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I felt worst about butchering Rhys-Davis' role. 
I have to admit I would've passed on this were it not for my enthusiastic vote for the contest.
I guess everybody has to get practice in somehow.

Linkage
Compression from HQ wav to Medium Ogg to Low MP3 did some funny/tinny things.

Ugh.  I never used to fear spiders.  In my area, the bug problem isn't bad, but when seasonal rains come (particularly just after the warm season) ants and flies tend to collect indoors.  As a kid, I always just let them be, figuring the spiders would trap the flies and the ants would get bored after having nicely scavenged all my discarded crumbs. 

When I was 19, that all changed when I was bitten by a brown recluse while sleeping.  There's still a strange dent in my leg from the tissue being carved out by a Navy corpsman.  Now I can't stand any arachnid.  I'll still leave 'em alone if they're outside but once they cross my threshold, they're reduced to a smear - friendliness with nature be damned.

That submerged object discomfort is shared.  I love the water; lakes, oceans, and pools, but swimming near large submerged objects creeps me out, especially if I haven't got a quick escape route from the water.  Videogames and some movies will cause the same rapid-pulsed chest-tightening feeling, particularly if it's underwater objects (like a sunken ship) with multi-harmonic metal creakings.  *shiver*

I see a sequel to Twister on the horizon.  Starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Sigourney Weaver as Hurricane Hunters.  Armed only with video cameras and a hell of a lot of explosives, they're gonna learn that thar weather system a lesson.

Ne'er 'erd ovit before.  Upon checking out, it's another myspace-ish online journal site, right? Any perks to it or major negatives.  Since I've already got 5 or so Yahoo IDs it's certainly a plus that I can have my own circle of kickass friends with minimal social effort.

Emily Enough was a truly inspired and well-designed game, definitely needs to make the list.

I was thinking along the same lines as a fountain, but more-so to fill space on the lower right.  People (aliens for that matter) are bound to be uncomfortable in a claustrophobic, cold, metallic city.  Perhaps a walking park? (Paths, various vegetation indiginous to different planets, park benches, etc.)

I'm so-so on the feet for your char, Flosk, but the rest of it's incredible (palette & personality just struck me for some reason).  Not being the critic's lounge, I'll stop.

This sounds like a good idea for competition in one of the few areas competitions don't provide practice for.  Unlike many of the rest, it shouldn't be difficult for the initiator to come up with dialogue ideas: just yank something from an existing non-voice game or their own.  Looking forward to its starting (if it does) - should be good for a laugh and potential talent-recruitment pool.

It is, however, a semi-effective way of combating dragons.

Really, the only talent of this thread seems to be to hit every major controversial issue brought up in the forums during the past year.  The only thing one finds out after pages of debate is that each side has its own brand of ignorance (or naivete).

And just where *has* the World's Sexiest Smoothie-Maker gone off to?

I'm chomping at the bit to get into religious discussion, but it's rather off-topic.  Media coverage has made each terrorism-driven event more dramatic and universally-known than in years previous.  The wonders of hypocrisy! The majority of US citizens did not give a shit about the types of things that've been happening worldwide in the past couple of years.  Now that we've become a victim, it's important.  Anything disaster or terror related has been so plentiful in the news I'm quite surprised - I haven't heard squat about Bali bombings.  Looks like I've got some googling to do. 

The items mentioned that 'give me the creeps' aren't all downsides.  There might actually be some reduction in crime or potential for terrorism.  I certainly wouldn't opt for giving up freedoms in order to dissuade terrorists from using the same methods twice, but at least the governments would be doing it out in the open versus the asinine methods they're using currently (Terrorism alert level is high today kids, remember to apply plenty of sunblock!), including manipulations and outright denial (I compromised a secret (ex-secret) agent out of nothing more than stupidity, but get no punishment because I'm fighting the good fight). 

How, why, and WTF?  Religion? I thought we'd gone over this one enough times.  An atheist will never convert a religious person unless they were already losing their faith.  I have to wonder why you'd want to.  You'd have an easier time getting rid of terrorists that use religion as a mask than you would getting rid of religious people altogether (violent or otherwise).   

I think BOYD's a little quick to jump to the offensive, and I don't agree with all of his points.  However, there are a number of items and analogies addressed by people of the religious persuasion that are *cough* Horseshit Logic (TM).  If you're going to refute an attempt at a logical argument, don't muck it all up with faith-based ideals.  Or at least choose the standard faith argument and say, "I believe and it works for me.  I have faith that I've chosen the right path, and have no current plans to blow myself up in the presence of others."   For all the "Religious intolerance" people have to put up with, those who aren't religious get it in kind.  We can't even claim a lack of faith without using terminology that automatically says we're against god, religious people and religion in general. 

I'm a Fundamentalist of the Church of Apathy.  I don't really feel the need to claim the existence of a god, or the lack of one.  It's really not an issue that's bugged me enough.  Maybe that's why I can debate the topic with friends over beer without any of us getting butt-hurt.  Theological (or atheological) arguments are fine but not if all sides can't avoid becoming bitter or overly defensive because of something written on El InterWeb.

Just verifying the 10.3.9 bug (with apprentice as well).  Game runs perfectly for me through intro and first room.  Upon exiting room (I didn't have the dual-cursor problem) game crashed with unexpected error, suggesting I report the error to Apple (I thought better of it).  Running 10.3.9 on an iMac 800Mhz 512MB.

I've had this experience.  It's like raising toddlers and praising them everytime they learn to draw a line with a crayon of a different color, or make a potty (despite having mastered that years beforehand). This isn't a slight against Fluke's maturity, just a familiar interaction. 

The PSP, PS, etc., programs are damned impressive and I'm glad you like them.  However, once you've spotted something cool, it might be worthwhile to make several attempts at a picture before demonstrating how cool something can be made with essentially a cut-n-paste paintbrush.   If you've put some effort into something (doesn't even have to be game-related as we've seen time and time again), give it a go in the critic's lounge.  Be prepared for some praise, and probably more-so criticism, but generally a very large helping of good advice.   

For this and other events, it might be worthwhile to re-make a background you've worked on or re-tune an instrumental piece if you're hoping to share how much better a given thing works for you.  The main reason for harsh responses to your threads seems to be that you want to gather hours worth of attention and posting in exchange for the 15 minutes you've put into an idea yourself.

I certainly wouldn't argue with him if he were saying GK2 was weak.  It was intriguing to have a movie you could control somewhat but the simplified interface, story and general repetitiveness of FMV sequences got very old very quickly.  I played the first half and then merely checked up on my ex as she played through the rest.  GK1's one of my favorite adventures, but the follow-ups . . . I wouldn't be any worse off if I'd given them a miss.

Back to topic.  I've never actually played the first two BS games, but found the third quite enjoyable.  As mentioned, the box-pushing bits were a bit asinine, but everything else played pretty well.  They used 3D more to provide a smooth and well-animated experience than utterly relying upon it and forcing what could've been a 2D game into a 3D mould.

Some has to do with fairly generic American-style semi-realistic cartooning and some has to do with relation to Don Bluth animation and their stylistic influence (Dragon's Lair's animation was by DB, along with Space Ace, right?).

That's the unfortunate part.  Steve has the rights to his characters and ideas, but LucasArts doesn't have to (and isn't currently planning to) relinquish the work done thus far on the sequel.  It's a plus since they might re-evaluate the look the engine gave the characters but a minus since it'll be starting from square one. 

This update has everything to do with Steve Purcell and his intentions, not the intentions of LA.  Full Throttle won't be resurrected since it's entirely a Lucasarts property.

[YakSpit]

And yea, I had some troubles with shading. You see, the main lightsource is placed in middle-right part of the picture and these eye visors (of which I said before) generate another, weaker one. Right, YakSpit, I shaded every part separately. It'd be great to see some of yours paintovers, I just don't know how to do it correctly.

Loominous elaborated on what I was saying nicely, and executed a paint-over with far more skill than I could ever muster.  Somehow, I can see the pic clearly now after having seen the dimensions in higher contrast. 

My eyes puzzled over the details of this one for awhile.  The overall style, palette and concept are cool, but I'm having difficulty picking out the features.

It would help dramatically if you didn't shade each component as an individual but shaded as a whole.  Like someone else mentioned, a primary lightsource for the full object is more the norm.  If you used a secondary light, then you could use that to bring out some of the detail while maintaining consistency in the geometry.   Maybe it's just a matter of taste or my lack of imagination, since some people seem to see it just fine.

I'm trying to stay away from stuff other people have commented upon. 

Location> So, plot-wise, it's definitely got to be on a tree - couldn't be picked up off the ground or anything?  Why not make a leaf or two dominate the background? Then you could end up with a semi-plausible way for the worm to enter his home.  The idea I was thinking of before Vespr mentioned a leafy background was a rope-bridge made of spiderweb.  It'd add to the environment, wouldn't seem too strange to a human eye, and would add some nice detail to the foreground of the backdrop. 

Aesthetics> You've shown via the window sill that there's thickness between the outside and inside.  It'd be nice to see this in the border of the "cut out" portion - not too much, just a couple pixels thick.  Unless the door's meant to be just a cut-out door (like a knife-cut) then it might be better with some thickness to the door jamb.  Some details of the threshold/entryway might help even if it's not a framed door.

Everything seems to use soft outlines or none at all, so the stem and worms in the picture stand out.  I think two shades of green would be fine for the walls.  Either the apple's ripe (white-to-light-green) or not (med-green to light-green), but the medium green and very light green are too much contrast, IMO.

The overall shape's pretty good except the bulge on the right.  Since this is essentially dead space, you could bring that side in a little.  It also looks like we see too much of the bottom of the apple based upon how much we see of the top.

It's a brilliant concept, very original and very well executed.  I'm hoping that it's going to be a public-distribution since the worm concept has me intrigued.