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Worst. Year. Ever.

(That I've personally experienced).

Personally, I'd stick a noticeboard between the bookcase and the door.  Having books that close to the exit would result in easy knowledge pilfering, and thieves don't need any more education.

The plant, and the globe for that matter look odd, as they're of a different style to the rest of the clean lines used.  This will probably change once more detail goes in (assuming you intend more detail, it's a little sparse at the moment).

The shading around the skirting boards looks off, too.  I'd suggest picking a light source (or several), and adding shadows for the whole room to suit.

The brown object, desk perhaps, in the bottom right has some line wierdness on the go.

The bookshelves on the left are more cartoon-like than the rest of the image (perspectively, etc).

I've no comment as per the ceiling.

For a year and a half, I was addicted to City of Heroes, the MMO.  Unfortunately, I quit my job and moved to a new town, then my subscription ran out.  Once I've got an income, one of the first things I'll do will be re-sub the two accounts I had, and continue saving the days.

Aside from that, I'm semi-tempted to get a month or two of WoW, just for the slow pace I took on the trial.  Not really worth it in the long run, though, as I don't intend on teaming with other people, unlike CoH.

I fire up the Sims 2 every now and then, usually when there's an expansion, and play that for a week or two, then give up until the next expansion.  I often play Evil Genius for a few days at a time, but always end up restarting each time and only getting halfway through.

Then there's Jagged Alliance 2.  My all time fall back plan.  Whenever I've got nothing else to play, I'll restart this, and play intently, on the hardest level, planning offensives (with several exit strategies, back up plans, reinforcements, etc) and excuting them win pin point accuracy.  If real warfare was turn based, I'd make a fine squad leader.  Until the final 10% or so.  I get distracted, forget my ultimate plan, and end up restarting the game yet again.  I think subconciously there's something stopping me finishing it, so I'll always have something to rely on when other games have bored me.

Pro Motion is quite popular.  Deluxe Paint Animation thing's s'posedly good if you can find it.  Paint Shop Pro comes with an Animation Shop.  I think Image Ready might be animation.  There's quite a few out there.

As for the character itself, I'm not sure what to say.  Nice hat?

A broken jaw for an English workman is awful.  He wouldn't be able to stop for cups of tea whilst charging you labour time for drinking them.

His ability to patronise you would be disadvantaged, too.

"..And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me. Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you" (Luke 22: 19 -20).

Jesus wants y'all to celebrate his death, not his birth.  Somewhere else there's a passage about God wanting all days equal, so he's worshipped equally all year round, and not placing importance on a single day.

It's doesn't matter if Xmas takes the Christ out of Christmas, as it's not really a Christian celebration.  Pagans had it first, and Jesus wasn't even born in December.  Christians just adopted the day as something to celebrate.

As for the details of Christmas? Presents were from Saint Nick feeding hungry kids in a storm.  Santa's red and white outfit? That's from a Coca Cola advertising campaign (he used to traditionally wear green).  I'm also pretty sure folk in Jeruselum 2000 years ago didn't stick decorations on Pine trees or build snowmen.

If anything, Christians should be busy preparing for things like Easter or Lent or whatever, instead of faffing about worrying if Xmas is Christian enough.  Not to mention how many lonely people kill themselves at Xmas, I doubt that's what Jesus would want.

I'd combine Use and Take into just one action, and place it where the Take button is now.  I don't like the way USE is vertical, with the rest horizontal.

I'd also buttonise the arrows on the inventory window, as they look a little flat compared with the rest.

The S in Save/Use also annoys me, too.  It's a pixel too wide compared with the style of the font.

I cracked the forth egg above the pan and a black liquid just splashed out and I just threw it away. I just gave up on the Idea and microwave-d instant noodles.

It's not god's or satan's or the tooth fairy's wrath that you should be worrying about.  It's the deep running conspiracy led by the makers of instant noodles.  They don't want you having healthy foods, so they've set about poisoning the chickens..

..But, seriously.  You can't honestly think "Oh no, God's punishing me" without a few deciding factors beforehand, for instance:
1. God exists, and you "believe" in him.  IE, follow some sort of teachings or formed your own on what he considers acceptable.
2. You actually care about said deity's opinion of you, and care about the consequences.  IE, hell, purgatory, whatever.

Lets say you did believe, and were worried about his opinion of you.  If you gave the deity any kind of credit, you wouldn't be sinning in the first place, out of fear of being punished, and in most religions, that punishment comes after death, not after midnight.

I think you're jumping to a clichéd and extreme conclusion, instead of just thinking "Oh, Eggs are bad".  I don't get distraugt when I find mould on my bread, I just buy new bread.  When a battery runs out, I don't think I'm being punished, I just replace the batteries.  If I stub my toe, I don't cry out to the heavens for forgiveness, I just look where I'm walking for a while.

I don't mean to sound cruel, but honestly? I think you're a bit of an attention seeker, and somewhat Emo.  For example, you seem far too willing to share that list of sins with us, than most people would.  Maybe you should add Vanity to it, whilst you're at it.

Personally, I'd opt for 320x240, or 640x480, or 800x600.  Only as my monitor is set for a 4:3 ratio, and I find it easier to draw stuff at that ratio.  If I made a game as 320x200, then I'd be fussing about whether the characters suddenly look too tall compared with the images in my head.  They'd look fine to everyone else, but it would annoy the heck out of me.

The main thing's to pick what you feel comfortable with.

(I'm actually planning backgrounds to be 640x400, but I'm going to letterbox the whole thing for 1. a widescreen movie feel, and 2. somewhere to put GUI stuff when it's needed).

His legs don't seem to land in the right places, and it's not very smooth for starters.

What was it drawn in?  Considering the look of if it, I'd guess it was something Flash-esque.
If it was something like mspaint, then I'd suggest you try Flash, as it would suit your style and make things easier.

Anyhow, on to the walkcycle.  Start with 2 frames, with the legs at their further from each other.  IE, the legs make an inverted V shape.  Then make 2 more frames with one leg touching the floor, and the other in the air, moving forwards.  Then add in-betweens as you go, until it's smooth enough.  (If the software you use has an onion-skinning/light-table feature, then use it.  It's very handy).

For the process of explanation, I'll use this walkcycle I knocked up ages ago.  (It's simple, and I'm not a fan of paintovering).


Note the guy's left foot, and how it hits the ground in front of him and moves back at a relatively common pace.  Also note how his right foot does the same, but in opposition to the left.  If you looked at his foot prints, they'd be even spaced apart.  [left, gap, right, gap, left, gap, etc].

When looking at Lif's steps, his right foot reaches a lot further forward than his left.  His footprints would be spaced more as pairs. [left, 2x gap, right, gap, left, 2x gap, right, etc].  With some fiddling, it might be made to work if he had a left foot in a cast*, or a used a zimmer frame, but at the moment it's just looking odd.

The arms are moving in the correct directions, just a little jerky.  Personally, I'd put a little less movement into them, as it seems he's stuggling to move forwards, and is having to put more effort into each step.  IE, lunging, just walked for miles and is tired, or wading thru treacle.

As I've never tried animating something with a tail, I'm going to refrain from making a comment on the head/tail positions.  I'd have to have many attempts at it to figure out how they'd move.

Hopefully that should give you something to go on with for now.  Only other thing I can suggest, after practicing it, is googling for walkcycles, there's quite a few hints, tips and guides floating around on the web.

* This rings a bell for some reason, I've no idea why.

This thread, http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=33101.0 was mostly about scummvm/portable devices like the gpxx/ds/psp etc, but I'm sure it mentions mobiles.

Even if it doesn't, the gist is still the same.

"No saying its impossible or that its a silly idea."  It's definitely not a silly idea, as mobile gaming is quite profitable.  As for impossible, I'd have to say it's as close to it as to make alternative software a more viable option.

*If* I suddenly gained the ability to stop time, which is impossible, but hypothetically speaking your original situation got me thinking.

Why would I rob some convenience store?  If I wanted to steal, I'd hit a place that had more money to make off with.

More importantly, if I could freeze time, I'd be far too busy putting people into various poses for comedic effect.  Or tying people shoelaces together.  Or giving burly men makeovers.

I'm not going to critique the walkcycle itself, as for me it's just a series of images.  Like Nacho says, animating it will get a better response.

I will, however, give you an insight into how I do walkcycles.

1. Does the character have baggy clothes and/or long coat.
2. Remove aforementioned bloat and concentrate on the structure.
3. Re-add bloat when walkcycle's ready.

I've had various 3d programs for years. I'm yet to figure out how to make an odd-shaped box.  Truth is, the things baffle the hell out of me.

As for speed of making artwork, I'm currently attempting to experiment with vectored, cartoon sprites for a hi-res game.  It's not going as easy as I expected it would.  Walkcycles that would've been simpler in lo-res are just becoming a painful process.  It's taken me about 8 attempts over 3 days so far to figure out the basic sketch-work for left and down walks.  The character's using a deformed and exagerated structure, so everything has to be in the right places or it will look like it will topple over at any moment.

If I was using lo-res, I could fudge together the basics and nudge some pixels here and there until it worked.  Hi-res, and it means I'm redrawing whole frames, just to decide at the end that it doesn't look right.  However, with pixel-pushing, I'm a fuss pot, and would spend days working on the shading and features of a 1 frame sprite pose, only to find that it's a bit too big or small, and looks horrid on a background.

Personally, I'm going with the hi-res option as I can probably churn out things faster in the long run (each attempt is getting better, and I'm getting better at the actual drawing part of it too).  Truth is, I prefer the look of lo-res, but it'd take me forever to do anything.  That said, when it comes to shading the sprites I might make another U'turn.  Then several more when it comes to backgrounds.  I'm still not sure whether to use MIDI or ogg files for the music, either.  Both of those have their own advantages and disadvantages, too.

Hm.. when I started this reply, I had a specific point to make, but I seem to have lost my train of thought.  Er..  Bye, I think.

Some people have argued to me we should spend the money on the environment, and my argument is "Get the pressure off earth, so we don't harm it any more then we do." Of coerce, we should do research into alternative energy, because, the resources we have can't sustain over the long term.

Since when did rocket fuel become an alternative energy source?  If we leave en masse anytime soon, we'll do even more damage to the earth and leave nothing for the stubborn folk who don't want to leave or the poor folk who can't afford to leave.

I have 4 blue cups, which I've got my mum filling with tea, in relay.  No milk, two sugars.  I've tried lacing that tea with tequila in the past, but that wasn't one of my finest hours.  Three I bought, and one I robbed from work.

As for output, I'm finally starting to begin a project*.   As of writing this, I'm currently finding things to distract me before making walkcycles in Toon Boom Studio.  It looks rather daunting.  The 378 page manual's not much of a comfort, either.

*More Details in this thread.

Looks like a cross between non-blonded George Stobbart, Quasimodo and Jimmy Hill.

It's rare that I post, and even rarer than I'd actually start a thread, but needs must as a something or other..

I've finally decided to bother working up enough enthusiasm to begin a project of sorts.  However, I've already hit a wall and am in dire need of help.  No, I not asking for people to make the thing for me, and this isn't a recruit a team type of thread.

Let me start with the basic premise.  An episodic adventure, featuring a pair of private detectives, in six parts.  It's not a rip-off of the latest Sam and Max games, it's actually an old sitcom plan I've had knocking about for years.  Since I'm not in contact with any of the folk who were involved with the film and TV industries anymore, I've opted to re-plan it as a set of adventures.

It was originally six half-hour episodes, each one loosely based on a movie.  At the time of it's conception, there were no full-blown comedies about murder mysteries, but the murder mysteries had a few comedic moments in them.  (At least, none that I was aware of).  There was a niche for it, so some planning went ahead.  The main characters were developed, and some movies were picked for parodying.

It's not been too difficult to adapt the plan for making games, in fact it's probably better as budgetary issues are no longer a concern.  A few of the movies are still appropriate, but there's two gaps in the series that I just can't seem to fill.  Which is where you folk factor in..

•    Episode 1 is currently empty.
•    Episode 2 is based on the Maltese Falcon.
•    Episode 3 is also empty.
•    Episode 4 is based on the Hound of the Baskervilles.
•    Episode 5 is based on North-by-Northwest.
•    Episode 6 is based on Kiss Me Deadly, and in some respects, Repo Man.

Episodes 1 and 3 has left me drawing a blank, despite spending most of the day trawling through imdb.com, and seeing the same movies over and over and rejecting ideas again and again.  It's become quite annoying.  For now, let me fill you in on the basic themes and movement from episode to episode:

• Episode 1 is undecided.  The plot revolves around the main character, with his "sidekick" as a small role, just to set things up for later.
• Episode 2 is a search for a valuable object that's been stolen.  The main character drives most of the story.  The sidekick leads the story near the beginning, but doesn't show up after that.  This one could quite conceivably have been a remake of The Pink Panther, but I'd rather not parody a comedy.
• Episode 3 is undecided. It involves both the main and the sidekick, solving the mystery together.  The sidekick is still sort of learning the profession, so is with the main character a lot.
• Episode 4 is more supernatural case.  The sidekick leads the first half, and the main character takes over for the second.  Two major locations, to add more variety.  (The most famous and recognisable of the Homles stories).
• Episode 5 is a case of mistaken identity, with a road movie type feel.  The action centres around the main character, in a possible cross country chase, and allows for more shorter, obscure and differing locations than all the other episodes.  (Could have been The 39 Steps).
• Episode 6 is a more sci-fi orientated case, with a mysterious object/MacGuffin plot device.  The action centres around the sidekick.

So, Episode 1 needs to set up the characters.  He's already a private detective, and it's not his first case.  For the moment, he works alone, but has known the sidekick for a while.  IE, the sidekick doesn't give him the case.

Episode 3 however, generally needs a Sherlock Holmes sleuthing duo type plot, but not actually Holmes.  Baskerville's is my preferred Holmes option, and I'd rather not have two movies that are too similar, but more on that later.  A buddy cop movie *might* work, but I've not managed to find anything to pique my interest.

The episodes will only be *loosely* based on the movies, but only up to a point.  I wanted people to look at the sitcom episodes and recognise where the basic ideas were from.  I'd like to keep that recognition in the games, but the games will allow more creative freedom.  As long as the plot is similar to the movies, up to a point, I'll be happy.  A sort of "inspired by Such-and-such" feel.

Only things I've been semi-happy with for those empty slots have been Chinatown and The Dead Pool.  They've not jumped out as instant winners, though.  Everything else I've considered has been too similar to one of the others or just hasn't fitted with the theme/mood/whatever of the series.

Most sci-fi movies, horror movies, comedies and romances wouldn't suit the characters/settings.  Nor would time travel or other fancy or absurd plotlines.  Think normal-ish plot.  Think 20th century.  Think Earth.

Right, on to your job:
   Find me a movie (or two, with a couple of sentences explaining the choice).
   Failing that, a very general plot idea like the above to get my, or other people's, thoughts moving.

I've been driving myself ever so slightly insane, trying to figure out what to add as the missing movies, and I really can't face it much more.  I'd also like to have the full set before proceding so that I can plan the series as whole.  So, I'm turning to you lot for some much needed assistance.  Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.



(Also, in the hopes that this doesn't escalate to something it shouldn't, could we please avoid making this into some sort of general "Movies that could be a Game" thread.  And yes, I've already ruled out Weekend at Bernie's).

Cooperative gameplay may be a trend, but imagine this sceranio.

Two players, need to do say 3 puzzles each before the story can advance.
You're a whizz at adventure games, and finish quickly.  You're teamed with an imbecile, who has taken ages to finish the first of his/her three puzzles.
You're starting to get bored, so they check a walkthrough to solve the second puzzle.
You're expecting the story to move on, only to find out they've taken a break for dinner.

Cooperative gameplay works when the games are designed for it.  Point and Clicks are designed more as an interactive movie.  Giving two people remotes for the VCR would just end in chaos.

That classic from the forum has been used outside the forum, too:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751186/

As for an actual idea, I once had a semi-plan to make a game based on the TV show Red Dwarf.  Each series had an accompanying book, which contained lots of material that didn't make the shows, so there's plenty of storylines and jokes to make something from.  I'd have considered persuing the idea if (like ManicMatt) my art style would've suited it.

Another idea I planned, but then stuck on the back burner was a Sketchbook Adventure.  Each "Room" was really a page of a notepad (complete with coffee stains, doodles, etc), and the line-art-ish main character had to get from page to page in an effort to escape.