IT IS HAPPENING.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/gamervision/videos/1146/180.416

New God of War flick is an Indie film.

So. Good.

Anyone know what the music is from? I feel weird liking it since this is a parody, but it's good music!

I've been working on this one for quite a while and I finally feel like it's about to come together.

I've been trying to learn Actionscript

i wouldn't use a library that handles all the actionscript for you then....

True, but I meant that it might be a good gateway. Like going from the drag & drop of Game Maker into full GML language, etc. But that was before I realized Stencyl is based off Scratch.

You sure that's frosting they're covered in? 

Looks really interesting. I've been trying to learn Actionscript so I could get more into flash stuff. This might be a good entry point, assuming it's based on AS2.0 or 3.0 syntax.

EDIT: actually I just read it's based off of MIT's Scratch program: http://scratch.mit.edu/
That might be a good way of seeing how Stencyl works without entering the beta.

M.U.L.E. might be interesting to you.

Here's a good version of it:
http://www.planetmule.com/

apologies in advance:

Happy birthday to Yu
Happy birthday to Yu
Happy birthday dear Yu
Happy birthday to Yu.

ActRaiser had action platforming segments, then would switch to a civilization building game.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1937585

Thought this was actually pretty funny.

Playing Mario Galaxy 2, I was surprised to find myself creeped out by the interactions between Luigi and Mario. Here are two brothers, who've grown up together, adventured together, gone into business together, found a secret dimension of talking mushrooms together -- and yet Mario stares at Luigi with the same generic, blank stare he uses to address every other weird unknown creature in the game. It just seems like there's no recognition there. No brotherly love at all. 

Was cracking up at this yesterday. All this guy's stuff is amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/user/HarryPartridge

This is an interesting topic, one that I've thought about before. I like exploring and experimenting in my own work, and searching for some (perhaps mythical) higher level of originality. I always have a little trepidation when reading up on game design tutorials or advice, since I may never be able to tackle those ideas from a completely fresh perspective afterward.

From a purely practical sense, however, a game (or any product for that matter) doesn't do too well with the general public if it's totally out-there and severely different. Most of the time, we gauge quality of a work by it's ability to resonate with an audience, as though the creator was communicating through the work, not just talking to themselves. A completely original work often feels like the creator is talking in their own made-up language.

But, sometimes that can actually click, and people get it. The question is: Is taking that chance worth it? It often depends on the situation. For me, I just make freeware games as a hobby. No pressure, since I'm not trying to make a living off it. So why not? That for me is the beauty of indie games: anything goes. For others, it's a bigger risk. They need their games to reach people; to resonate. In that case, knowledge is crucial and can only help. Plus, that knowledge isn't exactly stopping anyone from being original either, it's only a guide we're inclined to follow.

Yes! Both were great, especially Cloverfield. The Host was unusual compared to the western films I'm used to, but definitely a fun thrill ride.

Some favs of mine:

Iron Giant
Jurassic Park
Back to the Futures Parts I & II
Raiders of the Lost Ark
almost any Godzilla or Gamera
Hot Rod

I'd be interested to see how many sandwiches were still pirated, though.

Around that time I was taking a BASIC programming class in high school. Never made much beyond receipt calculators and quiz programs in the class, but it eventually came to my attention that my TI-83 calc used BASIC. My best 'game' I made was an Itchy & Scratchy random sentence generator. It would say things like "Scratchy  stabbed the eyeballs of  Itchy." or "Itchy  threw boiling tar all over  Ku Klux Clam." etc, etc... The code for this has long since been erased, unfortunately, but I'd love to get back into TI-83 games again at some point, since I still have it.

I had this theme of random generators, because I also took an html class and eventually figured out how to get three images on the same web page to randomly switch out independent of one another. I was proud of the trick I used, because normally the html of that time would make all randomized images on a single page be the same image. I made the Random Sock Monkey Generator, which included heads, torsos, and legs of various wacky sock monkeys. You could make a Pirate-Superman-Wheelchair sock monkey, or a Robot-Princess-Glowing sock monkey. It's possible I might still have the code and images for that saved to cd somewhere...

They say color effects mood, like red inspires anger or boldness and yellow inspires happiness or energy. It's possible that a gray-scale world would produce more logical, less emotional people.

Some names of pets I've known:

Squee
Dank
Olo
Scout
Licorice

I wouldn't go so far as to say ideas are worthless, just impossible to quantify until enacted and therefore nothing to hang your hat on. Great ideas are great motivators, but should be flexible enough to take reality's criticism and evolve to flow in harmony with the process.

I like this paragraph:

You will never justice to the great when it is served by the mediocre. You will just squeak by. This means that creative managers should be focused on their process and team culture rather than just on chasing ideas. Find the truly motivated individuals and multi-talented players for your team. Give them autonomy and the room to explore (and make mistakes). Hold them accountable to standards of the highest quality. And then build an organization founded on trust and respect between departments. Put in place processes that get results - and practice, practice, practice.

The autonomy and room to explore he's talking about is one of the most important aspects of teamwork. It is, in a way, more ideas. Ideas that have evolved from the reality of process and can renew the motivation of the team. I think ideas can have value, though only if it's constantly in flux, not stale and unyielding like a rusty cage.