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Both very good points, Gilbot - Yes, that was an excellent feature of the DOTT intro, and yes endings are often terrible.

You now have me racking my brain to think of a game ending that was actually better than the intro! I must admit I liked the style adopted by Fallout and Arcanum, where it tells you what happens to all the small communities you visited while doing the game as a result of your in game choices, but I concede that this is not the most cinematic of endings.

I remember in high school when we got new computers for the computer room, and one of the teachers walked in and said "Are these new computers?".

Feeling very clever I said "No, miss, they're chickens". She proceeded to tell me that sarcasm was the lowest form of humor. I personally believe slapstick is the lowest form of humour, and waited for her to push someone over and start laughing at them before explaining this to her, but it never happened.

I am not sure why I posted this here. But I think you're just having fun, Michael, and there is nothing wrong with having a good laugh - especially if you can do it at yourself.

Soylent Blue Is Animals!



BTW I am aware that the potatos are floating. I like them that way. It is bizarre .

Much apologies to Ferdinand for cheapening his jokes  .

Feeds two.

Edit: Hope my grey blue is blue enough. If not, I'll gladly withdraw the entry .

Edit 2: Domino, I really like your picture. Especially his yellow nose. The placement of one of the carrots is something I find slightly concerning, however .

There are heaps of different ways. Personally, because I like to talk about Simon the Sorceror whatever chance I get, I like the intro to that game... Day of the Tentacle's was excellent because of the sheer amount of work put into the animation there.

I think as long as it's not too boring, you should be fine. A little interactive part where the player has to talk to someone would probably make the player feel involved in the game a lot quicker, I'd say. If you're going to make a long cutscene, I'd be happier watching it if it was funny, so I guess it does depend on the game.

If a man could marry a game (even before it's come out!) I would marry this.

Awww... thanks Darth. Now you've got me worried the gameplay will disappoint and you'll regret your words .

I like that idea very much. I think I will have a shot at doing it, just for the sake of being adventurous, but I'm going to leave it at the moment whilst I put together more important elements of the game. I have already passed my hoped deadline of 1 week (Although the game has improved much over the original plan - much thanks to you guys & girls ) and I still have a ton of character animations I want to put in and some scripting issues (Check your email, Paul ). I just finished the last touches on the last background last night (woah, lots of lasts ) and with 9 playable rooms (not counting those used for the map screen, cutscenes and main menu) I feel this might actually have a chance of being classified as a medium length game, rather than a short one - justifying the more than one week development time. Maybe .

Sorry for long post that may/may not be relevant.

EDIT: Hooraay - something new to crit to keep this post on topic .

I don't mind if this animation sucks terribly and I have to redo it because, unlike the windmill (Which I have fixed since you last saw it) it didn't take me over two hours to do .



Finally got around to trying Darth's suggestion with the balloon - tried to make it blow in a breeze. I'd probably only make the animation happen twice a minute in game, I think.

BTW, I promise there are things in the game I haven't asked for help with on this thread .

I think your idea - that is to get an understanding of what makes a game good - is not a bad one. But I think there are better ways of finding out. There are a bunch of quite informative articles on good adventure game design out there, that focus on a range of different things. If that is what you're chasing, let me know and I'll try and find some and post links to them on here. If you just want an opinion poll on length over choice... I don't honestly feel that you'll learn much.

EDIT: I meant to mention this, but forgot.

Layabout warns you about becoming too ambitious, and he is right to do so. I feel that you weren't actually suggesting you wanted to make the perfect game, you just used a metaphor to try and explain your angle. I think that the best way to learn about making games is to make one and let people play it. They'll tell you what they didn't like, and you improve because of it .

(if you make a computerised version of model trains you won't have much competition. Google could only find one, and that's still in the beta stage)

Well, commercially speaking there is Auran's Trainz games, but they don't actually try to look like a model train set - they try to make everything look like real trains. The concept is close but.

I feel that a game like this could become dull if there wasn't a running the business aspect to it.

Paul - Yes, I agree, it'd probably stand out more if I hadn't done it. I think it might have been a case of me being excited to test out the technique and it not looking overly 3d. The shadow is something I plan to play around with a bit.

KhrisMUC - I'm going to decrease the drop speed, yeah, it looks really quite jerky at the moment, and I want to accentuate the slowdown before landing a bit better. I have actually used these frames in the drop to change perspective - unless I misunderstood your post - which means you didn't notice it either . Oh well - it was fun to try, and the whole flying in space thing gives me another use for the animation as well. Thanks for your nice comment .

Hmm...
I think I've only served to amazingly muddle the whole thing even further...

Correct .

Seriously. You're asking us "If you could play the 'perfect' game, but had to sacrifice either length or amount of choices, which one would you sacrifice?"

No need for further explanation, I feel. As I said, I'd sacrifice length because, given a choice, I choose choice .

That's an interesting idea, with the spaceship looking like it is flying in space. I might have to steal it and put it in that game - thanks  . I can see it looking a little comedic, like a cartoon car down a bumpy road, but I want that sort of thing, so that's great!

I wasn't sure about the shadow - I was trying to take the position of the sun into account - I did plan to try the shadow directly underneath, getting smaller as the plane dropped.

I am relieved that the animation is useful to me - I thought I might have wasted my time for a while there.

I like it. How about adding a tree or two on the distant hill?

Also, your colour choice interests me.

I guess I forgot that you're not one of the rough-and-tumble bunch I'm used to.

I laughed .

I am really interested to see how this project turns out guys. Sounds like it will make for interesting reading.

I honestly feel that there are far too many variables that come into play here for me to make an accurate choice between the two.

Length can be achieved by any number of means. What if a game was filled with pixel hunt and maze puzzles - anyone determined enough to get through it would probably have to spend hours and hours doing so, and this would (in a broad sense, anyway) make it a 'long' game.

Choices are an interesting point as well. Choices can add replayability to the game, but if a game gives me a choice, and I find the game completely uninspiring, there is no way I'm going to replay through the game again just to see what happens if I walk down the other road. Boiling Point was one game that gave the player a ton of choice and I found it uninspiring in every single way.

I agree with space boy that these choices are easy to make when your dimensions are well defined. If you're asking "Would you rather play a long game that is excellent quality or a shorter game that is equally excellent quality that has more choices to make up for the lack of length" then I would say more choices, because it means I have a game that I can finish in a comfortable length of time instead of having to marathon run it. I play a LOT of games and I often give up on games that are too long because I know there are plenty of other good games out there that will give me equal satisfaction without me having to invest so much time.

If that's not what you mean, then I doubt I can accurately answer your question.

I agree entirely with Snarky.

If you've got 40 hours of gameplay, you'd better make sure it's the best damn gameplay there ever was, because who wants to sit through 40 hours of combining items? Seriously - I'd probably fall asleep.

I'm happy with a short game - actually, I love short games. Especially since we're talking amatuer adventure here - if a person has made a short game, it often means they've put more into each room of a short game. I personally dislike games with too many rooms to explore. I'd rather play a game that was the length of Reactor 09 - in fact, I'd say Reactor 09 as a fairly good example of what I feel an amateur person on his own should be aiming for length wise. Don't give me hundreds of ordinary puzzles - give me a few that are really good.

In saying this, I suck at designing puzzles. But I know the sort of game I like to play.

ProgZ - absolutely excellent! I cannot believe how awesome that exhale is. I love the little bit of hair flying out... this is fantastic!

Thankyou, thankyou!

EDIT: While on the topic of animation, I'd like to bring up the following little point for advice/comment.

When making the plane land, I didn't want it to look like a cardboard cutout dropping down - I wanted it to look like a plane. What I attempted to do was to adjust the perspective of the plane as it sank to the ground, meaning I have 5 different sprites for the plane. Animated, it looks as though there is a slight change in perspective, like so:



I'm not sure if there is a common technique for this sort of thing - I did it as I was feeling somewhat experimental and enjoying trying some new things.

I thought this should do the trick, but when putting the animation in place, I feel the effect was lost completely:



The only way I can even see that I tried this effect is by looking at the tail fin on the left, which appears to get longer as the plane going down. The shadow is just for demonstration sake.

Does this look fine, or have I once again been too subtle with my animation? I probably will not redo this scene, as it was quite labor intensive and time consuming, but I'd love to know for future endeavours of a similar nature.

I nominate Dance 'Til You Drop! for best use of an ambiguously gay exercise fanatic. 

And only use of an ambiguously gay exercise fanatic.

What about best use of the word "Frabjous".

And only use of the word "Frabjous".

Thanks, MashPotato - the edits are cool, and no, I'm not sick of them yet - particularly the breasts, thanks for that. The face is something I'm going to leave for a little while, and perhaps come back to with a fresh head.

Thanks for the tips on the fishing boy - I'll see what I can do.

Nice to see someone smiling .

ProgZmax - thanks, I'm confident this character is getting close to perfect now - perfect for my current ability, anyway.

MrColossal - I feel that you haven't really thrown a spanner in the works, but instead pointed out something I would never have seen in the image itself. Very interesting that I never saw that when I drew it. Can I assume that if I go with something like the 4th sprite in the row I'd be pretty safe? I have to say, nice pic, by the way - I like the dots on the hat and the cape.

I'm concious that I shouldn't focus on too many things at once here, but if I don't bring this up now I feel it may get left behind and not be implemented into the game as well as it could/should be.

I've been going through and listing the animations I want to put in the game - whether puzzle related or otherwise - and I'd like some advice on putting more "character" into character animations.

First an example I'm not happy with - fishing boy fiddles with his line and yawns.



The fisher boy's idle animation - with frames that will also be used in a cutscene. I'm aware that the arm needs speeding up, and that the right arm's sleeve needs adjusting.

Now for one I'm happier with (doesn't mean I won't tweak it) - This is the game's narrator opening his book ready to read and taking a deep breath ready to begin reading to us. Didn't put in talk frames because I want to adjust them.



The reason I like this one is because of the deep breath. I feel it adds personality to the character. With the fisher boy, I feel that there is a bit of personality missing.

Does anyone have any tips on adding a bit of personality to a character's animation? I've got quite a few I want to do, some I can think of how to give them personality, and some I cannot (and some I'm dreading trying to draw based on the difficulty of the frames that will show what I want them to).

Cheers

Best Tuneless Music
Best Use of Roger
Best Confusing Walkareas
Best Animation Containing Less Than Two Frames

Loving these award ideas right here. "Best use of Roger" - hilarious.

Still sounds fine to me - I do not see the point in just making another version of a game; you may as well do it your own way. This fact does not affect my vote.