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Hey folks, long time no see. Haven't really had time or energy to participate around here much recently, but saw this today while checking for industry news, and thought I'd share - you may need an account at Gamasutra to read:

Best Of Indie Games: Here Comes a New Challenger (Gamasutra)

Game Pick: 'Eternally Us' (Ben Chandler and Steven Poulton, freeware)
"Eternally Us is a short adventure game that tells the story of Fio and Amber, two friends who have known each other since childhood. An incident occurs that separates the both of them while they were feeding birds in a park, so it is up to the player to help reunite the best buddies together again."

The featured screenshot was immediately recognizable. Here's to AGSers making big waves!

Links to IndieGames Blog.

If I might throw my two cents in, I think that as opposed to making it another competition where the goal is to create a sprite, it should be based more around the character creation process, maybe something where the contest starter comes up with a theme, like: You have to come up with a design for a main character in a piratical caribbean setting. The character is young and a little geeky, weak - and is described as 'looking like a flooring inspector'. His motivation is to become a pirate.

Then the contest entrants would sketch, design and ultimately release a few images to illustrate their concept, before the sprite phase (or even the final sprite, high or low-res as per the entrant's needs and/or the rules of the creator). The main difference between this and the Sprite Jam would of course be in that the new contest is all about 'concept', a 'Concept competition', if you were, where the Sprite Jam focuses around creating a finished, viable product within very specific constraints.

The entrant whose character design fits the concept the best, regardless of their medium, would be the winner in this competition, and it would revolve not around a specific set of artistic skills so much as creativity and the ability to develop a character to convey a certain 'look'. This is a very important step in the game creation process, and I imagine would help people work on their character development skills.

The main gripe about the Sprite Jam is that a lot of people do find the rules to be very constricting. I'm particularly hard on my contestants, because I require that the sprite will integrate well into a game, and like to limit size and palettes to a large extent. This isn't always going to be the case, but ultimately the contest is about building artistic sprite-creation skill. A large percentage of the time in a 'low-res' environment.

Obviously, this does tie together with the Sprite Jam in a number of ways, but it does focus on a different skillset. The Sprite Jam is about creating an image - at times is also something of an art contest. This concept contest would, I imagine, broaden the base of people joining the contest, and if it didn't, then such is life. I think it does have potential.

The Man Who Saves the World (Turkish Star Wars)

...Whether it's good or not is up to debate, but it is awesome in its own way.

[The Evolution of Beatboxing, Part 1: Fluteboxing]

I've been recently pretty interested in the many facets of beatboxing - I know a lot of people dislike beatboxing, or don't seem to find it impressive, but I think it's some great stuff. I was inspired by the Nouvelle Star beatboxing link that Nikolas posted. I even did some 'blogging' about it a few months ago on MOG.com. I'll spare the personal reviews here and just send you in the direction of the individual blog pages:

The Evolution of Beatboxing, Part 1: Fluteboxing
Additional Fluteboxing link that's been posted since that article: Live at Union Square

The Evolution of Beatboxing, Part 2: The Roots

My rapidly receding hairline suggests I'm not the young pirate I once was.


SpacePirateCaine: I'm an arrtist.

Happy birthday wishes to our good friend who left the forums so unexpectedly just recently, Rui Pires. May he one day return to the forums and grace us with his wisdom and presence again.

Arr, happy birthday, Greg - and here's to 19 more.

I went to the NorCal Rennaissance Faire last weekend, and in the spirit of Talk like a Pirate day (Though, every day is talk like a pirate day for me), I thought I'd share my Buccaneer look.


Arr! That's a flintlock in me pants, but I am happy to see ye, too.

Spoiler

FOMI can also be found here.

[close]

It's a pity that Scurvyliver Entertainment's FOMI series got the axe from Lucasarts. Copyright infringement is an ugly word.

Hello there,

My name's Luke Rideout. I've been playing around a bit with AGS since sometime last spring, and have aspirations to one day create an adventure game worth playing. Generally speaking, I'm a cartoonist, and I'm working on developing and eventually publishing a comic book (which, consequentially, is the base for the first AGS game I'm attempting to make). I'm 22, will be 23 in a few days, and I currently live in Chiba, Japan as a University student (Studying linguistics, Arr!), though I was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, and spend my breaks with my parents in California, USA.

I've also been lurking on the forums since I first downloaded AGS, so I hope not to make too many mistakes while posting here. My biggest hope, while posting, is to improve my art technique, as I've noticed that there is an immense amount of artistic talent here. It's really quite overwhelming.

Well, pleased to meet everyone in advance.