Recent posts by Leguma on Kongregate

Topic: General Gaming / Glean Crafting Helper Thread

Solsund, I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of time you must have spent on this. I hope it helps people and they appreciate it. If you have any additional questions about the inner workings of the game, let me know.

We never imagined that players would be so annoyed with the high-tier upgrades. We made the game so that it could be played and enjoyed in sessions of 30 minutes to an hour. The upgrades are intentionally hard to make, as they are ‘bonus’ content that let you keep playing even after you get all story pieces and finish the game. You can get the ending without ever going past Tier 2 (that’s right, Tier Two) for upgrades, and we think that’s fine for the casual experience. For the hardcore, the upgrades provide plenty to still do.

The real issue stems from the way we designed it (30-60 minute play sessions) not being congruent with the way it is actually being played (sessions of many, many hours; some people even finishing the whole thing in one sitting). Anything can become a chore if done in excess. It’s like the difference between a 30 minute run awesome and a 5 hours run grueling.

Topic: General Gaming / Glean - Tips to and from players

We included all the information you need in the descriptions of the items. Just select the item you are after and read the description. All the information you need is there.

Topic: Collaborations / Free 3D Models?

Try TurboSquid, or just plain googling “free 3d models”.

Topic: Collaborations / the news ''not so inportaint

I CAN REALLY MAKE A HELP FOR YOU HEAR I AM AN VETRIN OF THE USA USARMY AND ALSO A VETRIN OF MOST GAMES. I HAVE PLAYED ON MOST OF THE GAMES OUT THERE AND I KNOW ALL ABOUT HOW TO USE THEM AND HOW THEY LOOK LIKEK AND WHAT YOU DO OR DONT DO TO THEM TO MAKE IT A GOOD TIME OR TO WIN AND NOT LOSE ON THE GAME AT WHICDH YOU ARE PLAYING AT. I WANT TO HELP YOU MAKE THAT GAME ABOUT FIGHTING WARRIORS OR FANTASY AND IT USE ALSO COULD MAYBE USE VIRTUAL REALITY ON IT CAUSE I BVELIVE THAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE GAMES. ALSO THE GAME SHOULD MAKE FACEBOOK HAPPEN ON IT SO THAT YOU CAN SEND UPDATE TO YOUR FRAMVILLE ACCOUNT SO THAT RESTRANT CITY HAS AN ACCOUNT ON IT TOO AND THAT ALL ARE CONNECTED ON IT THROUGH FACEBOOK. I CAN MAKE ALL OF THIS HAPPEN.

Topic: Collaborations / Looking For Programing Partner (art 80%done)

The new topic interface is just plain text and it won’t let me edit the actual post… whatever. Here are the links.

Menu Samples:
Diary
Instructions
Skills
Achievements
Play Screen
Potions List
Potion Details

Game Pieces:
Game Pieces

Topic: Collaborations / Looking For Programing Partner (art 80%done)

Hello,

I’m looking for a programmer in order to finish a Match3 game. As I mentioned, the art is 80% done, will all aspects of the game being covered. The game has an Alchemy theme, with potions, recipes, 4 game modes (plus a special par time achievement mode)which all utilize the same base mechanics, as well as a large number of levels.

I have included samples of both menus and pieces that are used within the game proper, which have been grayscaled. All the graphics are full color, 3D renders, and look amazing animated.

I am interested in people that already have experience, as I have already been left in the lurch several times.

Menu Samples: Diary, Instructions, Skills, Achievements, Play Screen, Potions List, Potion Details

Game Pieces: Game Pieces

Topic: Collaborations / Simple platformer needs artist

What are the time constraints on this offer? I’m interested, but until i am done with presenting my dissertations sometime around the end of next week i will be otherwise occupied.

Here’s some samples of what I can do, so you have a better idea:
http://megaswf.com/serve/12322/
http://megaswf.com/serve/12323/
http://megaswf.com/serve/1613/

Topic: Collaborations / Artist Needed - Engine Preview

You want this to play more like “Mutually Assured Destruction” or “Boomshine”?

Also, you mention chatting, but give no contact information.

Topic: Collaborations / Artist Needed - Engine Preview

So you’re envisioning ’Missile Defense" graphics for this? Rockets that fall, rockets you shoot and a base/building at the bottom?

Maybe with Steampunk/futuristic/whatever variations to the overall style?

Topic: Collaborations / first person horror - iphone game

You talk of 3D modeling, but what about the Rigging/TD, Skinning, and Animating? You have other people doing that? Do you intend to use any form of existing third party content (mocap/animations/rigs)? Last but not least, both modeling and level design only produces geometry? Who is going to handle the shaders, textures and maps? Are you going to be using simple mesh geometry for the levels, or do you need dedicated formats with specific requirements (bsp, vis, etc, etc)

The way you present the project oversimplifies both the scope and the scale of 3D games.

Topic: Collaborations / Looking for art for experimental Flash game

I stand highly corrected.

Topic: Collaborations / Looking for art for experimental Flash game

A game size of 200X200 is minuscule. It would look bad on most portals (because they were designed for much bigger game sizes), would not be able to fit the majority of in game ads (most are bigger than your whole game), and ultimately huts the player’s eyes because most people today have high resolution monitors and this would be a very small area on their screen.

If all that were not enough, from a game design perspective, that size is an abysmal choice. With 20×20 tiles (any lower and it becomes impossible to actually depict anything in one tile) you’re looking at a 10×10 playing screen, even Super Mario Bros had twice that much, in order to accommodate visibility of the area around you, which is key in platform games to allow the player to actually wee what is around him, where they will land after that jump, if there is any place to go up, etc, etc. If your engine is one of those screen-swapping ones, where you change the screen instead of scrolling through an even bigger level, then it is even worse since you will need a border of 1 tile to be used for the logic triggers for transition, leaving you with only 8×8.

Topic: Collaborations / Need Gun Artist!

I just don’t get this… is this ‘the game’, or is there more to it?

Topic: Collaborations / Interesting Idea for a Physics-based Game

The Cosmic Crush you link to seems rather primitive, I can’t discern any attraction forces between the rocks. A much better made version of what you are describing is Osmos . That even has gameplay and strategy to it (because of the way you need to shoot matter in order to move), and a good amount of replayability (since all entities in the level collide and merge when they touch, not just you).

If somebody codes this, I would be interested in creating a dynamic visual system like they use in Osmos for the graphics.

Topic: Collaborations / To anyone seriously thinking of making a real game:

Not a complete joke, but it comes close. There are good people around, but not that many. What do you expect really, Kongregate is a play portal not a develop portal. There are other places for collaborations, with higher quality people, but breaking into those communities is much harder, since most people are established devs to some degree.

Topic: Collaborations / games

Originally posted by 2DArray:

let’s fighting love

protect my balls?

Topic: Collaborations / Anyone want to do some art...?

What you are proposing is virtually impossible to do and actually get to look right.
First, those books you speak of had very poor, to no transitions from one part of the animal to another, which was fine, children don’t really care that much, but most people over the age of 10 would find it to look bad.
Second, even if you were to get everything to transition well, which would be a huge undertaking to begin with, animating this sort of hybrid dynamically is impossible. A lion, a rhino and a horse all move differently, gait, weight distribution, balance, each of them moves in a away that is very specific to the species. More so for knights, robots and whatever. If you’ve ever seen someone walking in armor, you’d know it’s very different from someone walking normally. The stride and sway change dramatically, there is less bounce in their step. Even if you were to animate each whole character perfectly, once you start to mix various pieces it will be a disjointed mess, with different parts moving in opposite directions. It would be a blood mess.
Third, While I understand the desire to avoid a large team, this game seems to be all about content, and you want to lay it all down at the feet of 1 guy.

Topic: Collaborations / Animator's grassroots collaboration forum

Or you can go machianima. People that have never heard of a vertex, UV, IK, or Render node would have to spend YEARS before they could have a chance to do something like this, even a short clip, but with an existing game engine, most of that is rendered moot.

Topic: Collaborations / Tips for a Successful Collaboration

FFS, not this writing dredge again. LISTEN UP PLEBEIANS AND TRY TO COMPREHEND THIS:

Coders and artists (be it visual or audio) devote time and energy to become literate in their respective fields. This means that they can READ code, images and sheet music, as well as WRITE it. Then they spend time to specialize in applying these skills to game making. All of these people already know how to write and read words. From that point on it is only a matter of vision and effort to get whatever is needed into the game.

Even the more complex games like Sonny don’t actually have a lot of text (I estimate around the 3-4K mark), and the bulk of that is descriptions of locations, skills and items, which have NOTHING to do with writing for books or movies. As such, having an extra person to get in the way, incubate feature creep and come up with unfeasible ideas is NOT of interest to any development team.

All of that having been said, I ask you “writers” and “writer” advocates: where is your shit? Artists, coders and music/sound people show their work, I have NEVER, EVER seen anything resembling acceptable writing on these forums. Why is that? Oh, right, because you can’t write.

Topic: Collaborations / Need Team For HAZMAT Productions

Originally posted by Chad90:

WIN

Topic: Collaborations / Tips for a Successful Collaboration

omg UG, that is so not true, a writer or idea person could do so much for that code… a few well placed comments, some nice colors and font variations… it could easily make it +1 star.

Topic: Collaborations / Odd collab request.

He’s offering to be an intern, and do any of the grunt work that core people don’t want to. And while he does that he can learn new things about whatever it is that interest him (code, art, both, etc).

I left you a whisper lost1010.

Topic: Collaborations / Tips for a Successful Collaboration

Originally posted by Moly:

I’d also recommend waving your arms in the air and making a loud noise of some description.

while urinating on the mimes…

Topic: Collaborations / Anybody need a 3D Artist?

If you really want to work on Flash games, be prepared for a radical shift in perspective…

MANY people are going to be asking you for “2D art”, even though the stuff you post is obviously 2D. What they mean is they want it to “look less 3D”, meaning they want no highlights, shadows, reflections, sometimes even no perspective. If you try to accommodate, they will then tell you that it needs to look more cartoonish. Then there is always the popular “make it pixely”.
Animations that look too 3D is also a problem, basically anything that doesn’t look like it belong sin South Park.
Then there’s the resolution gap. Rarely if ever will anything be bigger than 250X250 pixels, even then that’s once in a blue moon.

Once you filter out the people that want games that look like they were made to run on a Commodore 64, you are going to have to deal with the “Collab” problem. People will want to start working with you, promise the moon, maybe even do a little work, but the majority of them cop out and disappear off the grid half way through the project. Most of the people on Kong are total noobs that couldn’t finish a project if their life depended on it. Mochi and FGL have more people with games made, and you can even find nearly completed games that just need the art.

Topic: Collaborations / Recruiting a Team for a first person shooter flash game-Zephytoth Games

I can be assistant to the writer/ideas person?