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I shall miss the good old MS Paint graphics, but who am I to stand in the way of artistic development?

Anyway, I can always just go play Me Go Store! again.

[Lack of Participation: Why]

I didn't want to go through the fuss of uploading a file, so I thought I'd just post my entry here.  I hope that's alright.

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Lack of Participation: Why
by Oddysseus

The main reasons for the lack of participation in writing competitions are threefold: first, the nature of the community they take place in; second, the rules of the actual competitions; and third, the nature of creative writing itself.
   Since the AGS community is primarily oriented around the creation of games, most competitions involve making actual, usable game content (sprites, backgrounds, music, etc.)  However, the writing competition tends to focus more on short stories and general literary pursuits rather than usable game content i.e. dialogue, plot structure of a game, etc.  This limits their appeal in the AGS community.  The competitions may be more popular if they were posted in a place that focuses on short stories, like a creative writing forum.
   Secondly, arbitrary word limits can prohibit creativity more than they stimulate it.  A lot of entries in past competitions seem artificially inflated to fit the word counts, and would have been better if they were shorter.  High minimum word counts scare away casual or busy writers.  Or, some people may come up with a great, short idea that they don’t feel would benefit from being stretched to fit a random word count.
   Finally, creative writing is more dependant on ideas than, say, sprite creation.  While a sprite artist needs only a basic character concept to start the physical process of spriting, writing is entirely based on ideas.  There are no computer tools or reference material to provide shortcuts or assistance.  Each sentence must be dragged out of the author’s head one by one and molded to fit with the whole.  This requires a degree of dedication that a random contest on the interwebs may not justify to some people.  Or the topic of a specific competition may be uninspiring or too vague to generate the seed of an idea.  Or an author may just be going through a dry spell.
   All of these reasons and more may contribute to the lack of actual participation in writing competitions on the AGS forums.  However, they do not diminish my enthusiasm for reading other people’s entries.  When I joined the forums a year ago, the writing competition had been put on hiatus because of an apparent lack of interest.  I hope the current melodramatics about lack of participation do not lead to the competition being killed off again.  The writing competitions may not attract the crowd that the sprite jams and coloring balls do, but they are still a valuable catalyst for creativity in the community.

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414 words.

As far as Uwe Boll goes, I don't find "Criticize my movies, and I will punch you!" to be very inspirational.  But, I did find Bloodrayne to be surprisingly enjoyable - some of the fight scenes were legitimately entertaining, and a lot of the rest was so-bad-it's-good (like how Ben Kingsley basically sits in a chair the whole movie).

I would also like to go on record as the one person who liked 8MM.

And, in a vague attempt to somehow be on-topic: Hey, what's the deal with those 'Slow Children at Play' signs?  Self-esteem issues forthcoming.

I was surprised to see this thread rise from the grave, and also to see how high the bar has now been set.
I don't know how I can compete with "You're a butt trying to find a new body," but I'll give it a try.

These are some ideas for one-room games I came up with after getting burned out on my first (unfeasibly huge) unfinished project:

"Robo, Your Post-Apocalyptic Pal"

You play as a robot designed to help humans with their daily routines: feed them, clean up after them, etc.  Except your humans got killed in a nuclear blast.  Being a robot, you don't really mind, and continue to feed canned food to their well-polished skeletons.  Gameplay would consist of you doing various menial chores like opening canned food (without a can opener! difficulties abound!), re-glueing the skeletons of your deceased masters, and defusing old bombs that litter your otherwise charming kitchen.
The game ends with you taking your owner's remains for a walk (in a little red wagon), revealing that your house is the only remnant of civilization in a charred, dead landscape.
(if the idea sounds familiar to you, that's probably because it's basically stolen from a sci-fi short story I read back in seventh grade... I think it was by Heinlein.  As they say, good artists borrow, great artists steal etc. etc.)


"The Great Cape Catastrophe"

You're a sidekick to a generic city-dwelling superhero (I'm thinkin... the Land Shark?  the Puncher?  the Masked Marmoset?) anyway, you're back in action after almost being blown to bits by Smithereen, AKA the Mad Bomber.  Your fearless leader doesn't think you're prepared to go back yet, but you aim to prove him wrong.  The problem?  Your only supersuit has like 39 bullet holes and knife wounds in it.  You've got to make another suit from random crap in your apartment in time to hit the midnight patrol, or he's gonna team up with someone else (probably that super slut from the Teen Morality Brigade!)  Do you have the courage, the ingenuity, and the sewing skills necessary to complete your task?  Probably not.


"Man's Best Friend"

This one's a little bizarre and creepy, but maybe someone besides me will find it amusing.  You play as the loyal pet dog of a very depressed young man.  In fact, he's so bummed that he's decided to commit suicide.  You must do everything in your power to cheer him up, or you'll never get another bowl of that wet food you like (oh, and your friend will be dead, too).  So, chew up his suicide note, play tug-of-war with his noose, turn on the tv, or just fall on your back and act cute - anything to get your owner's mind off of the crushing pit of soulless drudgery that his life has become.

Okay, internet - your turn.
Give me your best shot!

Next: Something unexpectedly rising from the grave.

@ProgZmax- I know a joke when I see one, but don't underestimate the gameplay potential of a joke idea.  The premise of Leisure Suit Larry sounds like a joke: "Bald loser in a leisure suit tries to score with hot women," and yet they managed to wring six games out of the concept!

And as for eliminating a "core audience" with my other idea, I could give two [sticks] whether my game is popular or not.  I never intended for children to play it- it may take place in a child's imagination, but suicide isn't a concept children should be exposed to, metaphorically, alegorically, or in any way at all.  The game would be clearly labeled as containing mature content, and if that means less people playing it, so be it.  As you point out, there are thousands of alternative ways of presenting the same material, but I personally enjoy the 'dark and cotroversial' route (as evinced by my posting of an idea that could be summarized as 'Abortion Quest' in the post directy above yours).

Well, that was intellectually stimulating, but back to the thread at hand!

I found this little gem called Pixel Land while wandering back through the forums; I'll link to it rather than re-post because it comes with pretty pictures! (Pretty pictures? Yay!)

Another of mine:

"Hardboiled Adventures"
You play as Phillup "Pulp" Fikshin, a freelance adventurer/private detective/mercenary.  Together with the young Penny Dreadful and his on-again-off-again love interest Tequila Barbell, he is part of the Highwaymen, a roving band of do-gooders fighting against the evil Underground Overlord and his Global Crime Syndicate.  See him in these thrilling adventures:
Pulp Fikshin Fights the Saucy Sirens of Saturn Six!
Pulp Fikshin vs. the Filthy Foreigner
Pulp Fikshin and the Robotic Dinosaur Ninjas from Beyond Dimension X
(and my personal favorite):
Pulp Fikshin Punches God in the Face

Basically, the games would emulate old adventure novels and early comic books, full of swashbuckling and completely devoid of logic or scientific accuracy.  I was thinking the games would be released as different chapters, but the chapters wouldn't be in chronological order and would only loosely connect to one another anyway.  I figure, the more slapdash and nonsensical the plots were, the better.  I considered opening the concept so that anyone could write their own game in the collective universe, but since RON already exists and is so well maintained, there's no use muddying the waters.

One of those novelty cans of peanuts that has fake snakes inside that spring out when you open it.  ...only it contains REAL snakes that immediatey latch onto the jugular vein of the person you use the can on.

I personally don't care either way, but thanks for the link.  It's always interesting to see where modern misconceptions come from.

I enjoyed the little teaser trailer.

It's always nice to see people using AGS for things besides point-n-click adventures.  Thinking outside the box and pushing boundaries and shifting paradigms and all that.

Also, congrats on finishing a game! I'm very jealous glad for you.

Next: another needlessly complicated popculture reference that will grind this activity to a halt

Next: a stickfigure doing something stupid.

Sorry I haven't posted again sooner- I got my wisdom teeth taken out recently, and the experience proved to be more debilitating than I anticipated.  To make up for my absence, I'll post a few more of my ideas than usual.
But first, two more pithy gems from Eggie-

You play as a demon. Work your way up the sin ladder, first possessing a morally weak person than eventually winning the game by corrupting a nun or something.

You play as a wacky evil sidekick who has to keep his/her wacky evil master out of trouble.

(I love how open and flexible these two ideas are, in addition to their simplicity.  They really encourage a storyteller's infusion of unique and creative characters and ideas.  Two people could make completely different games based on the same exact premise.)

Anyway, my turn:

"The Cure"
The game is set in a dystopian future where women are put into two categories: Domestics, the servants of men and rearers of children, and Breeders, who exist only to squirt out babies so the Domestics don't have to do any of the dirty work.  You play as a Breeder who escapes from a secret military experiment to create the perfect soldier.  If you can't find someone to give you the 'cure' (an abortion) in the next seven days, the genetically-enhanced superbaby will punch its way out of your uterus, killing you.  (Alright, so it's a bit heavy-handed, but name another videogame that deals with abortion.  You can't, can you?)

"Undone"
You play as a detective investigating a murder in a small city in India.  The 'hook' is that you think the female victim was your lover in a past life.  As you investigate the murder in the present, you have flashbacks to your past life with her, and begin to suspect that you knew the killer in your past life too.  But the question is, who?  Could it be her ex-lover, your jealous friend, or her mentally-unbalanced sister?  What would those people look like in their present incarnation?  And even if you figured out who did it, would you be able to find enough physical evidence in the present to prove it?
A little gimmick I also thought up was that, since you had been an animal in one of your past lives, you could understand their behavior and notice things that others would miss, like a bird flying towards the killer's hideout, or a dog digging up a clue at the crime scene.

"Pimp Quest"
This one really writes itself.

Well, time to wrap this contest up.

Two fine entries this time.  Mirek's was very creative and he even went to the trouble of drawing a background, but I think I'll go with Ilmion, since his animation was a little more complex and I just love watching those cans bounce off that rail.

Sorry, I won't be drawing trophies since there were only entries. You both did very well, though.

Good luck hosting the next competition, Ilmion!

Happy now?

Well, it seems like a decent figure for rough drawings.  If you want to recruit an artist to help with your game, I'd recommend drawing storyboards with your figures to give the artist a rough idea of what you want for animations/cutscenes/etc.  It also shows that you're dedicated to your work, and not just out to get someone to make your game for you.

If you're looking for a critique of the drawing itself, its not really fleshed out enough for that.  Draw a face, elaborate on the clothes (cuffs, pockets, etc.) maybe try some shading and then we can give you some more detailed critiques.

@lo_res_man: I agree that leaving Earth is inevitable, in light of the facts that: 1.The sun will one day die 2.Another Ice Age may eventually hit 3.A meteor could strike the Earth at any time.  However, I think most of those things (certainly 1 and 2) are thousands of years off.  In the meantime, we have to develop alternative fuels and population controls and figure out how to continue to live on the Earth if we want to live long enough to develop spacecraft that can approach the speed of light/warp drive/whatever.

@Tuomas: "I can't help but thinking how all those money and time could have been spent in something that is important. Like ice cream."  Actually, the type of ice cream called Dippin Dots was developed with technology developed for the space program. Still think it was a waste of money?  Yeah, me too.  But people never considered the ancillary benefits of the space program. For instance, the Russian's attempt to keep up with U.S. developements in the space field probably accelerated the disintegration of the USSR and brought an end to the Cold War sooner than would otherwise have happened.  Plus, as previously mentioned, we got Dippin Dots. And those memory-foam mattresses.  Pretty sweet.

Hooray!  This thread is officially a success- an idea posted here has inspired someone else.

I'm glad I could help.  And as for your idea:

Spoiler

I like it.

[close]

I haven't played Lost in the Nightmare yet, but people on the forums seem to like it, so I'm sure your next game will be just as good.

Keeping this thread rolling, here is a very stylish/high-concept idea from Esseb, courtesy of teh forumz:

You must investigate a murder in a mansion. There are 5 endings total but they're fixed and you must play them one after another. Finish the game once and you can replay the game, but now the game has changed subtly and clues you saw last time around are now gone and the killer is a different person. Each time you finish the game a playing card is flipped around to display the portrait of the killer. Each subsequent play through would get weirder and weirder untill the last one when you find out you were the killer all along.

The ending scene shows you as an old man in a dark prison cell playing with cards. 5 cards lying in front of you. If people only bothered to play the game through once it would just be a standard whodunnit and that would be that, no harm done.


And another of my own:

"Mr. Shmeck is Going Mad."  Basically, you're crazy and you forgot to take your pills.  The game is set up with timers, so that every minute or so that you don't take your pills, the background changes.  The background has five stages: 1.normal, 2.normal but fuzzy, 3.things start to look like other things (your refrigerator grows eyes, etc.) 4.Things become other things (phone in the kitchen becomes a phonebooth, pet cat becomes a tiger, etc.) 5.dark and creepy and evil.  After stage 5, if you don't take your pills within one minute, you die of a heart attack.
The trick is, you can only solve certain puzzles by intentionally going a little nuts.  For example: the door leading outside is locked, but as you get 'crazier,' a mouth appears on it and eventually grows large enough to crawl through.  Once you pop the pills, the door is still locked, but you're outside now.  So then, the question is: if you're sane now (as you should be, because modern medicine solves everything!), how did you get through the door?  Are you really crazy, or just seeing into another dimension? (cue Twilight Zone music).

What do you think? Would it be possible to script something like that?

Thanks for sharing!  That's what this thread is for.

And with that in mind, I'd like to point you to this thread over here.  There are two great ideas in it that I didn't feel like chopping and re-posting because they are so big (and awesome).  I'm talking about Hitler and the Duck : The Election Scamper, which is near the bottom of the first page, and ProgZmax's Reggae Reggie and the Alien Freebasers of Vulguss V!, which is at the top of the second page.

And for my own contribution:

A game set in the imaginary fantasy world of a little boy.  One day, the boy commits suicide, which casts a dark shadow over the fantasy world and allows nightmares to take over.  Can the boy's imaginary friends save their fantasy home from these demons?  Can the fantasy world even exist without the little boy to give it form?  Will the imaginary friends ever get over the grief of their loss?
Etc.

I look forward to hearing more of your ideas. 

For this animation comp, you must animate this little guy right here:




What's he shooting? Bullets, lasers, mini penguin rounds?
Who's he shooting at? Nazis, aliens, Canadians?
Who will be victorious???

Feel free to alter the sprite however you want.  I used a photo for reference and made him tiny to make animation easier, but he's really basic and ugly.  Hell, redraw him from scratch if you want to- just keep the basic pose.

The competition officially ends Christmas day, but I'll probably be too busy unwrapping gifts to remember, so you could probably sneak a late entry in if you felt like.

If this comp gets at least three entries, I'll make trophies (that will be much better than this crappy sprite, I promise!)

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[EDIT] For those of you who can't convert PNG to GIF, I've now uploaded a GIF version.  So get animating!

Since I'm picking the next topic, I declare myself winner of this comp by default!

Seriously, after spending many arduous hours minutes creating my first animation ever, I don't even get a pity win?  Well, I'll show you.  My topic will be the bestest animation comp EVAR!!

It's not about performance or nostalgia.  Pixelation is a legitimate style choice that forces the artist to do more with less (often leading to better results).  Personally, I love it.