Thank you sirs, looks like I'm keeping GG.

Pro Motion looks promising, I'll check that out soon.

I found a work-around in GraphicsGale: draw the palette in the upper left corner (works on PNG anyway) in the order you want the indexed palette to have. All_Frames->Color_Depth~24bit and then All_Frames->Color_Depth~8bit.

EDIT:

I can say this more concisely: what's the best program for rearranging colors on a palette? The sprite must retain the correct colors. Gimp does this but I want to be able to temporarily edit colors to bright red if I am unsure where in the sprite they are used.

I just figured out how to do it.  You can drag the current foreground/background color and drop it on any color palette square after editing RGB values.  This is the quicker alternative to double-clicking on the color to open that MSpaint-style window.  You can also blend across a number of palette squares using the gradation function in the palette pull-down.  This is pretty nice, the only thing missing is being able to select areas on the palette for copy-paste between palettes.

Ok yeah, this is better.  Frame stepping and other functions can be assigned to keys. The color palette can't be edited without opening the clunky mspaint-style window despite the RGB values being in clear view and editable.  Free version outputs animation in bmps or one tiled bmp.  A comfortable distance from awful, thanks wild galebot.

I just played around with mtpaint and animpixels and my initial impression is that they are just shy of awful.  I want frame advance with arrow keys and a color RGB editor always present in the window.  At least the frame control with the arrow keys must be available some where, right?

I can run the app fine but when I start a game the screen goes black.  I can hear reactions to jumping and shooting.  2gig ram 8800gts.  Derek had some similar problems with Spelunky.  I think it has something to do with how you load sprites into memory.

Cool game.  I almost gave up on the black screen and the screen with the 3 jumpers but otherwise the difficulty made it engaging for me. 

I wonder if you are also a fan of Out of this World (Another World).

Hempuli has some smarts on him but I think he might be dyslexic.

Hello fellow TIG fans, my name is Jason.  I've set aside some time this semester to try to complete a little freeware game.  I put this pic together to illustrate the complete evolution of video games.



I am big on procedural content in all forms and would like to attempt some fairly complex works later.  I want to first get the basics down because I have a few tech demos but no complete games.  Here is a pic of a simple game I started a few weeks ago.

I found a temporary fix for the black sprites bug, play a quicktime movie in full screen mode prior to running Spelunky.  The black sprite bug was fixed during gameplay in 99.5 but this fixes it on the intro and menu screens.

@vdgmprgrmr: Does your forum-name have some special meaning? I don't get it. 

I don't think Germans are big on sarcasm so I'll give you a serious answer.  He's a video game programmer but has no time for vowels.

I left this on my desktop this week and ended up playing it 7 times.  Just beat the impossible boss w/ a bit of luck.  I like the new sprites.  I'd personally like to see them used to randomized battles so I could play it in short 3 min breaks but I'll stay tuned to see what you do.

I like hunting down the sound but I was wishing there was a run key.  More often than not I'd get pummeled just as I picked out the correct tone.  The art would be fine if there were more detail in view. 

Shade mechanic doesn't disappoint but the game lacks tension since the sun damage is so slight.  Not sure how the casual gaming audience would experience this though.

I like the partial shade coverage on objects but agree that I'd like to know exactly when the player and mushrooms are in the shade.  Maybe turning on a transparent flare sprite over them when in the sun would do the trick.

Good implementation on the boss concept.  Theme is humorous but I'd like to see this used in a real platformer.

What a spectacle.  Dialogue was brilliant.  NSFW!

Oh, and agreed on the music.

I found the exit right when I was about to give up on levels 2 and 3.  How about a simple HUD to remind you what suits/keys you've picked up?  Intro was pretty funny.

That was neat.  I didn't realize until the final room after the rushing bugs that what I wanted was for the telekinesis focus to hover when it reaches the clicked point.  That might take away from the feel somehow though.