[Underwear + Igniter]

Underwear + Igniter

Harness the destructive power of flatulence!

Busted Sword!

The argument of change for the sake of change doesn't hold much weight. Can anyone claim that their interface is so utterly perfect that it needs not a smidgen of change for a sequel?

[Snorlax + Flute]

Thanks for comment jumping me, guys... really...

Snorlax + Flute

It's an exploding Poke Flute.... you leave it on the road in front of the Snorlax and when your enemy tries to play it... BAM!

[Digging + SHMUP]

Digging + SHMUP

Blast your way to the Mole-mens' underground lair using your powered up drilling machine. Use a seismic wave detector to fire missiles through the dirt, but watch out for rocks. Different types of sediment will make you travel slower and become more vulnerable to attacks.

Having played all the Metroid Prime games, my opinion is that the addition of the extraneous characters and plot totally diluted the experience and make MP3 feel like a farce. On the other hand, "LTMR" calls video game stories in general "idiotic" and text in games "always disruptive", which seems to me like a command rather than a suggestion. Simply by virtue of being in a game, the story doesn't become needless or incoherent, because otherwise I wouldn't have enjoyed the games with stories that I did. It's just not a good idea to add a plot to a series that became famous for... not having a plot.

Artist has been found.

I don't think there are extremes in the situation. The Superbrothers manifesto is clearly biased far too much towards "words bad, pictures good!" while hiring a novelist for your game will only serve to increase the amount of text in the game and not necessarily make it more cohesive with the gameplay. If people want to read a novel featuring the game's backstory or universe, that's great, but game writing is more like a very long screenplay, being a predominantly visual medium.

I see what you're getting at. I don't think using centered perspective would screw up the player that much since it's only a minor difference, but it's your perogative.

[Self-containment Shield + Bazooka]

Let me just say that this thread rocks.

Self-containment Shield + Bazooka

Each round has a particle generator. When it's fired, it raises the shield and charges itself up with highly energized particles. When it reaches its target, the shield drops and it explodes in every direction. Rounds don't explode so they are reusable and good for the environment!

I'm just generalizing - it really depends on the skill level of the artist and the amount of effort they are willing to put in. For a no-budget indie game, though, I think it's a fair assertion that 32x32 fully detailed sprites are pretty large. What I want to know is what exactly you mean by "normal graphics". How are sprites "abnormal"?

I don't think resizing sprites is a devious 'trick' to make it look retro... it was, and still is, pretty much just a necessity brought on by the need to see smaller sprites without expending a huge amount of artistic effort on making all the sprites 32x32 or some other gigantic size. Most people would rather see a game at a visible size than strain their eyes to look at a tiny game on their big monitor or TV. People draw the art for games at a size that is workable - they don't have a mandate to make the art as large as whatever screen it is going to be displayed on. How does making an entire game's worth of 16x16 sprites not take any effort?

My game has a certain mechanic that might cause problems if the levels aren't flat.

Just because it has perspective doesn't mean the character has to be able to move on a vertical plane. It could still be a flat surface.

I think that saying video game writing sucks outright is grossly oversimplifying the situation. Since writing in video games is a lot more fragmented than a book, or even a screenplay, due to the numerous cutscenes interspersed with gameplay, it's harder to have a detailed, continuous narrative. Since people want to play a game rather than watch a cutscene, *bam*, all the extraneous stuff is gone because it's taking up valuable "exploring" time. Getting more skilled writers won't solve the problem - if the writer isn't in sync with everyone else, it will still end up with very nice, but fragmented pieces of story rather than having the gameplay and story meld together. The answer is to make a more cohesive experience.

This is probably why people have started to like "situational dialogue", as you described in the blog, where characters discuss things and talk to each other even when a cutscene is not taking place - for example, HL2 and L4D. This is harder (but still possible) in 2D games due to its potential for distraction, so the narrative suffers. When there isn't any gameplay going on, it's easier to relay information about the story, meaning it's a balancing act. You can claim that this is because games are a visual medium and they shouldn't have lots of writing, but I find it hard to believe that the future of games will be entirely visual.

The plot of Mirror's Edge wasn't terri-bad, though I thought it was a simplistic in the manner of a Hollywood movie with no real depth. This was because of the short length combined with the fragmentation of the exposition, with long periods of simply running around doing parkour. The story was crammed in there rather than having the game designed around it. As a side-note, a certain secret project's name walks right into this territory...

The problem with putting different types of attacks on a random dice is that when you absolutely *require* a heal and you roll an attack x2, it will be suicidal. I think a better idea would be to separate the different types by equipment (for example, sword would have different types of attacks, or staff would have different types of heals), and then change the potency - if you roll a 2, you only heal 10%, but a 6 would heal 50% and a 1 would cancel the action. You could even have a multi-roll bonus, for example, 5 rolls would heal the party or something if you're willing to risk it.

[cake]

Actually, I am aiming for a cake-like enclosed feeling.

The cake is a li-- *shot*

I think the background is great, but the level itself seems too flat. I think adding some pseudo-perspective would improve it a lot.

I see what you're saying about the chance for multiple attacks. I still think that having your attack power increase depending on what number you roll would be fun, but it depends on how much you like randomness. I can see how it might be annoying, but it would increase the incentive to roll again. That DQ3 snippet was pretty cool and the dice there is probably the least intrusive way to show a dice roll besides just showing a bunch of random numbers and then the result.

That doesn't make sense, though... in the dice game, you need all the numbers because the higher number you get, the better your score. You could apply it to an RPG with some kind of attack charging multiplier, but what you're describing is just a simplified version in which you have a 1/6 chance to fail, meaning that it's basically the same as a normal RPG with the "miss" chance, but completely random. There's really no point in showing it graphically if you are just alternating between a "hit" and "miss" symbol.

What came to my mind was a slider. It's easier to read and less distracting than a spinner.

The big head/small legs and details give it a cool Odin Sphere-esque feeling.