in a sense. That's how a game works. I am saying this because stuh said 'autosave before every death', and I strictly do not agree with this. There's a fine line between userfriendliness, and the game being your nanny, and I think that's one of the cases where you've gone head-on towards the latter. If you mess up, you restore your saved game, which you were prudent enough to make. Frustration isn't a good thing when you're playing a game, but if you didn't save often, it's not the game's fault. Designers should be wary of frustration created by the game design itself (read: mazes) and not by the user taking the game design lightly ( same reason I am not against walking deads if the player does something extremely stupid like throwing away a priceless artifact or whatever).

Illusion of Murder?

Oh yeah I probably have to say that, nostalgia aside, Legend made some of the best adventure games.

I'm in.

I think a great idea would be to not make a DOTT fangame. But that's maybe just me.