I'm not much of a concept guy, and malformed monsters are the easiest stuff you can pick, but I'm pretty happy to participate here anyway:

The more I look at it, the more I wonder how he's operating that bazooka.

But I like the dynamics and proportions, all very chunky and recognizable.

No, pleasantly eye-tickling noise filter.

I would play it if the black/white scheme had any influence on the mechanics! (E.g. you can manipulate only white objects, and need to find ways to color the object of your desire white.)

A work in progress:

It's going to be a GUI element.

Hi Mr. mighty moderator man,

I tried a semi-kinda-mockup with a more hand-painted style of character, but it just looked extremely boring, and worse, the contrast between heavy linework on the map and light lines on the characters made the whole thing look really terrible.

Please enjoy this shittily compressed exported gif:



(And never mind the units from the original "North and South" standing by, they're just visiting.)

Yep! First time I tried it, I was instantly loving it.

Let's see where a bit of fusion takes us!

Then just make them organic and call it "Splatterdinghies" or "The Gore Boat" (5000+ sales guaranteed right there!).

calsmurf: You wouldn't have any placeholder screens so far, would you?

Concur, it'll do your project a lot of good if you could post something visual along with a description, even if it's all bare-bones placeholder stuff.

For example, you seem to be looking for a texturer (suggesting 3D) and a 2D artist. Or did I misunderstand that?
These are things that one or two screens (or maybe a video) will clear up in a jiffy, and also net you more interest from artists.

[Team structure:]

So true.

Team structure:
Me (team lead and creative director)

= bailout.gif

Well, look at it this way - a major part of all art requests are from coders (or "idea guys") who want you to visualize their wet daydream of a project they just thought up over lunch.

I think a compromise is in order - also, if some graphics are enough to entice you to offer your collaboration yourself, then I don't think you'd hate it.

OP here, hi again!

Well, I just called it quits and kept my graphics for myself. I might write the two guys telling him officially (tough for him, but that's life).

On the upside, there's one guy I've been working with that never let me down until now, and I think we'll arrive at a playable build soon (also, DevLog ).
The difference? I just made graphics for a theoretical game I'd *like* to see, and he appreciated these enough to offer his cooperation all by himself.
So I have a greater feeling of trust too.

This matches the above advice perfectly - Don't start doing graphics for anything that's not playable!

I'd just like to add: Artists, just create your own project, make it sexy and ready for implementation - and you'll probably be asked out on a dat-- err, for a collaboration soon!

I call for ice cream.

 1.) Yes, the ideal solution would be just to learn to do everything myself and do it. But I'm not sure it's humanly possible for a guy with a job and no technical talent to learn programming from zero.
And to be honest, I don't want to invest in coding what I could be putting into graphics and animation.

 But the "physical proximity" thing is pretty good advice, I remember there being something of an indie fair somewhere around my city. Will definitely check there.


 2.) This is just my personal opinion, but what etiquette? They leave you hanging with the stuff you've made, it's yours to use. I'm going to ask nicely a few more times, then fire an honest warning, and then go pimping the stuff around TIGSource like it's my little sister. It's not that I'm losing any sprites, maps, GUI elements etc.


 In any case, thanks for the advice. I'll just go on working on these partially finished odds and ends now to make them complete, then see what happens.

Fuck me! Fuck me hard for being B! 

The thing is that in my particular case, the guys (more than one project) seem to be capable, and so far willing - there are always simple prelim builds and stuff.
But then nothing!!

Ah well, all replies so far have been very nice and understanding. I'm not useful for any decent conversation anymore, but thanks already, all of you.

[EDIT:]

GAH!

Sorry to abuse this forum, but it's probably something you've experienced yourself.

I'm not a veteran by any means - it's not that I've worked on thousands of published titles - but I'm a really fucking dedicated 2D guy who'll do all-nighters just to get a submission done.

So why is it that writers and programmers just go "Yeah, do these and those assets for me and I'll make something out of it", only to never be heard from again?!
(Rhetorical question, but I'm sure you can feel it.)

Last thing I remembered, I hand-painted a big fucking segmented 5000 x 4000 px map of Europe for the guy to implement. Sent it off. Heard a "Sure, done in a week". Grave-like silence for 20 days now.

And it's not the damn first time either - all of my projects have pretty much gone that way, leaving me with a bric-a-brac of unfinished crap.

So yes, I'm just fuming right now and all you guys will need to take the brunt of it.  

So, please share your stories if you feel like it, and if you could even give good advice or suggestions, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

I'll be outside now kicking babies.


EDIT:

...aaand it looks just as great as the five-color version. really a splendid job!

Also, great idea and character design!

 If I may say something: Unless it's a real thunderstorm, perhaps you might want to tone down the lateral movement of the waves, i.e. make them scroll more slowly. At the moment, these waves are looking like they should violently rock the boat and drag it to the right.

 And depending on how the layers of waves are structured, a parallax effect would look absolutely great!

 Perhaps you could combine both of the above and instead of having the waves sroll consistently to one side, just have them move smoothly from left to right and back?

 Anyway, this looks awe-inspiring, and I'd be happy to play the finished version.

 (Unneccessary addendum: I think I found your submarine's daddy... )

Jerom, you'll hate me for it, but can I be the ass who points out that Gameboy sprites had four colors, not five? (Transparent is a color.)
I know, there's one of them in every thread, and you probably weren't going for technical accuracy either.

It's really quite nice to behold and would definitely make for a good release - how about making this a Flash game of sorts?

I wouldn't care, because I'm a big, sturdy, smooth-looking robot who could probably chew through those chunks of earth with one arm.

Seriously, this should be a parody of the common "loneliness" indie game trope, with the robot just rejoicing to be alive and being king of the planet.