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[Theon]

Now, we all know that "AAA" game developers always make war games from an American perspective, and that the enemies are always enemies of the US.
However, this trend seems to be quite solid among indie developers as well; For example, the new Magica DLC (

), is set in the Vietnam War, and you and the American army are on the "good" side, fighting the evil monsters that are the Vietnamese.
The Vietnamese are actually portrayed as orcs and goblins, while the Americans are human!

I find it hard to believe that no one else finds this distasteful; real wars in fantasy game setting is okay in its own respect, but why does it always come out as western propaganda?  

Well, to counter the one-sided propaganda machine that is our western game industry, I'm holding this little compo:
Use my tilesets and animations and make a game in which you are an NFL (Vietcong) macho-hero killing your way through American pigs (literally).
[Everything is made with Teknopants' pixel-editor Pixothello! Kudos!]
You may use your own graphics in addition (and edit mine), and I will make more stuff upon request;
You are free to choose music and sounds yourself, but bonus points to those who use the Contra theme, or a twisted version of it.
Keep in mind that all the stuff here was made in one day, and that I haven't had time to test the animations properly (feedback wanted).
Personally, I'd love to see this become a stealth game, in which you can set traps and dig tunnels. Americans should instakill on sight.
If you use any of the graphics I post here, I demand that you make a game according to my wishes here, and it would be nice if you included my name.

Prizes:
[Choose one]
Miner Wars: 2081


Red Faction: Guerilla (Steam) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE5ecIpTEb4
Half Life 2 (Steam) [Honestly, who doesn't have this yet?]

The files:
http://www.2shared.com/file/AeBqq3XZ/VietCongtra.html

Graphics(16x16):







Sorry for the black dots and lines, I forgot to remove them (had to count pixels because I messed up).




Gameboy-esque colour scheme:








Tomorrow, I plan on adding fire, burned grass tiles and choppers. Done.

I hope I'll see a couple of submissions!
Good luck, everyone!  

Edit:
I just realized that photobucket has made all bitmap files into jpeg. I don't know how much this will impact image quality, but if anyone want the original files I'll upload them in a zipped folder.

Edit 2:
Okay, the jpeg format does indeed fuck up colours and scatters pixels, so I'll be uploading the bitmaps tomorrow (I'm dead tired at the moment - Need sleeps). Done.




Yeah, the burned grass looks a bit out-of-place next to the yellowish ground tiles...

[Theon]

Despite having gotten zero replies so far, I just updated the post with some more content

It really would be nice if someone tried to make something out of this; besides, you might win a fun game, and thus the game you just made would then be an instant "award-winning" title

[moi]

You complain about the propaganda machine and then you go on to offer games on steam....
 
Steam is generally the portal of choice for sheeple 
If I have the time I'll participate when is the deadline?

[Theon]

You complain about the propaganda machine and then you go on to offer games on steam....
 
Steam is generally the portal of choice for sheeple 
If I have the time I'll participate when is the deadline?

Haha, yep, I guess that's kind of true; but I just happened to have some giftable games left on my account
Miner Wars is completely independent, though.

I haven't set any dead-line yet (seemed kind of pointless if no one were going to reply).
How much time would you say I should give you guys?

I made a mockup based on what I've made so far, to give people a better overview of what everything might look like "in action":

[dasdsad]

This is more a request, demand even, than a competition. 

[Theon]

This is more a request, demand even, than a competition.  

Uhm, yeah, it's a request alright. But you can win stuff.
Isn't that basically what any competition is?

I don't get the hate...

Edit:
Try and look at it this way; I'm giving away graphics which you may use in a game, provided you agree to make it from the "enemy" perspective, and you may also win a game. You are free to do it, or not, and I didn't even demand that you put my name in the credits.

I'm really not doing this to be a dick or anything.
I got a surge of inspiration, and seeing as I can't code for shit myself, I was hoping that someone would make something useful out of my procrastinational efforts.

[Quicksand-T]

You complain about the propaganda machine and then you go on to offer games on steam....
 
Steam is generally the portal of choice for sheeple 
If I have the time I'll participate when is the deadline?

Haha. Someone make a game called 'Sheeple', please.

[Theon]

Quicksand-T!
How's the new game coming (They Want Me?)?
If it's anything like We Want YOU I want it NOW

[Elijah T.]

Hmm... I don't really see why anyone would want to enter this.  Your attitude towards it is a little off-putting, and why do we have to use your assets?  Not trying to be rude; sugar coating it seems silly.

[Theon]

Well, I didn't intend for it to be a full-scale competition; just a fun mini-project.

The reason why I want you to use my "art" is simply because that is what spurred the idea for me to set up this little thing. I know it's not exactly masterful, but it should work OK, I think.

But I guess you are right.
No one seems interested, so I'll just delete this shit in 2-3 days if I don't see any replies.

Guess I'll have to find somewhere else to spend my giftcodes

[nahkranoth]

I really emphasize with your idea and i don't think you have negative intentions.

For me personally it's impossible to start another project, otherwise i would have considered it. I think people should take more risks in concept and coding.
I also think that more people should be starting competitions, like you did. But with more replies, well... i can think a lot, but am afraid it's hard to find enthousiastic people.

Don't get your spirit down, by the nay-sayers

[Theon]

Thank you!
I was kinda depressed with how this turned out; the response wasn't very encouraging

I'm happy that you, at least, don't think of me as a complete idiot

[Happy Shabby Games]

Hey Theon the sprites look great. Pixothello . I'm not sure if I agree with you about the whole western propaganda thing though. Do you know how many vietnamese who were fleeing from the vietcong were rescued by the United States? The U.S. welcomed at least 823,000 indochinese refugees. Other leading countries welcomed less than 100,000, most less than 50k. I grew up in southern california and have many vietnamese friends, some that I call family, and their fathers and mothers have horror stories about the vietcong and nothing but thanks for the United States. My friends father, a vietnamese man, fought alongside the Americans against the vietcong and lost the use of his leg due to shrapnel from a grenade. There were incidents of entire villages being killed by twisted american soldiers, and I'm very ashamed of that, but that is not a picture of the U.S. armed forces as a whole. An overwhelming majority of 1st generation vietnamese in the states will tell you they have the utmost respect and gratitude for what our soldiers did. Did the conflict benefit the U.S. at all? Not if you count the loss of american lives and the economic strain of war. But I see a great wealth of culture here today and have many life long friends now that I might not have had if the U.S. did not intervene. I am thankful.

[nahkranoth]

Hey Theon the sprites look great. Pixothello . I'm not sure if I agree with you about the whole western propaganda thing though. Do you know how many vietnamese who were fleeing from the vietcong were rescued by the United States? The U.S. welcomed at least 823,000 indochinese refugees. Other leading countries welcomed less than 100,000, most less than 50k. I grew up in southern california and have many vietnamese friends, some that I call family, and their fathers and mothers have horror stories about the vietcong and nothing but thanks for the United States. My friends father, a vietnamese man, fought alongside the Americans against the vietcong and lost the use of his leg due to shrapnel from a grenade. There were incidents of entire villages being killed by twisted american soldiers, and I'm very ashamed of that, but that is not a picture of the U.S. armed forces as a whole. An overwhelming majority of 1st generation vietnamese in the states will tell you they have the utmost respect and gratitude for what our soldiers did. Did the conflict benefit the U.S. at all? Not if you count the loss of american lives and the economic strain of war. But I see a great wealth of culture here today and have many life long friends now that I might not have had if the U.S. did not intervene. I am thankful.

But isn't it from who's side your on? Off coarse like you tell with good words there is the personal story, but you can allso say that about the North Vietnamese people, imagine how they felt after their town was bombed with napalm or a father that died fighting U.S. soldiers. Offcoarse western people see it from their own perspective; - the result: a lot of stories where when the "hero" dies it's dramatised, but 10 seconds before he was killing enemies by the 100th. Imagine the personal drama of those 100 people...

I'm not saying that it's allways bad to intervere, offcoarse on a humane level there is a limit to what someone can do to his people. I'm just saying there are allways two sides. And i don't think it's unhealthy to sometimes try to see it through someone elses perspective.

[Happy Shabby Games]

You're right. The soldiers and civilians are always the poor souls caught in between on both sides of the fence. It isn't right to generalize a population and that wasn't what I was doing. It was the north vietnamese government who was the offender and the vietcong soldiers and civilians were not "orcs" but human beings with children, husbands, wives, and jobs. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, swept up into the storm of war. I've never had the impression from "western propaganda", or my south vietnamese friends and family, that north vietnamese were evil. But I do know that over a million south vietnamese were fleeing from a government that was.

[eclectocrat]

It was the north vietnamese government who was the offender

Serious? For reals? Man, you gotta read some history. The Vietnamese people were being reamed by the French, Japanese, Soviets and even the Chinese. The Viet Minh were were offering a hope of independence from colonial rule, but because they were caught between powerful empires trying to play them as a pawn they inevitably became radicalized, and populated with foreign agents. The 'offenders' were the colonial superpowers who royally f*cked over generations of Vietnamese people for profit. The Viet Minh started out as a democratic grassroots movement for independence, but all the big ass powers in the world weren't going to let that happen.

The Americans weren't the 'aggressors' in that they didn't start the conflict, but they damn well sure were the 'escalators' that brought it to terrible heights of violence using powerful modern weapons against a peasant army, and refusing peace deals again and again while illegally bombing and even invading adjacent countries, and propping up an insanely corrupt south vietnamese government engaging in massive drug trafficking...

If I wasn't busy with my own project I'd be all over this. Keep the sprites around Theon, you're totally right about the one sided nature of war games, and I too think that it's wrong. In fact make some burning children, raped girls and impaled baby sprites so we can begin to portray the horror of war. I recall a movie that Gary Busy did in Turkey where he portrayed the typical evil american war monger killing Turks/Arabs/Persians. He got crazy flak for his almost cartoonish portrayal of an evil american and was practically black listen in Hollywood. Jon Steward picked this up and right after saying how terrible it was he showed a montage of hollywood action movies from the last 30 years which demonized arabs as mindlessly evil killers in the most absurdly dehumanizing way. The propaganda machine rolls on...

[Theon]

Hey Theon the sprites look great. Pixothello .

Why, thank you!

While I disagree that you can view the North as the aggressor in this war, it is true that the FNL, also, were quite violent; but that is all besides the point I was trying to make here.
My goal wasn't to take side in this conflict, but to portray the war ridiculously one-sided and heroic, from the perceived "wrong" side.
This to show how there really isn't any winners or losers of wars, only survivors, and the glorified fiction their comrades spew up later.

What makes Vietnam War-fiction especially disgusting is how extremely gruesome the Americans were in this bitch; Sticky, burning napalm dropped on civilians "supposed" to collaborate with "the enemy", flamethrowers to burn people alive and toxins sprayed from jet fighters to destroy crops, were just "normal" fighting.
Below is an example of what atrocities the US military forces carried out in 'Nam.

As quoted from Wikipedia:
The My Lai Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Mỹ Lai [mǐˀ lɐːj]; English pronunciation: /ˌmiːˈlaɪ/, also /ˌmiːˈleɪ, ˌmaɪˈlaɪ/, Vietnamese: [mǐˀlaːj]) was the mass murder of 347–504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, conducted by a unit of the United States Army. All of the victims were civilians and most were women, children (including babies), and elderly people. Many of the victims were raped, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated.

But I see a great wealth of culture here today and have many life long friends now that I might not have had if the U.S. did not intervene. I am thankful.

I hope I read this the wrong way, but...
You're thankful for the US intervention, because you got to meet refugees from Vietnam!??

[Theon]

Thank you, eclectocrat, for conveying my thoughts better than I could possibly have done myself!

If I wasn't busy with my own project I'd be all over this. Keep the sprites around Theon, you're totally right about the one sided nature of war games, and I too think that it's wrong. In fact make some burning children, raped girls and impaled baby sprites so we can begin to portray the horror of war.

Hmm, now there's an idea.
However, here, I was trying to go for a cartoony Contra-esque take on it, and also, I'm afraid it would be seen as stupid and pubescent if I use too much gore (even though it would be pretty historically accurate); effectively devaluing the statement I was trying to make.

[Dacke]

Can you make a propaganda game where you play as a civilian trying to escape from both sides?

But seeing how you have a specific game in mind, perhaps you would be better off trying to start a project around it. Maybe you can find a coder to work with or start a community collaboration?

[Theon]

Two great ideas there, Dacke!
A civilian, or a military deserter, trying to survive through a war-torn battlefield could make for an excellent game!

I need to think on this...