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[There is a perfectly valid reason why she should be attractive, and in my efforts to draw "attractive" (to me, at least), I drew her with big boobs, so there is a "sort of" justification for them.]

I've read the bit of backstory that is the setup of your game. I'm pretty sure it will make for funny and/or thought provoking situation in places. It *does* seem as if during this thread, whereas initially the artist for this project said stuff along the lines 'well I like boobs so this is why I animate boobs, lol!' now it's more of the 'oh just wait, there is a reason for the boobs and the outfit and and' which does seem supicious.

Post on Squinky's forum before this thread even started:
"At the end of the day, this is a fantasy game. And her particular look is justified somewhat within the game. As is the nurse's uniform."

Posts on this thread, all within a two days of it starting (and we only get to post during the day as neither of us have net access out of work)

" @MrColossal:
To clarify, ther is no particular reason why her boobs should be that exact size other than personal taste. There is a perfectly valid reason why she should be attractive, and in my efforts to draw "attractive" (to me, at least), I drew her with big boobs, so there is a "sort of" justification for them. We also wanted her to look different from the other female characters in the game. And the nurse's uniform is completely justified even though we could conceivably had made it a little larger."

"This has all been most interesting (and quite amusing). I'm afraid I may have confused things a little with my rather contradictory points on why she looks like that and how much/little this has to do with the story. This is basically because we've been trying to tread a line between how much of the story to give away and how much we justify the character."

"At the end of the day, we posted the screenshots when we had two final screenshots to show (the forum minimum). One of them just happened to be the main character, obviously a high priority on things to draw first, who happened to be somewhat "controversial", without the context to justify it. We didn't really consider the impact it would have, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't quite pleased with the interest it has generated. Smiley"

So where are these "lol boobzzz!!!!!!:D:D:D" comments?

If you're refering to the animating comments in the FE thread, jesums! I bet anyone could dredge up an old post against anyone to use against them. Everyone says stuff in jest. We were pleased to get our first comments about the game, we might have been more pleased if they were all saying "lovely art and interesting sounding story", but complimenting the boobs is still complimenting Binky's art. What do you suggest we said instead? "No, piss off! If you're only interested in the boobs we don't want you to download our game, pervert!"

See this is the problem, I don't think you even understand what objectification means. Or at least should mean in a society where people don't overreact over every little thing that might rub them up the wrong way, at least. We like boobs. So shoot us! Does liking boobs automatically make you a chauvanistic pig? Of course not, that's complete idiocy. Binky and myself were pleased that the art was evidently sound enough for people to make comments about her being "hot" and "having nice boobs". After all a blocky scribbly mess would not have attracted that attention, so we saw it as a compliment to Binky's art.

So what if Binky "enjoyed doing that particular animation"? Does enjoying doing an animation of a woman with boobs make someone a sexist idiot who would not give a better qualified woman a job over a man? Would someone who liked the idea of having a large breasted woman in a game automatically be the sort of person to make leud comments to a single mother on a train, or have a relationship with a woman purely because she has big breasts? No. Stop making judgements on what our motives are. Making assumptions and sullying our personalities on account of a 320x200 picture that, as we've stated REPEATEDLY, we have fully justified in the game. The WHOLE REASON WE POSTED THAT INFORMATION was because people were complaining that we were defending ourselves by saying "there is a reason" but not divulging it. So we post our reason, then you start picking holes in that, or accuse us of... well I can only imagine you're accusing us of changing our argument in the course of this thread. So add accusing us of being so fickle that we'd change a complete story, all the dialogue and overall theme of the game on account of a few people's disagreements about our motives? Thanks! All that hard work rewarded then.

How about we just post a screen by screen account of the whole damn game, will that allay your concerns about the sick perverts that have evidently joined your site? Or about the swizz cheese idiot story we've evidently constructed, because you can't see the whole picture from carefully divulged information. Better still, when it's done we can even download it for you and play it through. Sod it, we'll even review it! 9/10 It's great! There, you never even have to concern yourself with it again.

And if Squinky did get that seriously offended by our jokey comments on the FE thread that she went to the trouble of blogging about it, then I sincerely pity her. How she gets through life without being offended on a minute by minute basis is beyond me. It must make life a genuinely miserable experience... oh hang on a minute!

"I'm just going to smugly smirk at the fact that I made Gertrude Zzyrgenhymer completely flat-chested, and that the character wearing the least clothing in TGTTPOACS just so happens to be male."

You sexist bitch! How DARE you belittle our gender!

"All hypocrisy in my original post, by the way, was intentional and meant to be tongue-in-cheek. "

Oh that's alright then, you were joking Squinky, you are forgiven....

Hang on!!!! Anyone see the irony here?

This is f**king ridiculous.

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.

'it isn't easy being the best'  do you have any idea how arrogant you come across? we never asked you to dissect our story. we post a picture out of context. people complain. we post the context even though we really didn't want to, just to show where we're coming from. people complain. then squinky starts dredging up old posts out of context and not in the manner they were intended. are we selling this game? do we deserve this? We've spent practically every second of our free time on this. we found this community and was so inspired by cj's commitment to this cause we wanted to make our own contribution. making a game that will probably take a year or two and giving it away. writing plugins
we were intending to release. we were even going to release all our art assets once the game was done so others could use them. what are were we asking in return? a bit of support. That's it.. we thought this was supposed to be a community where everyone would appreciate any contribution even if it wasn't their cup of tea. then we post a sodding picture of a woman with cleavage out and people are making judgements on us as people? calling up adolesants. That's not on. at all! limping fish you're bang on. big brother is more offensive than a pair of breasts could ever be. sorry about the long paragraph and bad grammar as i'm typing on my phone. too angry to wait till i have net access tomorrow. i speak for myself. this doesn't necessarily reflect the views of binky

Okay, I think it's time to just spill the beans a little. Forgive me Binky.

***********
SPOILERS
***********

The main character enters the game with a clean slate, for reasons that I'm not going to reveal here, and is totally naive to the world around her. In the opening section of the game she wakes up in a hospital. She needs to evade somebody and thus changes into a nurse uniform to disguise herself. Totally logical from her perspective. From there on in she wears that nurses uniform. It's not hers, and yes it's way too small.

A strong theme for the entire game is that she alone has the power to figure out what is happening on the island, and to stop what is happening.  However, the society within which the game is set is of a deeply chauvanistic nature. Men are the ones with all the power, women are seen as little more than sex objects and ways for the men to raise heirs.


As such, our main character, an extremely strong and intelligent woman, yet completely naive to the social workings on the island, to whom nudity, cleavage, inappropriate dress, attractiveness, and everything is of completely no consequence to her, cannot understand why she is recieving the reactions she gets. The social conditioning of physical appearence over internal worth has no bearing on her, and she thinks the whole world must be completely mad.

Men are more likely to tell her to sit on her lap than to give her useful information she needs, and women are hostile towards her because in their eyes she is doing nothing more than selling out their gender and "objectifying" them further.

So apart from saving Seahorse Island from doom, she might just be able to change the way people of Seahorse Island think towards outward appearance, and about men being empowered and women not being.

So hopefully you can appreciate that if our main character was an appropriately dressed, appropriately proportioned woman (there is actually another very good reason for the proportions, but I'm DEFINITELY not revealing this), this wouldn't work. It's the inhabitants of Seahorse Island's own prejudices and rash judgements on outward apprearances, her naivety as to why showing a bit of skin would possibly change others perception of her mind and worth, what she is capable of, and how she should be treat. This is one of the obstacles she must overcome, and hopefully change for the better, through the course of the story.

Furthermore, due to her lack of focus on the outward appearance, and despite being empowered physically to use her sexuality to progress, she NEVER does... not once. Even though she could simply say "I'll give you a kiss if you let me past", she would never do that.

The point here is 'don't judge a book by its cover'.

You specifically asked people in this thread their opinion on said cover, bypassing their better judgement to -as you say- not judge by appearances. Nnnrgh

Yes, agreed:

"I'm not saying anyone is wrong to point her appearance out in a negative light, and I'm not saying we intended or anticipated this reaction, I'm just saying there is a strange parallel here."

Apologies, I'll just pop the lid back on this can of worms.

So every time we see scantily dressed women with huge breasts, we are to presume they're a part of a thoroughly concieved agenda, designed to constitute healthy and positive role models?

Okay fair point, I worded that a little badly.

I was more focusing on the reaction from our perspective, now, and from the perspective of people playing the game when it's finished. The point here is 'don't judge a book by its cover'. Obviously people do, and a lot of the time they are correct in their assumptions. I'm merely saying that this is a theme we explore in the game, and the reactions we've had only go to prove the theme in the game to be an accurate one.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong to point her appearance out in a negative light, and I'm not saying we intended or anticipated this reaction, I'm just saying there is a strange parallel here.

[good]

And now my 2c worth. All things considered, if we were selling this game, we might be more concerned with certain "demographics" being turned off and not playing the game due to one picture, and we might then consider changing it. After all players = $$$ and we can't afford to lose a single one...

However we are doing this game largely for our own enjoyment, and can imagine a few people playing the game regardless. Whilst it would be great to have as many people playing as possible, if it's not everyone's cup of tea then fair play, I say...

Those who do play will hopefully see what we are trying to do, and hopefully will then come on the forums, or post reviews on the game stating that they think it was actually a good choice of style of main character, and that she is a positive role model... possibly that any other look, proportions, dress, or anything else would be of detriment to the game.

Then those who were repelled from playing the game may then consider giving it a chance.

The reaction we have recieved from some people is comparable (in my eyes) to the reactionary media and public reaction to the Brass Eye special. Anyone who has seen it (and got it) will know exactly what I'm getting at. It only stands to reaffirm the point that is being made.

So those who oppose, please feel free

Are saying we will have type those Verbs + objects as we did in the old times?

Erm no we have the verbs on the GUI to click on, as in Monkey Island etc.

The art is awesome. My only bone to pick here is the SCUMM (TM) gui. Seriously, why? It's just an outdated remainer from conversational adventures, that Lucasarts themselves abandoned after their first few games. Most of the time it's only a way to make the game last longer by giving the player too many options instead of clever puzzles.

But if you are set on using it, could you at least make keyboard shortcuts? The whole rocking the mouse up and down continuously ends up getting on my nerves.

We made the choice because we personally feel that the reduction of verbs has diluted the experience of playing point-and-clicks somewhat, and were both quite dissapointed that lucasarts, of all people, abandoned it. Without the scumm interface it becomes an "interact with everything" fest, instead of players having to think about what they actually want to do with objects.

It'd be like playing a text adventure and saying "use door, use chest, use ring, use gandalf" (I seem to be subconsiously playing The Hobbit, it appears heheh )

Also I personally find right clicking through icons more cumbersome than clicking a verb.

Regarding keyboard shortcuts, however, great idea! we will definitely put this in.

Wow this thread has certainly ballooned over night! Some very interesting comments, opinions and theories. Also some very entertaining posts (LimpingFish's particularly, on all counts )

I'm glad the consensus seems to be "do it how you want", not that we had any plans of doing any different.

In the paraphrased words of Chris Morris "If anyone has downloaded the game just because of all the fuss that's been made of it, I think they should delete it... then download it again just because they like the game"

At the end of the day, we posted the screenshots when we had two final screenshots to show (the forum minimum). One of them just happened to be the main character, obviously a high priority on things to draw first, who happened to be somewhat "controversial", without the context to justify it. We didn't really consider the impact it would have, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't quite pleased with the interest it has generated.

Thanks for all your comments!

Lemmy

I just figured it out! It's a quite ingenious plot actually. She is cursed with big boobs so no one takes her seriously. Throughout the game she goes on talking to people about saving the forest and grain and the world  and all that crap and the npc's are just like: HEY, BOOBS! and aren't even listening, so she has to do all the work herself. I personally think it is an excellent idea. She not only has to svae the world but fight against sexism!

Male gamers who complain about female game characters portrayed in a sexist light are possibly the funniest creatures this fish has ever come across.

Why not complain about obscenely pumped up male characters in video games being an unrealistic depiction of average "Maleness"?Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, 

Why are the "Comic Relief" male characters in videogames always skinny nerds, or fatties? Why are they always obsessed by horror movies, technology and pr0n?

Why are male heroes generally Hip Hop Wannabes or Semper Fi Jarheads?

Because of one thing: Lowest Common Denominator.

The "Her tits are just there to sell the game" argument is old. Old and tired.
We KNOW thats why they're there. The company that made the game put them there. On the cover. With pointy nipples.

Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within had a lead female character wearing three straps of leather across the cheeks of her behind. She may have well have been bare-assed.
Did it help sell the game? Maybe. Or maybe the upping of beheadings and gore did. Or maybe the new "Emo" prince and his RAWK soundtrack did.

Frankly, I could give a rats ass.

Offended by female game characters? Tough.

Offended by male videogame characters? Tough.

Nobody is asking you to buy or play or watch something that offends you.

The only reason we don't run into LCD syndrome in adventure games much is that nobody buys the bloody things anymore.

Give your female characters gravity defying knockers if you want, hell have them naked if you want. Give your male characters ripped pecs, and 12 inch wangs in their pants, if the mood takes you.

Does it undermine the charcter or the game? Maybe. Can a game have such qualitys and still be regarded as "serious"? Who knows.

People seem to like the Tomb Raider games, which contain some of the most overtly misogynistic views on "Femininity".

Do I have a point? I don't know, I'm tired from all this typing.

Form your own damn opinions on the subject.

BTW, I'm playing Doom 3 at the mo. Is it just me, or are no females employed by the UAC? Are they not good enough to work on Mars?

Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, i think you're my new hero

Thanks for the kind words!

Thing is, we both did actually think long and hard as to whether our lead character would "give people the wrong impression about the game" but eventually wrote it off and thought "well sod it, if they play the game anyway and enjoy it on its own merits, then it won't be a problem. It's our game, and we'll have a nurse if we want to!" we kind of expected some people would interpret the game the wrong way, we just didn't really think it would cause any actual offense.

You live and learn though

I guess what unsettled me the most was that I'd always seen indy game development as a chance for people to express themselves creatively, without any political red tape, marketing potential, USRB ratings, bosses telling you what to do, target demographics and all the other things that are quite a curse to the game industry as a whole. Even copyright issues seem to pass this type of community by more often than not.

If we were trying to profit from it, it might be slightly different. But at the end of the day we're making this because we enjoy making it, and we're making it hoping some people will enjoy it. We didn't really expect this kind of venomous reaction over something, in our mind at least, as mild as a cleavage shot, to happen within a freeware "for the community" community.

I hope you guys focus on the story as much as you have on the graphic of the woman, it would be depressing if the story was a let down.    Anyways I've said my piece, actually looking forward to it.

Thanks for the kind words! We have put in a lot of work on the story, and got everything nailed down for the full three acts. So as to whether it will be a let down or not, I would hope not , but obviously we'll have to see what people think when they play the demo. We're quite proud of it as a whole. Obviously we know what the story is, and where it's going, but due to the serialised nature of the game, it will be interesting to see how, and what players think as the story unfolds in each act.

Edited.

I was just curious as to which people prefer:

- A point-and-click where the main character is unable to die. The focus is on experiencing the story and solving puzzles.

- A point-and-click where the main character could die at any moment for taking too long or doing something incorrect.

I can see pros and cons for both, I like the feeling of danger you get knowing that your character's life is in your hands, however I find games that you cannot die a lot less frustrating to play.

I'd probably side with not being able to die, all things considered. A more relaxing experience and you don't have to worry about when you last saved all the time

Just wondered what other people thought about this?

Cheers,

Lemmy

A couple of suggestions to CJ for additions to AGS to make it powerful enough to make Black & White

* Hype Creation Module - Automatically blitzes the world gaming media each day about how revolutionary the currently loaded AGS game is, how it's going to change the face of gaming forever, and how nothing else in existance is in any way comparable to it.

* Exaggeration Toolkit - Creates exaggerated half-truths about game features, and the capabilities of the AGS graphics engine. Now you can finally have AGS characters that undergo conscious thought processes about moving along those walkable area regions!

In case you can't tell, I love B&W me

Hi all, I'm trying to get a fade-in working immediately after entering a room. Basically our game starts with someone waking up, and we wanted to have the room fade in really slowly to give the effect of waking up.

However the only place I can seem to get the FadeOut/FadeIn working is in the "After Fade In" interaction, which means the screen fades in itself before I get chance.

Any suggestions?

Cheers,
lemmy

EDIT: Thanks guys!

Well, I've been working a lot on my adventure game, and it has just suddenly dawned on me... what will I do with it when I'm done? I suppose I'll post it here, on the AGS Forums, and some of you will download it, and probably most not like it, maybe some of you will like it, maybe alot, unlikely. But then what?...

Post it, what the hell. From looking at reviews on this site it seems people are generally encouraging with their posts. Any or most negative feedback you will get will be constructive critisism on how you can improve your game, or do things differently next time. 

Beyond that? Set up your own website for the game, and get your site linked into any freeware gaming sites.

Most of all, just the fact you've actually made a game yourself will be such a rewarding and satisfying experience in my opinion the act of making it in itself is its own reward.

Then you can start another one!

Wow I love the direction you've gone with the art in this game. The characters are lovely, and the backgrounds, esp. the trees in the first pic. I love heavily stylised games.

I'll be sure to DL this one!