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Simplifying the shading even more is not an option. The outlines would have to compensate for the lack of shading. This is done very nicely in the screenshot you've posted, but those are hand-drawn characters. No outline renderer I've tested was good enough to give similar results, especially when the models have to be animated. You just don't have enough control over the lines, so you can only get a few basic outlines, otherwise lines tend to appear and disappear in places where you don't want them, making animations look unnatural.
So the characters are rendered with a simple shader, having two shades of each color, which is also very common in comics and cartoons.

EDIT: However I can play around with the light setup, shadow size and contrast to give the character a more flat look. I'll see if this leads to any improvements.

Thanks everybody!

Happy Birthday, Problem!  I'd sing for you, but we both know what that sounds like....

*uploads the files to youtube*

Xubuntu might also be a very good alternative. Not quite as lightweight as Lubuntu, but Xfce is a very nice full-featured classic Desktop environment - very straightforward and easy to customize. Lxde (Lubuntu) is relatively new and sometimes a little rough around the edges (though I haven't tried the latest version yet, so it might have improved). But both are very nice and should be easy to get used to when you come from Windows XP. And of course you can always try out live DVDs of various desktop environments.

[jwalt]

Concept: jwalt. I think it's the most unique interpretation of the theme.

Artistic Execution: This is a difficult one. I'll vote for gingersnap, closely followed by Soxbrooker and ThreeOhFour.

Playability: Soxbrooker. Lots of possibilities for puzzles with three inaccessible locations on a single screen.

I'm on Kubuntu right now. Compiling the AGS engine is easy, but you can also run pretty much every AGS game with Wine. If you manage to set up timidity, you might even get MIDI sound with Wine.
You can also use the AGS Editor with Wine, but you'll have to install .NET via Winetricks before. It does work, but the script editor sometimes crashes for me, so you'll probably have to use an external editor to edit your AGS scripts. Everything else seems to work very well.

Would love to see an FMV adventure game in 2014.

Here you go: http://www.texmurphy.com/

Thanks! I'm really curious how you'll approach the "ancient civilization" theme. And I guess I should add Anastronaut to my ever growing 'to play' list, I completely missed that one.

Would be glad to see more of your work as well 

You will, there are several projects in the works. And you might want to check out the AGS Bake Sale. [/offtopic]

Yay, this looks like something I want to play! Very interesting theme and nice style.

Or... "People using guns on other people kill people".

Life needs more unhandled events.

use gun on people -> "It doesn't work!"

I really like these kinds of puzzles, and this one was pretty clever and original, though maybe a tad too hard. Those translation puzzles and map puzzles really fit into the game and are well integrated into the story.

There are few other puzzles in BS5 that were funny, but pretty far-fetched (getting the keys from Bijou, cheering up Pearl...). For me, these kinds of puzzles can kill a game, because they rely on characters acting in a very unnatural way, and often they don't contribute anything to the story.

Anyway, I think BS5 did a lot of things right, and I really enjoyed it. But I think it was a dumb decision to split the game. The complete game is very good, but the first part is pretty weak on its own and stops just when things are getting interesting. They should have waited to release the complete game at once.

Wow, that's great!

I can conform that it works for me. I'm using Kubuntu (14.04) - I started the AGS Editor using Wine, and successfully compiled a test game for linux. But I had to change some file permissions because the starter script, ags32 and ags64 were not flagged executable. After I had done that, the test game worked like charm.
If you want, I can run some more tests on different Linux distributions.

Thanks for your feedback guys, it's much appreciated!

As for the character:

And the only thing I think would make him to blend better in the BG would be if he had the same light source as the BG (from the windows to his left), instead of receiving light from the upper right.
Since it's a 3D character, you could just render him with light from the left, and using different views according to the rooms light source (or would that be too complicated?

Yes, that would be possible, but it's not practical. There'll be too many different rooms with different lighting setups - it would be insane to render different views for all possible situations, considering that we already have hundreds of high resolution sprites just for the main character and his basic animations.

Oh, and get the character to wear a different vest. Green and purple? 

Haha! I guess you can tell that it's not his office.   The character you see here will visit many locations, and most of them are not purple

[the following background is not my work.]

First of all, I don't want to take credit for something I haven't done, so let me express that the following background is not my work.

Okay, so what is this about?
We're a small team making a game (surprise!), and we'd like to get some feedback on our graphic style. Our background artist UnLady is a little shy, so she asked me to post this background for her. She'd love to get some feedback on colors, shading, composition or anything else you can think of:

Spoiler

[close]

...and after that, please have a look at the room again, but this time with a character I've created:

Spoiler

[close]

Yep, it's the same 3D model that I've posted here a few days ago. We worked really hard to create a consistent style, so we'd like to know what you think of our 2D/3D combination? Do like the style? Does the character blend well with the background? Is there anything we should change to make it better?

[> "Yes, I know this man, he came here recently. I can help you find him, but those are some serious accusations you make. Do you have any proof?"]

I don't think we should tell them that he is our guest yet. Let's see if they have any proof first. How about this:

> "Yes, I know this man, he came here recently. I can help you find him, but those are some serious accusations you make. Do you have any proof?"

This gives us more options. Tell them that Rorik is here, or (if we want to protect him) tell them that Rorik left the kingdom.

Very nice! The levels look quite natural already. I love roguelikes, so I'd definitely play one made with AGS.

We'll use hand-drawn 2D backgrounds. Our background artist does a fantastic job, and we're working hard to create a consistent style despite the different techniques. So the approach is quite similar to BS5, but with pre-rendered sprites instead of realtime 3D characters.

Thanks, Chicky!
I like the big eyebrows, but you're right about his eyes in this rendering. They look better in motion, because I animated his eyelids for the idle animation, so they don't always stare like that when he stands around.

EDIT: And here's the latest version of his walkcycle:

     

Hi again,
over the last few weeks I made some great progress. With every new 3D model I create, I learn new modelling techniques. The 3D model from this topic has improved quite a lot, but now it's time to declare the character finished and move on. But before I do that, I want to show you the final character, as he will appear in ou just in case some of you have any additional feedback:



Any last-minute suggestions?

Roughly 5 or 6 hours.

[Magic Object]

> Use Magic Object to fix WHAM's harddisk and save the kingdom.

+1