You should really stop calling me theo. The real Theo is probably going to get mad.

u mean u different ppl? damn

I know, it confused me for a while too.

Looking at a video of the first, I got the impression it was a platform / shooter with a lot of setpiece action sequences in the style of tomb raider (which I really liked). The back of the box promised 'treasure hunting', but I was later informed that was just a story element and it wasn't really seeking out secret optional treasures and stuff, but that didn't bother me that much.

I'm a big fan of games where you do technical platforming off of the scenery (Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia SoT, Mirror's Edge) and it looks like Uncharted has a lot of that.

Actually, there are optional treasures for you to find, they're just not terribly far out of the way. I've watched my friends play through the Uncharted games, and while they're certainly pretty and have some impressive setpieces, they're not terribly high on my faves list.

I'm trying to avoid any more previews now that I've already made up my mind. I want this game to be as much of a surprise as possible, which is why I'll be locking myself up once the game comes out and refuse to speak to anyone who's completed it until I'm finished.

Wow, this is gonna be a cool competition. Can't wait to see what people do with this.

For some reason, I imagine the over-world to this being like those old arcade-racers, except in a free-roaming post-apocalyptic setting.

Please make your RPG happen.

Thank you! I'm actually in a Flash coding class this semester and am gonna work through the Flashpunk tutorials as best as I can. I'll probably still want a programmer for that project, though, I'm an artist first and a coder fifth.

Ooh, those look lovely! Especially the second, for some reason.

Chevy's awesome mock-up inspired me to make my own RPG Flash concept. Click on the image to see the animated version, and on the lower-right is a hyperlink to see the full=size version.

This is Tigsource where we keep repeating the same things again and again

All kidding aside, we really do have a thread for this already. We might as well revive that, rather than start another one or five.

I gotta admit, I laughed at that quite a bit. Some of the segments on MAD are just awesome.

SundownKid, your posing is getting there, but your anatomy's not quite solid yet. Some parts aren't bending like they should be (the girl's left heel and the guard's right knee), and the fabric folds make the models lack true dimensionality. Be careful with how you draw the creases- they should help define the form they're attached to.



Concept piece for a comic I hope to do in the near future. Experimented with inking style, practicing greyscale values and general digital painting skillz.

Anybody else played Artemis? Killer fun.

I'd say your success depends on how close they compare with humans. Avatar's Na'vi are a big hit because they have some fairly alien traits while also remaining majorly anthropomorphic; yes, they are blue and have cat's eyes and they do that weird thing with the hair, but they still walk upright on two legs, have two arms and their proportions are just an elongated version of an average human. Now, imagine having a game where the player controlled a race that looked something like this:



Still vaguely human, but much more out there. Now how about this?



That scenario posits a more interesting question, in my opinion. We've had a handful of games where you play an actual animal, but apart from maybe Ecco the Dolphin, they haven't been huge successes. What does it take to make playing a non-human character appealing?

The Inazuma Eleven games seem to be doing pretty well in Japan- there's a European version, so I'd love to import that.

From my childhood, I recall loving the Mario Tennis game for the GBC- you played a human character who you could level up in training exercises, almost like Tony Hawk. It was quite addictive.

That's probably the most sensible thing I've seen in this whole thread.

That'd certainly be something... but then again, we also speculated that the DS' wireless capabilities would allow for more games like Crystal Chronicles, but so far that hasn't really occurred.

If I recall correctly, don't the Assassin's Creed games at least toy a bit with hiding in plain sight? Certainly in the later games, you are disguised as an NPC trying to kill other characters who are also disguised as NPCs.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Spy Party yet.

My girlfriend can't find any decent teammates on Guild Wars PVP. They all end up cussing her out and yelling at her when the team drags. I wish they wouldn't do that to her...

Good to hear, man! Hope you feel better soon.

Both are good, in their own special ways.

What rocks for me is finishing a comic battle entry for EnterVoid and NOT having to wait until the last minute to complete it AND it still looks better than any of my other comics on the site. I got high hopes for this one, if you all wanna read it they'll upload the battle tomorrow here.

all these darn flickering dots in front of my eyes I can't get rid of

Get that czeched out as as soon as you can broseph. Seriously.

I tried to. :c Went to an optometrist to get new glasses in case that was the cause... couple months after that I saw an opthamologist who said I should try contacts... couple months after that I saw a neurologist who said I should get an MRI.... all three have gotten me nowhere. The best guess that I currently have is that it's a migraine aura, but those apparently are only supposed to last a couple hours at a time; this one's been constant for over a year. The neurologist wanted me to come back in for a return visit, but my folks (and me too, a little bit) are a bit suspicious on whether it's worth the cash/effort.

While investigating all of this, I found out my mom and her sis have had weird visual phenomena too. My mom claims that drinking Diet Cokes caused her to temporarily lose sight in her left eye. She says she figured it out after seeing a news report about some chemical in it that caused it (which according to my googling is actually a load of bull). My aunt, on the other hand, has had temporary loss of vision, floaters, and massive headaches ever since she was a little kid. They only appeared once or twice a year, then went away shortly after having her first kid. In the last couple of years, though, they've been coming back and more frequently. Neither of them really sought much medical attention (my mom self-diagnosed based off a news story), so I'm not entirely sure what to make of their stories. All I know is that the MRI (thankfully) didn't show anything serious like a tumor... but doesn't quite explain for sure what it is or how, if ever, I will be rid of it.

If we're going to discuss quality of graphics, we're not going to get very far until we separate technical fidelity and artistic direction. Ex. Crysis 2 has very detailed and realistic-looking graphics but kinda boring art direction, while Cave Story has low-fidelity graphics that are aesthetically pleasing. Both are my own opinions, of course, but you get the idea.

As for how they relate to the game, I would argue that they are in fact important. Graphics offer context to the items on-screen- rather than just being a mess of blocks or pixels, they are distinguished objects.This doesn't mean that they have to look like real-world objects- Rez does a darn good job at creating enemies that have no real-world counterpart, but  you can still tell one type from another.

Through context, the game can create a specific type of setting and mood which can also enhance the player's experience. Yes, Super Mario World would probably still be fun if it was just solid squares, but I argue that it wouldn't be as fun because it'd be lacking the colorful characters that make the Mario universe so iconic.

Because of this, I would argue that a game should have artists, even if it is the programmers themselves. Certainly, you can create games that don't need art assets like a text adventure, but unfortunately you're limiting yourself to a niche audience. People prefer pictures, after all.