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I didn't mean ambient neccessarily. It could be any disk, as long as there's enough contributions of this any genre to fill a disk. Multigenre disk? I'm not so sure about that, maybe a wide genre then... Or a disk with a theme indeed. Even a name could set alot (thinking about Jesper Kyd's work). He has so many different stuff, music for games and such, and there's no specific genre. But it all fits together!

I just finished hosting a tune contest and came onto a strange idea...

The truth is there is loads of good musicians among AGSers. And I don't mean garage-rock-band ones.
Just listen at some entries from various tune contests, there's some brilliant music out there.
The main strong genres seem to be ambient and chillout type of music.

So, how about compiling a disk? Like, some musicians donate some of tracks (according to disk overall genre) and we compile them into something that can be sold, online for example? I know that every (hobbyist) musician has lots of good tracks just wasting hard disk space...

Wouldn't it generate some money?

And then we could give money to CJ or starving children or something.
Not that I really had any connections or possibilites for music distribution, but I'm sure some of AGSers have.

It's just an idea that's bugging me few last days. Would it work?

[Hammerite:]

Okay, time to pick the winner! 

I try to rate the presented mood, the idea of how it was presented by airwaves and how well the whole soup fits together as a music track or sound-related experiment at least.
I never thought that rating a tune contest would be that hard!

So!

Hammerite:

I like your entry very much.
Really strong, calm and somewhat painful track. The pads sound very heavy, absolutely giving the feeling of a hard tiredness and sleep. Cello-ish thing and stereo speech at the end give somewhat classy commercial ambient music feeling and some shivers. In good way. But having no real melody, and somewhat random notes make this song difficult to listen or remember.

Le Voltaire:

Your track was a real surprise. It's weird and funny, yet very original approach. There isn't much more I could say about the track. But what I did miss while listening was a funny video that goes with it. You definetly brought some strong variety to the contest. But as a music, or even a tune, I don't think that it's something someone could really sit and listen at home. Or a car. You got the point and I see clearly a drunken human while listening. Hell, sounds like one of my friends drunk! But it's more a one-time-joke thingy.

Haddas:

Really hardcore Haddcore. I even felt a tiny urge to remix these basslines... Late for work? The yelling, desperate-berserk synthlines at second half of the song feel more like someone killing everybody in a public place with a chainsaw... Great composition though with remarkable synth work. Some tempo would make it the next thing ravers would nod head at.

deFineLicht:

Very professional one! Sudden anger... hmm. Now I'm starting to think that you and Haddas could swap themes and both would hit the jackpot with their entry. The song struck me as a mean smile and conspiring something evil behind that smile, but not really sudden anger. But it's ear-pleasing, melodic and nice. Again, stronger tempo build would express these reactive feelings a lot more and better, I think.

dkh:

Pain/sadness. Almost what I hear in my head. What I exactly hear is crying or even stopping it by friendly hug, but that's not far from your version. The funky guitar solo sounds like teardrops and main guitar is full of sadness and love. This is definetly very good entry, and I definetly like it. Only little crit I could give is stereo: The instruments sound very different, so you should probably move them closer, to the center. Right now, both ears hear very different things and it makes them hard to mix together.

MrBen:

Soft, dreamy, sad. Ambient. Well, it's a formula to make me instantly love the track! A violin/cello/similar solo in the middle and a bit of power could make this something extremely good! Slumber... I feel this, too. It's just a bit weak, that's it.

Wulftech:

And here comes power!!! Choirs, technoish synths and piano solo. Pissed, deep, yes. This gives emotional shivers, even via my crappy stereo headset. You seem to got everything right with your entry. Is something missing? An harder version of Amen Break if anything. While instrumental work has all the power and emotions, beat itself lacks a bit of power, or specifically, larger, juicier and louder snare. And some subwoofer bass maybe?

nihilyst:

If I'd were sitting by the window with some tea and watching rain fall, I would be very happy to have your song playing in the background. It really hits the theme and is listenable casually. Actually, it's so perfect in its minimalistic, earpleasing way that I can't say much about it. From a music like this, I simply can't point out anything missing or not as it should be. And that's good, I suppose. I have listened to it while writing & thinking this and feeling quite blue now Let that be my only criticism!

LimpingFish:

Ooh, a nice beat! And nice bassline. And 80's feel. And... and--
In late 80's, Accolade would bought this track from you to use in their Test Drive game series. It has so nice retro feeling in it. Which covers the theme part. In other words, you made this competition even tighter. A bit too repetitive and hasn't got a strong point to build things around or catchy melody to hum along, but it's a good track, with strong opportunity to win. If you could bring those girlfriend and anger parts into track also--

Zor:

I love this one. The beginning is simply brilliant.
But when beat starts... and at the end where solo is, the limits of MIDI will show up... a bit more instruments, or better chosen ones could have covered it, but unfortunately this isn't the case.
Despair is there and effort also, I totally feel it, and I thank you for this short hearing pleasure.

Peder Johnsen:

Hm, grief, mourning. And very professional sounding piano. Now I'm feeling n00bish and thinking that I'm not quite right person to rate this. For a dead cat and a friend, that's quite a track you made. It is good, as much as I can say. Though, there's much more firework in other entries.
-----------

Ahh, time to finally pick someone. I don't really want to, there's majority of tracks here that are absolutely equivalent in my liking-meter. And they're different enough so they can't be scaled in same way.
And ALL tracks have EFFORT written all over them, it's so unfair to pick only one...

But two tracks closed the competition after hearing them again and again. nihilyst's and Wulftech's.
And the one I replayed the most... the one that made me feel along the most, is made by:

Wulftech, congratulations! Start a new tune contest now!

P.S -- If I have a spare moment and some inspiration in next days, I'll try to give my best to make your contest as difficult to rate as this was 

Time is running out!
If you have any entries not submitted yet, hurry!

I will pick winner somewhere in next 24 hours.

Yes, I AM talking about original Dune 2. It's considered to be the very first traditional RTS ever, isn't it.
It shaped, if not started Real-time Strategy game genre. All other games borrow from it.

The game on PC was all about outwitting the CPU. Mostly, because AI bugs/weakness, but what does strategy mean, anyway?

* Placing an unit smartly enough near enemy building caused CPU units to shoot their own building
* At later levels , where you had access to turrets, you had to build 4 to 8 turret defence points, and align all your base so stupid AI would cross between turrets, because AI had usually one building which it attacked. If the way led through your defenses, CPU sent continuously his troops to die at your defenses while trying to make to the target
* Unit cap was low and turrets (especially rocket ones) were so powerful that just massing and head-on attacking was totally out of question. Also, cranky UI didn't let you to select unit masses.
* Computer units on guard didn't chase hostile units all the way. Simplest startegy was to have 1-2 rocket launchers, close enemy enough to make a shot, and when nearby CPU defenders came to check things out, retreat enough to make them find noone and go back to base.
* Due a bug, units had better fire range on diagonal directions. Using this advantance was often tricky and dangerous, because same applied to enemy units. One badly chosen angle of approaching computer rocket turret and--

And nothing, nothing in the world could reproduce that feeling when you flee with your weak units over sand while enemy tanks chase. And then, just at the second you reach solid ground, units turn back and fire. And suddenly a sandworm comes and eats what's left of chasing CPU.

Damn, it was good.

But CnC3? It IS starcraft.

In original CnC, the medium tanks looked like today's M1 Abrams. And NOD light tanks just like Bradley fighting vehicle. Humvees were humvees and everything was very believable. Tanks were coloured to be hard to spot, buildings looked possible, but a bit hi-tech, and soliders were simple brave men in brown uniforms and ahhh how good sound effects if set on fire or poisoned with chemical spray. With good story, it really felt like former NATO has formed a new global force against military cult and there were African and European villages, with real civilians and fighting over poisonous resource.

Now? Everything is coloured like a circus caravan. All the better for air units to spot and destroy! Every weapon make so much flashing and sparks that it's hard to understand what's going on at all. Tanks are modelled like forgotten prototypes of some insane US military engineer during cold war. Building-tall walkers? Leave that to better games, like Metal Fatigue or One Must Fall 2097. Even a cornerstone of CnC series, the mammoth tank looks like something very stupid and not the hardcore steel fortress with dual cannons and rockets.

The Tiberian Sun was a playable game and offered nice sci-fi alternative to the CnC universe, but seeing long-waited the THIRD going in the steps of TS and not original game is a real dissappointment for me.

So, Act of war all the way, until someone comes out with something really worthy.

Er, I know this was sooo offtopic.

Lazy quickmeal (insta-energizer):

* A teacup of sour cream
* A spoonful or two of cocoa powder, preferably sweet one and not bitter! (Nesquick and O'Boy are best!)
* 1-2 spoons of sugar

Mix with spoon, eat.

Midnight Cold Snack/Potion of Cure Hangover/Sick Mix 1.0:

* A cup of chocolate ice cream
* A can of Battery (energy drink)
* Some leftover coffee liqueur from last night party
* Some coffee leftovers in a cup
* A bottle of Estonian light beer

Hack ice cream with spoon until it's soft, drip some Batteryâ,,¢ and coffee onto it, then a drop of liqueur. Mix with spoon, open beer bottle, enjoy ice cream and beer!

** going to kitchen to mix some
* InC gains 5 exp
* -80% hangover

I prefer Desktop Tower Defense!

Someone will end up being my best friend now.

Ooh, can I?

I never got into Starcraft.
As a diehard RTS fan, I played it, of course, and long hours, but never really loved it. It was simply too long and boring to love, with too little of strategy and too much massing & rush. A Real-Time-Rushing game.

I know that NO game in the world will ever be so strategical as the grandfather of the genre: Dune II: Building of a Dynasty was, with option to destroy whole enemy with one unit only (required good outwitting of AI, hehe),  but Starcraft fell so far that I never even started trying.


StarCraft II looks very much like all RTS-es today: A damned Disney- Star Wars hybrid character convention. With all those happy colours and ooooverdone mech.

There's hardcore fans and let them have their new piece of futuristic fetish.
But diediediedie, EA! For totally ruining Command & Conquer 3 and putting this starcrafty crap into game where steel and modern technology was so damn well joined in first game and we never needed any stinking cartoony robotics bullshit arrrrrr

Er, we can say that StarCraft II is out already. It's called Command & Conquer 3: 'bottom of a swimming pool lighting' Tiberium Wars.

But someday he'll die and that means unless there is a future generation CJ AGS is going to die, too and waaaah, it's all so senseless!

We have really nice female members among these thousands, don't we?
Who wants to volunteer for saving the tomorrow?
Nice blonde British guy, good genes, genius' DNA...

Step up, ladies!

And when we have new one, we don't really need old one... But for any case, we could still freeze him!
Until human cloning really works and we don't need traditional reproducing system.
Yay for unlimited DNA supply!

Yeah, with 3840 users listed, and atleast third(?) of them acutally active, we could collect load of donations.

I don't think that it's the CJ who quits, but AGS that'll be - like - ready?

I'm currently having rapid development phase on "Silent oaks"(working title).

It's basically close to a remake of Interplay's ancient "Castles II: Siege & Conquest" localized on Estonia and crusade here during 13th century, though there's stuff that wasn't in original game, and some that was, but won't make into my game.

(please move rocks and sticks out of reach before reading further)

I'm using Game Maker 6.3 for this project. At first, I planned to program it from scratch in Visual C (with intention to learn finally some C!), but quickly understood that I don't have required level of mashochism in my nature.

It's in quite early stages yet, the battle and plotting system is only started and main map gameplay is half-functional.

Ooh, what a sex-appeal booster!

I imagine flying over a group of chicks with this one...

Neat!

Hah, superb entries! I like them both. 
Keep em' coming!

[Express a mood.]

For this Tune Contest, the theme is quite simple:

Express a mood.

Whether it be extreme frustration, happiness or shame, put it into music and try to use sound to express it.
Maybe even tell a story, like fighting a bad habit, or finding a fortune.

Also, don't forget to include the mood you're describing with your entry, unless it's too clear.

Let's go!

EDIT: I also just finished a piece that I think could make a nice example of one of the ways to go...
Of course, entries so far provide as good examples.

It's not very happy one and of course you don't have to do something similar, but eh--
www.increator.pri.ee/muz/suicidal_thoughts.mp3

Thanks, I'll start a new one in a bit! 

I like it, as much anyone could like such a disturbing story.

Photo rights are indeed something to keep an eye on.

Serious war story at first remembers me many books about start of WWII in Ukraine, where Soviet forces were cut off during retreat. It's deep and good material. Hermits, cults, beheading? That's quite another story.

Why mix deep wartime atmosphere with B-movie-sque  horror cliche?

A man, a gun and palmful of lead in metal casings surrounded with enemies and no place to run is an atmosphere.

You don't need to give answers, like "hermit", "cult", "responsible".
You have to press on the unknown.

For example, an enemy general with his group in forests with no live witnesses to tell about him, chasing restlessy the protagonist's group would be one of such idea. Maybe finishing off those wounded and sick, who protagonist's group leaves behind, kidnapping others at night... Stories like this add frustration and aura of fear around everything.
And psychological warfare, like bandits and partisans fought during this era, and so on.

This'll add much better atmosphere than simple answers made of gross horror.

I wouldn't like a game that radiates violence, but I'd rather play the game with the original sprites if it was better.

What a hippy!

Anyway, sprite aggressiveness is not part of my suggestions - I said that it's too wild already, I hope you still picked out important parts- outlining, humanoid figure and shading parts. Your main problems were too long feet, inhuman pose and really flat shading.

Dude. Leave resolution alone, you can draw a cool character at any resolution and size, as long as you remember that devil's in the details.

I like the character concept, so I wasted an half-hour on it.

Take a look and notes what's important:

1) Drawing the whole thing - outlines.

This decides everything. Your character had weird long feet and very stiff pose, somewhat nerd-like, like he's afraid. I tried something wilder (probably too wild for a game), but the better it shows contrast.
If you spend enough time on outlines, you will see the cool character even before it's colored.
Since I figured he's a warrior of some kind, rambo-ish pose always adds something

I tend to use line tool for outlines.

2) Coloring the thing

This is where palette choice becomes very important. As a starter, always prefer low-saturation colors. I didn't (just like you in your initial character) - and dude turned out like from a Disney cartoon - not the man fighting viruses and evil bacteria or whatever your guy's supposed to fight. Then again, people who work with extreme dangers, contrasty supervisible colors are a need. So, you can't miss much either way. I used strong orange on gas mask, but should have used it even more.

3) Shading the thing

Shading... Well, I got a bit too excited and used too many colors at two locations (belt things, gun), but three colors per body part (or more, logical part) is usually enough and doesn't require aspirin while animating. So I suggest you the same.

All shading was done by freehand tool only. It's much simpler to do cloth wrinkles and fill little spaces with freehand pencil than line tool.



2x:


It only took 24 minutes!

Weird what happened today.
I was encountering weird stretched vertex problems in some newer games, like few vertices had insane positions making strange lines appear all around in game world. Especially painful in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
It seems that this is common problem with NVidia 7900GT/GTO cards. Anyway...

Some support forums suggested updating BIOS to get rid of the problem...

So I did it. What happened was that all my taskbar icons came back, even volume controls one, Windows boots alot quicker and everything feels much more stable.

It didn't repair that stupid registry problem with un-uninstallable programs nor texture stretching, but it's still notifiable progress, so I suggest trying this for people with windows anomalities.

Easiest way to make some hard money around in Estonia is advacation.
That means, an Adventure & Vacation.

Scheme is simple:

* Find a friend with a fast car and a shovel
* Rob a bank. Or even better, jewelry store. The more loot the better! Try grabbing some millions worth of loot.
* Give the loot to a friend and let him drive off and bury it.
That was the adventure part... now...

* Get yourself arrested.
* Spend 3-4 months is a prison. Not much considering millions waiting you buried?
That was the vacation part.

Since there's not much jobs you can do to earn millions in 3-4 months, and this one doesn't need any work at all - prisons are comfty and leisure-oriented, this is quite easy money!

And since law is so damn humane here, 3-4 months is about what you get. You can always - since you're a newborn millionaire, get a GOOD lawyer to point the guilt at the bank/jewelry store, making you an innocent fool caught in insurance fraud, there's a good chance to skip prison part at all!

Well, prison part will be skipped anyway, because money is missing and you will probably spend these months in pre-investigation lockup, which is usually even nicer than jail.

Estonian securitymen don't carry guns and if you have anything to threaten them, there will be no problem. Police response time is also long enough to get your loot secured.

Ah, simple things people can't figure out. I wouldn't try same thing in US or Russia, of course...