Messages

I'm baffled about how fast you guys code such a thing.
Yeah, Khris, the rotation in yours is nervous as hell, but the whole thing is astonishing.
Kweepa, yours generates an error log which constantly increases its size. After a few minutes, the log was bigger in size than the game itself

I'm curious about where this will lead. Even these early results look promising enough to keep an eye on it

Looks great. Although I can't help but think that the

quote-box

should look as if it went into the panel instead of coming out of it (or have no graphical effect on it at all). Now it looks like a button and I'm constantly trying to click it

I'd favour another theme where the width of the board is yet smaller.

EDIT: Right on top of the "mark all topics as read"-button there is an empty button doing nothing.

[2dMatty]

We have winner, and his name is 2dMatty. Congrats! With 11 votes, you were on top of the list, closely followed by Misj' with 9.

Thanks for all the entries.

Armageddon: Your background has a gritty, expressionist tone which I like. The pencil strokes add to that. However, the irritating perspective and the details on the village are hard to read, so the functionality is, in some way, disabled.

Misj': You've done a beautiful 8-bit rendition there. The limited colours give your background value and contrast which I thought the original lacked. I can clearly see this image in-game. The 4-colour-version are a nice addon, but the dithering, I think, should have been the same resolution; now, they're double the resolution as the non-dithering pixels, which gives it an awkward look.

2dMatty: Great colours (although the bottom half is a bit too green for my taste), and the rain effect really adds to the scenery. Like Misj's bg, yours succeeds in telling a story.

oraxon: A chilling image. Everything is just hinted at with a few strokes, but yet it seems so well detailed that one can feel a cold, but soft wind on your skin.

Cuiki: I dig the alien looking building and the hills, but for some reason I'm not a friend of the foreground. There's nothing really interesting there.

Lad: That style works for me, and I could easily imagine it in an adventure. However, I'd like to see it with more details.

Eazy-O: My favorite of all. The Paint-style airbrush and the harsh colour scheme nails the post-apoc theme you were going for.

Alright, time to vote. The categories are:

Code: ags

[b]Idea:[/b]
[b]Atmosphere:[/b]
[b]Functionality:[/b]
[b]Technique:[/b]

That are some pretty cool entries. Thanks for participating.

Voting will end on monday 16th.

Two days left. Anyone out there who wants to venture into new spheres of his background-making abilities?

The descent?

What was about the first adventure game using the simplified GUI?

As in (among other things):
* only having the Left and Right click being Action and Look.
* no swiching between mousemodes by the gameplayer.
* no icons on-screen (like sierra/lucasarts icons) / no verbcoin

I think Beneath A Steel Sky (1994) had it. But maybe there was one before it.

Ps. Nihilyst, it was more fun than frustrating

You can tell from the result. Groovy

@Armageddon: That's one hell of a fast entry I like it.

@MisJ: I see you have fiddled with many different styles before. I wonder what you're coming up with

And now for something completely different ...

This fortnight, your task is to make a background with a theme of your choice, and I mean that: if you want to paint a cathedral in space, do it, if it's a giant hamburger with doors and windows, be my guest, and if your end result looks like something from Bob Ross, I'd be happy to see it.

Just one thing: Do it in a way you never have done your backgrounds before. You all know how 304's backgrounds look like, you can spot your zyndikate from miles away, and you even can name a loominous blindfolded. Many artists have their own distinctive style; so do you. You have your paint program, your workflow, your colours, your line arts all figured out. This episode's task is to forget about your usual way of doing backgrounds.
For example, if you're into pixel art with limited colour palettes, try a classical painting with different brushes. If comic-style backgrounds like in DOTT are your way to go, then try something more realistic. You may even switch from digital painting to oil on canvas and then scan it for us to see, if you like. As a bonus, it would be great to see other stuff of yours to compare your new style to.

Restrictions: no resolution restrictions this time. Go as you please.
This Blitz ends April 12th.

And now go for it

cheers
nihilyst

Well then, thanks
I'll start a new one soon

Strangely, with the algorithm I used, it's a tie between mode7 and me oO

I liked Dark Souls, even though, for beginners and in the first half, it was extremely punishing and save spots were rare. In this case, I felt a "save where you want" option would have ruined the experience. So maybe it all boils down to how well you can draw the player into the game; if Dark Souls wouldn't have drawn me in that much, I'd have probably thrown it out the window. Don't know how that kind of save-mechanics yould be implemented in a strategy game.

I like 7. If people like a challenge, they'll try without 'save-game-cheating'.

Well, I can read it, so that's a good start right away.

The resolution is kinda weird: 798px × 551px? For in-game use, you might want to consider something like 800x600, 640x480, 320x240 or any other supported resolution, or else AGS would use this background as a scrolling background, but that wouldn't make much sense here.

Considering the size of the bonfire, this part of the island seems very small, yet the beach is only hinted as if we looked down on the island from high above.

Using the grass brush from photoshop usually ends in repeating patterns (as you can see on the right-hand side of the grassy field). Also, I would darken the bushes so that they can be visually separated from the rest.

I can't help but feel that your bg looks flat, the colours are kinda dull. I would consider changing from a top-down perspective to a regular perspective with the horizon line on screen. That way, giving the player the feeling of a remote island (or whatever you want it to be) will be much easier -- but I could be wrong on that.

Hey guys,

for ages, I've been trying to find out the artist and the name of the painting that (in form of a tapestry) hangs in our living room. Here it is:


My father is sure that, when he bought it ages ago, he had been said that this is based on a painting by some painter. I myself have absolutely no idea about that kind of stuff, so I hope one of you does. It's not an important question, to be honest; I just wanted to know it.

An image search via Google didn't bring up valuable results. I guess the colour of the tapestry has worn off heavily over the years.

Thanks

At first Nate Shure thought it to be a good idea living in a self-made freestyle house high in a treetop. I mean, he still had 900+ tv stations on his 50 inch flatscreen tv. But soon the postman cursed him for installing the mailbox in such heights, he realized that the nature-style shower didn't magically refill by itself, and every time he went to bed he wondered how he had passed the safety regulations in the first place.

2x


I might update on this before deadline, but I'm not sure if I can spare the time.

cheer
nihilyst

Works like a charm for me.

A few weeks ago I've have that same issue on every site with a flash video player on it (like youtube and stuff). The problem just disappeared after two days, so I can'T really say what caused it.

That's 10$ from me