Freshly Squeezed - Latest Comments

Re: Bandit Racer, Graphics and awesomeness

Pál Zoltán Illés — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:44:00 -0000

Nice!

Re: Bandit Racer, Graphics and awesomeness

domasx2 — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 18:37:06 -0000

Thanks for your involvement with the game, it does now look damn pretty :)

Re: Content Creation and Management

Tranberry — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:22:14 -0000

I just did.

Re: Content Creation and Management

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:20:36 -0000

Time to blog again man.

Re: FOSS games and content

Rock — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 02:35:50 -0000

Good points all around. Truly apperceiatd.

Re: Content Creation and Management

shirish — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:22:28 -0000

From what little I have experienced looking at games and trying to contribute, I would say a variety of things :-

a. There is no (existing) pack of content where everything is included and has same theme as in say RPG Gamer XP or other such proprietary game engines. While having a game engine is great, having some art which sorta go together would make it so much more. I am hopeful that at some time in the future, OGA is able to have gamepacks at various resolutions so people could simply use them for their game.

b. Have played many an RPG (in Windows world) where the developers used the existing art (not high quality stuff and in fact reused almost all the same art, RPG gamerXP or whatever) but what they shone their skills with dialogs and pace of story. While some devs. used mind-bending rooms and puzzles to keep the gamer entertained, the more interesting ones were where there is lot of humor.

c. Some projects underachieve or are overambitious and then lack of communication with the community as a whole as to how to achieve it. For instance I have been looking for this project http://dungeonhack.sourceforge... for quite sometime now and atleast for a moment seems to be in haitus.

d. Many projects also do not plan and again fail to communicate what things they would be working in the near future.

e. Last but not the least, writing code which has some art of integration tests and what not would do wonders. In quite a few projects I see regression happening which if they had made some sort of automated tests stuff (like JIRA does) things would be more smoothly.

That's all about I could think of atm.

Re: Content Creation and Management

qubodup — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 05:12:34 -0000

Hey T, how about adding a license to those graphics? :D

Science of Iris2 is working on a LOVE2D project which he probably will show soon and would like to use the cuties :D

Re: Content Creation and Management

qubodup — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:50:39 -0000

LOLOLOL and you said nobody would use it XD!!!

Re: Content Creation and Management

Tranberry — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:25:32 -0000

Thanks Andrew, and yes they do look good! But the credits should go to tidbit who made them after my doodles. I'm writing the follow up as we speak, and I hope I'll get a new post soon.

Re: Content Creation and Management

Andrew — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:44:35 -0000

I checked out your blend files. Looking really good, keep the news updates coming.

Re: FOSS games and content

qubodup — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:03:55 -0000

I agree that instructions on how to deal with contributors are likely to be helpful and support the creation of such instructions on the FGD Wiki. :)

Re: Tetris backdrop (update)

bughunter2 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:28:41 -0000

Yeah, it was C++, not C (but indeed, you shouldn't have to care as designer ;)).
Anyway, thanks for the backdrop. I'll give you some credit and put the game online somewhere soon.

Re: FOSS games and content

m64 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:43:42 -0000

Yes, certainly I've meant freegamedev wiki, I just mistyped.

<abbr>m64’s last blog post..The only thing better than starting small is starting smaller</abbr>

Re: FOSS games and content

Tranberry — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:26:40 -0000

Tips on how to manage contributors?
If that is what you mean, by all means yes, but is not the freegamedev wiki a better place for that? As it is oriented to project management and development, rather then a encyclopaedia of foss games?

Re: Tetris backdrop (update)

Tranberry — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:34:59 -0000

Yay indeed, bughunter choose no3, It fit's the 'tetrimo' better I guess

Re: Tetris backdrop (update)

qubodup — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:33:09 -0000

Yay for #1!

Re: FOSS games and content

m64 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:49:42 -0000

Perhaps we could start drafting such document on the libregamewiki?

<abbr>m64’s last blog post..The only thing better than starting small is starting smaller</abbr>

Re: FOSS games and content

Tranberry — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:04:12 -0000

A great comment, I agree to the fullest and will post some note on the topic of "guidelines" in the follow-up-post.

Re: FOSS games and content

m64 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:28:40 -0000

Hey there. Big thanks for the article. I don't have time to write lately, so it's good to at least read some interesting thoughts.

I agree with John that some devs may be afraid to scare away contributors on the "I don't want to do this" basis. Instead they may be scaring them away on the "I don't know what he wants" basis. Another problem is that some devs really simply don't know what they want. And still another sort is that which does have some vision and hopes the artists will guess what it is.

That's why I try to advocate developers learning at least a little bit about content creation - this would not only enable them to make some art themselves, but also make them aware of the way the artists work and what kind of data they may need.

Now being mainly a developer but also having some minimal artistic knowledge I know that both artists and developers have things that they would prefer to be set when they get to work. Perhaps FOSS game artists could compile some sort of a list of things they:
1. Have to know before getting to work. It's like the programmer has to know the programming language he should use or what are we coding.
2. Very much prefer to know - they are not necessary, but greatly simplify cooperation. It's like the software design documentation.
3. Have some personal preferences, but are willing to adapt to project guidelines as long as they are sensible. It's like the coding standards.

Re: Tetris backdrop (update)

Tranberry — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:48:35 -0000

Hi, I'm always inspired by something, this time I was trying to do a underground dirt digging feeling. My subconscious may have had something in mind, you know any to comes to mind?

I like old school jump and run games, maybe I got an idea or two from that, but mainly I just do stuff.

Re: Tetris backdrop (update)

Dorian Patterson — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:00:17 -0000

Vector--y. Was there any particular inspiration for these?

<abbr>Dorian Patterson’s last blog post..Directing a scene</abbr>

Re: FOSS games and content

Tranberry — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:41:16 -0000

Hi John! A valid point you got there, yes I agree being small and not having a big following will make it harder to get a good contributor-base, so a more slack approach is needed, but still regulations feeds creativity(no argument can sway me on that point).

I'm happy that you got a style already planed out for your game, that will help you, help the artist create better and fitting graphic to your game(s). Sadly I don't see many devs in the small to medium game sizes that even have that. I can even say I feel that it is rare in the whole floss scene.

My annoyance was bought up by a rather big FOSS-game, I won't tell any names as I don't want to point a finger at anyone and laugh. But they have enough of a community to build one of the best FOSS-games. And not using the community better then what I have seen to this point, is a bit sad.

And thanks for your reply, I'll do a follow-up-post to this, with some ideas based on my experience.

Re: FOSS games and content

John Munsch — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:48:12 -0000

Allow me to play devil's advocate here for a moment and come at it from the developer's standpoint. Based only on the description you gave, it seems to me that the developer was trying to not cramp the style of any artist willing to contribute to the project. The hope, probably a vain hope, but the hope being that some artist would latch on and produce a good set of images for the game and those would have a cohesive theme because they are all coming from the same artist.

I have a project right now and I have a very clear idea of the kind of graphics I'd like to see for it some day. I would like them to have the simple graphical style reminiscent of the Community Chest and Chance cards from Monopoly. I think that would add even more to the humor within the game. However, I figure that if I were to suggest that then any artists would either say, "I can't or don't want to draw in that style, therefore I'm not going to contribute." By suggesting something specific I'm driving away somebody who might have a good idea.

If somebody did have a good alternate suggestion and was willing to do a substantial body of work with a particular style then I could and would point to that and say, "I want something like this because I already have some existing graphics in that style." Before that point, I don't think most would feel comfortable suggesting anything.

<abbr>John Munsch’s last blog post..Google Tries To Make Microsoft Completely Irrelevant</abbr>

Re: Lips of Suna - Logo prototyping

Tranberry — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:42:32 -0000

qubodup; I'll do a version with the 'of' where you say. Thanks for the idea.

Re: Lips of Suna - Logo prototyping

qubodup — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:31:13 -0000

I like the non-cursive 'of' but it covers the 'a' of 'Suna' too much. If it was behind the a (but in front of the 'Lips') it might work better. And/or put it more central perhaps.