More entertaining is the belief that we are all a giant simulation inside a computer.

Seriously, this, even though it seems cheesy at first glance. But I read an article recently that basically stated if the values for the force gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak forces were just a little bit different, the universe would either be too chaotic for planets to spawn life, or too "quiet" for nebulous gas to ever form into suns, then it makes you think that someone has probably been tinkering with the variables of reality.exe.

[DAY 30]

DAY 30 - April 18, 2011

• Did a page of notes on enemy design. I'm using a Magic: the Gathering type template as a springboard for the design. Most of them fall into videogame cliches right now, but I'll be giving them unique aesthetics to make them fit the world nicely. I'd like to do an illustration for each one as well. I know the scan quality is terrible but I'll be redoing it when I get home (tomorrow!). Can't wait to get crackin' on this game hardcore again.

@Sir Ranshar Nakk
Thanks dude  

@pixhead
Thanks. As long as you are working on something you enjoy you don't need anyone pushing you in order to keep moving forward. Having a lot of failures under your belt certainly helps though.

That's good to know Blackcorn, was it hard because I left out an obvious choice you'd have taken or because the question was just trivial?

I felt the same way to Blackcorn  - here are the questions that I think could be improved:

1. Add an option for "Yes - I make games as a part time job."

2. Perhaps add an option "I don't agree with the term" - the same as option 3 just toned a bit. Not really necessary though.

3. I would remove the "No" from option 3 since it is a neutral option.

4. This question is kind of weird. When I first opened the survey this is the question I quit at. In my opinion indie games can be any and all of the above - choosing just 3 of the options woudn't reflect the way I feel. If I were you I would add the ability to select any number of options, or add an "all of the above" option.

5. "Strongness" -> Strength, "bringt" -> bring, I would replace "on edge" with "in tune", and perhaps an "all of the above" option.

6. I don't fully understand this question. I understand more or less what you are asking, but the title and options are all rather poorly worded.

7. This is more of a "web design" question than something relating to indie games directly.

8. You are missing a capital, and "artist" is not defined. Do you mean graphic artist? Pixel artist? Artist just meaning game developer?

Hope that helps.

Doing a shit > Taking a shit (makes more sense)

Wouldn't the most sense be "giving a shit"? Or perhaps "dropping a shit."

I doubt you'll find much interesting discussion on the question because it's been asked too many times before, and people are kind of tired of it.

What's interesting is that in Canada we use an equal mix of both systems even though we are techinically metric. I've always found that Canada is like America but with more prominent influences from Northwestern Europe.

We describe peoples' weight and height using pounds and inches (I am 195 lbs and 5' 9"). Most of Europe seems to use kilos and centimetres.

We use kilometres for distance, and if you talk in miles I won't have a clear idea of what you mean.

If I'm describing a distance between two objects, like if I'm recounting a story for example, if it's fairly close I will use feet, but if it's farther than maybe 20 ft I'll use metres.

We also use inches for describing TV's and monitors and that kind of thing, anything small really.

We use grams and litres for food and water, for example all of our gas prices are listed per litre, and on drink cans the volume is written in millilitres (mL).

But we use ounces for weed  


One thing I actually like about the imperial system, despite the metric system making more sense mathematically, is that all of the measurements are much easier to gauge as a human, if you know what I mean. An inch is the tip of your thumb, and a foot is well, your foot. It's really quite useful for just using colloquially to describe things. Centimetres and metres just seem to be a teeny bit unintuitive - centimetres just seem a bit too small, and metres a bit too big. As far as ounces and gallons and miles go though, I prefer the metric equivalents.

I'm pretty sure that even in America they use metric for scientific stuff though.

If I can think of any more I'll let you know but honestly Europe was one of the least exciting countries I've ever been to.

You must be joking...

Yes I'm pretty sure he is

Thanks a lot for the kind words. Music is not my specialty, I'm more of a programmer. If you're still looking for a musician and do not need shitloads of music, I may be your man (for free). I'm up on the TIGIrc channel or on AIM at anytime if you feel like discussing it.

Cool man! I've been talking to JMickle as well, and he's sent me some awesome samples already. It would be cool to have stuff from both of you in the game. I'll definitely hit you up on TIGirc or via pm sometime in the near future.

Edit: by the way, I love your avatar. Is it from TinTin?

i don't
what

when have i ever said that
i've encouraged people for years to be as blunt as possible when giving me critique
where in the hell did that idea come from

First off I just want to say, I am a Track Eleven fan. Your work has really inspired me, and I also appreciate your bluntness and the fact that you always seem to be posting new work. I am only trying to offer you an honest criticism of your method of critiquing. In my experience, criticism is much more useful and valuable if it is tone-neutral and directed primarily at the work and not the artist. I find ego and emotion tend to get in the way of discipline and self-improvement, so appealing to it with personalized criticism tends to be counter-productive (this debate is proof of that in a way).

But maybe I'm wrong - different people are stimulated by different things, so all I can do is offer my own view on the situation. I don't mean for this to be a flame war or anything like that.

minor update on this
arms aren't done

here's more things

Also, Track Eleven for pixelhead.

[DAY 29]

DAY 29 - April 17, 2011

• Added some bark tiles to the tileset. Up until now I've been designing tiles in a self-contained sort of way, but once I get back home I will probably starting making them so that they are better integrated with the other art assets. I'll also be doing more set pieces and one of a kind type assets.
• Started on a wip of a mockup of the player's house. I'm really looking forward to adding more unique art to the game, since tiles are really useful but get a bit repetitive after a while.

I can't believe I still haven't said a word on this devlog. I love the mood in your screenshots and the artworks are very good too, keep it up !

Also, you got me inspired to write a bit of music, I hope you like it =)

OHH SHIIIIIIIIIT NIIIIIIGGGAAA

That music is amazing. It captures the game's style perfectly and has that Zelda-esque flavour about it. Is music your specialty or is something you do on the side?


@Destral and AaronLee:

Thanks guys   And yeah, my goal is to have them as some sort of flying bosses. I'll probably be doing more complete illustrations of each of them (the crow prince is lacking wings at the moment). But they may just be NPCS, I really don't know yet. I'm still wandering through the Fog of Iteration so game has yet to solidify itself.

i like how assume you're going to be the one who FINALLY manages to get me to stop
you won't, i honestly do not care at all if someone doesn't want to pay attention to a comment i took the time to make with the intent of helping them
deal with it
if you have a problem with it
deal with it even harder

Well, if you ask me, that's pretty hypocritical. You can dish it out but you can't take it? Either way, it doesn't really concern me. I'm simply offering my criticism with the intent of helping you, but it looks like you are more interested in building a persona than improving yourself  

Lovely work by the way.

Belgium is a funny example since itself is broken in two cultural region (third if you count Brussels) with their own language.

Yeah that's true. When I was there for a couple weeks we went to a Flemish paintball arena, and the people who worked there refused to respond to my friend when he tried to speak French to them (he didn't realize they were Flemish).

in fact, if anything, i'm projecting my fed up-edness with the fact that there seems to be a new generation of "artists" that can't handle anything more blunt than a comment that isn't covered in piles of sugar and inserted directly into their ass

That's like saying "I am tired of the new generation of humans that dislike it when people act like dicks to them."

And I'm not trying to argue with you, I think you have very valuable critique and are one of the few who are actually honest/brave enough to give it. What I am saying is that you can add even more value to your critiques if you strip away the insulting tone you tend to add on top it. When you give honest criticism but mix up with acidic remarks you are sending mixed messages, which makes the criticism a lot less useful. So basically I am critiquing your critiquing skills  


And in order to contribute to the thread, here is the tileset I've been working on for my game Archer (link in sig). I've only been doing pixel art for a month and half now so constructive criticism is welcome.

paterson, nj

I like how Americans don't even have to mention the country they live in.

yeah but think of it this way: states used to be countries, each with their own currency, laws, etc., and still today have their own governments and run most things themselves. people thought of themselves as a citizen of their state first and of the united states second (state even meant nation, so the united states was a similar name to the united nations), so it's not particularly strange for people to use their states as if they were countries given that context. eventually the EU may become like the US, and individual countries in it states within a larger country, but people will still probably say 'i'm from belgium' more often than 'i'm from the EU' for a long while after that

So?

The uk used to be sets of separate countries as well, I could eaisily say I'm from sussex, and not mention the fact that that's in England, and use the same defense you just used.

Hell, italy was separate city states until 1861, should people say they're from The Duchy of Milan, and not mention that it's in italy?

My point is that regardless of the historical feelings or status of the section of the country, it's still good form to put the country, even if you feel like you belong to one part more.

I was actually thinking about that this morning and I think Paul Eres is right. It's not that American's are just arrogant and expect everyone to know that a given state is in the US, it's just that their culture is very state-oriented, whereas in other countries (like Canada where I'm from) states/provinces are seen more as just geographical dividers, not so much self-contained entities (excepting Quebec).

The other thing is that the US has over 300 million people, so in many cases a given state will have as many people as an average country (California has about the same population as Canada).

Oh shit bitch I am looking forward to this game. Beautiful artwork and I love the animal characters!

[DAY 28]

DAY 28 - April 16, 2011

• Did some sketches of masks that I want to have in the fire area. I have decided to embrace all the design cliches instead of try to go against them. Masks will feature heavily into the theme of the fire area.

@swordpond, ThePortalGuru, and eben_cs

Thanks peeps. I'm planning to do a lot of concept sketches, and maybe make a compilation book once the game is done that I can sell or give away separately.

Anybody else noticed that there are alot of arguments going on around the forum. Or am I just late.

No, there are a lot of arguments.

I think that's my fault 

I've been in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a crappy laptop for the past week so I've really had nothing to do but engage in forum arguments.

But I think to maximize your happiness in life, it's important to do things out of inner motivation rather than outside pressure. Or that's how it works for me anyway.

True dat  

@Nystre and Shawny

Both good points. I guess what I am trying to say is that, if you are going to criticize someone, first ask yourself what your intention is. If your intention is to make them feel bad and drive them out of the community, then use as bitter a tone and as much harsh language as you want, but ultimately it will make you look like you're projecting personal insecurities.

If your intention is to push them to improve their art skills, then it's very easy to tell them directly what is wrong with their work without personally insulting them. It's one thing to criticize someone's work and another to criticize the artist behind it. And I'm seeing a lot of that here on TIGSource and it leaves kind of a bad taste in my mouth.

On conceptart.org where I used to hang out people had even tougher criticism, but they very rarely attacked the artist. And there are a shitload of amazing, professional artists that come out of that community, and part of it is because of the harsh but constructive culture they've cultivated there. What I see here comes across as very childish a lot of the time.

Just experimenting.

This is really cool. It reminds me of a local Ottawa artist named Andrew King, who has a similar style.

Honestly I'm pretty surprised to see great artists like Track Eleven give out advice with such a bitter and acidic tone.

I agree, the comments you are making have value, but they would have even more if you got rid the tone. It really doesn't suit you guys,  makes you sound amateur.

It's weird because in my experience, the better the artist, the more constructive and encouraging his/her criticism is.

Coming along really well dude!