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Your main character looks more cartoony, while the other character and the background look more realistic.

This is true and intentional. In the game, other characters are either realistic or something in-between, much depending how humorous is the character and his role. Since Henri is the main character in all happenings, cartoony look makes him and his character somewhat easier to recognize. I think that style balance between various characters isn't that bad if they all are compared together... there's about half of character cast used in game on image below...

I love the background, but I guess I'll never understand why people scale down an image when already utilizing a low resolution. Not that there's anything wrong with low resolutions, but why the black bars left and right?

More screen area = more work! 
Actually, I try to keep all backgrounds so I won't be needing character scaling much. And compared to character, every room must be hall-sized-large then! So it's choice of either realism or eye candy. Otherwise, the effect where character is about the size of the house when outside, and enters weirdly huge room inside! -  happens, as it's with many old commercial games. I don't like it much.

Yes it does.
Thanks for advice, I will use it.

It would be optional, so the player would get a warning before entering the scene, and would have an option of not viewing anything objectionable. Optionally, we could have two builds -- one censored, one not.

What a sick amount of political correctness. Hell, spoils all the fun.

If you want some tits and ass in your game, go ahead! It's your game!
I don't see much point in warning and doubting to the left and right because of this.
Frontal nudity isn't much of a shock to any sane person, especially a kid, everyone has a TV.

Dreamweb had a full sex scene in it. So did Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy
Both are superb games and scene didn't either add or remove anything significant.

But like everything, nudity should have a point in the game. Not just to be there...

That's a great idea, thanks! I had forgotten how much wonders manual AA could do.

* Antialiased and transaliased  (reduced opacity enough to alias with background) almost all rough corners and border pixels. Change is cosmetical, but very noticeable in game.
* Fixed left ceiling and floor border
* Fixed dresser on left
* Fixed bed to match one of the edits I made earlier, added wrinkles
* Some extra smoothing shading on table and chairs



2X


---
This is first screen of final (quarter) portion of Henri game. With all the ambitious technological solutions I've used, such as animated fire plus animated alpha glow in this room, a nightclub with background music-synchronized disco lights etc, I don't want to drop this project, never. I think that with all the help I got here I will finish the game soon.

Oh no!

Redoing the table now will be a hellishly difficult task, I'm afraid. I can move it tad bit down and right, but this would mess up angle, whole new table is needed to be drawn... huh.

The edge of the table and the bottom of the back wall aligning like that is a big no-no.

I don't quite understand this. Image is quite small and everything will have black border to fill 320x240 screen anyway...

The room's whole purpose is a quite short cutscene, so scaling will not be needed and character stays at the right door, other characters in this room will be custom-drawn according to room scale anyway.

but it's a very serious style and the cartoon character doesn't suit it at all

This is first time I hear something like this in 2-year long Henri making progress. I picked quite simple style because I like animating things and wanted to include as much animation as possible. Too late to give it more serious thought now, though.

Yes, doors were a bit too high.
* Fixed, also shortened closet.
* Replaced this here and there, adjusted positions

This is ingame screenshot (second character still needs some work) to maybe give clearer picture of what I'm aiming for.


I'm kind of clueless now. Table...? I didn't realize that it was that bad.

This is not 3d background, I simply make 3D version first to get shading and perspective right, and repaint it later in pure 2D.

Thanks. Since I made bare geometry 3d model first to ensure myself believable perspective, the angles should be mathematically okay...



* Added details here and there
* Fixed right corner
* Darkened this and that
* Added wall borders
* Fixed table shadows
* Fixed table texture in some places
* Smoothed some edges
* Fixed left door
* Lightened and smoothed shadows


2x:


I did not understand floor shadow-contrast thing, Evil. Could you dumb it down a little? Or did I fix it by lightening shadows?

The room is supposed to be a room in my country house, and it's supposed to be nighttime.
I decided to post it here for some C&C before detailing whole thing up.

I haven't drawn BG-s for a long time, so I might be a bit rusty...
Details to be added: Foodstuff on table, light switch, some stuff on the fireplace, live fire, ceiling lamp, wires on wall, stuff on the cabinet, maybe something to line area between walls and ceiling, it looks weird right now.
But I want to be sure in basic geometry and layout first.


The black cylindrical thingy in the middle is the fireplace, alot of Soviet era buildings had one of those. I will animate it fired up in the game.

So... what do you think? Anything hurting the eye and to be changed?


2x:

Well, depends.

There's LCD monitors that can handle almost any resolution nicely, some that need a bit puzzling how to do it, and some that suck in all means.

For example, my own 17"(?) Samsung SyncMaster 740BF:

* Normal desktop resolution in 1280x1024 pixels. Everything looks crisp and clean. Same for games
* At 1024x768 OR 800x600, everything is blurry as hell. Used on a desktop, I can barely read the text.
* 320x200 is VERY blurry, BUT 320x240 looks normal.
* For a 320x200 AGS game, I usually turn on letterbox mode and 2xHQ filter to see everything in 640x480, which has no blur either.
* All weird resolutions, like arcade 320x224 or 304x224 tend not to work at all or blur heavily.

In conclusion, only resolutions that doesn't make eyes bleed are 1280x1024, 640x480 and 320x240

So my monitor goes to somewhere "can be worked around" genre.
But I know this doesn't apply to all LCD monitors.

Still, useful to check out first. Of course, depends what way the monitor is used and what is played. People who make LCD's are looking at the future, and often low-res is not supported.

Also, big monitors playing low resolution simply looks horrid. The pixel size, huh...

And whoever is right or acts near insanity doesn't really matter.
GK3 still sucks.

So I always put the curtains down when I start the PC

* I have curtains made of super thick, dark red fabric in my room. And I have removed/opened them only when they go into laundry, which is probably ten times most for last 5 years. They are closed and will stay closed.

Then again, there was time when crime around my neighborhood caused me few times coming home and noticing apartment door lock picked and broken. Luckily, no-one got it though. But with me living on first floor and having all this technology in my room, closed curtains have probably saved me from few horrible experiences of break-in, I guess.

* Ah, also, I go crazy if my room's door is open, even only slightly - for 5 minutes or so. It gives me such heavy paranoia... If my home's my castle, well, the gate must be shut all times. Especially since the door - when I'm sitting at PC, is positioned slightly behind my back and out of my view.

* My desktop is a horrid mess for most of the time. I tend to save everything onto desktop, then make a random folder for temporary crap, if desktop gets too full. What happens is that I have folders full of things I don't remember and when I'm really bored, exploring them is usually really interesting.

[friend]

Drinking does not make friends. Smoking does not make friends.  Sex does not make friend

Wrong wrong wrong!!! Okay, it doesn't have to make a friend but often adds so much that it makes up almost whole befriending process. And I have too much cases in my life where I got drunk with a stranger, and ended up singing together, drinking more and being friends after that night.

Drinking:
Ancient method to release psychological pressure and lower our natural fear of other people - which comes from us being carnivores thus being a danger to each other. Alcohol helps a lot to socialize, make first contact. Before countering someone new, let's say - at a bar, everyone takes a drink or two first. Of course, being totally drunk often reverses the effect.

Smoking:
In every new school, job, jail... wherever, the smoking corner is where smoker-newcomer gets to know others. That's the very first thing he/she has in common with others in the corner. I know this very well, because other smokers are usually first people I get to know and have chat with in new school or job. Smoking together is highly social activity. You join other smokers, light up... "Oh, the new guy. What's your name?". The one that asked will usually be your best buddy in the long run.

Sex:
Arguable, not sure. If you're good at it, well...

But for a taste, you have to drink intelligently, as I said. After you have washed down a cocktail or two, you shouldn't have any problems with taste anymore

Anyway, the worst that can happen if you drink, is being a star. A star in a way where everybody tells you what you did next day. And you - unfortunately - don't remember a thing. It's funny, but more frustrating than fun.

Healthy lifestyle is strongest excuse for ignorance. My philosophy allows and courages to try everything atleast once in a life, unless it's injectable (strong drugs!) or follows with criminal punishment. Well, or is gay.

[Don't start smoking, especially for social acceptance.]

Oh. my. god.
Seems like experiences of my lousy life would benefit someone.

Smoking

Well, for a start, I'd say:

Don't start smoking, especially for social acceptance.

I did and boy I regret this (typing with ciggy between fingers atm).
Smoking as such is more of a social suicide than anything else. Imagine your hair, skin, teeth and clothes having tobacco smell all the time... It is not good. Especially since you've used to it and don't feel it. It's like having some 'kick me'-sign taped to your back and you are not sure where. Paranoid.

Imagine the frustration of not having money to buy cigarettes or not having one while it's impossible to go buy some. It is hard. While it's okay if you're surrounded by smokers, you get into fisticuffs with people who don't smoke right away. People who don't are supersensitive and total ass about tobacco smell, with rare exception of some girls who find it somewhat sexy
Anyway, smoking will make you regret it badly in the long run.

I don't mean cancer here, the health matter is only preached by people who either don't smoke and don't actually know a shit about this, quit at some point or got sick by themselves. If you're a smoker, health is least of your worries. For example, it's 2C outside and I'm out of smoke and cash. So, though I'd want to sit and play games or browse forums, I have to dress up, count every penny I have and wander through snow to buy some smoke. It's annoying and well, a slavery to your needs. You really don't want to live like this, atleast I don't. But there's no way back now.

Also, check if your friends are real smokers. I mean, there's 2 types of smokers in the world: the damned ones, and stupid masochistic fakers. Damned ones - like me - will make the reach for a cigarette as their first move in the morning. The fakers are different, because they can live a whole day without smoke, or even longer. Which makes me ask, why the hell do they smoke at all. If I was able to survive a day, I'd quit right away! They're just stupid. Fakers aren't physically bound to smoke, they're just used to do this. Everyone starts as a faker.

So much about smoking. Don't do it.

Drinking

Drinking, in your age, is underdeveloped yet. At your age, or a bit less - I was about 15 - I didn't really understand drinking. Later, I started drinking hard.
At this point, I didn't understand the beer. I mean, why do people drink beer? If I were thirsty, I drank coca-cola. It tasted MUCH better!
If I wanted to get drunk, I drank pure white vodka. If I wanted something in-between, I mixed these two. And had hard regrets next morning

My ability to consume vodka without anything to make it lighter gained me a hardcore drinker reputation and lots of friends who spent time getting drunk. Anyone who can drink like a bull is most welcome in groups like this. I was always invited, and I liked it, so I kept on going. Right into 3-year old period of strong alcoholism. During this time I failed my high school, messed whole life up, disappointed everyone who believed in me, and so on. The wonder of alcoholism is that I didn't care a bit. Another sip made me happy, courageous and strong.

Well, it ended after I met my girlfriend, since she was a heavy drinker too and when together, I had to stay sober to keep an eye on her. But drinking developed... I don't drink anymore, unless there's a cause, but I really like to have a beer sometimes. Infact, I'm sipping one right now. I won't get drunk, because it's quite light and small can, It simply makes some things easier, like before a long night of work, beer does some magic. Improves my mood a bit and makes me less nervous. This helps socializing too.

At your age, kids drink hard and to the floor. You don't really have to take part of it. Neither to feel sorry about it --
It changes. I mean, it really does. You simply have to wait till it ends. But being a totally clean won't do you good either. Give yourself a bit more freedom. So you don't like drinking a bottle of tequila? Don't!
But taking a cocktail that you like will make you worry less and feel better. I don't urge you to drink, but don't deny yourself your youth, you have only one. You don't have to stress yourself in this experiment, by consuming beer until you're nauseous. Simply take a little cocktail of vodka and energy drink and I bet you don't have any problems after that, neither drinking or not drinking.

As my mom always says, you have to drink intelligently: something good and a little. Not some crap and in loads.
I second this. A bottle of quality wine or tasty liqueur with someone special sometimes works really well.

Dancing

Well, I did not dance. In Estonia, there's atleast 2 class-parties a year through whole basic and middle school. I usually did not attend, simply because I couldn't dance. I kept telling myself that I don't like dancing at all. Even though my most favourite music is trance and house, which is known as dance music. Weird, eh?

I didn't dance until I got 20. Then something strange happened. My friend invited me to a rave, until then I hadn't even attended to anything like this, neither gone to a club. The rave was all about drum and bass music, and I didn't even listen to it then. What happened was that we both drank 10 bottles of beer, went there and morning found me with aching feet of wild dancing. I didn't even dance with ANYONE since d'n'b isn't about dancing with anyone, but living your emotions out. I could go to typical european club right now and if I have to dance, well, I'd take some drinks and do it, but I won't say I'd enjoy this. Modern clubs, with pairs of different sex and popular dance music, people dressed up nicely and watching how someone dances don't really feel like freedom to me.
But jungle-dnb parties - even though I can't stand the music much at home, are my first choice If I need to release some pressure from myself. It's a whole different world. No-one cares about what other people do, it's just total freedom and unity in music. You simply cannot stay idle, if WAY TOO LOUD snare rips through your ears and bass makes your teeth vibrate. I suggest simply to try this once.

I don't know if it's of any help to you, but well, that's my story. Don't f**k your brains, most of the symptoms will change in time. But you have to give yourself a chance and some freedom. It's not that you have anything to lose, and all you can gain is new experiences.

Of course, you could stay totally clean. I have nothing against healthy lifestyle, but absolute denial feels somewhat stupid to me.

[about]

Since the topic was "freely interpretable", I did something different from others.
My song doesn't quite say what's going on, but is more connected to the experience itself.
But it has a landing, hehe.

The falling this song's about is about construction worker tripping and falling from the crane.
And while he falls, quite calmly, he sees his whole life infront of his eyes, both good and sad times. That's why track contains both funky-happy sounds and sadder melodies.

Note: I used headphones while making this track so I'm not quite sure how this sounds through speakers.

http://www.increator.pri.ee/muz/lifefall.mp3

It's weird to write something based on word count.
If you have a good story, number of words used should have nothing to do with it.

Isn't writing creative process? This one here sounds like Soviet 5-year plan, where specified amount of potatoes had to be planted or machine parts produced.

Strange.

lol. I never wrote anything.
Sometimes dreamt about it, but I'm both too shy and cowardly to try this.
Have an idea for a stressing and painful story, though.

Ah, woke up 15:00. Helped to move in new couch mom bought. Watched latest episode of "Heroes", then went to work. Worked hardcore... for 2 hours - all done, a bus trip back home. Ate and bathed. Told my GF I'm not coming over though we haven't seen for a week already.

4 yo nephew came and said it's Halloween today. Funny, there's no halloween tradition in Estonia, where did he hear this? Must be western influences from TV, it's told in news more and more every year. I won't be surprised if in somewhere during next 10 years, we actually adopt this. I don't give a damn anyway.

National analog, Day of the Mart, is somewhat similar, but doesn't have mean tricks in it, kids just dress funnily, visit people and sing or dance for treats. Sounds friendlier to me, and it's hundreds of years old peasant custom. Originally, I guess, animal skins were worn, like pelt of a bear or wolf or something.

But in modern world of crime, and all these Russians living around me, knocking random door while being dressed in everything that you found from home -- would take you to hospital or police, not promise treats. Especially since many  ignorant ethnic Russians don't know a thing about our local traditions and probably just freak out. Even *though* they were born here and lived here for ages. So, they'd probably give tHreats, not candy.

Just lit a cigarette. It's 22:40. Everybody went to sleep.
A long lonely night is ahead. How will I spend this?

Todo list: check my ISP's ftp for some new pirated stuff, find something amusing on youtube, P2P some cartoons, South Park maybe? Draw something. Make coffee. If I'd turn volume down to as low as possible, I could watch tv, thats' what the TV-card is for, right? Pity that this stupid thing can't play sound through USB headset... How can something be so incompatible?

Or maybe I should listen to music or try to make some? Kind of pointless idea, I'm out of creativity currently anyway, so I should do something more useful, like study.

Naah...

Whoa, completed!

I Liked--!

* Backgrounds. Strongest point in game, absolutely functional and nice looking. Made me sorry that game itself was so short...
* Inventory icons. They look sooo cuuute! Also... how could it be? They're looking WAY better than ones in any LucasArts game I know.
* Story. Funny, simple, yet interesting.  Well-written, I say!
* Touch of a designer. How every menu, screen, cursor, font is thought through, how they really blend well together and show a considerable amount of professional designer behind it. Are you one?

BUT in your next game, avoid or improve--!

* LEC gui, if it has no meaningful use in game. Push? Pull? Give? Pick up? Use? Lots of verbs, but they aren't used much actually. Simple look-interact-talk could do the whole thing. I don't remember pushing or pulling anything, neither closing, and the complicated verb gui was there more to confuse me than make anything more interesting or complex.
* Ripped music. As everybody said. Wasn't badly chosen, but still, these tunes belong to overly different, loved game worlds and sound out of place in your game.
* Lazy animation and different sprite design. That was worst part in this otherwise brilliant little game. Characters look too real for this cartoony style and their animations feel really rushed and low on frames. Atleast main character could have a bit more fluid and cartoony animation.
Also, characters feel somewhat different from backgrounds and don't blend in well.
Maybe if you drew characters directly onto the background, or used background on a layer under character sprite the time you drew them (I always do so), the harmony could have turned out better. Right now, it kind of looks like MSPaint versus Photoshop, both trying their best.
* Getting into thing. The intro didn't say anything to me, to be honest. A man hates the hamster. Next screen, lots of people, questions and confusion! I had no idea what's going on or who is who until later in the game. Intro could have shown the dinner, with people introducing themselves by hints in dialog or something like this, to understand what the hell was going on at all and where. Even a simple text, like "there's a dinner at Blackwin manor and he and he is invited and suddenly something happens blah blah" could give a better idea.

Though I wrote few long complaints here, I still loved every second of the game.
Make more!

Huh, I haven't checked the forums for 2 days and whee, there's something going on, important enough for CJ to interfere.

And now I will never know what happened.

Makes me think about AGS Chronicles, a project to mark all interesting or important happenings in Forum and AGS community overall. I can already imagine lots of things to enter from past, like the Yahtzee case, releases of uberpopular (-and important, the ones that shaped AGS world alot) games, Forum crashes, AGS awards, controversy over the Christmas Joke, all good April fools day jokes, FOY demo, the Flukeblake case, the start of wonderful things, like Ben Jordan series,  etc.
We should do this.

Your post speaks for itsself... so does the youtube link you provided.

After all this, I'm urged to click again and figure out what's in my crits so wrong to disagree... but then again, I don't really want to. I think I've had quite enough of your movie and this thread.