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I woke up, feeling that something is terribly wrong. I couldn't get this feeling off my shoulders. Must be stress... Upon arriving, I calmed down a bit. As soon as I entered building, I heard a loud bang behind me. The doors busted open.

This depressed boy was standing at the door, holding a shotgun.

I find gathering weekly and spending an hour or two talking about alcohol making you actually want to drink more.
No I haven't attended to meetings like this, I don't have any drinking problems, but I know people who do and I can swear that there's no earthly or unearthly force that could help them aside from themselves.

To get rid of alcohol, one should live a happy life. Desperation is what makes people drink and that's the whole source of all this.

I've always had this theory that drugs nor alcohol won't change how we feel. All this euphoria, bravery, etc is inside us and drugs bring it out. But we can learn to bring it out without ANY chemical aid, so why drink?

If you're not afraid of spiders making crieking sound under floor boards and jumping into your face with their tiny sharp teeth in complete darkness...
try >>> this <<<. It's an fps with heavy adventure elements and very interesting approach to physics where you have to actually replicate in-game movements with your hand. A bit similar, but better than Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy. It feels creepier than Condemned: Criminal Origins mixed with Alone in the Dark.

But please, do not play at night. I won't take the responsibility for neither wet pants or heart attack by linking to this game.

I suggest dropping the idea.
Infact, I suggest spending time on your drawing skills instead of thinking big yet.
Few pointers:

* The "cartoony" look you're using on geometry, such as door and window shapes, isn't too good.
As all newbies on this style, you're assuming that Day-of-the-tentacle style is made randomly, but actually, it's not. Even though things are tilted and weird in this game, there's a strict way how they are made and tilted and how they should look. So, suggestion number one: Play sam & max. Play DOTT. And try to write down or draw down or simply memorize how tilted geometry is made there. Notice the things that all geometry has in common in their cartoony look. Figure out why these games look so original and why it's so hard to replicate this. This style is FAR from randomly making shapes.

* Shading, shading, shading. Roofs don't have any shading on your image.

* Using cropped photos/textures is and will stay bad idea. Especially with black outlines!!!
Try to draw some of your own.  Look at the hut roofs, do this leaf texture really looks like it belongs there? Don't lumps of grass horribly stick out from your grass texture? Isn't there's something awfully wrong with alignment of wooden plank textures on huts? I think you'll get the picture.

To be honest, I don't think that MI needs "restyling". It's graphics look much better as it is.

And as I said, you should do two things before your next attempt: Determine if you're going for cartoony style, and if yes, learn to do it properly, and second -- spend some more time practising drawing.

I know I sounded quite harsh here, but after some practice and improvement, you won't feel like this anymore and probably agree with me.

[any]

For any 2D genre game, but adventure, I'd go for Game Maker.

And for sure it isn't for only platform and maze games...
With some skills, you could write your own working Command & Conquer clone in only 3-4 days. I know because I'm able to do this (and done it about 5 times).

The downside of Game Maker is speed, and the engine might get extremely slow if you're not coding properly.
Well, in all cases, it will get slow, if your project is too resource and script heavy. But for a little nice game, WHATEVER the genre might be, GM still stays the best choice of them all. Also, independent Game Maker communities are LARGE, as are amounts of resources and help you could get. I'd avoid relying only on official forums though, because there's a quite a lot of unorganized mess there and too much variation from n00bs to true engine-improving enthusiasts.

Just as it is with AGS (but in somewhat way larger scale), the click-and-drag user interface in GM is a cute thing to have, but practically useless, if you want to make something serious. I really don't understand why would anyone want to spend a dime on MMF2 or Games Factory. Entirely working versions of Game Maker are free, and if you start to understand the almost limitless options of GM and actually have need for those few functions available in registered version only, the fee feels quite small for all of this.

For 3D engine that won't make your head hurt, try NeoAxis. From all 3D engines I've tried, this one, even though in very early phase yet, is the first one that you can make something game-like in a matter of few hours after installing and figuring out what button does what.

Fingers... programmers need fingers.

Nice improvements!
But character looks very unrealistic. Every line is straight and boring, and low pixel count means that you have to improvise a little, if you want a good face. Like not showing nose directly from side!

I made a little edit-tutorial about how I work, it's far from the best I could offer, but I didn't have much time nor mood for drawing.


2x:


1. This is where you should spend most of your time: Drawing initial outlines. That's also the point you totally missed!
Did you draw whole character part-by-part, instantly coloring every part? That's not very good approach, you miss the overall look and it's hard to adjust later. Notice that I also draw clothes wrinkles right away, so there would be no confusion later. To see how clothes wrinkle, stand infront of the mirror or play neogeo games.

I draw every part in different color, so it's easier to "grab" the whole thing with eyes.  Also, it's easier to determine which part needs adjustment.

2. I give every part intended color. Well, it could be done in part 1, but I personally prefer very bright colors for reasons mentioned above. The outline color is the darkest shade used!

3. I do first filling. The color used to fill is second shade of three.

4. Now that I have everything colored, I use freehand pencil/whatever tool to apply third, the brightest shade. Notice how it drastically changes whole look. Also, I make darkest shades fatter where needed, to get more cylindrical shading on cylindric body parts (hands-feet). I also try to shade initial face, but this needs alot more work later.

5. Since I used your initial palette for my shading, and I didn't like high-saturated look too much. So, here's adjustment and fixing phase: I desaturated clothes alot. Then fixed pixel errors where needed, like making neck thinner for less bullyish look. And finally, hard work with face. Face is easy to shade if you know what should be lighter: There's some things to know:

* Cheeks are usually lighter
* Forehead is usually lighter
* Area below mouth is lighter
* Area around eyes is usually darker
* Neck should have cylindrical shade

And there's a fully shaded character!

Just google for some images. As you can see, it's quite easy to draw one even in ms-paint.

"Borders of Reality"
"Virtua Quest"   
"Digital Layer of Life" 
"8 days a nerd"

...and making up an excuse, like "this porn site(s) keeps turning up on screen, and installs a virus, this program will block those..."

Um, I got an idea. Not sure if it's good though, it's first thing that came to my mind:

* Apply some makeup so you'd look like roughed up
* Trash room a bit
* Get some friend to make  your roomie an angry fake call later, let him give a deadline and imaginary debt, like get this sum of money in this amount of hours or something

And when he comes, tell him that some brutes/thugs/neonazis/whatever came searching for him, and then let the prank caller tell the same story, like where are you, we're gonna get you, so on

Tape his confusion and panic
Upload video somewhere for us to see

For any other methods, still do the video part

A nice pixel work. But I encourage you to use more aggressive contrast.
See, you wasted a good amount of time shading, but changes are almost invisible.
That's because shaded colors vary only a very tiny, almost invisible bit.

Look at how characters are shaded in Full Throttle (pun intended):

(If image doesn't show up, google for your own)

The high contrast in colors allowed them to use 3 shades for one colour.
You have like 5 and it still looks worse.

Why block porn, anyway? It's not like blocking would save anyone from hell or something.

Give it a thought, snake. Why would you want to do this?

For those who haven't paid any attention to my avatar thus far, it's the monkey-cactus one that's been added into my randomly selected avatar:

This is truly amazing avatar. All I see is that there's no image.

Miniguns run on electric motors, right.
Now, there could be a switch on motor (the trigger actually is one).
And switch would be connected via USB.
A bit of software, and--

Game over.

On topic, I'd still stick to mouse. Does head movement help or worsen typical-PC-gamer's neck aches?
Sounds a bit like gymnastics, which should be good... then again, doing it 4 hours straight...

Creating a story isn't what I'd find very difficult. Plagiarism is correct word, though I don't mean copying something entirely down. Take 80's tv-series for example - A-team, Macgyver, Murder she wrote, or any other genre suitable for planned game type. Every episode tells separate story. It's quite easy to sit down, watch few series and mix something up from episodes. The approach to episode and story is very well visible in those series and you can learn pretty quickly how writer of those supposedly thought. And you can do same.

Another opera is converting story into a game, and that's quite more difficult task. This is where true challenge lies.

I find quite pointless to endlessly sit, watch clouds and shower and hope that something comes to you. It's easier to explore world of stories and you'll probably get much more and quicker insipiration.

With that roll, it sure does feel like free running gone wrong.
Only free runners don't jump like this. They jump from prone position, with both feet.

If it's not a free runner, the land on hands IS false, hands-knees should break after such altitude and mass. He couldn't roll over anymore.

I prefer the original: Despite some errors, it looks coolest.

Now that's better.
I even find this interesting.

Who wouldn't like a good story?
Maybe I even give this thing another try. Not Naruto though, but as I said, I HAVE seen good anime before so I'm not totally ignorantly hating whatever is called anime. I don't know if it's Anime or not, but Final Fantasy 3d movie (VII I think) was really cool. Even despite gay hairstyles.

Are you saying that once you reach 18 it's immature and pointless to watch Anime as it's a "kiddy" thing, but playing video-games and watching movies is A-Okay?

I'm not saying either. Why are YOU taking this so seriously?
Look, I'm 24 AND playing and making video games. Am I nerd by popular scale? I guess so. If someone dares to say so, I won't get overdefensive and feel like whole world pointed finger at me. Why do you?

Also, please stick to what I said, not what you think I said.

If you're happy with your cartoon world, why does my - I assume - somewhat ignorant - view on thing matter so much? You should realize that you cannot make me a leading enemy to the anime community: atleast few billion people would agree with me on this one.

I stated earlier and stay at this. I do not understand this anime hype thing. I even described in great detail how I see it (see soap opera comparasion). All you have done, Mykayel, is being aggressive and defensive and still, no one, including you - has shown me the "light" and told what IS so great about ninja boy adventures so even ministers and adults should see it and what makes me wrong. This hasn't grown to even a debate.

In conclusion, I don't see why am I so bad when I say that IMO, anime sucks. I don't.
And I really don't feel like I have to keep that in secret so Naruto fanboys wouldn't get upset for someone not liking their anime idol. It would be different matter if I was someone influential, like head of a state or something. They it would matter really and be seen as something evil and opressing.

And that's all I'm saying. You like it, watch all you want. I'm not trying to reprogam you to hate it, don't try same with me. Or atleast try really, not by unargumented attacks.

Dude, if you don't agree me, provide some arguments. Of course, this has grown VERY offtopic and the image was actually okay. Simply the idea on image is what I find nauseating.

So you, would be considered a nerd for playing adventure games.

Hello? We're at AGS forums, aren't we. You can quite safely call all 3000 or whatever number or members nerds. I don't even think that anyone would get upset.
We're not on international truck driver forums, military boards or whoever calls video games nerdy.

I don't see how that hypothetical Naruto-watching prime minister would consequently be an inferior prime minster.

Well, I DO see. I want his head filled with serious issues, rather than some shipuuden whatever ninja junk. I do not want him, while signing a serious paper, thinking how cool it was when some Sasuke killed demon with katana or something.
Infact, where I live, there's more than plenty of childish and stupid ministers who every now and often try something even 9-year old would call stupid.

At more global scale, there is a cowboy - called Bush and what happened? Wonder how much worse could it be if he was heavy anime fan?