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[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!

[today]

So it would seem, though I still think ProgZ's Han Solo is awesome. I want to see Day of the Jedi - A Shane Stevens production in the GiP thread today. Anyway, thanks Mad. I'm happy you liked my little paranoid android. He doesn't like you, but don't let that bother you, he doesn't like anything - that's his GPP's fault.

I'll get started on the next competition very soon.

[The Herbaliser]

I've got a few bands that I throw on to my MP3 player often. A few of them, I've written about on my MOG, such as The Herbaliser (mostly for their jazzy instrumentals) and Clazziquai Project (primarily for sentimentality, and that they're just pretty good K-pop). It all depends on what kind of music you want to listen to. If you want to hear some good music, I'm on a Cinematic Orchestra kick, right now. Their newish album, Ma Fleur is pretty damned good, in my humble opinion. Depending on my mood, or what I'm doing, I listen to a lot of different music - I was listening to Hybrid the whole time I was running in the park tonight, but I listen to Silje Nergaard's Be Still my Heart on repeat while doing artwork a lot of the time, recently. I also listen to Ne-Yo if I want something a little more funky, or Earth, Wind and Fire if I want something a lot more funky.

The way I find most of my new music is through that very same music-blog site I've been referencing, MOG. You can blog if you want, or you can just use their MOG-O-MATIC software to track your own music listening habits, and get some (surprisingly accurately good) automatic recommendations.

You may wanna check it out. It's kinda nice.

Not me - this is Mad's contest - though I have my own favorites for the win. I dunno about everyone else, but my money's on ProgZ's Han Solo, even if he's got the old Harrison Ford squint, he's a dead-ringer. I'd love to see my name up among the Grand Slams, but I don't think my Old-skool Marvin quite measures up. And Markbilly, I'd like to see you put it in here anyway - Mad might not choose to rate your sprite in the competition, since it's past the cut-off, but I'd really like to see another entry here anyway.

We've had a good run of jams recently - lots of entries, which I'm really diggin'. Regardless of the winner, I'm looking forward to the next one.

Hey there, Josh - I'm happy to see the project's still swingin'. Just thought I'd throw another 'ahoy' in your direction, since I haven't heard back from you in ages about the animation stuff. Send me a PM if you're still interested.

I think I can understand why people are getting out of shape, here. Proximity: The way you're talking to Nostradamus, and others, you're belittling their hobbies and their passions. I can really understand what you want to say - when people criticize something that you've put a lot of work into, it's usually a pretty tough pill to swallow. Still, from an objective point of view, you're coming across as very antagonistic. I think anyone involved in independent game design is allowed to consider themselves a 'real' gamer, regardless of their play style. Some people would consider someone who consults walkthroughs or asks for help not a 'real' adventure gamer, either, for example. The point is that it's not kind to speak to people in that manner. When you make a disparaging comment about another person, even if you don't intend it to be malicious, it usually comes across that way.

If you feel justified with your puzzle, Proximity, please feel free to leave it as is. There are many schools of thought on action sequences in adventure games - hardcore LucasArts fans generally shy away from them by and large because they believe that games should be a purely cerebral experience, affording you as much time as you need to work out puzzles whereas Sierra-ites are usually more ready to accept puzzles that put them on the spot. Either way you slice it, however, in my experience, the gaming community here usually seems to prefer games that give you a little extra time to think, in the case that they put you in life-or-death situations at all in the first place. You could apparently very easily fix some of the 'problems' that have been pointed out if you're willing, now that you've released your game and have as much time as you need to improve upon it.

And Nostradamus, if you don't mind me saying, I think you're taking what Proximity said a little too seriously - as I said above, I'm more than willing to acknowledge that his posts have come across as antagonistic, but when someone takes criticism badly, I reckon that it's better to just shrug your shoulders and be happy knowing that you've said your peace without needing to get into a big argument about it. You've been handling it pretty well, considering, but when a debate turns into a pissing contest, quoting how many years you've been playing adventure games, and arguing about who's more of an adventure gamer, it starts to sound a little childish.

Now, this is an announcement thread for a game - congratulations on releasing your game, Proximity - it's a pretty big and difficult task to accomplish (and one I have yet to do, myself). Especially one with a little meat on it, such as yours has. I'm sure it was a great learning experience for you - there are a few things that could've been ironed out, like the dialogue issues (with repeating lines that have become obsoletized by in-game actions), and it would appear that some members of the public would prefer that cutscenes be skippable. I'd love to see the issues addressed in an updated release, or see them worked out in the next game you release, which will be a pleasure to play.

So there I go, acting like everyone's clucking mother hen again, but for Pete's sake, this is a generally friendly forum. Now I'm going to go and hide in the Competitions and Activities forum, like usual.

I beg to differ on that point. Assuming that the walkable area is limited to a very narrow horizontal path - ideally right along the edge of the water, so that the character will be in line with the main gate when they get to it, instead of having to walk toward it diagonally, I'd say it would work just fine. Now, if KidCrazy attempts to give the player a lot of y-axis movement, it would lead to some very large issues and necessitate extreme scaling, but if some simple rules are followed, and with a slight bit of lenience on the player's side, it should provide no problem.

InCreator - that is awesome. It actually took me a little puzzling to work out exactly what game you were anagramming (River City Ransom, n'est-ce pas?), but The end result was that of me being immensely entertained. I'm not entirely sure if Technos didn't at one point at least think about making a love sim starring their beloved Kunio there. And if they didn't... Well god damn it, they should have.

That helped to add even a little more brightness to an already good day. Thanks - and to the rest of you, keep 'em coming! Competition's tight as it is - make it even harder to decide!

That extremely skewed angle actually does get the point across much better. I think the stylization is great, and it definitely smacks of gargantuanity (Which really should be a real word). Kind of a gates of Minas Tirith kind of feel to it, which I totally dig. The one issue I have with it is that your portcullis, though looking great, would serve little to no purpose on keeping anything smaller than an elephant out of the castle unless there were either smaller grates within the larger ones, or it was actually iron slabs interspersed with large girders, and not a grated portcullis at all.

But continuity nitpicks aside, I think that if you want to make the castle look even larger, it'd be nice to see some small props about - even plants would help to establish scale.

I don't know if it's an issue of people waiting to post, or just the fact that a good animation takes time to make. My weekend starts on Monday, at which time I'm going to try to make an animation for this contest, assuming I have the inspiration to do so.

5 colors + transparency

He's your plastic pal that's fun to be with!

Of the colors that have already been put up there, I'd have to agree with you on the red being the coolest, Yufster. Another benefit of doing it red is that you don't have to bleach it nearly as much to get a good red hue as you do to go blonde. My hair's always been dark, and though I don't dye my hair anymore, I did all throughout university (Which I'm glad I got out of my system when I did, since balding and funky color don't really mesh so well). You look like you have really nice, healthy hair, so the less bleaching you do to it, the better. After you do go in to get it bleached, regardless of how little, it's gonna be really brittle and you can't avoid a load of damage. Be sure you're using a good reconstructor, like K-Pak.

If you wanted to go subtle, or didn't want the monotony of monotone, I'd suggest, as lo_res_man did, to go with dark hair - even dye it black if you like, or even a darker shade of brown (no bleach, so a lot less damage), and only bleach out a few streaks to platinum. It's a great way to bring more attention to your hair without going too overboard, and it's much more interesting, in my humble opinion. I took the liberty of doing a very basic edit to explain.


Original -> Edit

It's far from a perfect representation of what you'd get, and that's also very dependent upon the quality of the dye-job, but that's the idea. If you want to get really fancy, I'd even suggest seeing if your stylist could handle dying your hair black, and adding a tint of either red or blue, when the light hits it. Also a very cool effect, if that's the kind of thing you like.

[EdLoen]

Well, now...

I apologize to all of those who entered the competition and (maybe) are waiting for the verdict, as it were. I've been working 15 days straight, so I was a little indisposed lately. But excuses aside, I have appeared once again to give my praise and a few awards (as it were).

As usual, I feel the need to give my own personal opinions, solicited or not, on the individual sprites, so I shall pick apart each sprite in the order they were submitted. And so, without further ado, I'll begin with EdLoen.

EdLoen: Your sprite, perhaps, doesn't exactly follow the usual concepts of post-apocalyptic hero, but regardless, I do like the sprite quite a bit. The character has a lot of personality, from the hero beard  and big face scar, to the various blood splatters. I can imagine him standing around being generally pissed off after having killed some aliens or mutants, and I must admit, I like it like that. To offer some friendly criticism, I think the only large issue is with anatomy. His left leg seems a little bit twisted, and longer than his right. All in all, really good stuff.

Cobra79: That's great! It reminds me of any number of children in post-apocalyptic settings - dressed in rags and wrapped up in a ratty old blanket to keep warm and safe. If I were to nitpick, as I am wont to do, I would say that though there's some great detail, especially in the shading of the blanket, where you can really make out those arms, the pose is decidedly non-dynamic. The stance is decidedly strong, when I think that the character itself belies a sense of despair - I'd like to see the knees a little more bent to accentuate the hunching-over, or even having them huddled down on the ground. Not a major issue by any right, and certainly not a strike against the sprite at all, however.

Bohnito: Also a really groovy character - I like the sense of style as well. I was always a fan of the leather jacket in Fallout, and would usually wear it exclusively until I could get myself a suit of power armor from the Brotherhood of Steel (At which I really am willing to trade the lack of aesthetics for a massive boost in armor). It does have a distinct post-apocalyptic vibe, and he has the paleness one might expect from a vault-dweller living in synthetic light all of his life. In contrast to Cobra79's sprite, the pose is very dynamic, but I'm kinda sad that there's a large lack of detail in the character's features, especially with as much care as you put into the jeans and the gun.

Mad: This is an awesome sprite. The artwork itself is simple and well-concieved, and I think that the earthy, dusty color selection was spot-on. She looks a little cleaner than I would generally expect, but she fits the theme about as well as I think she possibly could. The pose is great, and I really love the shading. I would really, honestly love to see her in action in a game at some point. If I were to offer any criticism, it would be that I feel that with the size of her chest relative to her waist, she's probably looking at some major back problems in the future.

Andail: Another character I really dig. The most realistic of the sprites in the competition, I'd venture to say, even if the proportions were significantly squished in order to fit the dimensions I set for the contest. Regardless, the thing I really like the most is the obvious attention to detail that you put into this sprite. The features are all really good - particularly the face and the pants. If you'd said in your post that this was a dwarf, I wouldn't have even thought that there were problems. As is, I think that the issues with short legs probably could've been rectified by having him kneeling, perhaps. Either way, awesome sprite, and I don't know why, but I really, really dig that bowgun.

Eggie: That is one hell of an arm, that is the first thing that came to mind when I saw this sprite. I would love to see this character in an odd, dark and cartoony post-apocalyptic game as well, though I would venture to call her a bit more sci-fi. It definitely shows through with classic Eggie style - unique, to say the least, which I'm very fond of. I'm not sure how well it fits with my general overgeneralizations of post-apocalyptic settings, but I do dig it. I'd love to hear the backstory behind this one.

KhrisMUC: The first thing I thought when I saw this sprite was Blade, from Rise of the Dragon. Don't know if you've played the game - it's very similar visually to Blade Runner (hence the name). I'm sure it's the coat that does it, and the big gun. It somewhat reminds me of my now-faulty memory of the action sequences in the game. I would also say this seems the most like a classic adventure game sprite of the ones that we've seen in this competition.

Green Boy: I can certainly see what others have said about the similarity to Hiro from heroes. It's essentially the longish coat and sword over the shoulder, and the stocky build. There have been no shortage of characters that fit that description, but I think that at least at present, it's the most relevant comparison. I think that you could probably clean up a couple double pixels, particularly around the hilt of the sword, and some of the anatomy seems a bit off, but nonetheless, it's a great sprite, and I'm glad it made it into my contest.

Now, as everybody who ever has to host one of these contests says, this has been an extremely tough decision to make, but someone has to be crowned the winner. I am terrible at making little award sprites, since I always forget to actually make them until I've already procrastinated much too long to do so - so I apologize for not having any if anyone was really looking forward to them. Instead, I'll give you the winners in good ol' fashioned text.

So:

3rd place: Andail, with his short, post-apocalyptic sheriff

2nd place: KhrisMUC and his trenchcoated wanderer

1st place: Mad with his gas-masked gunmistress.

Thank you so much everyone for entering the contest - I truly enjoyed hosting it, and I'm very impressed with all of the entries that we recieved this time around. I'd really, really love to see a post-apocalyptic adventure game come to fruition one of these days -- Maybe I'll have to rise to the task myself (once I've finished with the other outstanding projects I already have).

So congratulations, Mad for your victory - you've done great work, and I think everyone can agree on this point. I'm looking forward to entering your competition once you've started it. And congratulations to everyone else as well, for finishing some awesome sprites. They will forever be something I love to look at, now that I've got it all saved to my hard drive.

So, thank you everybody, and goodnight! And remember: Duck and cover!

It's most certainly grammar, but it's one of those many misspelled words, like definitely that is so prolific we don't usually bother correcting them anymore. Ah, the wonderful world of apathy. But you're right, Rui, Ray-O's post is only vaguely legible. It could've been a lot better worded, but at least it got the point across, after a fashion. At least I think I'm responding to the right question.

So, Ray-O, I'm fairly certain that you could run in Alone in the Dark. I remember playing that ol' thing when I was twelve. So many floppies... Anyway, running is covered on page seven of the game's manual. If you've lost your manual, you can see it here. As Rui said, it's essentially a double-tap of the direction you want to move, if you don't want to bother RTFM-ing, as it were - though a quick read through the documentation often works wonders, and is great nostalgia.

Now, I'm also fairly certain that this thread belongs in the hints and tips forum, but I'm no moderator, so I shan't complain. I also wonder: Why bother writing an acronym, if you plan on typing out the meaning right after anyway?

[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=.

I have to agree that the '91 tagline sounds great to me, but I like coming up with stuff like that, so I'll throw in my two cents:

Because 135 ex-Vivendi employees can't have been wrong
Larry Vales wants YOU
Resurrecting dead genres since 1997

If your plan is to ultimately pursue music long-term, Drew, I wonder if it wouldn't be a slightly more direct route to your goal to invest your time in something more... Music-related than becoming a soldier. If, however, being a soldier who does music on the side is your goal, by all means!

I've had thoughts about doing a term of duty as a soldier, myself. I might have pursued it at some point in my life if I didn't feel that I had other, more pressing obligations. Living the life of an army man often seems to have a profound effect on many peoples' lives, I think - it matures people (often before their time, though sometimes this also has the opposite effect). My girlfriend is South Korean, in her country, all men are required to join the army. I've spoken to other South Korean friends about their times in training, and I don't often hear good things - mostly stories of eating potato chips and crying in a lavatory (simultaneously) and hazing newer recruits because that's what happened to them, but spending a few years of your life in a heavily structured environment where you aren't allowed to be an autonomous unit - if nothing else - gives people a new perspective on life.

I lived for six months in a boarding school in Japan, before I could speak the language. It had very strict and stringent rules that had to be obeyed, and I found myself becoming very disciplined and a lot more productive. It teaches you to ration your time a lot, it seems. I've admittedly lost most of that by now, but I actually am glad I did it, in retrospect.

I think people should suffer a bit in their lives, because pain and difficulty prompts people to learn to adapt, and that can't be a bad thing, can it?

Thanks, Alliance. I'm sure I could've said it in a much more concise manner, but I guess I often let the opportunity to be wordy take hold, since I spend most of the day tailoring my words as to be understandable to people who don't speak English as a first language.

Well, let's see if we can't defuse that particular bomb by rephrasing that a bit, shall we?

In the broadest sense of the world, I have an opinion that agrees with Wtcq on one or two points, though I would definitely be forced to say it in a much different way. I have nothing against religious people - one of my best friends from high school, for example, is a Jehovah's Witness, and a particularly devout one for that matter. It was a great and very close friendship, because even with his religion's apparent policy, he doesn't follow the cultist attitude of disassociating with the heretics, like myself. We have discussed religion at length, and I seem to have convinced him well enough that I'm a lost cause, which is exactly where I like to be. Evangelism is annoying to people that want to be left alone.

I have a lot of respect for people who don't base their lives on or around religion, but still have a strong moral code, of sorts. When someone has no belief in divine retribution keeping them from doing whatever they damned-well please, and yet decide to be a benefit to society as a form of social pragmatism, I find that somewhat commendable. I, myself, tend to look out for number one in the grander scheme of things, but more often than not it includes - even precludes - acts of 'selflessness', and general benefits to the world around me. By that same token, I have the utmost respect for religious people who put little stock in the afterlife, or don't let that or 'God's will' sway their decisions, but base what they do on a moral background.

It's all essentially based around peoples' motivations for doing what they do, I think. If someone does live only for the afterlife, I would describe that lifetime as a bit of a pity, and even (at risk of being insensitive) wasted. I can't agree, though, with the generalization that religious people are only interested in the afterlife - take Jehova's witnesses (Being one of the few religions I think I know a little bit about): When I, in an attempt to antagonize him, gave him a logical run-down of his chances of getting into heaven, based off of the 144,000/resurrection principle of his own religion, he said "It doesn't matter to me if I am one of the few, as long as I do my part while I'm alive", or something to that effect. I respect that.

Now, I also believe that most religions are needlessly hostile an unaccepting of one another, considering how alike they actually are. I can understand, so to speak, the tension between Christians and the Romans during their Empire's reign from a purely religiously-based standpoint - the Romans believed that in their Polytheistic world, the active denouncement of polytheism by the Christians was a threat to the Empire, as it would cause the gods to become angered - which I believe was also more justified in a world where thunder and lightning were acts of Jupiter, as opposed to charge separation. The risk of the ire of Jupiter was a large cause of concern, I would imagine. I don't think this necessitated mass slaughter and the use of 'unarmed christian vs. tiger' as a form of entertainment, but there was a form of justification, which I don't think exists as much between many of the monotheistic religions. As many have said before, religion has been the reason behind no small number of atrocious acts in the past, yet another reason I'm not a big fan.

So my philosophy is, read it if you like, but I don't subscribe to that particular magazine. I don't even like the genre.

Now, so that I'm not completely off topic, I think that some of the principles of satanism, as described are sound - it's a distorted form of monotheistic/christian faith, but it teaches people to be self-reliant, and not to look to miracles to get things accomplished. This seems to me to be a very reasonable, and realist concept. Enjoy your life while you can. Whatever the ultimate result is, I suppose if someone thinks their life is justified, it's a good thing, isn't it?

This is why I never start topics. I just read other peoples' replies, and let the thread stagnate until it eventually scrolls off into the forum abyss. Allow me to continue:

I'm not particularly worried about whether it makes me a bad person or not that I have childish/selfish tendencies to feel a sense of personal satisfaction when something that I predicted would be 'bad' was. Despite not wanting to admit it, I imagine that most people have the urge to say "I told you so" now and then when they give advice that isn't followed. Justified or not, there are certain situations in which I think people have little choice, as it were, but to feel as such. In the case of the game I was testing, I suppose that the developers weren't specifically interested in what we had to say - being published by my company, they had little choice but to be filtered through our QA department. Nevertheless, I wonder at people that refuse to listen to advice, even when someone seems adamant about its urgency.

To a lesser extent, I think that this applies at times to the Critic's Lounge here in the AGS forums. I haven't seen it very much at all recently, as it seems that most people here take the advice that's given and are happy with the improvements, but it has happened in the past, where someone will submit a piece as a WIP, but feel some form of upset when their work is picked apart and never seems to be completely satisfactory.

But I digress. Apart from the aforementioned example of one's advice being ignored, has anyone else ever had a reason to hope that something they were involved in was either completely ignored, and ultimately forgotten - or, in a perfect world, was aborted before ever seeing the light of day like so many teenage pregnancies? A mercy killing, if you will?