Messages

[Selmiak]

Good Evening,

I apologize for the delay (I blame it on my recent time
travels and some angry dinosaurs…don't ask).

My votes go to:

Concept: Misj'
Very nice and suprising twist on the theme. In my head
I can imagine that from this point things could go either for happy Peter Pan-esque adventure or pure Stephen King horror (It).

Playability: GreenBeams
It was nice to see all the work in progress and actually to learn something from it. I liked BW version, just because somehow it captures film noir atmosphere.

Execution: Loominous
Cause Hypno Toad told me to do so.

and after complex calculations...

The Results

Third place:
Selmiak


Second place:
Misj' & loominous


First place:
GreenBeams


Congratulations!

Finally, since all of you did really great job with
backgrounds, I managed to get my hands on very rare item:
infamous Jackalope which should act as a special trophy and "Thank You" for all participants.



Once again, well done everybody.

Ok, great, great job everyone. I'm happy to see so many outstanding entries.

Voting starts now.
(time till Friday, midnight)

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/WR5WxEn.gif[/imgzoom]

@Madle: Although this tutorial is for Photoshop and involves
some weird layer options, maybe it will help you:
http://8088mph.blogspot.com/2013/10/using-photoshop-as-cga-bitmap-paint.html

Also, I would just search for cga artworks (games, demoscene)
and study them very close, pixel by pixel to find out different
gradient patterns and what effect they create (edit: as AnasAbdin said earlier).

@GreenBeams: I'll set deadline at 26.04 (next Sunday, till midnight),
but if you need day or twojust let me know and I'll wait. I think
people are more interested in artworks/backgrounds then actual
results of voting, so it shouldn't be a problem.

@Ykni/Cassiebsg/Misj: Damn, I hate those rule-puzzles.
I think it's ok to include these entries just because I would feel bad
leaving them behind. I think they're great, on the topic and maybe
they will inspire others to make something. So Art > Rules.
For me time frame is the least interesting criteria.
But... if that's still an issue for someone, just take that issue
for consideration while voting.

And while I'm still at my typewriter, I would like to thank you all
for participating. So far it's all great stuff.

Great entries everyone. In fact, they were
so inspiring I've finally finished the prizes...
Errr... that is, they've finally arrived from
forgotten lands, far, far away.



Also, in case of overload with quality entries,
there is a chance that some lucky artist could
unlock the mystery prize:



So, keep them coming.

Is the first guy Skyer's boss and extra-marital fling from Breaking Bad?

I'm pretty sure it's Carter Burke from Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

[Background Blitz:]

Background Blitz:
HC SVNT DRACONES / Here be dragons



---

"In early maps, you would see images of sea monsters;
it was a way to say there's bad stuff out there." - Wikipedia

Game location with some kind of warning sign (literally or not),
which should tell our hero about terrible/fantastic things that
lie beyond this point. Place between Normal World and the Adventure,
foretelling shadow of the things to come.

Scarecrow in the cornfield of an abandoned farm. Shrunken heads in
the jungle, marking territory of the headhunting tribe.
Weird, stickscupltures found in the middle of the woods.
Crimson King sigil painted on the street.



You decide if the sign is either "warning" or a "welcome"
(or in case of a trap, both).


---

Voting Categories:
- Concept
- Artistic Execution
- Playability

Prizes:




Deadline
26.04 (Sunday, till midnight)

I agree with everything that was said before. It was really
hard to pick the best ones (cause they're all awesome),
real Kobayashi Maru test, but here we go:

Idea/concept: Loominous
Playability: 304
Artistic Execution: Monsieur OUXX

1st Tabata - Can't say no to a Queen.

2nd Hobo - I wouldn't be suprised to meet that
character in the wastelands of Fallout.

3rd Selmiak - 'cause Pacman.

But to be honest it's hard for me to choose which one is better,
because everyone did great job, just differently.
Nothing but respect and congratulations.

Ah, thank you all for comments. I'm glad you liked that.

@RetroWolf: as for featuring your game on a mockup I was thinking that
showcase on homepage could be on random rotation (after page refresh,
exactly like on actual website) so all of the games could get some exposure
so I'm sure you would get your chance.

@Myinah: I know I should ask before I used all of those characters,
still I'm happy you liked that. Even if they are just crudely ripped
from AGS Award Client with the help of magic-wand selection (so black
parts of some avatars are missing). I enjoyed them all so it was
shame not to use them here.

Now, I dont really expect that this mockup will be used.
Still, maybe it could be helpful in some way to community.

It's more of an experiment in user interface and usability
and working on existing sites helps me to notice what is working or not.
I guess I just like that kind of puzzles. Like: how many people
are using AGS homepage for recent news and forum posts?
How many differentt ratings do people actually need, if you got AGS Panel Rating,
and Player Rating do you really need Public Opinion (in percentages?)?
Or the fact that there are seven ways (eight, including search)
for finding a game from page interface and if that's a good thing or not?
What's the noise and where is content. That kind of stuff.

@Darth: "It should be up and running by 2019!!"
Yes, you probably right that redesigning takes some time. Personally I think
most of that time is coding, gfx is relatively easy. That mockup was done in 3 days
(even less, cause it was probably 2-3 hours every day) and once you got your
grid, fonts and logic figured out, every subpage comes quite easy.

[8]

I'm also supportive of measures that support the social aspect of the community, though we're already so very good at that.

That's the thing I would like to argue about. Well, maybe not to argue,
just talk/write about things I noticed.
I'm a new member of this community so I understand that I don't have
much of credibility (but this will be actually my point later on)
but please bear with me.

I think there are some problems with forum activity exposure, for example:
last MAGS contest produced really incredible games like
IAMJASON (downloaded 447 times),
Scenario 5B (downloaded 192 times),
and The Furthest Station (downloaded 65 times).
Yet the number of people voting for those games was... 8!

Now that is just weird.

I'm ashamed that I'm one of the people who played and enjoyed those games but didn't vote,
not that I didn't want to, I was actually looking foward to do so, but I've lost and forgot
the thread which was buried somewhere in the forum (and I'm browsing through forum
few times a day). The only reason I've got involved in beta testing AGS Award client
is because there were huge, red letters on top of forum posts. Another example would
be the fact that after spending two months here, by accident I found out that there
is awesome AGS podcast made by people from this community. I realise that many
old-timers here have no problem navigating through this forum, knowing how to find
that stuff or where to look for, but then again as a new member I must say that it's
rather difficult for me.

Sure, new website won't solve all of those things but maybe we can try
to figure out some other ways to do so. Kindly.

[So I've made this.]

Good Evening,

If you're reading this it means I'm already dea... sorry, wrong lettter.
Let me start by saying that I'm a person of rather peculiar condition
involving chaotic neural wiring so there is no easy way for me to
explain exactly how I ended here. Short story would be this:

Few days ago I was following AGS forum activity that was revolving
around subject of lacking forum activity or at least its smaller proportions
in comparision to Golden Years of AGS. And so being curious mind, I started
to think and wonder about that subject in my own free time. How to spark
a fire and motivation in people starting with AGS? How to inspire and show
them what's AGS is all about?
I guess I've made some kind of quantum leap, because I've focused on a homepage,
reasoning that everything starts from a homepage. After all "first impressions
are everything" (not entirely true, still there's some truth in that statement).
So I recalled my own first impressions of AGS site, the dread and horror
of early 00's design and the labyrinths of text that you have to solve in
search of information.
If it wasn't for my own now-or-never motivation I would probably surrender.

So I've made this.

Yes, it's just another website Yet, it's also completly different website.
Actually it's just a rough draft of an actual website with passages of unholy
Lorem Ipsum instead of text but I hope you'll get the idea.

I've tried to follow contemporary design standards, making things clearer
and more readable. I've tried to make this site inspiring,
focusing on main attributes of AGS and showing finished games
(I've always wondered about this, if most of the AGS games have really
stunning and beauttiful artwork, why making the photos so small?).

And here comes the Community part.
I'm not a html/php wizard at all. But maybe there is someone who actually know
this occult lore. Main header graphic is something I "borrowed" from internet
(for the purpose of illustrating my point), but I know that there are many
talented people who could do sometthing similiar, if not better. I guess we
could make some kind of forum contest for that, making main graphic on random
rotation showing off the best AGS artists or something.

Anyway, I've just heard steps on the staircase and grim banging at my door
so I think my time is up (so this probably was the right letter from the beginning).
Then let me just ask You... Is this a good idea? Do AGS need a new website?
Are there people willing to participate or I've just gone completly mad?

Good Evening,

I would like to share this quite interesting article involving
adventure games, criminals and Leisure Suit Larry:
www.nodontdie.com/al-lowe/

Have a good reading and happy Friday the 13th.

Terry Pratchett gave my childhood dragons, turtles, magic and humour
and for that I salute him.



You will be missed, Sir.

That is some unholy trickery and you, Sir are either a magician or devil's worshipper.
Really well done. When you wrote "Type tool" you mean that those snowflakes are
actually font characters?

Yay! I knew that a little bit of poking will be worth it.
Well done.

Sure, here is the psd file.
(if you turn on Timeline in PS you should see all frames in sequence).
Although now that I'm looking at it I think it could still look better. Maybe 5 frames are not enough
for smooth animation of snowflakes? Hmmm...

I randomized size of snowflakes, so I created 3 layers:
small 1px (far away), medium 4px (closer) and large 6px.

In first two layers (small and medium) I tried to select
and move snowflakes by hand/mouse so I could trace their trajectory
(but I think it's not quite visible in my example),
but trajectory in frames with large snowlflakes is pure randomness
(since they're closest to the eye, they appear to move faster
without specific path).



I can host psd file for that if you'll need it.