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The Babelfish

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reference photo: http://www.necommunications.co.uk/images/goldfish.jpg

Slogans die out, new campaigns are made, agencies vie for accounts, but every company started somewhere. You can find the puffery on every level. Sales is more of an indirect goal than an adequate measurement. The business world isn't made up of faceless corporations, but a bunch of people. In my personal experience, the informed don't take it too seriously, especially in advertising. Sorry to jump on this off-topic, but I have a degree in advertising and business.

How many professional game companies have even heard of the AGS Awards? Don't take this community too seriously, Helm. As for Apprentice, that was like making a recipe that wins a town fair, then adopting the "best in the universe" slogan. You'd have to be pretty myopic to attribute that to arrogance. There's just too big a difference between those two realms.

Yeah, the whole tone of our site is deathly serious... I don't see how anyone could see anything on that site as not being in earnest. A purposeful overstatement, what's that?

I bet you would complain about Maddox's website being labeled the "best in the universe", too.

Legally, superlatives like "best" do not have to be defended, since they're nonspecific. "Better", on the other hand, requires proof. Look at some of the slogans for local businesses in the yellow pages. Is it possible that more than one Italian restaurant can be "the best"?

So the HEP site is crappy, and our games are hopelessly outdated (and probably flawed) made by two amateurs (at the time) using a free engine and free graphics software. If you honestly interpret that slogan as us thinking we are "TEH BEST GAM3 MAKERZ IN TEH GALAXY", then

you are a douchebag.

Now let's stop talking about a stupid little tagline and focus on the real issue of importance: pixelated boobies and scanty nurse outfits. Demeaning to women or just gratuitous? Discuss amongst yourselves.

EDIT: Hahahaha, Eric. Totally called me. Damn.

This is a pretty solid explanatory article.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

This more or less covers the little details of the conspiracy theory that "Loose Change" suggests.

IMO, the premise of the conspiracy doesn't make sense. If the government was trying to fake a terrorist attack, they would have imitated earlier attacks, not something as coordinated as this was. One plane would have sufficed. Anything more would have required lots of grunt work by more people and the possibility of more going wrong.

I guess it shows the city regulators a thing or two about the necessity of asbestos insulation along the support shafts.

Christ, really? Man, it's doomed to stand out against all those other AGS games that are rich with fully-rounded and diverse characters, whose many layers of emotional depth continue to teach us how futile human existence really is.

It's not about a character having the same emotional depth as a human, it's about a character being believable in the narrative.

Nobody's opinion holds more validity than the next man's.

Some opinions are more useful. All you seem to be doing is rehashing the same old "everyone's stupid for making this an issue/Objectification doesn't bother me". I think we get where you stand.

Just because I don't care

If you don't care, you should shut the fuck up.

If you do decide to keep posting here, you obviously care.

Is this irony unintentional?

- An attractive woman who hasn't seen a mirror
- A chauvinist society that lives on "Seahorse" Island. Male seahorses (seastallions?) get pregnant and carry the babies.

Basically you're proposing a Milla Jovovich in 5th Element set on a island?

It would be more pointed if the story was set on a Polynesian island, where the men like their women big. The main character, instead of being unbelievably naive (to the point of not having a standard of beauty) could simply have a different standard of beauty than the males on the island. Let's say she's a little heavy, yet she considers the anoxeric coke-addicts in Vogue to be an ideal. She's used to being overlooked by the opposite sex, yet on this island she garners attention. At first maybe she thinks the men are mocking her, and the situation could be equally mysterious to the player. Maybe near the end she realizes that the male islanders desire her more than any of the slender females that also live there. I think this would be a far more interesting twist. It would also explain why she doesn't use her charms to her advantage in the beginning of the story.

I can't imagine a female character who is extremely intelligent, yet unable to understand others' preferences (and exploit them). This character sounds too much like an artificial construct to be human, and I doubt the player will be able to relate to her.

I don't remember the part about it being all 'serious'. It mentions a problem (the failing crops and onset of famine or some such thing) and its seems clear that a solution must be found, but there is nothing to indicate that it needs to, or will be handled in a 'stern' or 'serious' manner.

It's a stylistic issue, rather than a narrative one.

The logo for Herculean-Efforts games sports an Image of Atlas holding up a bowling ball instead of the globe. Surely an image of Hercules himself rather than a completely different god would be a much more 'appropriate' image.

One of Hercules' tasks involved holding up the globe in Atlas' stead. It would be hard to design a logo that visually differentiates Hercules from Atlas in an easily apparent manner. Hence the word "Herculean" to give the viewer a clue. Is it really that far-fetched?

It's your logo not mine, and I have no right to criticise it even if I hold the opinion that it's inappropriate or simply a poor choice of image. And the same goes for Captain-Binkey's art work; it must be very annoying for him to read “inappropriate for the story blah blah” over and over.

It would be impolite to criticize my logo, since I did not submit it for your approval. However, Cap'n B SPECIFICALLY STARTED THIS WHOLE THREAD TO GET FEEDBACK. If he didn't want opinions, why would he start this? Gray matter, people, it's not just for breakfast these days.

Additionally, quite a few people have stated that because the girl has big boobs they wouldn't be able to take the character seriously, and that this would spoil the game for them.

For me it's less about the boobs themselves and more about the rendering.

1.)   Personally I never “took Guybrush Threepwood seriously”, but that certainly doesn't stop the MI games from being absolutely awesome!

SMI never took itself seriously. The game self-references, breaks the fourth wall, and sports anachronisms. Did you really think it tried to be taken seriously???

2.)   It raises a very disturbing issue indeed!

If certain individuals can't take a woman seriously because she has large breasts, then they are harbouring some very offensively discriminating views. These people are basically saying that if a woman has large breasts then she is a bimbo, she is incapable of functioning as an intelligent individual, and is not someone that they could possibly conceive being able to perform any useful/complex function, JUST BECAUSE HER BOOBS ARE LARGE! Shame on you!!!

She's not a real person. She is an admittedly idealized exageration of the female form drawn by a hormone-influenced artist. I mean, the nurse outfit isn't exactly subtle. What people can't take seriously is the idealization, not the concept of a female protagonist possessing front seat airbags.

And in the same breath you attempt to make out that the game-designers are somehow perverted or sexist when ITS YOU that categorically state you can't take a woman seriously if her boobs are big!

Who are you talking to? I didn't draw her; she's not my fantasy. How am I a hypocrit? Have I contradicted myself?

Men have issues with their bodies too, yes, but there is also a significantly greater percentage of men who don't care about looking sexy and are seen as socially-acceptable than women who feel the same.

Umm...Hair replacement and penis enlargement sell a lot of products every year. I Ã, sure hope women aren't buying them.

Why is it that in movies, when an ugly geek guy falls in love with a hot girl, he gets to remain ugly and geeky,

Because his dick could make the Grand Canyon moan?

Seriously though, women are less visually oriented than men are as far as sexual arousal is concerned. This is why the porn industry serves more male customers than females.
And most of the pretty women I know have very low standards when it comes to men (and are very insecure about their looks). They would call another woman ugly based only on the color of her eyeshadow or its application, but will overlook all sorts of physical deformities in a male (OMG, but he's funny!).

Why is it that Napoleon Dynamite can dance like a complete dork while girls who dance have to be graceful in doing so?

So Summer was dancing "gracefully" in the skit before? Keep in mind that Napolean doesn't end up dating a supermodel, just another geek.

And the question I asked before: why are naked men generally seen as funny, while naked women are generally seen as OMGSEXY?

Because women are less visually oriented, men don't have the need to look as attractive (they just need to make the girl feel good) to appeal. However, I've never seen a girl laugh at a topless male underwear model or a Playgirl centerfold before. If you do, something might be wrong... Note that this isn't the same as Will Ferrell "streaking to the quad". This is funny, mostly because he has a college student mentality in a middle-aged body. I think the joke would be equally funny if it was a middle aged woman instead, but in that case I think only the guys would laugh and the girls would be embarrassed or offended.

I can guarentee you that no man finds ALL naked women OMGSEXY.

Also, there's a difference between "fair" and "equal".


*** EDIT: As far as college matriculation rates go, we are going to see a reversal of Title IX rules (protection of the underrepresented gender in institutions that take any federal funds) within the next 5 years. That's how few males are going on to college in the US.

It's not like Gen Gen hasn't seen it's share of serious threads...the Stanley Williams execution, the Mohammed cartoons, etc.

Maybe this thread grew so fast because people are relieved it's only about boobs.

Anyone who thinks it's vulgar needs to take a long nap and then wake up so I can slap them asleep again. Shut up all of you.

Titties aren't vulgar unto themselves.

Answer: They're pointless.

But so what?

Let me tell you a story about someone...

*swirly dream sequence*

This is even more pointless.

But you want to know what I find vulgar? This is vulgar: it's been revealed today that the Bush administration was warned on the highly destructive capabilities of Hurricane Katrina in a series of meetings with FEMA prior to the hurricane hitting. It's in a series of videos recently obtained by the Associated Press. Bush even says in the vids, "We are fully prepared."

Let's not even get into state versus federal jurisdictions.
Troll.

In fact, no. I find this more vulgar: the fact that people here would rather devote 6 pages to a cartoon boobies debate instead of something that actually makes a difference.

No debate in Gen Gen can actually make a difference.

Fair enough, Eric.

We wouldn't want just anyone thinking they could punch bodybuilders.

Sorry to go on a tangent here, but I feel the need to clear up some misconceptions.

The double funny thing is that there is body building and strength training.

There is a lot of overlap between the two. Both revolve around lifting heavy weights. Bodybuilding incorporates dieting to slash body fat for increased muscle definition (theyÃ,  keep it far below 9%), while strength training focuses much less on diet (9-12% is usually the fat range for an ideal body comp).

Body building is building up muscles so they are large, that does not mean someone is strong. So if you punch Arnold Schwarzenegger in the tummy [back in his prime] he could possibly have doubled over and cried!

This is obviously bullshit. Back in the day, Arnold would rep over 400 pounds of weight on bench press - on his 12th set. The pros build muscle by working them to fatigue, usually with very heavy weight. Moving this weight around requires strength.

Actually, some pumped up heroes might be slowed down, what with their muscles wieghing so much.

This too is bullshit. Look at male Olympic sprinters or American football players. They need muscle for the explosive speed.

To clarify my earlier argument. The hyper optimal stimulus seems juvenile and out of place.

Absolutely on target, Eric.

Boobs/cleavage/scanty outfits aren't inappropriate unto themselves. However, in the context of the information revealed about the game, they are. It's just something that will stand out like a cartoon character in a noir detective film.

Perhaps a lot of anime does this (not Miyuzaki!). The ones that do it most are targeted to young adolescent boys anyways. Many who aren't in that target won't take it seriously either.

If you're making this game for 13 year olds to drool over, then you've got a good start.

From what you've told us about the project, it seems like it has a relatively serious story. The realistic style of the art supports this. Sure LSL boasted a bounty of busty bazungas, but the series was slapstick. Your game, on the other hand, seems moody and grave (the amnesia bit is a narative device usually employed in epic tales). Throwing in a skimpy outfit and tits (isn't nurse on the same level as cowgirl and cheerleader?) detracts from the player's suspension of disbelief.

Boobs do not offend me in any way, but they don't make sense here. If you are totally set on having them and the nurse's outfit in the game, I would suggest redrawing them so they actually look like large boobs you might see in real life, not some Japanese cartoon.

16 colors is way more than enough to draw a sprite without resorting to dithering. Fighter sprites have been doing this for years, and they have to keep the colors distinct because of palette shifting. Because of a sprite's small size (in comparison to the background, etc) dithering makes it look furry.

For example:
3 skin tones
3 shirt tones
2 short tones (borrow lightest from skin)
1 hair color (darker parts can be borrowed from skin) = 9 colors
(whites of eyes can be borrowed from the shirt, darkest short color can be used for the sandals)

If you want, I can do a paintover to demonstrate...

Animating in high-res is going to be a big production bottleneck if you want to get fancy with the coloring.

I miss the watermark. Can you show us how to do that, too?

Wow, so much potential with this one. You could have a lot of fun with the tail movement. Also maybe she bends her knees a little and rolls her hips for the shake. Her hands should not be in the pockets for this. Have her lean forward a bit, so she looks over her shoulder at an angle.

It looks like you're on to a good start. For technique, I would try to clean up the outlines. Watch out for double pixels! Also, try to keep it consistent. If you want a black outline, use it around the outside of the whole figure.
As for anatomy, you should move the feet a little closer together. Right now, it looks like his left leg (our right) is longer than the other one. Try moving his head back a few pixels so it makes his stance more dynamic.
Don't be afraid to play with your colors a little. Vary the hues on the shadows.

The thing is out of hand, but luckily most Muslim governments have decided to try and stop the riots. I guess the riots are hurting their own societies more than ours.

I think it's sad when only MOST Muslim governments would merely DECIDE to TRY and stop riots. Whether or not the riots end, I'm still shocked at how little it takes for those people to resort to violence. If they want to act like a cranky infant, the rest of the world should treat them like one.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but these weren't intended to be political cartoons as much as they were portraits of Mohammed (or how they viewed Mohammed) drawn by a number of relatively famous cartoonists.