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There are usually a lot of late entries in these competitions.

Much slower for me, now. Maybe yeterday was just a good day...

If you win 3x in a row, can you NEVER win again? or you just have to sit out for a while?

I've read some good Poe and some bad Poe, but i've never seen this one so i'll check it out. We can at the very least use it as inspiration.

Time is up, we're working on a "trapped on an island" game. I'll post what I have of the story so far later this evening.

You're trying to put too much little detail into him. Fingers... finger nails... But these things make him look goofy.

Zoom out a little bit, the biceps on his arms are merging with the creases of his elbows, you don't need that many lines, it makes his arms look weird. Also, his arms rest at an unusual angle, bring them in closer to his body. I can't tell if he's wearing a bandana or very bad wig. You could add more detail to the most visible part of his body, the shirt. His legs aren't bad at all, but they're boring. They disappear, even on different olored backgrounds. His shoulders feel chunky, too.

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I don't have the time to draw something in paint right now but I think you can tell which of these "pixel" curves is more smooth. Pixel curves follow a logical process of larger to smaller. In some cases you will have a mixure, but in general you can smooth out a curve by reorganizing how they cluster. You can see that in the first pixel curve I drew the line goes from 3px to 3px to 2px to 1px to 2px to 3px. In he second pixel curve the line goes from 3px to 2px to 3px to 1px to 1 px to 3px.

If I'm drawing a shoulder, or a couch, or something quite round, i'll go with the first. If i'm going with something that blends angular and curvy (like a car) the second would probably work better.

So give him some bigger details, don't sweat the little details, change the way his arms rest, change his bandana and liven up the contrast on his legs and boots.

I really like your use of colors on his skin, they go very nice together. His face works quite well and I like that his belt actually looks like a belt, something that is actually harder than it seems. Good run so far.

Sometimes I get this:

PHP Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in C:\Web\yabb\Sources\Subs.php on line 321

...Never got that before. When i'm not getting that, things run slightly slower than before, but it's hardly a bother.

O_o Well that's an unconventional turn in the plot. After what I wrote myself I was waiting for something completely different!

BTW, who's Liz?

Tuomas, you're a mind reader.

I don't know if it's amazing or sad that Prog knows about an obscure zombie movie from the 80s... i'll go with awesome!

Well shit... If I knew someone was going to spend time on their animation I wouldn't have just done some half-hour thing...

I have you Ryan. =P  (Nice Ani, in all seriousness though.)

I set out with the goal of trying to push the rules a little bit. Instead of outlining the shape I made the outline from negative space. The picture is of a girl kissing the grave of someone, after she's laid some flowers on the grave. I threw a sun into the background and played around with "sun beams," only for my personal experimentation.

Whatever happened to the voice over competition?

Yukon:

In my research, I've found that these small islands are not inhabited by natives. There's just no eco system to support them. Any island that has "natives" usually has a modern settlement as well, meaning that it's a simple matter of finding out where it is.

It's must more likely that if you were to run across anyone it would be pirates, political guerillas or poachers. All of whom are very dangerous, though not very common.

Plus, having a small time limit means that creating a complex tribal trust system, and story line means MORE characters, MORE animations, MORE backgrounds, etc...

Having one guy alone on a boa, then later an island means a total of about three gameplay background and one sprite. Maybe more for cutscenes. Simple is good and it doesn't get anymore simple than one man trying to survive.

As far as the puzzles. Mountain lions and bears aren't going to be on a small tropical key. Scorpions, poison snakes and agressive crabs are, however.

I've outlined some plot elements that I hope to share with the writer, whomever that may be, and one of which is that during the storm a fork of heat lightening breaks the mast, this is the only effective way to disable the functionality of a Bermuda Sloop. There are two sails, you can't lose TWO sails. You can however lose the one mast they're connected to. The size of these ships vary, but on a personal vessel that can be manned by three or fewer people, space and simplcity is a premium so they will have a small cabin at most.

I like the idea of him trying to set up an alarm system, or some sort of barricade to protect himself, but for the most part I think that building a survival game and pulling it off with informed knowledge and doing so well is going to be a nice game to sink into. If the contest was about innovation and we had more time than I would be all over a trust system, tribal politics, branching story lines, but with little more than two weeks to pull this off I think we need to focus on simplicity.

Keep those creative juices flowing! I need more ideas from you, you're about the most active guy on this post so far.

After researching ocean survival here are some things one might need to contend with:

Hyperthermia. Hyperthermia is the heating up of the body from external sources. Differing from a fever in which a fever is regulated by the body, in fact it is CAUSED by your body in order to allow your immune system to function more efficiently and also to create a negative environment for the bacteria/virus the body is combating. Hyperthermia on the other hand is not regulated by the body and is more dangerous than a high fever. The average human body temperature is between 97-99°F/36-38°C. Around 103°F/40°C conditions are life endangering. At approximately 106°F/41°C your cerebral neurons begin to deteriorate. After several hours, you become brain dead, essentially your brain can no longer function. This may include a loss of control over major organs; such as the heart and lungs, in which case you will die within minutes. You may also lose only pieces of human functionality. With modern medicine (life support) machines can keep you ave in hopes of medicine being able to repair these functions. Being trapped at sea however means that prolonged contact with the sun may ultimately result in your death even if you are well fed and watered. This is called a "Heatstroke" or "Sunstroke."

Use in a Game: sing a points based system, the player can do things to reverse heat stroke. Cooling off with water,
wearing a hat, sunscreen... etc.


Dehydration. Being lost at sea, either stranded on an island or afloat, one of the major concerns is dehydration. Salt water is not safe for regular digestion and can lead to life threatening conditions, therefore the procuring of freshwater is important for survival at sea. There are three common methods for collecting rainwater: Rain catch, Condensation Trap and Boiling Desalinization.

Use in a Game: A rain catch is a simple enough contraption for the player to set up, a bucket on the ground, a shirt or a rag that can be wrung out. Boiling Desalinization is the most difficult, most complex but also the most readily available method of collecting freshwater, in that; a rain catch requires rain (though it rains nearly everyday in the tropics) and a condensation trap requires time. Boiling desalinization is essentially a condensation trap though instead of waiting for water to condense/dew to form/evaporation to occur through solar energy a man made heat source forces the evaporation and the steam is then collected and contained for consumption. It would seem to me that all three methods could be implemented in a game:

Rain Catch


In Black is a bucket. The bucket is filled with urine (yellow), Seawater (aqua) and Leaves/Greenery (green). The Sun and it's rays (red) force the water to evaporate and condensation appears (pink) on the lining of the plastic bag (blue) which is attached with rope, rocks or the ends are placed under the bottom of the vessel/bucket. The condensation collects and falls to the lowest point of the bag, being weighed down by rocks (brown) and collects in the broken champagne bottle your Dad brought to celebrate (orange)

For a boiling distillery, replace the bucket with a can or a pot filled with the same material, then add a fire and take away the sun. It's more dangerous, less efficient and more difficult t perform, you can have fresh water at any time day or night, however. EDIT: for the boiling method, a shirt or a rag may be used to collect the steam , then wrung out into a container... this will not work with the solar method as the nature of that method is slow and the evaporation will escape from the cloth.


Food. The most abundant source of food in the ocean is going to be fish. Fish often make the underside of a slow moving vessel (a sailboat, for instance) their home as the cool, darker waters are comfortable and algae/plankton collect on the bottom of most vessels, follow this down the food chain and you may attract larger  and larger fish, some which are easier to catch than others... beware this maybe also lead to sharks... or dolphins! Fish are far from the easiest food source to catch though. Most likely one will be able to retrieve giant conchs and giant sea snails. Sea Snails are easy enough to prepare, boil them in water until they float. Remove the entrails and feed on the meat. Conchs are even easier to find and prepare. Simply grab the conch, smash the outer shell and cut away any meat that isn't a bright white in color... you may eat the meat raw with no ill effects. Green sea turtles (the kind without beaks) can be found feeding on Turtle Grass throughout ocean reefs, grab this suckers back and haul him away. You can flip him over and cook him right in the shell... be human and kill him first, this is about survival, not torture. EDIT: Lobsters can also be found in many tropical reefs. Once on land, most small Keys or Islands have an abundance of lizards, giant roaches and often birds nests. Most tropical Keys will have palm trees and bamboo, while bamboo serves no food purpose it is an extremely useful material. Green coconuts have quite a bit of liquid inside which can keep you hydrated... they have also been known to cause diarrhea in some people. Brown coconuts are harder to get into and has less liquid, the meat however is what we think about when we think of coconuts and is a relatively nutritious and tasty treat.

I think the use of food in this game is obvious.


Noteworthy things:

Most small tropical Keys will have a collection of "garbage" washed up on their shores and materials from shipwrecks.

Many small Keys will have been used by "deep sea poachers" in the past, some of their remnants can usually be found left behind, including cleared areas lined by rocks used as methods of keeping roaches and scorpions away.

At night, there is no light pollution and it is generally bright enough to see for quite a distance.

After spending many days as sea, people have been known to get "stillness illness" and will feel as though they are still at sea, while on land.

Bamboo burns for a long time.

It rains several times a week in the tropics, especially at Dust and Dawn.

When drifting at sea, usually one will drift in one direction during the day and another during the night... luckily the days are considerably longer than the night.

On the vast ocean, there are times when there are no waves... the ocean is dead still. There are also times when there is no wind.

One of the biggest challenges survivors face is a psychological one. They usually start to feel claustrophobic, even on large ships, due to the vastness of the ocean surrounding them. Some survivors report bing able to actually SEE ships on the horizon, only to have them fade away, a maddening occurrence. Lone survivors have the added strife of not having anyone to be heroic for , no one to protect and no one to talk to.

Small Keys dot the ocean landscape. They can range anywhere from dozens of feet to about 100x100 meters, any larger and they are considered islands.

Coral reefs can be dangerous by themselves. Strong as steel they can easily destroy the hull of a ship in seconds. They are sharp enough to kill sharks and even small fish, and can rip the skin and break the bone of any man.

Scurvy, or a vitamin C deficiency, will not become a life threatening issue unless it is prolonged, by the psychological manifestations such as depression and laziness may begin to surface.

... i think graphics gale is not a very comfortable software to work with. would it be blasphemy, to do pixel art with photoshop...

Absolutely not. You can use whatever program or methods of creating art that you like, as long as it will function and it's enjoyable to look at, no-on will really mind! I use Photoshop, MS-Paint, Deluxe Paint Animation and Pro Motion. Depending on what it is that i'm doing, or the look i'm trying to achieve I switch between these programs.

The means are less important than thends. It's the bottom line, the final product that we care about, so don't try to appease the pixel gods by working in a bad art environment, they would much prefer it if you did what you were comfortable with!

If it's nnected to the wall like a series of nerves, why not try for a more organic look as opposed to crysalline. It'll be easier to draw and it would be a cool mesh of bio-technology.

I'm in on sailboat story.
Also, I'm quite positive I'm able draw bg's for this one. It's not like anyone else volunteered for art... 
To save time, I probably 3D-model everything I need and retouch to look 2D, just like I'm doing for latest BG's for Henri.

For some hardcore drama and explanation to somewhat bizarre situation, let's say that protagonist had a quarrel with his/her dad, they didn't talk to each other for years and they finally decided to do something together, to get together again. And then storm happens...

This supplies us with dramatic cutscene idea for game intro...
And ending. When they meet again, they understand how much they really cared for each other, or something... what do you think? Too cheesy?

I'm going to start working on characters and story. I like that story about them coming together, I tried about 3 dialogues so far and at some point it all comes off as weird. I'll keep writing. Worst case scenario, we can recycle any graphics we make if we ultimately decide that a different game would be a better path, but I really like this concept.

I say the stranded on a boat one.

I have some problems with the original concept. How does a young kid know how to build a flare? Do you know ho to build a flare? Can you fix a radio? I can't. Let's bring his age up. For practical purposes I'll say 25. Now, why are you out on a boat? I was thinking, ~Maybe they're fisherman~ but fisherman don't usually go out that far, not just two of them. Okay, how about a rich father and son? Well, it's hard to get stranded on a boat with no motor, how about a sailboat? A Rich father takes his son out on a two man sailboat for his 25th birthday. A storm hits, the son is scrambling to get life vests, seat cushions, anything! Next thing he knows, his dd is gone, the sail rips off/mast cracks and the storm tropical storm is gone, just as quickly as it came. He's on a giant boat, with no means of propulsion... no father... just a small island, barely an island, in the distance. Too far to swim, especially as weak as he is, but the boat is drifting slowly toward it. In the mean time, he must build a flare to try and attract attention, he must build a contraption to collect condensation, for fresh water. He has to get food, somehow, fishing, shooting a bird, diving in the water and grabbing a turtle, whatever. He tries to open up communications with... well, anybody.

Finally he's on the island. Now he must build a fire, he's been freezing for days. He must collect food. He mus build a shelter. His water machine is destroyed, he must build a new one or die of thirst. He gets through to someone but can't describe where he is, they say they will get help. Finally, his father (who managed to grab a life vest and float for a day, was picked up by a man driving his cigar boat, whtever...)

Happy ending to a dangerous tale. I think we can get away with this because the CORE CONCEPT is identical to an escape the room style game.



Though I quite liked my idea of being trapped inside your own head as a metaphor for having to escape a room, and what's more compelling than a comatose father trying to reain consciousness in order to save his daughters life? Cool as it sounds, it's not very deep game play wise. I think the design of the island game has the potential to be the most rich game concept suggested.

We have no more time to debate. STATE YOUR MIND NOW! April 30th to May 1st; then we start working on the game concept with the most votes!

Fly riding a motorcyle gets a human splattered on his windsheild!

Maybe we should bring back the voice over competition, that way you could have some material to flex your vocal talents... hell that's be fun