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I'll just throw my two cents in and say that I think the 50% looks neat too.

Bah.  Who needs feet, anyway?  Besides, it'd (1) make walkcycles easier and (2) be unique.



I took a stab at reshaping Mr. Outline.  Really rough job, but hopefully it'll give you some ideas.

Really digging the style of these sprites.  Cheers.

An amulet that lets the main character change into different animal forms at will.

I really like the color scheme you've got going on here.  I would suggest making the shadows from the columns darker to make the scene even more dramatic.  Also, the trashcan/cylinder thing near the counter doesn't have a shadow, and part of the counter would probably cast a shadow on the other part of the counter.

I do have to say that this background is much improved from the backgrounds you've posted here in the past.

I find a picture of a car from the right angle on Google Images.  Then I scale down the image so it fits in the background, and save that version of the picture.  After that, I usually trace over the outline of the smaller image, and use the bigger image as a reference for the highlights/shadows/etc.

Some people would consider tracing over a scaled-down image "cheating," but I prefer the precision of that method.

I'd be interested in seeing this kind of interaction in games, if you were willing to put in the huge amount of work it will probably take.  You wouldn't be wasting your time.

Finishing all the backgrounds is more a necessity for my current project, as it is nonlinear, and the player can basically go anywhere at any time.  If you have a story that takes your character to a variety of different locations, you may only find it necessary to finish all the backgrounds of the first area, code them, and then move on to the next.

However, I find it useful to work on all the backgrounds at once so I can be sure they match each other in terms of style, color, amount of detail, etc.  Also, it gives me concrete evidence of progress, and when the time comes to code the game, I can worry about changing little things in the backgrounds without completely redrawing them because I've planned ahead and know where all the objects and interactions are going to be.

That, or maybe I'm just stalling because I've never coded a game before 

I'd say you should finish coloring the room, then draw one frame of the character completely, so that you can make sure it fits in the background with regards to scale and style.  If you have a generic humanoid, you won't be able to tell if the colors and style of the character are right.

Also, I find animation very difficult, and more importantly, unneccessary at this stage.  I would recommend you plan all the "rooms" and characters in your game, and then work on them.  You can worry about animation, dialogue, and cutscenes once you've gotten to the actual coding part of the game.  For now, you should just build up all the resources you'll need.  It should make it much easier to assemble the game in the end, if you already have all the pieces.

I should mention that I haven't completed a finished game yet, but I'm using this method to work on my own game right now (in production for two months) and it's worked for me so far.

My last three suggestions were kinda boring.
Fortunately, I came up with two much better ideas:

Hair in a can.  They used to advertise this stuff on infomercials, but it was really just spray paint that stuck to your head.  What if you could really spray actual hair (or fur) out of a can and onto any object in a room.

Thought bubble.  Use this on a puzzle you're having difficulty with, and a "Daydream" minigame opens up, with the problem and its solution represented in some abstract, surreal way.  Win the minigame, and you'll figure out how to solve the puzzle.

Portable cloner (works on animals as well as humans)
Black light wand (for seeing hidden messages)
Lie detector

I'd say you're ready to move on to coloring.

Looks good so far.

You said it could be "completely abstract," so I couldn't resist taking you up on your offer:



It's KhrisMUC.

Interesting topic.  I think length is subjective, based on the player's expectations.  If a game ends unexpectedly, it's short.  If it tells a complete, engrossing story or otherwise reminds the player of a professional game, it's full length.  Anything else falls somewhere in the middle.

What I want to know is: what about sandbox games?  Say you have an adventure game with only two or three necessary (but difficult) puzzles.  However, the designer has gone out of his way to include optional actions, animations, and writing to flesh out the gameworld - things like swimming in the pool, prank calling people on the phone, killing characters for no reason, etc.  Things that have no impact on story or points, but just exist to keep the player entertained.

A "hardcore" player would ignore all these possibilities and focus on finishing the game with 100%.  He would probably consider the game short.
A more casual player might while away the hours just trying random inventory items on objects in the game.  Based on all the interactions that further immerse him in the gameworld (and all the extra time he spent doing the interactions) he might consider the game medium length.

Like I said, it's subjective.  I just wonder if game reviewers would bother trying out random inventory items in a game.

Yeah, I joined deviantart.com back when it was a (relatively) cool place to be, but lately it seems the whole site has been taken over by 14-year-old emo-addicted Naruto slash ficition writing spazoids.

I mean, those people have always formed a portion of the site's population, but now it seems they are the majority.  And all the "serious" artists seem to be leaving this sinking ship for the "next big thing."

Am I totally offbase on this, or is deviantart really getting as bad as I think?  And if all the artists are leaving, what site are they going to?

Next: a terrible unicycle accident.

"Has anyone mentioned a self-defeating "Smelly Dog" scented air freshener?"

Nope, but it's a great idea.

More:
quiz show buzzer
megaphone
crystal meth

Well, there goes my chance of winning.

Great stuff, Illustrious!

Strange cave formation:



Outline rotated (nothing in the rules against it!) but otherwise unchanged.

In black and white mode, because I was bored:



Next: the movie 300 rendered with stick figures

"A potion that floods all the world after being spilled" - now that's a powerful item.

Also, the pokemon idea is quite cool.  Shame about the massive copyright infringement it would require to utilize it properly.

My contribution(s):
A gun that makes things black and white for some reason.  I dunno, maybe if you made a Rainbow Brite game where you played as Murky and Lurky or something.
Another gun that changes the room perspective from normal to a flat 2D platformer-style perspective (like the upcoming Paper Mario game).  It would be most useful to use this idea with the AGS platformer module.
And finally: some object that allows you to see the preliminary art for the game - use it on objects, they become lineart, backgrounds become rough sketches, characters revert to earlier designs.  Not really useful, but it might be a cool 'behind the scenes' kinda bonus for those who beat the game or find 'teh ooltiMate seekret Item!!'