Messages

Reminds me somehow Sims2 characters.
Ah yes, big eyes and biiig mouth.

You could still cut a bit from mouth (make it shorter), because it's nice (and cartoony) in static image, but such characters talking could look really weird.

Whee, they all sound like some items from an RPG game. Or titles of RPG games. I somewhat dislike those, because they aren't actually too memorable.

This "shadow" and "darkness" -thing is sooo overused. It's quite hard to achieve any feeling with such words anymore.
cliche.

One vocals-rich word should do as title. Why "x of y" or "x's y"?
And it would be memorable.

Good example from a horror-themed ags game - "Framed!"
"The Hamlet" was quite cool name too, though it misleaded with Shakespeare's play.

Now isn't this memorable, yet interesting and intriguing?

Think.

Hah, this guy is funny.
Or pretends to be 

* You don't have to spit fire in wrong forum, and wrong form.
Want to complain about forum? PM to moderator, don't crap forums with stupid threads that don't belong here in first place.

* You achieve nothing by calling people names, especially if you didn't quite get the point.

* Critics Lounge is made to help people out, not telling that this or that is lame. If you see something wrong, tell what it is, and how to improve it. This way your opinion will be taken seriously.

* Grow up

* Read the rules and...

* ...Don't play moderator, as I did just now 

Fixed. They should be visible now.
* Not that there's anything great to see anyway  *

I know that I won't quit before I get accidentally hit by a brick, which causes amnesia, so I won't remember all these moments where cigarette brought me peace and relaxation (sp?).

But! I've tried many times, with a week success. Problem is that I don't really have a reason to quit. 21-years is not the age people think too seriously about health. I'm not against smoking, but I'm definelty against the smell it leaves to hands, clothes, teeth...
Well, life's tough.

I don't know how often you smoke, so I just assume you do it as me, so following may work for you:

* Mornings! Mornings are extremely hard. You may be confident and strong in the evening, like "I quit" and "screw this".
The next morning you reach for the pack... and if it's not there, you're ready to kick world upside down to get it and only "screw this"-thought is TOWARDS the quitting-idea . So you better build up some ways to get instantly up in the morning and do some excercise and other stuff so there won't be enough time to be angry and think about smoke.

* Eat lightly. But more often. I don't know if it's same to you, but a strong meal is not a meal if I don't get my cigarette after it. So eat salad & juice for awhile. You'll be gaining rapidly weight anyway after quitting, so it's not a big loss.

* Sunflower seeds! Pistachios! And any other similar low-feeding but long-eating snack thingies are good for you. They won't fill you up, but keep your mouth in progress and people can't usually eat and smoke anyway. I somehow find that eating 80 grammes of salted sunflower seeds take my smoke-will away for few hours.
Sunflower seeds are also quite healthy things to eat... Remember Fox Mulder eating them all the time in X-Files series?
So what if my mouth is full of salt in the next morning and tongue is burnt from salt? At least no smoking.

* Sleepfest! It proved to be most powerful and working one. But hardness relies in having enough time and money.
Practically, you just have to isolate yourself for few months, and live only for bed and TV. After a week or two sleeping 8-9 hours a day, you'll start to sleep longer and 14-18 hours sleep is no miracle for you. Sleeping people don't smoke.

* If anything won't help, Just make a strong budget. Separate money for cigarettes, a pack a day and buy only super-lights.
After some time, the amount of nicotine in organism decreases.

Then you can make budget tighter and make it a pack for 2 days.

Good luck to you.

[idea]

It would be suggested you didn't use the edit as it is. Try to remake yours, using what you think is right in the edit. That way, you learn more, and improve your art skills on the whole, instead of just using a better sprite head than yours.

I'm not against it, but won't agree neither.
At least, when I edit someone's work, at the moment when I press "Post" button, I instantly count all rights for the image to person I made it.

So what if person uses the exact image? This won't solve the problem, since from this point, person has mixed his work with mine.

* If the difference is big enough between style/quality, person has to keep this level throughout whole game, which is alot more difficult task than just using idea of mine, instead of whole image - and still doing it by his hand/style. And fitting whole artwork according to one image is big work.

* If the difference is quite small, it's quite clear that with little more effort, person could do as well anyway, so it doesn't matter neither.

* And nobody uses an edit worse than his own work.

Thank you.


pwnd!!1

So, what do you guys use?

...A hankie. When tears come. When pieces of couch are all around the floor.

My cat is no fool. There's no way that scratching some cheap post would be better than expensive couch.

"If you're so stupid, go scratch your post yourself, I like the couch and that's how it will be. Meowfoolishhumansmeow"

This is the look she gaves me when I try to teach him what to scratch.


Good luck!

Here goes...

Well, I messed with it for awhile, and it's the most powerful 3d-sculpting tool in the world, It seemed. Even 3D n00b as I am can make realistic 3d face, which is total pain in 3ds max  for example.

But since there's no ways to keep lower polycount and export 3D into something useful, such as... ...games!, this has no much use.
At least, exporting 3ds format would make sense...

2D stuff is unpractical for a game maker too, and it's way too complicated to learn program until it would have some use. But there's always exceptions, and I would love to see someone really using this to make resources for a game.

Whoah, it's quite nice prisoner you have there.
But!

First... The shading. I've never been a big fan of pale pink sprite shading technique - and you're not the first one who uses it. Just as you use it - few shades of pinks & other bright colors - only few RGB values different...

It's nice and clean but doesn't add much 3rd dimenson or inner strength into image. Of course, a technique is a technique and taste is a taste.

Second - when opening image for closer inspection & editing, I noticed that it's quite suitable for hi-res game. High resolution... so why are you afraid to use more colors? With a some simple tricks, animating shouldn't be too hard anyway, since not every missed pixel is seen due high resolution. Also, you have the power of antialiased shading due hi-res.

I don't believe that you'd go for so many colors as I did in my edit, but it should at least give you some tips in shading - see how forehead, cheeks, etc are lighter and what wrinkles add to clothing.



Also, I removed black outlines. You should too, since your very low-contrast shading looks flat even without them amplifying the effect.

Good luck. You definetly have style, just polish the shading and you'll do fine.

So.. you're asking about formatting the plan?
I'd suggest MS Word (or any else better-than-notepad word processor will do)

Write down whole script like you showed off here, but:

* number lines of action.
* separatel color the keywords - i.e. inventory items, important characters/dialogs, etc
* you may also color the line numbers so it's easier to keep control over them

Coloring inventory items for example, helps to check if they are used atleast once, and where they are and are they aquired for the moment of usage
Also, it helps to keep sections working so you can easily check that there's no dead ends.

At least, I do so, and result is something like this:


Docks area
1. Player searches garbage can and finds fish.
2. Player talks to bum and asks for scarf.
3. Bum trades scarf for fish
stuff: scarf,fish

Downtown
1. Player talks to Punk, punk wants back his scarf, which bum stole
2. Player gives scarf back to Punk
....

etc.
It's most likely not the best way, but I find it better than no script at all.
Also, a puzzle scheme would work for you, especially if using non-linear puzzles (example from my Estonian AGS Beginners tutorial):

The car is stuck in mud
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  I
Player goes into forest for help
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  I
Ã,  Sees a hunter
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  I
Hunter has a gun, but wants cash for it
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, IÃ,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  I
Player finds a spadeÃ,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Player wanders around
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, IÃ,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  I
Player digs out a treasureÃ,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Player finds a club
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, IÃ,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  I
Player gives it to hunterÃ,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Player beats hunter with a club
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  IÃ,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, I
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Hunter gives a gun
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, I
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  etc

To add something, I'd recommend to keep game in closed sections, each with reasonable size.
Read:

sections > total of: rooms player could visit at the game moment + hotspots+dialogs+inventory items to try

reasonable size > Usually, not all is solved by logical thinking. If you shoot player into a section with 10 rooms, give him 10 items and each room has at least 10 possible hotspots where any of them could be the key element to solve the section, whole thing is freaking huge and possibilty to just "wander" onto right solution is very unlikely. Also, the try-everything-on-everything action is insanely difficult to do.

Which - leads sooner or later to using a walkthrough
Which - ends the game for player, since walkthroughs are like Pandora's box: If you use it once for a particular game, you use it every time you get a bit more stuck. And this not cool at all. Also, the statisfaction after completing a game is minimal. Which makes whole game experience suck.

So, don't flood player with endless options, separate game into 2-5 room sections, with reasonable amount of options and you've made a big step towards making an enjoyable game.

And of course, this section-thing could be nicely masked with storyline, so player wouldn't even figure out why he can't get here or there until finishing this or that.

Good examples: Indiana Jones and FOA, Goblins 1-3, Larry Vales games
Bad examples: Razors in the night, Pleurghburg, Sierra's King's Quest series

It's good. As tutorials usually are, showing different techniques and enriching knowledge.

What I would complain about - are colors - they're a bit unharmonic and too strong, IMO, and if it's a background for adventure game, it looks very much like zoomed out (landscape observed from far away) so there's very little use to it.

But make it further and we'll see. Great start, anyway.

I like it.
Yes, creative freedom will always do good at competitions.
Less rules, more entries.

[over]

Well, the crusade is over.

After fighting myself for a long time, I finally decided that I don't need another piece of rarely used, but expensive tech junk (since it already occupies more of my room than I do) and bought a really cheap and simple tablet.

Trust 400. A5 format, and being a person, who has mouse sensitivity usually at max, even A5 is too much to moving around for my wrist (lazy, eh?). For a $65 I think it's enough for now, since I can't do anything good with it anyway... yet.

Despite its impossibilty to make a straight (or almost straight) diagonal lines, the tablet works fine. I also made my first steps using PhotoShop, which so far just wasted my HD space. (reason: way too complicated prog for so lazy bastard - as i am to learn).

Things are going well.
PS will be ripped apart.
Damn it's difficult...!!

Yes, the health system in JA and JA2 was the best I've ever seen.
Orange bar (the amount of total health that was damaged and simply patched up by medic) was "heal-able" too, by longer rest at the base or under doctors treatment (which equals as merc in "hospital" and not fighting during treatment).

You sould definetly try this.

argh!
I went through 11 computer stores yesterday.
Only in 2 of them, salesman actually understood what I'm looking for!
And of course, no tablets, if you want one, pre-order.

Choices were also very weak. Trust 200 and Trust 400, both cheap and small. I somehow don't trust Trust, neither, there's always problems with its stuff. I have a Trust mouse that works only when it's sunny weather and a 2.1 speaker set that works fine only at 10% of the dB written on manual. No wacoms in stores at all!

Sometimes I still have the feeling that despite all he European Union, democracy, independence and capitalism, Estonia is still just a westmost province of Soviet Union. At least, if it comes to tech whole world is using for a long time already. It should have been funny to watch salesmen looking at each other confusedly and telepathically asking from each other "do you UNDERSTAND what this customer wants from me?" but it somehow wasn't funny at all. Quite sad, instead.

There's 2 small companies importing wacoms, but they don't have store chains around the country so I contacting them is quite difficult.
Well, my crusade goes on.

* Black outlines give more cartoonish feel, usually.
* Shaded outlines give more realistic feel.
* No outlines give vector graphics illusion and freedom to animate cheaply, but make things very unclear.

It's almost white!
And white kinda doesn't fit here. Either use stronger yellow or some other color, since ceilings and floors should usually be darker than walls in scenes like this.
It just fits better, somehow...



DISCLAIMER: This is totally MY opinion.