Messages

There's nothing "wrong" with using AGS to make things other than adventure games. If you read my post carefully, you will find that I never said anything like that. I only said it would be easier to find artists if you were working on a actual game.

AGS allows many things...Why should a film be something to be discouraged if it CAN be made?

So if something CAN be made with AGS, it SHOULD be encouraged? That's preposterous. That's like saying the AGS community should support me if I wanted to make an AGS program to view kiddie-porn or something.

In the future, please read my argument carefully before you respond with irrelevant and ridiculous statements like the one I quoted above.

Actually, there's a neat trick about foot length. Due to the magic of foreshortening, we think our feet are much shorter than they really are. If you measured your feet, you'd find that they are approximately the length of your lower arm (from the inside of your elbow to your wrist).

Not to sound overly harsh, but you should consider taking some writing classes before you appoint yourself editor of an eZine. I highly recommend reading Strunk and White's book, Elements of Style. It will teach you about the mechanics of grammar and the English language.
Another good book is Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway. She explores the construction of short stories and novels from character development to dialogue to description. Her approach is quite exaustive, and it's considered the definitive work on the subject by many university professors.

If price is the issue, why not try THE GIMP? It's free after all, and a good deal more useful than that other horrid program.

As this is a site about adventure games, maybe you could adapt the script for one. AGS allows for player interactivity, so why not use it? After all, if I'd rather watch a real (professionally produced) tv show than waste a half-hour watching an cutscene of the same length scripted in AGS.
I think artists would be more willing to help with a game than with a short film-wannabe.

[contrapposto]

I like the character designs, but as loominous stated earlier, they look kind of flat. Also, a few of the characters have very poor contrast. For instance, the character on the far right's skin and cloak have nearly the same color saturation. From a distance, he looks a bit muddled.

As for your shading, the value changes between each shade is very gradual. This is generally ok for backgrounds, but you want your sprites to stand out, not blend in.

As a third crit, their stances are very symmetrical, in fact, some of them almost look like the left and right side are mirror images. When people stand naturally, the lines of their hips and shoulders will never be parallel. One shoulder will dip slightly, and the hipÃ,  on the same side will be higher than the other one. If this isn't clear, you can look up the term contrapposto for further reference.
It would be great if you could draw your characters in more dynamic poses so they won't look like stiff tin soldiers.

I'm not trying to be overly harsh, I only want to help you improve.

It looks better, although I would shorten the left leg (the farthest one). Even if it was just moved one or two pixels up, you'd definitely see the improvement.

Weird mood + weird music = weird pic.
Hope ya'll enjoy.
100x160 (zoom 2x), 52 colors

What if you did some backgrounds along the lines of those featured in "5 Days a Stranger"? They were simple, yet realistic. I think that style would be your best bet for encouraging people to add on to your world.

[Geoffkhan's A Tale of Betrayal in DOTT style.]

Ok guys, the verdict is in.

We had a decent turnout for this Sprite Jam (actually, the sprite competitions in general don't seem to be doing very well as of late). While everyone submitted a good entry, I was impressed mostly by the pieces I can imagine in a game. Notables include Darth's Santa Claus (although his rationale was a bit thin) and Mr. Frisby's Hermit (although I'm not really sure what style he put it in). But for me, the clear winner is --

Geoffkhan's A Tale of Betrayal in DOTT style. Everything about this sprite screams Bernard from DOTT, yet simultaneously depicts the lead from A Tale of Betrayal. I can totally see this character in a low-res version of the game. Excellent work.

[Main Characters From Famous AGS Games!]

It's been a while since I've hosted one of these competitions, so forgive me if the topic is uncool (hopefully not). And the topic in question is:

Main Characters From Famous AGS Games

!

Description:
Here's the assignment. You must draw the main character from an AGS game in a different style. For example, you could draw Larry Vales in a Indiana Jones FOA style, or Jake McUrk in a quirky Day of the Tentacle style. It can be any main character, as long as he/she starred in a game made with AGS.

Restrictions:
Size: No limits here, but please keep it practical. I want to see sprites that would potentially work in a game, not a 640x480 piece of digital art.
Colors: To enforce to sprite aspect of this assignment, you are limited to 35 colors.

You should try to find a crazy font for the title. Maybe one of the fonts at http://www.1001freefonts.com will catch your fancy.

I made this background tutorial a while ago, but some of you may still find it useful.

http://herculeaneffort.adventuredevelopers.com/tutorials/ian/background.html

I don't think Radiant is trying to "fight". He's only correcting erroneous information in your article. Accepting his criticism can only result in a better informed article.

Maybe this whole topic should have been posted in the Critic's Lounge.

One sprite, two variations:

The original, 40x60, 19 colors

Now with red pants, 40x60, 21 colors


In case he's too small to see, he's supposed to be a P.I. type in a snap brim and trenchcoat carrying a tommy gun.

Don't get me worng, I think your article is good. I reacted more because I felt it took a very superior air. It seemed to criticize other games, while pushing forward a "right" way to do things.

I think it's fairly easy to generalize about how to design an adventure game, but the real challenge is when you put your own pen to the paper. You have to constantly make compromises between the story and the puzzles. As a result, some puzzles will be weaker than others, and may seem contrived. You can even find examples of that in the classic adventure games we all look up to.

If you do end up making your own full-length game, I think it will be interesting to see how the experience changes your opinion about the "guide" you wrote. Not to be overly harsh, but right now, you sound like a virgin giving advice on good sex.

I found the document interesting, though I am a bit confused as to its purpose. How can you write a guide to making adventure games if you have never made one yourself? I believe it's more typical to establish credibility in a field before you write rules about it.

The main thing that comes to my mind is the headline text. Yellow on orange does not provide the best contrast. You've all ready outlined the guitarist in black, maybe try that with the lettering.

Alternatively, you could put several black stripes through the picture (not necessarily straight, to make it a bit more cool looking) behind every part you have text. The stripes will provide contrast and rhythm, making the text stand out and the poster a bit less static.

I'd suggest looking at a lot of foreign entertainment event posters, etc. (especially French ones, those have a lot of good graphic design elements in them) for other ideas.

You know you could just draw stars manually instead of relying on some fancy plugin to do the work for you.

Not to burst your bubble, but your pics look very blurry. Try breaking your drawings down and look at each element as an object in 3d space. Where are your light sources? How do these light sources affect the shading across your surfaces? What about shadows?

Bill Tiller (artist for CMI, etc) has some good tips on drawing backgrounds that are both aesthetically pleasing and functional in an adventure game environment. You could try googling it to find that article, which I highly recommend.

I really love your color choices (yellowish skin, like the old comic books) and the style of art (especially the backgrounds). I love the heavy ink feel to them. The leaves in the forest screen remind me of Herge's art in his Tintin books.