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Funnily enough I'm also currently in the process of moving to London, and it can be a bit daunting at first because it's a huge place and it's hard to know where to start.

It's a big decision for you to move to a completely different country, but your English is great these days so you shouldn't have any serious language problems. As Layabout says, living in London is expensive, so you really need to know how much rent you can afford to pay before you can choose where to live.

Although I don't yet actually live in London, I'm more than happy to have a chat with you about the town if that would be useful.

See, problem solved. Just live on CJ's couch. Problem solved.

That CS5 patch stuff looks amazing. Now that would be damn useful.

Hey buddy. Congrats on the move decision.

Apparantly London is great for cycling. My brother cycles all the time.

As for living... It's gunna cost you a lot. Sort out a job as soon as poss. If you don't have a lot of money to pay for rent, you will be living out in the outery suburbs. But it's pretty cool. I lived in Willesden Green and it was okay. Decent for the money we paid.

I'd recommend private renting through a newspaper or something, avoid estate agents. They will try to screw you over because you don't speak perfect english. Don't go near Foxtons, they a c**ts and WILL rip you off. I've had bad dealings with one called Black Kats. Not sure if they are still around. On a monday, try and pick up TNT magazine. It's a free magazine targeted at aussies and kiwis, but there are loads of property listings and job listings.

If you fancy moving out to the countryside and working in a pub, you can usually find live-in pub jobs (ie accomodation provided). Word of warning. You want a minimum of $200 a week after tax. Any less is illegal. They also can't charge you for food in that. This lady provides an excellent service, but sometimes it is hard to get through to her. http://www.livein-jobs.co.uk/

Any other q's, just msn me.

Did his charismatic superpowers not single-handedly unite Black America into actually voting. As I understand it he go a lot of people passionate about politics and change.

On old Yorkshireman once told me that if an 'aitch' word starts with an 'A' sound then using 'an' is correct.

While clever, I doubt it would have many practical uses. Maybe for a advertising layout photoshopper to quickly prototype compositions, but not much else.

Yeah, I agree, Sun's VirtualBox is great. Dual booting is a pain in the arse. I like to have everything I use easily accessible once my computer is running. Since 3ds Max is designed for Windows, it's my only choice. I am running Windows 7 Pro and have run Ubuntu without fail in a Virtual Machine, Windows Vista and XP. VirtualBox also provides basic graphics card support IIRC nowadays, so generally it will run most things.

Uhh, only 3 people know the ACTUAL secret of Monkey Island. Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman.

as for the carnival thing... there is no actual proof that was ever the secret of monkey island.

I eated the purple berries.

God I hate the name blackberry.

The iTelephone and iPod touch can both view the forums properly... been doing it for years. You can also PLAY an adventure game on the iTelephone. How is that for technology hey!

No Monkey, Magintz is being totally fair. ezboard, The problem with Yahtzee, those were the good old days.

Kaioshin, i think you may want to have his upper body acting as a counterweight to his lower body, ie left shoulder down, a pixel or 2, right shoulder up a pixel or 2. Lengthen those arms, they look about 3 or 4 pixels too short!. The thumb connector thingy (KNUCKLE!) should be in line with the crotch. Give him a sliiiight curve if you think you can. It'll look far more natural. He looks unbalanced and too symmetrical at the moment. Lower body is great, but the upper body needs work. (I would draw an example but it's 3am and I'm tired) :p

Personally I feel this background has no defined 'stage'.

If you look at most other adventure game screens, there will be a limited silhouetted foreground, a 'stage' for the character to interact/walk/do his thing, and a background.

It's far too busy for my tastes and would be limited in walkable/interaction areas.

I also feel a fundamental 'feature' of adventure game screens is to have the character occupy about 1/3 of the vertical screen real estate. Your character would have to be over half of the VSRE to fit in with the scale of the scene.

Also, with staging, it's key to have clearly defined 'focus points' to illustrate what is important and unimportant in the scene. Because the scene is so busy, my eyes are in a whirlwind around the image looking for something to focus on. Having a character will help a bit, but having the player focus solely on the player characeter is a bad design choice IMO.

Artistically, the image is appealing in it's style. Great perspective work. I'd like to see the linework cleaned up a little though.

I'd say the DragonAge background and whatnot are up to par with the sort of promo materials that come with a games promotion. Perhaps it would help people's critique if you at least linked source materials I assume you picked up off the internet, as we would be better able to judge exactly what has been done.

What kind of feeling do you want to envoke through these images? I would imagine this game to be set in a cold environment of hopelessness and to be bloody violent. Is this the intended feeling?

The borders look a little cheap though. I don't think a 'wallpaper' really is in need of a border imo.

As for the debate whether photoshopping other images together is art or not, have you ever been to primary school? I'm pretty sure I did loads of collage in art classes in primary school. Gathering or taking photos/artwork and digitally compositing them is a key foundation of Graphic Design. Very few 'painters' will design a poster for a movie/game/whatever.

Good use of filters. Not noticable to me at all.

Nice job mate.

Hope you do well.

TGP and BTDT on steam is fantastic news for everyone. People who may not be comfortable buying from a regular webstore will otherwise be quite happy to buy off steam. Also, steam is great in that once the product is linked from your account, you are fine to redownload at anytime without hassle.

There's been a recent spat of adventure games on Steam... what with the Monkey Island release, the Space and King's Quest series being available... The Dig as well.

And Wadjet Eye just put on Emerald City Confidential on Steam a few weeks back... maybe the Blackwell games might make an appearance soon... I'm hoping so, because I've not bought them yet, and hope to eventually...I find it assuring to have games on Steam somehow, just cos I know I can download it again whichever computer I end up moving to or buying next...

AFAIK, it was playfirst, not Wadjet Eye who put ECC on steam, but still great news.

I really think the tail could use some secondary motion and the arms are too rigid.

It's not really a weird animation effect. That kind of thing, or better (since they couldn't use RGBa* which we can) is easily achieved in photoshop. it's all basic pose to pose traditional animation. It just is coloured with a blueish hue with a very bright white at the centre. I doubt 3D would have been used in these animations as it would have been far quicker to hand-draw this kind of thing. If you want to know how to achieve this effect, go read the Animators Survival Kit and the Illusion of LIfe. Then practice animation. Alot of animation.. Animate till all you can think about is how would I make this move and come up with an answer. Then go and animate. I'd suggest finding a book on anatomy before you go and do that though.

*RGBa = Red, Green, Blue + Alpha

From what I understand of it, you should be leaving brain at the door to the cinema. BUt that is a good thing. If you expect that, then you can enjoy the mindless silliness that entails. I have no knowledge fo GI Joe other than action figures. From my very biased australian viewpoint, it seems like something the military put together to encourage youngsters into the military.

Porkchop Sandwiches.

Nice job guys. Played through it once and uh... I got sent to jail. Haha. Really great dialog and fun while it lasts... THATS WHAT SHE SAID!

Hello Erin Robinson.

I was looking at the screenshots of your wonderful game Puzzlebots and noticed one thing. Yuriko. She looks deathly sick with that Jaudice-like yellow skin of hers. I would change it. I know its a stereotypical asian cartoony skin colour, but it may cause players to disassociate themselves from the character. Psychologically, people don't like sick people. I would post photos to demonstrate, but just a quick look on Jaundice on google images makes me feel ill.