Messages

I really love the motion of the lower half of the body!  The only thing that bothers me is the way the head suddenly jolts to the sides and the shoulder jumps up on the extreme frames.  I wouldn't make the motion less extreme, I'd just make the in between frames tween the motion better.

Instead of

shoulders: square, square, square, left, square, square, square, right, ...

head: straight, straight, straight, left, straight, straight, straight, right, ...

I'd make it*

shoulders: leaning right, square, leaning left, left, leaning left, square, leaning right, right, ...

head: turning right, straight, turning left, left, turning left, straight, turning right, right, ...

Does that make sense?


*If I had any sort of artistic ability.

Man, this makes me wish I had been there just to hear you all talk in your funny accents.  Seriously, this was hilarious in many ways!  Nice job!

Sounds great!  Keep up the good work!

Backgrounds look good.  Story sounds good.  And I definitely like the thoughts system.  It sounds similar to the clues used in Shivah, though Shivah was such a short game it couldn't take full advantage of the system.  I'm sure you will be able to find some creative uses for it!  Good luck with this.

I just hope you avoid the way-too-far delivery quests and poorly defined exits that made your last game so frustrating to play for me.

And Screw-on Head is voiced by Paul Giamatti, who is fantastic in every way!  His turn as Harvey Pekar in American Splendor made me love him forever... even if he does go on to star in the next M. Night Shyamalan shitcan.

I just watched this amazing new animated series from the Sci-Fi Channel. (I know the terms "amazing" and "Sci-Fi Channel" don't go together very often.)

From the Sci-Fi site:

In this hilarious send-up of Lovecraftian horror and steampunk adventure, President Abraham Lincoln's top spy is a bodyless head known only as Screw-On Head.

When arch-fiend Emperor Zombie steals an artifact that will enable him to threaten all life on Earth, the task of stopping him is assigned to Screw-on Head. Fortunately, Screw-On Head is not alone on this perilous quest. He is aided by his multitalented manservant, Mr. Groin, and by his talking canine cohort, Mr. Dog.

Can this unorthodox trio stop Emperor Zombie in time? Does Screw-On Head have a body awesome enough to stop the horrors that have been unleashed? Where can we get a talking dog?

All these questions (O.K., maybe not that last one) will be answered when you watch the thrilling tale of The Amazing Screw-On Head!

You can watch it online here before it airs:

http://www.scifi.com/amazingscrewonhead/

Seriously, It's awesome.

I went away on vacation for two weeks and a bunch of great games came out!

Dave, I loved the game!  Amazing writing and atmosphere!  Yay for no inventory puzzles!

Personally, I thought the first did a much better job at explaining the emotions -- or lack thereof -- of the protagonist, but I didn't really see two different writing styles here.  They both seem to have about the same style just written differently.  I do like a few things about the second.  Especially the "you are, indeed, the exo unit you believe yourself to be" line.  However, I'd warn you about writing in present tense.  It is exceedingly difficult to do in a story without slipping into past tense.

The story looks good, and I'd love to see where it's going!

And as an aside: Great to have you back!  We missed you!

I'll just point out that after seeing The Ivy's post in the recruiting thread about needing someone to program Spooks, I volunteered and everything worked out marvelously well even though we'd never spoken previously.

And now I'm going through the code one line at a time to try to absorb some scripting knowledge from it.  :-,

In that case, I really should have commented the code instead of cowboy coding...  sorry.  Ask me any questions you have!

I'll just point out that after seeing The Ivy's post in the recruiting thread about needing someone to program Spooks, I volunteered and everything worked out marvelously well even though we'd never spoken previously.

I think a separate page/database would be effective, but I'd worry about it being filled with "I wanna make the best game evar.  Need help with: writing, drawing, programming, music, sound, everything."  Some kind of moderation system would need to be put in place.  I'm sure it's not a major hurdle.

With all the aspiring film makers on these boards, why don't you all try to get on Steven Spielberg's reality show, "On the Lot?"

They're going to pick 16 aspiring directors based on their short (less than 5 minutes) film submissions and put them on an American Idol-ish show.  The winner gets a million dollar contract to make a film.

It's a long shot, but it could be fun to try.

Deadline for submissions is 1st of September if I remember correctly.

Man, everyone at work today is depressed.  :  Stupid soccer.

I love this idea and when I get some time to read and brainstorm, I'll gladly contribute to story and puzzles!

I did the same as buloght when I made Anna.  I made a variable that knew what menu you were looking at and what part was higlighted and used repeatedly execute to detect key presses and change the menu.  It was a fast but fairly messy way of making a keyboard-controlled menu.

What ever happened to predictibility?
The milkman, the paperboy, evening TV.

[Hey y'all. I want to show you how cute I am! Let's look at some pictures of me!Here's me and my handsome daddy!I always beat him in wrestling!Here's my beautiful mommy.I'm the life of every party!Can you believe how cute I am?!I'm even cuter naked!High-five!]

500th post!  It's baby time!


Hey y'all.  I want to show you how cute I am!  Let's look at some pictures of me!


Here's me and my handsome daddy!


I always beat him in wrestling!


Here's my beautiful mommy.


I'm the life of every party!


Can you believe how cute I am?!


I'm even cuter naked!


High-five!

yoda's Bobcat Goldthwait impersonation was spot-on!

I don't think that he took a breath through that whole thing...

In general, indie games aren't trying to be particularly innovative.  Most indie companies want to make money before they start getting experimentative (is that a word?) and that means more Mah-Jhong/Tetris/Break-out/Bejeweled clones.  For major innovative breakthroughs, we often have to rely on those major game houses who have the money to risk (but usually don't want to risk it).  Or... us amateurs could do it... but like Helm said, that doesn't happen a whole lot in this community... what with most of us being primarily concerned with nostalgia.

An interesting related article:
http://www.gametunnel.com/html/section-viewarticle-50.html

EDIT:  There's also something to be said about paths to market.  An independent motion picture can end up super good and get noticed at a film festival by a producer and suddenly be partnered with a major distributor and find itself in theaters around the globe with substantial advertising.  Indie games, on the other hand, might be super fun, but they are pretty much never going to be able to have graphics anywhere near what you can find in a major publisher's games and thus these games won't be picked up with major marketing behind them.  The best a game can hope for is to be ported to XboxLiveMarketplace or sold to Yahoo games.  And I'm not exactly sure what happens then, but I'm guessing that the actual developer is getting the short-end of the money stick on either of those deals.

Out of curiosity, why is 12 magic number? xii games, 12 numbers on the digit pad, 12 interviews...

It's my last name.