So... do you ladies like to party?

If anyone asks you why you don't look asian, tell them you've been sick.

Second, this game definitely suffers from "ambiguity due to imperceptible state changes."

Has anyone ever done a game with a visual cue as you run approaching a ledge? It seems to me like you could provide a good indicator of that 'last second' moment with head position or going into a bit of a running crouch or something else to indicate the increased tension of being about to jump or just run off a cliff.

"But I pressed jump!" was a pretty standard player response from the NES days, as I recall.

I don't think there's much point in discussing the analogies between functional product design and game design. I think the relation between the two is pretty tenuous.

Sure, you can talk about how 'durability' is analogous to replay value, but keep in mind you are walking a very fine line on the other side of which are business seminars about how The Book of Five Rings is about techniques to increase your market share.

how I remember it anyway

Interestingly enough, this is how I remember almost everything that has ever happened to me.

nah, im not offended.

i just get really pissed at people who go around proclaiming to be crazy or insane in any way to seem special or interesting. i cant fucking stand it.

But they're so quirky and weird and look at all the things they have from thrift stores and also performance art and they wrote a song about a spider!

The Legend of Zelda: Clash with the Absurd.

Link has led an idyllic existence in the land of Hyrule. Despite saving the kingdom, facing danger and overcoming powerful adversaries, at all times he has remained silent and detached.

That is, until a chance encounter at Zora's Lake.

While on vacation with Zelda, Link stumbles across a moblin on the beach. As the intense heat of the summer sun beats down upon his brow, Link raises his fairy bow and shoots the moblin, not once, but three times. Now on trial for murder, the prosecution depicts Link's calm detachment as a sociopathic lack of feeling and compassion. Faced with the death penalty, Link must face the inevitability of his own death and reconcile his need for meaning with the vast, cold silence of the universe.

I'm working on a series of Octopus-on-Fractal images.

Man, don't stop doing whatever it is that you're doing.

Seriously.

Undone by your own hubris!

Is it weird to write and record music for yourself to listen to? Because I do that sometimes.

I like the idea of having your own personal music that no one knows about.

The lit-nerd in me says that anything that marries the mindlessness of Bejeweled with atrocious pseudo-anime art (don't let Baudrillard find out about an American art style in mimicry of a Japanese art style in mimicry of American comics, or his head will explode due to nested simulacra) and terrible Tolkien knock-offs should qualify you for a speedy journey in concrete shoes to the bottom of the nearest river, but then I enjoyed Bookworm Adventures, so I'm basically not allowed to talk anymore.

I like to agree with him, but barreling concepts like that into the shareware market could be difficult.

. . .

So, what if I made a 30min game, how would you go about convincing people to buy it? How long would the "demo" be? 5min?

I know people are getting tired of hearing this by now, but seriously, the economic aspect of video games is retarded. Work is universally stupid and soul-crushing, and the idea of doing something you enjoy (like making games) as work just turns whatever you enjoy (like making games) into work. I advocate that we all take some time off analyzing these things as they pertain to income and start looking at how we can just rock out regardless of who buys our stuff.

Maybe if we just make stuff we think is good, someone will agree with us, but if not, at least we can be secure in the knowledge that we were totally awesome while we are sitting in an alley eating canned dog food we found in a dumpster.

That is one part of it. What do you expect when buying a game (in terms of length)? Isn't it already drilled into us that a great game has sufficient hours of gameplay?

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm pretty much an idiot when it comes to organization. Considering the availability of excellent literature and other such time-taking media, I have a real appreciation for games which can be short and to the point. That's not to say I don't have a real appreciation for games like Final Fantasy XII, which I found extremely rewarding for the two week period last Christmas break where I ignored my girlfriend in favour of playing about sixteen hours a day (needless to say, she was not pleased, but then I never claimed to make good decisions), but, rambling stories aside, during times when sobriety is a distant memory and I am not sure exactly where I will end up sleeping, a video game that takes two or three hours and is engaging and makes me think thoughts and feel feelings (other than 'I press the button to jump over the pit') is a godsend.

What if say, you make small thematically linked mini-games (each about 10-30min) and release it as an "album"? That would be intriguing wouldn't it?

To this day, I haven't actually played it, but isn't this the idea behind Everyday Shooter? I would really enjoy more episodic games, personally, not as an exercise in 'cornering casual markets using to repetitive brand reinforcement,' but simply as a different way of encapsulating narrative. If you're not sure what I mean, check out the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. For a long time, I have wanted to do something like that, but as a video game. Also, it was going to be simultaneously kind of twee and existentialist and about life and the vastness of space and equal parts Le Petit Prince and the Myth of Sisyphus.

I apologize if the above makes no sense, but I was drinking expensive brandy with the family and now I am drinking a bottle of wine and internetting, to the detriment of all.

I didn't actually go with color limits, but I thought the limited palette would give it a certain flair. The way I understand it(I'm totally not sure), each sprite is allowed three colors- and some may appear to have more because they are actually more than one sprite stacked on top of eachother, on different layers. I think that's the case with the NES Megaman sprite.

Obviously it's a matter of taste, but I don't personally feel that strict palette limitations are necessarily useful. I understand that some retro-game artists could probably spot when you are using an extra colour, but elevating colour usage to the level of a religious observance is going to be lost on most people.

That said, colour consistency is still a must in video game sprites, and that's not necessarily a bad way of policing yourself. But, basically, I wouldn't lose sleep over a little violation here or there so long as it's in good taste.

I don't have mod-powers, but something like this would probably be fun in the Projects section!

Sorry, guys. I had exams and then met this sort-of-indie-rocker girl last week and since then my life has been sexy madness, so not only did I not finish this, I barely even started it.

Maybe third contest is a charm?

When the original Final Fantasy came out, a few friends of mine and I played it for an eight hour plus stretch at a friend's house.

I think his parents were maybe more lenient about video games than mine.

It's not an avatar: it's a title.

It's because they enjoyed the fuck out of some pizza.

That post is suddenly far less hilarious without my short lived signature.

You're all banned.

Aw, you're no fun.

Man, you know what's hard in Guitar Hero?