But, according to the lighting, shouldn't the closer leg be shadowed more?  (or, at least the front face of the closer one).

If realistic lighting was the pixel art rule, then probably, I guess.  But its not!  Readability and basic design fundamentals are much more important than realism.  Generally (see basically every player sprite in every game ever) parts of the sprite that are intended to be farther away from the viewer are made darker, most frequently seen in sidescroller sprites' arms and legs.  This helps people's brains pick out the silhouette and "3d" form of the object.

aah very nice, annabelle!  A couple of crits, if you're interested:

1 - The tanks definitely read as stone or cut rock, rather than metal.  The broad similarities to primitive statues a la the Shadow of the Colossus designs only strengthen this impression.  To me this makes them harder to read as tanks.  This may be completely intentional, but if you are trying to make them look like metal you may need some hotter highlights, a la metal slug's vehicles.

2 - Would like to see a test with the back/far leg shaded darker than the closer leg, to see if it helps with the depth perception any...

3 - Your characters continue to have really excellent, iconic heads and faces, but relatively flat, outline-dependent bodies.  Notice how much more depth-related shading you have on the heads!  This may be mainly an issue of pure pixel real-estate but I think that if you keep experimenting you'll find a way to make the bodies match up with the heads a bit better.

4 - Great job

i think it really just boils down to any other control issue you might have, which is basically this: is it easy to press precisely that button when you need to press it?  I think its pretty straightforward really.  On some control setups, like keyboard, up key is just another key, no biggie.  But on d-pads and especially analog joysticks, you're likely to get some imprecision, and i imagine it would be pretty frustrating.  There are exceptions of course, like step platformers (prince of persia, flashback) which are so precision-oriented that it becomes a factor of the game.  Should be noted of course that both prince of persia and flashback were originally designed for systems that had keyboards!

+1 vote for xpadder

It's time to man up, get your balls out of your purse, and just finish something and put it out there!!  There is no other way to get over this crippling fear.  I still have bits of this from time to time, the only projects I don't like to start are projects I'm afraid I won't be able to do well.  But I try to remember that the only projects worth doing are the tricky ones, and most people have pretty crappy taste anyways :D

great art as always, but from a pure like usability standpoint i think this site is very hard to read!

Another Plus 1 for Shadowrun. I played it for the Genesis, and it rocked.

How about the Ecco the Dolphin? It's possibly the best dolphin-based time-traveling alien thriller ever! And the only one!

Really though. That game consumed my childhood.

What, you didn't like that one game?

yeah the second ship is easier to play with i think and has much more interesting mechanics...but it still took me about 50 lives or so to start to really get the vibe and feel of the game.  but it is quite good.

Is there anything Mario can't do?

i'm totally weirded out by this

also

quote

 

I'll be in San Diego in the middle of July sometime, I think we get in on a Wednesday...16-21 says the wife!

I haven't played any other the other SA games; I really enjoyed SA1 though.  What do you think the major flaws were?

Everything in the game that WASN'T just running really really fast and flying through the air is almost by definition a flaw in a Sonic game (in my humble opinion of course!)

Jurassic Park: Trespasser...this would be incredible.

I totally agree!  I also recommend checking out the SA LP for it here:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2818186

Has lots of awesome behind the scenes information and the guy that narrates it is fabulous.

I really liked this game.  It has that really awesome, like, unedited feeling.  Like everything ever suggested by any team member was just thrown in there.  Weird enemies, bizarre powerups, non-linear level progression, some 100-odd levels or something preposterous, really strange bosses...

...but in my opinion, the pixel art in this game is just TERRIBLE.  Things are basically recognizable most of the time, but its very noisy and weird, especially compared to other games that came out around the same time (like Sonic's bold colors and clean designs).

How about

I see two HUGE contradictions!

I almost peed the first time I saw this.  Absolutely F'ing Brilliant.

what?

[If I document something, it is a set in stone, indisputable guarantee that I will never ever even make it to the prototype stage, much less actually finish the project.]

All I have to say on the topic of design documents, for now (and I apologize for its brevity) is this:

If I document something, it is a set in stone, indisputable guarantee that I will never ever even make it to the prototype stage, much less actually finish the project.

I had this problem in school, as well, and began using rough drafts instead of outlines for all my major writing assignments.  For me, this is really critical, I believe that it is almost impossible to really innovate and invent if you've already plotted the basic course of a thing.  By the time you sit down to prototype (the game's equivalent of the rough draft) you (and by you I mean me) are already bored with the project, because you know how it will turn out.

My design document, as it were, tends to be a Flash or other rapid-dev prototype!

EDIT - It should be made clear, if it was not obvious, that I am not advocating this approach, and it is likely some very real problem on my part.  However, I have not found any way around it!

Friends of HST refer to Johnny Depp as The Colonel or Colonel Depp, he was like a family friend and paid for HST's funeral I believe.

That's a lot of great stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuffffffffffffff!

Also since when did Mark Johns start doing video endorsements for Activision?