Never played this Laser Squad (probably should), but I especially adored the soccer team approach you had in X-COM - newbies are a dime a dozen, but losing one of your all-stars really hurt.
The consistent squad was a huge draw for me, even if it meant you could easily hit a dead end when things got rough.

Regarding save cheating, you could use negative motivation (destroy saves if the mission is aborted, roguelike-style), or positive reinforcement (dead guys might drop half their value or some, err, essence you can use to make newbies even better. This needs to be balanced too of course).

If you're taking a dead serious approach to the whole thing, then respect your player and let him save and load as much as he likes - it's his right, and his loss (of fun).
If you're going light-hearted and player-friendly, balance losing a player with a little nice reward - not enough to make up for the death, but just enough to make the player want to carry on.

Alternatively: No death, a la Star Fox 64. "Killed" players will need to take a real-time break and are unavailable for a few missions. That way, at least you don't lose your best guys, AND the player is rewarded for not only using his top squad.

Heya, does the download link in your signature work?
I've tried on two browsers but no luck, perhaps it's my connection...

Also, out of interest: Is the jazzy BGM in the second video a placeholder or part of the actual game? It's inspiring.

How are you going to tell it's me then?

Never been anywhere ever, so yeah. I'll wear a funny hat or something so you can recognize me.

Would have joined if posted earlier.

I'll be on the GGJ in Berlin though, hope to see some of you there!

Readability can hardly be improved at this point. I like it a lot!
It looks like you're going the comics route, is that right? If not, lose the outlines and the flat panes of color.

You're probably working on it anyway, but possibly a curved shoreline/path would look better than straight diagonals. Also, depending on what you want, the mountains are not matching at all in scale and look more like "RPG overworld"-type stylizations. How about finding another natural barrier?

You had a great idea there, might I suggest you take it a step further? See, the chain shouldn't be fully stretched when the rock hits the ground - only while it's being pulled back up.

Either make it look slacker when it's at the bottom, or at least make it wave and shake hard on impact - I guarantee that'll make the thing look even more weighty and satisfying.

Well the Berlin thing is asking 20 €, probably to rent the place, WiFi etc. It's literaly a meetup of sorts.

Please tell me I haven't been ripped off.

I suggest you could post more of the game in its current stage, that might net you more replies than all caps and memes.

Pictures, videos or a demo will certainly attract people.

All this sounds truly... fascinating.

You seem to have put tons of effort in the game already. Have you found an artist, or are you going to do everything yourself? I know for a fact that you're extremely competent, so the latter route would be equally viable, I guess.

Anyway, I can't wait to see some of the game in action as well. All the best!

I'm not posting often in this thread, but hey, new year and all.

Here's a character I was hoping to use in a visual novel. I'm thinking of making 8-10 of these without even knowing a story, because god knows decent writers are difficult to find.

Here's the working resolution:

And if you're interested, here's the step-by-step (because I did it sort-of live):

sketch, lineart, inking
shading, color, modeling

Blogspam incoming, I'll be putting the step-by-step on my blog tomorrow, with a few further notes.

I'm not sure you're familiar with these boards, but there's a Collaborations sub-forum here, tailor-made for topics like this:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=8.0

Yes, that's the date.

Looks like I need to read up on this thing I paid admission for.

I agree, a hell of an interesting read.

Umm, apologies for the dumb question, but where would that GGJ exactly be?

There's one in Berlin in a month that I'm intending to visit, but I can hardly imagine that would be the one... or is it?

There are certain other sites on the net where the mods will protect the OP teeth and claws, whatever the content of their post might be. The quality of said boards is, of course, just what you'd expect.

However, I've witnessed a much higher level of quality (and honesty) here on TIGSource, and would honestly hate to see this board go to the dumps like others. And if you want to call that policing, that's just fine.

I think that for any decently professional individual, "Paid" means paid, not "paid if".
If you have managed to complete any "profit sharing" projects already, then congratulations! But I'm not entirely certain you'll be in the majority there, and there's plenty of people, myself included, that have been burned by that kind of endeavor.

The demo feels nice to play and the movements, while simple, do a great job at getting the idea across.

Can I ask on what platforms you were planning to release the game? Free Flash game, sponsored flash game, iThings/Android devices (= touch controls)?
That would be one of the key aspects of the project for me personally...

(Useless artist rant incoming: I feel that the "top-down zombies" thing is rather overplayed by now - I worked on no less than three of'em myself so far. Have you thought what other settings could be done with that engine, or are you fully set on making it "survivor vs. zombies"?)

Well how about looking into how to make a post attractive for artists?

All respect, but just "I dunno, 10x10 tiles, should be easy lol" ain't gonna cut it, I'm afraid. You might want to look into more successful posts to see how to create a nice and detailed post introducing your project.

[EDIT:]

It's a legitimate question, especially considering this particular situation. No harm done in making sure.

That said, good luck!


EDIT: But come on, "(if we win)" is an extremely unsafe proposition, and no different than any of the royalty/profit split/might-come-out-some-day ventures usually reserved for Collaborations and Unpaid. I find it difficult to consider this paid work, unless you'll be providing an actual check along with that NDA of yours.
This I couldn't verify in your post, hence me pointing this out.

That said, still good luck.

Homoerotic Justice Force

I wonder what you'd be collecting in lieu of Missile expansions.