Messages

Simple: To avoid bullying. To stay in the "pack".
In some schools or army.

In Estonia, cases like this occur in most of russian schools. In russia, I think that's a standard. My father started smoking in 4th grade... Today, he doesn't have a choice, though he's been fighting for 46 years. And won for some durations, too.

But you can research for more yourself.
Taking a smoke or getting yourself beaten up, abandoned and bullied for rest of your time in place doesn't really sound like two fair options to anyone.

I'm against bans, but welcome to help.

How about governmental support for nicotine patches and gums, cheaper psychological aid, and so on?

Restrictions never improve anything. Plus, many non-smokers don't know a thing about this hard addiction/disease, therefore have no idea, what stupid bans and pressure may do.

I do know.

But about choosing to smoke: I know helluva lot of people who didn't have a choice. Not at start.
Do they now? Hard to tell. Very little of people can simply quit. And there's no other help around, even if they tried to find any.
Actually, every one of us risks his life any day. And death is often very close even if we don't know about it. Compared traffic/death rate and crime in my home city, smoking sounds like sleeping on an angel's lap to me. I'm not saying that it's safe or anything, but I've escaped too many times by few lucky centimeters from drunk driver speeding at me...

hel-lo! I'm an experienced graphics designer and background artist.

What do you pay?

21 minutes, there ya go. Too happy colors for spooky image, I'm afraid, but you can easily adust tint/saturation/brightness to your own desire. You shouldn't use my image but get some pointers, though you can use it if you want to. It's a quick one though...

** late for work, running now

...wasn't it done somewhere already? umm...


NEXT: Roger(EGO) versus Bugs Bunny

For sound and animation together, use Flash.
As babar said, GIF animators don't allow sounds.

Havent EVER even punched a person or tried to truly hurt another person. I have only hit someone in self defence, never to attack.

For a 17 year old male, I'd say you had one hell of a nice childhood.
What amuses me is that people who beat up others are not videogame addicts, at least not on the level where  game content should make anyone worry about. Bad kids hang around and look for trouble, not spend nights on sneaking upon an NPC in a videogame.

Kid who is messed up enough to commit a murder, has alot more serious reasons to do so than just a game he played.
Maybe endless bullying in school? Really awful home/family life? Serious complexes? A motivated killer is a psychopath and there's something that caused it. In all cases, parental care should eliminate and handle these causes before it's too late. Unless kid is simply crazy, but our society doesn't charge mentally ill anyway.

I've played MOST of games ever released on PC, and all my personality has benefitted from it is good knowledge of modern weaponry, good knowledge of history and social systems... plus good hand-eye coordination. Nothing like urge to kill or maim anyone.

I'd blame...

...stupid parents growing little maniacs and then deflecting this with some game or tv-show to blame.
If you, mother or father - raised a murderer, you fucked whole thing up. REALLY bad.
Probably there was no parent for this kid, and WHOLE parenting side was left to a videogame, if there's even a bit truth in the story. Anyway, if a child kills another, one and only murderer in the case is the parent. And kid just needs some beating to understand that violence is - indeed painful and not something to practise on others.

I'd say that playing violent games casually is why I never get as angry as MrColossal described. Stupid coworkers and general BS won't raise that high in my case.

[For example]

This is stupid. UK may ban whatever they want, but there's no point in this.

Manhunt? Uncensored violence was what made this game so controversial. Psychological layout was what made it actually exciting. A hammer cracking into a skull in a dark alleyway. I'd say that I am getting kick out of it indeed. Alot.

But that isn't what makes the game interesting: glass pieces, small clubs and ordinary tools are not important because they're violent, but because they express your characters fear and weakness against enemies. You don't have a minigun and full armor vest. If you're seen, enemies will gather and kick your brains out. You must hide, sneak, run.

This is keeping me in constant excitment and fear throughout the game. And what's better reward than sneak behind that bastard that has beaten me way too many level restarts in a row  and strangle him with plastic bag? Take this, sucker... Also, manhunt sports one of the most realistic hand-to-hand combat system seen in computer game in last 10 years, at least.

I don't actually see Manhunt as something exceptionally gory or violent. "Nightmare on Elm street" (the movie) for example wasn't banned anywhere. And everybody has seen it, or some of its sequels, though it was much gorier at times. Well, or take random horror movie. Or even a game. How about fatalities in Mortal Kombat series? Ripping head out along with backbone? Huh. It wasn't even blurry 3D at first, but photographed sprites... How much close to real could thing get?

And there was time when countries wanted to ban Grand Theft Auto. Yes, the very first, 2D one. And Carmageddon.
Looking at those games today, it feels really funny.

I heard the story about the murder too. This is as stupid as something may be.
Any maniac could use any excuse for being a maniac. It doesn't make the excuse guilty.

For example, how many sick, evil people have said after their bad deed that Allah said them to do so?
Should UK start a campaign to ban Islam for this...?

Sometimes I have this feeling that most of the western world is made of 100% pure idiots...

Violent games ARE fun, and banning them == banning fun. Not all games, of course, but what people don't like, people won't buy, ban or no ban.

Anyway, human is human and flesh is flesh. Which means that horror and violence has a limit. Yes, there is a point where something couldn't be more horrible and violent.

You don't believe me? Read Remarque's "Spark of Life". I take this book as most violent and fearful thing I've ever seen in any form of media. It's written so it plays on same effect as Manhunt: showing naked violence it its simple, but nauseating and extremely terrifying form. It takes only a piece of rope, rusted nail or simple stick - and a living, breathing victim to create the highest possible level of violence and horror. We're just not used to see it that way, not without flashing gunfights and explosions. Seeing this turns people inside out and they start marking this as something extraordinary. But this is real and it works... I've read the book and I haven't killed anyone yet. I've played the game and I don't feel like doing anything seen in game to anyone...

So, bring it on, Take 2!

* Don't swear so much. It doesn't make you older.
* Make something to criticize, then ask for it.

Your 2nd image has two walls, door, window and a floor. What to crit here?

Oh, a nice curved wall?
Awesome goofy door?
They're not much and even at that, they're wrong.

And... Well, they're not good. Even if you actually listened to anyone and used correct perspective, I wouldn't it call it still background yet. You know very well what to do - why are you waiting for someone to say this?

Add more stuff!

* When you actually decide to add more stuff, start from a clean sheet. First, draw ALL outlines, of everything. If you have absolutely everything drawn that you need, then and only then start coloring the background. Not before. *Especially* when you're going for your very own crippled_goofyâ,,¢ style.

* I like the colors of window, and how they turned out. Floor is a bit too bright but still acceptable.
Everything else is bullshit. And when I'm using strong words on someone's art, I seriously mean it.

* Nobody's hating you because you're younger. But nobody likes how you format your posts and responses to advice.
And this is a quick way to isolation.

13? Start acting like ONE, I don't believe there's 13-years olds who are unable to write short text at acceptable grammar/punctuation level! Artists are cultural people, mostly. See your goal?

Sorry, no. It's not good at all...

First, colors bleed too much... It's especially ugly on black outlines
Second, skewed style has to be done carefully, and should have some point in it.
Yours doesn't have any.

You can make cartoony style, but make difference between "cartoony" and "half-assed".

Add alot more things into this room before going on, and change the red color. Also, the door is way overdone.

Check out graphics in such old games as "Out of this world" and "Flashback".

They used strong-contrast/saturation lights over low-sat backgrounds which created really mysterious and sci-fi environment. Your lights are similar, but not yet strong enough-

WRONG. Godfather doesn't have:

* Superior sountrack (the music in Godfather was much duller and didn't create that good atmosphere). Plus, Mafia features some very brave attempts at stepping on game music standards, like chinatown track for example? Find me a game with similar music! But with also as catchy one!
* Acceptable graphics. Scroll up to two screenshots and see yourself. Godfather looks like C64 game screencaptured to low quality JPG images and then ported to NES. Sure, Mafia geometry had less polygons. But just play and see how well they are used!
* Original solutions. Not neccessarily the best ones, but original. Damage handling on cars in Mafia? It's so cool! I can wreck cars with bare hands, and like in real life, this could take a furious half-hour. One mission, I remember, got alot easier when you shot a tire off from enemy car. <shao kahn voice> "Originality!"
* Pace control. In Mafia, tiresome driving around city offered sometimes nice break from furious shooting action. In other times, it was even more dangerous, because player attempted to drive faster and in case of a police chase, whole mission could be blown.
* Variety! Conquering things in Godfather took hell of a lot of time, retries, bullets, and body bags. IMO, too much. But that's a matter of taste.
* Ability to skip intros and cutscenes, plus this horrid intro/mainmenu music tune that went really old after 150th time!

Conclusion? Godfather is horrible attempt to reap cash from exploiting Mafia, GTA-like games' popularity and the movie(s) of same name. And its actually worse than any of named.

With no intention to win, I'm still gonna post my lameass entry:



Em, got a bit carried away, and following is not an entry, but a reason why Technos corp. went into bankruptcy...
...they didn't make this! I did!

[is]

I wouldn't say that this game is anywhere near "awful", though it has its flaws and some weird bugs.

I've played through three times and quite liked what I played. It's a bit too limited, linear and difficult. But it isn't a bad game and offers nice change to GTA. Also, it doesn't have this maniac humor GTA characters have. Like main character being a really nice guy and smiling and wasting 600 people in very gory way while being supposedly sympathetic and humorous.
This is dark fun, but a bit too sick for my taste. Luckily, Mafia didn't have this sick twist, the characters were serious from the start to the end.
I hope GTA 4 will lose this crap also, and what I read from reviews, there's slight chance for it to be so.
Mafia is quite average game with nice story and great atmosphere. Well, and horrible gameplay. Then again, GTA:SA PC controls weren't much easier. And difficulty neither (flying school, eeek!)

I seriously can't say similar for Godfather (for PC), which actually is the worst GTA clone ever.
Man I hated this game! I usually hate most of direct console ports, but this is best worst example of how NOT to port a game. Aren't games made on PC first anyway? Cars without transparent windshields... in 2006 game... omfg.

Nowhere in the UK has a warm climate.  It's temperate at most

Temperate? Compared to... Norway?
It's Africa!

Wake up dude, reality is only how we feel it. Everything is only how we define it. Names are given by Man. To feelings, also. Animals simply feel, and don't have need to name anything.

I've always believed that we went very, very wrong somewhere with our urge to define and explain.
But I'll never know.

God? I believe in human intuition. If people have felt that something greater is watching over us, in so many different cultures and parts of world, something must be behind it. People sense very odd things sometimes, like house on fire even thousands of miles away.

But I don't believe in human definition of this power... or God. It just cannot be a bearded man on a cloud. Or a died prophet, or something with four arms or--

If something's controlling the matter of the universe, it should be defineable as physical power of some sort. Like magnetism. Or electric current. Or something towards there. It can't be sentinent being.

Fact is, according to how we have treated our planet and lifeforms here, even God couldn't help us. We ARE parasites (the beings we describe as parasites). So nothing more than one of the thousands of similar species on planet. Only way larger, stronger, intelligent and not in symbiosis with anything -- which will lead eventually to extinction. So even if we find all answers one day, we still take them to the grave. If I were another lifeform from another galaxy, I'd avoid meeting with Human Beings at all cost!

If God would be what people think he is, and Holy Bible, Qu'ran or any other religious writing was real, it told us how to avoid extinction. Well, none does. In matter fact, these books suggest otherwise. According to human nature.

Wtcq: I don't see how your post might add anything to the ongoing topic... Think before you post.

DirectX is quite easy to acquire, even with pirated Windows. Also, there's some genuine-check cracks around, though it's hard to download any and I don't reccommend it to anyone with little experience on computers -- cracks sites are full of adware and viruses, that's why. I hope I didn't break "no warez" rule here...

All newer games usually ask if you want to upgrade your directX, what you need is most likely DX 9.0c, so any game that offers this should do.

Webcam in Skype is somewhat tricky to get to work, but main problem usually relies in webcam itself:
Does webcam work in your Windows?

Control Panel > Scanners and cameras

Does your cam show up there? Can you click on it and see your picture?
If so, Skype should recognize it. If not, try reinstalling the camera & drivers, rebooting, etc.

Sorry if you got thing solved already, dunno if you sorted out getting DX or cam to work.

I like the money part. Especially donating, though I don't trust charity organizations. How about AGS server rent or something useful like this? And first, the project should pay for its own expenses.  There's loads of people with money and no idea where to put it. Why not reap profit where it just lies unused? Voluntary donations don't really work. But we don't have to charge much, especially since this will be alternative and somewhat amateur music, right? People even pay for crappy christian-themed games, why not for nice music?

Even better part is... well, I've made music whole my life, but never released anything in wide public (I mean, other places than online forum/competition) and nothing has ever made much further from my hard disk. Project like this would release people's works into public, which many, I believe - haven't officially released anything aswell.

Also, using profit (if there will be any) for good reasons, would make the project more important, as well as participating in it.