Topics

[Arr!]

Arr!

Ahoy there, fellow pixel art enthusiasts. Sorry for the delay getting the new topic up. I was intending to post it last night, but the forums went down for maintenance, and only now have I reconnected. During the down-time I was contemplating what we should have as our next topic. I've been having a tough time coming up with something for a while, so I decided to just say 'Screw it, let's go with pirates'. Everybody loves pirates, right?

Theme:
Make me a sprite of a pirate. Man, woman, pet, whatever strikes your fancy, but they should be a potential terror on the high seas. I'm looking for swashed buckles and dogs of the scurvy variety.

Rules:
I want the sprite to fit the following technical criteria:

• The sprite must fit within 150x150 pixels
• The sprite's color count before transparency should be 32 or less
• Backgrounds and other props may be included, but will not be counted toward the final product. If included, please also include a separate image with only the sprite
• For others to learn from your process, those that wish to include WIP images will be appreciated (Again, not obligatory)

Feel free to make multiple sprites if you feel inspired, I'd love to see a lot of good entries.

I hope this isn't too tough, and I'm looking forward to a good turnout.

Well, then, swabs! All hands on deck!

Happy new year, AGS Forum boys 'n girls. The clock just struck here in Japan. I wasn't particularly active on the forums this year, but I'd still like to wish everyone a wonderful new year and wanted to make a tertiary resolution that I'm going to try to make some sort of lasting impression this year to make up for 2008. Good luck in 2009!

[Rules:]

Late at night, while everyone is asleep...
A shadow passes through the night...



Who, or what the hell is that?

Color it in, and show me.

Rules:
Color inside the lines, boys and girls
Use as many colors as you need.
Feel free to add a background, if you want.
Enjoy.

Arright, so I'm trying to improve on my pixelling skills, and I've done just about everything I can to finish this piece. It started out as just a 60x60 avatar (Seen on left), but today, since I had some free time, and was bored out of my mind in the evening of my birthday (Go me!), I thought I'd try and expand upon it.

I'm attempting to keep the pallette to 10 colors (11 if you include transparency), but still keep it as realistic as possible. I'm quite proud with it as it is, but I know that there's always a lot more that can be done to make something look good. I'm trying to avoid dithering, except perhaps in places where it'd look natural (Like on my stubbly cheeks and chin). Just wondering if anyone can give me any pointers on how to make it look even better? Should I expand the light areas a bit? Maybe do some dithering? I kind of suspect that I'm not using at least one of these colors to the full extent of its usefulness.

This is the sprite:


Based on this photograph I took of myself.

I could tweak it 'til the cows come home, and every little tweak has been an improvement (in my own humble opinion), but I'm willing to bet some of you could put this to shame. So please, help me improve myself. Thanks!

[Rethinking style]

Okay, as per usual, I've been procrastinating on starting a new topic due to a rather distinct lack of inspiration. I'm always flattered when someone chooses my work over all the other great and worthy entries, but it does mean that I'm shouldering the responsibility of thinking up a topic, typing it out eventually, and ultimately judging the subsequent competition. I'd almost rather leave it to one of the other winners, that way I could enter again (since really, the most fun part is actually making the sprites). But enough rambling from me, I have a sprite jam to host, and it's already late.

Anyway, this week's jam's theme is: Rethinking style

What would The Curse of Monkey Island have been like if guybrush was still done in the same style as Secret of..., or LeChuck's Revenge? What would The Longest Journey have been like in EGA? What I'd like you to do is take an existing game character and re-think them in a different graphical style (Preferably a commercial game, but independent is fine, if you provide a link to a screenshot displaying the original graphical style). To provide an example, some people have recreated the original Maniac Mansion characters in a vaguely Day of the Tentacle style, on a (now locked, consequentially) thread in the Critic's Lounge. This is an example of what I'm thinking of. By no means am I going to say you should be doing anything in any specific style - I'm even going to say that if someone thinks they want to do Sam & Max as a realistic Dog & Rabbit, instead of the Purcell style, that's their prerogative. So both graphical and/or stylistic re-imaginings are welcome - I'll leave that decision up to you, I just want to see characters as they could have been in another graphical style.

As far as technical limits go, I don't want to put too many limits on what you can do, but I do want you to stay within the limits of the graphical style you choose. Which means that if you're doing an EGA style character, I want to see a sprite that would've fit in a standard resolution for the era. Use common sense.

Good luck, my children.

Go, and play!

[Retro Sci-Fi]

I seem to be doing a lot of these lately. I mean, I'm not complaining - I'm really happy that people like my work - but it's a bit of a surprise. Either way, though. I have returned, yet again, for another round of the Sprite Jam. I've been not-so-secretly trying to work out the secret to making a successful Sprite Jam topic - Isometrics had a decent turn out, but seemed a little too limiting (or, depending on your outlook) too open-ended. It looks to me like people like the freedom to create, while still having the limitations of a set genre or theme. With this hypothetical knowledge in mind, I have decided to try this theme - though not entirely unlike the previous jam:

Retro Sci-Fi

The Science Fiction of Yesteryear: I'm talking about the old glorified image of the world in the new millennium, as seen by people in the 50's and 60's. Skintight mechanical counter-pressure suits, short skirts, bad haircuts, blinking lights, human-esque robots -- the whole shebang. I want a character out of that sort of continuum. The rules are simple:

The sprite may be no larger than 150x150
The sprite may have a palette of no more than 32 colors.

I think those dimensions give a lot of leeway, while still keeping it relatively lo-res.
For some inspiration, there's always one of my favorite game series, Space Quest, and if you're up for just a good read, check out Atomic Rockets.

Good luck everyone, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

[Anagrammed Video Games]

Hello again, everyone - Time for the Photoshop Phortnight once again. I am your host, SpacePirateCaine, and before we begin, I'd like to state the rules of the PP for anyone who hasn't read them before. So here they are:

What is the Photoshop Phortnight?

See this link:
http://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop/

And for other examples, see here:
http://www.worth1000.com/

The two above websites should give a fair idea of what is involved. Also you can check out the earlier Photoshop Phortnights in this forum.

Note: Photoshopping isn't drawing a completely new image -- It's editing images to create a new image, such as editing one image or combining several images.

Also, you don't have to specifically use Photoshop -- Paint Shop Pro, Gimp or any other ~equally good programs can be used.

Okay? Okay.

This time around, I've decided to use a tried-and-true PP topic, which I'm not sure has already been used on the AGS forums before. I was inspired by this particular photoshop phriday on Something Awful and thought that people who make adventure games in their spare time might just have a little fun with it, so I decided to steal the concept entirely. So here it is:

Anagrammed Video Games
Take the title of an existing video game and move the letters around to spell something else (in case you weren't sure what an anagram is). I'd generally prefer if the box art for the game is used, but if you'd rather use a screenshot, go right ahead. Photoshop the image to make the title fit.

Sound like fun? I think it does. And I'm hoping that you all agree!

Edit: Fixed the link. Forgot to write url=.

[Post Apocalyptic]

I'll admit, I'm a huge fan of the Fallout games. It's been ages since I actually played either, but I was pretty excited to hear that Fallout 3 is being developed. All thoughts about how well Bethesda will do at recreating such a successful franchise aside, it's pretty exciting, I think. It wasn't just that the story was great, and the game played so well, but it was the setting: Post apocalyptic Earth. So to coincide with the release of the first Fallout 3 trailer (Tomorrow, as of this writing), I've decided that this time around, I'd like to go with the theme:

Post Apocalyptic

I want you to pixel me up a sprite of a character that would fit well in a Fallout-esque post apocalyptic setting. So give me something appropriately dusty and dark-futuresque to enjoy, so that even if Fallout disappoints, as so many people seem to be assuming it will, there'll be something to cushion the blow.

And now for the boring technical rules:

Sprites may be up to 150x150 pixels
You may use up to 32 colors

For inspiration: The official Fallout 3 website.

Enjoy!

About a year ago, I had the distinctly interesting experience of working professionally in the gaming industry. I spent two and a half months as a "Quality Assurance Analyst" for Konami Digital Entertainment. That translates to "Game tester", essentially. I would spend eight hours every day sitting down at a desk with a TV, VCR, PS2, XBOX, Nintendo DS and PSP, and 'play' a game ad nauseum, walking against walls, trying to jump out of the level, and so on in order to make the game as bug free as possible. It was far from being a hugely important role -  I was hardly a key figure in the creation of this product, but I did my part. However, one thing that happens with being a tester in a big company is that you aren't always working on something good.

There have been many, many worse games in the world than Xiaolin Showdown, but there are just so many games that were better. For a number of reasons, some more overt than others, this game was slated by the media, recieving an average of 4.5 (bolstered only by the fact that for some reason, one site gave it a 7) and has made it onto the do-not-buy list of more than one game review page.

Now, is it necessarily wrong that I feel a strange sense of vindication from seeing a project I was intimately involved in completely lambasted? I was among the first to admit that the game was un-good - it was a featureless clone of better games, was blander than burnt toast, the ending is essentially non-existent and above all, you can't possibly lose. But despite all of these things, I am faced with a dilemma: My name - my real name - is in the credits. When people play and become very, very disappointed that they even possibly shelled out the paltry sum it costs to rent a video game in the western world, my name will show up - even if completely ignored. I am involved with something so very awful that I, one of the very few people who should be proud to have their hands in it, am oppositely satisfied with the fact that nearly everybody who's played it disliked it.

I think this stems partly from the fact that during the making of the game, I fought long and hard against the game's developers themselves to make the game something I actually wanted to see. The hard-headed game designers at Bottle Rocket entertainment refused to listen to the earnest cries of the testing team to fix the glaring issues with gameplay, fun factor, and everything else. And thusly, when the game was released in November, everyone else played it, and it was summarily torn apart like so many extras in zombie movies by (nearly) every reviewing site online.

So I pose my question: Has anyone else here been involved with something intimately, that they were glad to see fail? Any sort of project that they had only enough power to do what they could to make it that much less bad, and otherwise just watch the train plow into the side of the apartment building?

[Isometric pixels]

Welcome again to the Sprite Jam - hope you all enjoyed the last one; I was pretty fond of the topic, as there was a lot you could do with it. This week, I'd like to give people the opportunity to flex their creative muscles in a slightly less common (in the adventure game circles, at least) environment, so I offer you this week's topic:

Isometric pixels

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what isometric art is, this website offers a pretty comprehensive description of the art form. And if you'd like some inspiration, feel free to have a look at some of the art of our very own, showcased on pixeljoint here, here and here (Apologies for not asking for permission ahead of time).

The rules are simple, and as follows:

Your sprite must be isometric
There is no size limit, but wide or long sprites must be divisible to fit on an isometric grid
The sprite may have a maximum of 16 colors

Otherwise, as long as the sprite fits those three rules, feel free to do whatever you'd like with it. I'm looking forward to seeing what people come up with.

[Things that haven't been inventory items... yet]

Good day, boys and girls, and welcome to another edition of "The Sprite Jam". I am your host, SpacePirateCaine, and I am here to present this week's topic. So without further ado, here it is:

Things that haven't been inventory items... yet

I want to see some new and interesting inventory items: Stuff that hasn't been combined or pixel-hunted before in a currently-released game. Go ahead and take a look through this thread in the Popular threads index and choose one item from the list that truly hasn't been in a game yet, and turn it into a sprite of max 50x50 dimensions, 256 colors. If you think that there's something else that deserves to be sprited up, that you haven't put on the list, make your sprite, and add it to the list. But I want it to be something new and interesting.

The competition will run from the moment of this posting until midnight, March 25th, Japan time. Good luck to everyone who enters the competition, and I'm looking forward to seeing a good turnout this time.

Ready? ...go!

[The sprite!]

Ahoy once again ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Animation competition. The rules are simple, but here they are are in case you forgot.

• A sprite is supplied, with a theme.
• Participants must use the given sprite for their animation.
• Each competition will last 11 days.
• The starter of each competition will decide on the winner.

The winner, who will decide on the next competition's theme, must also supply a sprite.

And now: The sprite![/i]


Isn't it cute?

I have no idea what this little guy's supposed to be, either. It seems to have turned out to be some kind of bird... thing... To be honest, I made the sprite in about three minutes. But it's up to you, my intrepid animators, to show me what it is, and what it does in its natural environment.

So go forth! And animate!

Ahoy.

I've been working on redoing a bunch of the sprites for a revived game project I am involved in, and figured that if I was going to put the effort into a complete rework of in-game graphics, that I should do it right.


This is the lead character sprite (3/4 view), with and without hawaiian shirt, and I'm attempting to make it look good, while keeping a relatively low pallate and keeping it easily animatable. Wondering if I could get any tips on how to make it look even better, and perhaps optimize the image a little more.

The game itself will be 640x480 resolution, and though we're going to be using a high-color pallate, I still like to work in the range of 15-20 colors per sprite, if I can.

I may, in the future, be posting more sprites from the project, so I'll just keep this thread for that purpose.

Ahoy ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Animation competition. The rules are simple, but for the sake of posterity, I shall post 'em right here for you to read.

Ahem:

• A sprite is supplied, with a theme.
  
  
• Participants must use the given sprite for their animation.
  
  
• Each competition will last 11 days.
  
  
• The starter of each competition will decide on the winner.

The winner, who will decide on the next competition's theme, must also supply a sprite.

And without further ado - the sprite! (Many, many thanks to Steve McCrea for his wonderful sprite)


Meet Mika Huy, reporter for Reality-on-the-Norm's local newspaper, The Realiser. Some of you may already know her. Well I thought I'd help contribute to the RON community a bit by featuring a RON character in the competition, so we can have a little more animation, and with any luck, help to spread the word about this great series. There are no limits to what you can make her do, the only thing I require is that it be a loopable animation that starts and ends with the above picture as frame 1. Make it as long as you want.

That is all.

[What's this about:]

What's this about:

• Participants will draw a comicstrip following the given theme and rules.
• You are allowed to use any technique in your drawing. But if you use computer you are not allowed to copy and paste ready pictures.
• Each competition will last 15 days.
• The starter of each competition will decide the winner.
• The winner will decide the theme for the next competition.

Unsung sports

I've read a whole lot of comic books about sports, but it seems to me that 99% of the time, it's something like baseball or basketball - all of the sports comics today seem to be latching on to the more popular sports, and the greats, like sumo or whitefish jigging, seem to fall through the cracks of the proverbial comic world's massive floor. So your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to draw me up a comic themed around a less popular sport. What sport it is I'll leave to you, you can even make up a sport, - just avoid the big, highly televised sports that have been turned into a zillion comics already.

Now draw, pardner!

Good day, Ladies and Gentlemen, hope you're having a good new year. I bring to you now, the Music competiton for Mid-January.

"An offer he can't refuse"

The goal of this particular Music contest will be to create music to be played during a scene featuring an old-fashioned 'Godfather' style Don. We're talking a large man with a little moustache and a white suit. One who could have you killed with a wave of the hand by huge, angry men whose middle names are 'the'. Yet, he retains his dignity, and is a fair man, as long as you don't step on his toes. You know the type.

[What is the Photoshoppin' Contest?]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first Photoshop competition of the new year. I am SpacePirateCaine and I shall be your SUPREME DICTATOR for this competition. For the sake of posterity, I will now copy and paste the rules for your perusal and enjoyment:

What is the Photoshoppin' Contest?

See this link:
http://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop/

And for other examples, see here:
http://www.worth1000.com/

The two above websites should give a fair idea of what is involved. Also you can check out the earlier Photoshop contests in this forum.

Note: Photoshopping isn't drawing a completely new image -- It's editing images to create a new image, such as editing one image or combining several images.

Also, you don't have to specifically use Photoshop -- Paint Shop Pro, Gimp or any other ~equally good programs can be used.

And now, without further ado, the topic.
Honest game boxes

Admittedly inspired by This photoshop phriday, from Something Awful, the name of the game is to name the game appropriately, in a way that the prospective buyer would know what they were getting themselves into. I'm not going to put limits on the medium or genre, as long as it's a game (That means it could be anything, from Loom, to Need for Speed to Monopoly - you be the judge).

Not the best topic in the world, perhaps, but could yield some interesting results. You have 15 days. Go nuts, my friends.

Hey there,

I was working on an entry for the September MAGS competition, but due to extraneous circumstances, I was unable to make the cut, as it were, but I still wanted to share something with the class (Albeit this has nothing to do with MAGS, and it's just an excuse, all things considered).

This tune here was an attempt at creating a piece of music combining a little bit of lounge music with a funkdafied breakbeat line thrown on top for good measure. I actually composed it quite a while ago, and this is an upgraded version of the original itself, but I thought I'd like to get some opinions, and perhaps criticism on the song from you folks here.

It's, for all intents and purposes, a theme for the comic series that I'm writing, and I have an intent to throw together an entire album, should I find the inspiration and have the ability.

It cuts off somewhat abruptly at the end of the track - it's intended to be part of a 'symphony' of sorts, so that is intentional, but otherwise, especially in the fields of balance and/or what-have-you, I'm wondering what I could do to turn this piece into something magnificent.

[Size: Anything under 300x300.Color Depth: 256 colors.]

Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sprite Jam. I'm SpacePirateCaine, and I'll be your host for this week. The theme for the jam this time around will be:

Hobbies of Mythological Characters

What that means, put simply, is a sprite depicting a mythological character: be it Hercules, The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, Odin or Hastur, the King in Yellow spending a little time off, maybe playing a sport or just relaxing with a good book. We know what they do when they're out being famous, but how about when they have a little time to themselves? Cthulu in a smoking jacket with a monocle reading the Sunday newspaper? You never know.

Size: Anything under 300x300.
Color Depth: 256 colors.

Good luck, all, and I look forward to seeing the entries this time around.