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Talking Heads - Once In a Lifetime. Best. Song. Ever.
Or maybe it's The Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning - I can't really decide. But it's definitely one of these two

Yeah, I completely agree, I'm totally awesome! Although, no matter how awesome I may or may no be,  I probably should've mentioned the fact that the winter picture in the first post was not drawn by me, but by a man whose art is indeed powerful, simple and brilliant, namely - Craig Thompson - a wonderful comic book author. The frame comes from his splendid graphic novel "Blankets".

[winter]

This time you have to create a background with the general theme of winter.



As usual, the background has to be usable in a game and AGS-compatible.

Voting starts on December 17. Good luck!

Yay, thanks! Nice trophies!

I'll try to start a new one soon.

[Derrick Freeland]

Idea: Derrick Freeland - it's a bit hard to read the idea here without the title, but it's definitely there and it's not just an Earth landscape with some extra moons thrown in.
Atmosphere: Dualnames - although it barely qualifies as an alien landscape (yeah, I know, 2 planets ) or as a game backround , it's still beautiful and very atmospheric.
Design:  oraxon - clever use of coin stacks as elements of the landscape. I only wish there would've been more of an aerial perspective going on.
Composition:  Dualnames - simple, but precise and well defined composition.
Functionality:  Cogliostro - it may not be a playable background, but it will surely make a very good cutscene.
Technique: Dualnames - because it's pretty

First of all - I like your style a lot - it's quirky, recognizable and vibrant. And I think you've pulled the slight change in coloring style on the AGS background splendidly well - I don't really see any problems with it per se, but if you're trying to do something similar in style to theo and zyndikate, you should consider doing less soft, gradual transitions and think more in terms of shape, planes and contrast between the surfaces that are well lit and those that are in shadow.

Your design relies heavily on fluid, wobbly lines, so in order to get rid of them (which I'd advise against because that's a really strong point of your art ) you have to approach the design and composition differently too. Placing proper, but easily managable light sources is essential. Starting coloring the piece with 2-3 different contrasting colours (in theo's harbor it's yellow-orange for primary light, dark purple for shadows and soft blue-ish for ambient light) and then mixing them should make working with lighting instead of object's inherent hues easier.

As for the hard-edged brushes - both theo and zyndikate actively use Sharpen filter, it really helps to achieve that crisp, sharp look, so I suggest you try it too (you can also try to make a layer of the whole background with the 'Sharpen More' filter and then adjust it with opacity to your liking). Also, using some bold, sharp bright lines on the surfaces that face the light should help to make them pop a bit.

Hope this helps a bit. Love the Nelly Cootalot backgrounds too, and thanks for the link to the cubist Disney and Warner experiments - fascinating stuff!

I just have to say this - that's an amazingly wonderful backdrop, Ali! I'm definitely going to watch the ceremony now!

Oh cool, sounds like Moon.

More like Source Code.

And yeah, looks good. I like the big character sprites - they give the game a slightly different feeling to the Technobabylon ones. Look forward to playing it.

Do we use that small blue cup instead of a gun?

Happy that the forums were back, I've decided to participate in the current blitz, and, given the theme, I thought I'd start by drawing some random squiggly lines and work from that. Word of advice - don't ever do that.

It took a while to make it into something at least relatively cohesive, but I'm happy I gave it a try - so here's my Alien world thingy:

Congratulations on finally releasing it!

Played through it two times - great job! Loved the high-res graphics and dense, tense sci-fi atmosphere. The story was very good, always keeping things moving and suspensful and rounding everything nicely in the end, yet leaving some mystery. It felt similar in tone to the films of Duncan Jones (Moon and Source Code) and to The Dig (for obvious reasons), both of which, I think, is a good thing.

The music was also wonderful and along with the strategically placed sounds played a surprisingly big part in creating just the right ambience for the game.

Basically, it's a great, well polished short game with a potentially broad appeal (and by that I mean it's not only for the adventure gamers) and it makes me all the more excited about Anna's Room.

Again - congratulations on your first release!

Regarding the term "adventure game" - strangely enough, in Russia the term "Quest"(or "kvest" if you want the correct pronounciation ) is more common, and it's used to describe specifically "classic" adventure games. And they have their own shelf in the stores, usually next to the casual games and audio books. So, at least here, they are definitely already targeted at a different audience than the mainstream action games.

But they are still games, maybe much more passive, but games. Monopoly is a game too, even though it's not as action-oriented as, for example, football. And although the story is a big part of adventure games, interaction is what defines them. And what is more interactive than pointing and clicking?

I'd also have to agree with Snarky that low-res graphics might be even a bigger turn-off for the non-gaming, story-oriented audience, than for the hardcore gamers. Indie-gamers as a rule love pixels, book readers don't. I wouldn't write off the appeal of low-res graphics purely on nostalgia, but it's sort of an acquired taste. Personally, I dislike high-res adventure games - they usually seem lifeless, static and empty to me, and I hated the Special edition of Monkey Island, but that's almost exactly the same thing as hating the low-res pixelly stuff, only the other way around. It's just a matter of taste.

Happy birthday, ThreeOhFour, you talanted young man! Best wishes! 

Nope, but the robot from this film and the one from "Lost in Space" were designed by the same man.

Noted!

Ok, this one should be quite easy for all the sci-fi geeks out there

If it's the end of their collaboration, then it's probably "Red Beard", but I have to admit that I haven't seen it. Kurosawa has too many great films

Yay, finally! Congratulations on the success of your mad experiment, Baron! We all laughed at you when you proposed the idea of the Swarm, but you showed us! YOU SHOWED US ALL!!  

And it resulted not in a stitched up monster/vampire/cyborg-thingy, but in a totally sweet byte-sized (see what I did there? ) adventure!

Okay, okay, let me try another pun: I thought it would end up a stitched up monster, but instead it ended up leaving me in stitches!

Anyway, kudos to all of you swarmies, you've done a great job. Splendid production values all-round - from the wonderful art direction(and execution) to the hilarious writing and voiceacting. The puzzles and the idea itself were also very funny and inventive, and stereotipically adventure-gamer-minded, which makes it feel even more like a communal project. And that feels great. Thanks, it was a joy to play!

P.S. Awesome title. Especially the 'II' bit.

I'm not too familiar with PSP, so, unfortunately, I can't recommend anything in particular. The only brush I've used looks like this:



Basically, any grungy, grainy brush should do the trick. You've already done some similar texturing on the cliffs, so you just need to do pretty much the same thing on the sand, only make it softer and more curvy. And don't be afraid to draw something incorrectly - the sand is pretty random, so it might be best to just paint some loose lines and then smoothen it out - that way you should get a more complex texture. Of course, it's best to do it on a separate layer, so you don't ruin anything by accident.

Hope this helps a bit, good luck!

Here are my irrelevant, non-baker thoughts on the subject:

Bake Sale as a charity event is a wonderful, simple and graceful project. It represents everything what's great about the indie-development community in general and AGS forums in particular. And while I'm not in any way against the idea of those participating getting some money from it, it certainly seems like it would ruin some of the feel-good vibe of the whole thing.

It feels better as a community event, and not as an AGS Festival (although that sounds good too ).

As for supporting the developers - how about small money prizes for AGS-Awards? Although I feel that money can ruin anything.
Except for charity, of course.

poc301, thanks, I simply draw in Photoshop with the regular set of brushes using a graphic tablet.

And Darth Mandarb has a very good point about the crash, don't know how i missed that, but that's quite an important detail.

Few quick bits of advice:
1. Use photographic references. If you're not sure how to draw sand - google it and you'll have a much clearer idea of what you need to do. Studying from the real-life subjects is most important in painting.

2. Always think of form in terms of light and shadow - without proper lighting your picture will never look real and believable enough. After all, what our eyes see is not objects, but light reflected from them.
Those cliffs should drop shadows on sand, otherwise they won't mesh together. Also, the way the cliffs are drawn right now doesn't make much sense - it's impossible to tell where the main light source is. You can get away with it, because it looks quite nice, but it would make everything much easier if you decide on the placement of the light source beforehand.

3. In landscapes one of the most important things is aerial perspective - objects that are far away have lower contrast (both in terms of internal details and contrast with the background) and appear less saturated. It should help you create the sense of depth and scale in your landscapes.

4. While creating a right texture is very important, you shouldn't forget about the other qualities of material that you are painting - while the rocks and metals are solid, the sand is granular and in many ways act like liquid. Which means that it's form should be fluid and can be affected by it's surroundings.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense and has little use, here's an edit to show where you can go with it (you are free to use it in any way you want):