Recent posts by JohannasGarden on Kongregate

Topic: Dawn of the Dragons / Beginner Guide for Dawn of the Dragons

Nice guide, Solprovider, thanks for putting it together.

For your Army, it’s used in PVP, to increase your army size, add people who play DotD actively on Kong to your friends list. There are also tabs for equipping yourself and a small team for pvp. Many people will eventually get into pvp for AP. Don’t worry too much now, just don’t buy anything other than King’s Bounty with your AP yet, and deposit your gold in your bank on occasion and buy at least some of the cheaper land items, like corn fields. Don’t spend your PC or AP until you know the game well and focus on the things in the guide.

Also, when you need something from a particular raid, politely let people know. Don’t beg or demand, but sometimes other players will summon raids for you, whisper you the link, allowing you to get the share you need before sharing the raid in chat. This can be very helpful when you can’t do damage quickly and are trying to craft some of the legendary items and need FS in a NM raid to get them to drop.

Topic: Stencyl / Why I like stencyl

Well, Stencyl is a great thing for me because I home school my son and we did some learning in Scratch last year. Moving directly from Scratch to Flash would have been much more difficult, but Scratch and Stencyl have much in common in the interface, but the games can be uploaded to Kongregate :)

Topic: Stencyl / New Stencyl Tutorial

Abigayl recently uploaded a second tutorial. I have found these the most helpful next step from the crash course and a bit of playing around with things. She’s also great with people who have questions.

Thanks for all your hard work, Abigayl!

Topic: Swords & Potions / Looking for a guild? Why not Zoidberg? Er... I mean why not mine?

There is a Stickied thread at the top of this Forum for people searching for guilds or members. Please post in that thread instead. Thank you.

Topic: Swords & Potions / looking for guild

Please keep “Looking for a guild” type posts in the stickied thread near the top of the forum. Thanks.

Topic: Stencyl / Stencyl is a failure.

I haven’t worked with Stencyl or explored it is much as I’d like, but I think I have gleaned enough to make a few comments on this thread.

1) One of the most distinctive aspects of Kongregate’s mission as opposed to other gaming sites is the focus on encouraging, assisting, and bringing together new game developers. If a new tool, like, set of tutorials results in a whole bunch of people uploading their first games, that’s a success. It’s a more exciting success if some people use those tools to make something funny, expected, beautiful, clever or meaningful, of course. But it’s also a success if the majority are almost identical shooters or platformers with very small variations and either stock or crudely hand drawn graphics, but a lot of people are learning something new.

Stolen games and games with no interactivity will get deleted, but just as I would remove art not made by the uploader or game screenshots from the Collabs but never because “it sucks” or “there are too many Aviary tutorial ninjas, get rid of them!”, Kongregate is not going to discourage games that are too much like a tutorial or because the graphics aren’t good. Other sites usually don’t just allow anyone to upload a game. Kongregate does, because it’s Kongregate.

2) As far as Stencyl itself, I’m personally excited by what I’ve seen so far. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with graphical blocks programming languages like Scratch and the one used for Lego Mindstorms projects (they are related), but this looks to me like a great intermediate step between those and a scripted language. The developers of the Lifelong Kindergarten project explained that some languages have a narrow floor but a high ceiling, i.e. you can’t do much when you start out, but it’s pretty powerful when you really know it. Programs like Scratch, the simplified Java used with mindstorms, and Stencyl are intentionally making sure first that they’ve got as broad a floor as possible, and then try to get a high ceiling as well. It’s a great learning tool, and those who get into it do move on to other languages generally, though some may continue to use the block based program for certain sorts of projects. Games that are the least bit complicated graphically/memory wise will lag like crazy in Scratch, and aren’t even playable online without downloading.

I suspect that for some sorts of games, it would be easier to continue to do them in Stencyl even for more advanced developers. I suspect that when you get into games with lots of stuff flying around on the screen, that you’d have lag issues with Stencyl even if programmed “correctly”. I’m guessing that based on other experiences, but if you couldn’t get a better optimized game in AS3 than you could in Stencyl, it would surprise me tremendously. But quick to make seasonal games—difference games, snake games, and slight variations on Bejewelled with pumpkins, snowflakes, hearts, easter eggs, etc. are often easier to sell and easy to make. I suspect Stencyl might be an easier way to do this even for those who know AS3.

3) Once people get a few easier games done, they may have a better idea of whether they want to focus on more challenging to program games or make their games “something more” in another way—story, humor, arts, atmosphere, puzzles with a bit of a different twist.

Though I never finished a project, when the Shoot! contest was going on, I envisioned something that had a story to it in multiple areas. A bit like http://www.kongregate.com/games/sakket/save-puggolon-meat-hammer-edition There are definitely some gameplay variations in that, but what makes it is the feel from the art and music and the sense of a story with movement and progression. I think Stencyl will be most helpful for those with that sort of point of view, but it will likely be used in many different ways given time.

Topic: Backyard Monsters / <edited by Forum Mod> is a Hacker

I’m locking this thread because I see no purpose in it continuing. The forums are not the place to make accusations against other kong users.

Topic: The Arts / BIIIIG REQUEST :D

Actually, I’m not exactly sure where this should go—since it’s a video rather than a game, Collaborations doesn’t seem quite right either, but I think you’d have better luck off kong. Is there a minecraft forum where people post videos and/or on for tips on making videos? Someone there might be willing to do it or teach you how to do it. Since you plan to make minecraft videoS, I recommend the latter option of learning to do it yourself. It likely involves skills that you will be able to put to use in your videos to good effect.

And don’t wait for the intro to start making the videos. Someone is much more likely to do free work for you if you’ve already done something you can show them. Many people with the skill and willingness to do this sort of thing have probably had the experience of making the cool intro. for someone who never made the videos.

Good luck!

Topic: The Arts / What program to use with a tablet?

GIMP is good, actually, but if I had photoshop, I would use photoshop. I actually found the free version of artrage one of the easiest to use (mostly because you can use pastels and colored pencils).

http://www.artrage.com/artrage-demos.html

scroll down to the one that is free, though there are also one month demos for the others.

The main thing you need is a program that responds to pressure sensitivity, and most big ones do. The emulator programs will give more realistic media and paper effects generally, though you can often get the same results with an everything program. Corel would be the high end one, the demo artrage and mypaint are some free ones. Griatch of gimptalk.com has done some mypaint tutorials. There are also brush packs available for it.

Topic: The Arts / Instruments

I play piano, ukulele, some guitar. I want to get an ocarina, though I mostly like to play instruments I can sing along with.

Topic: Kongregate / Where is the line between art and porn?

As a curator for the art collabs section of the site, let me clarify a couple of things:

It isn’t Art vs. Porn—it is “what we allow in the collabs” vs. “What we don’t allow in the collabs”

We generally draw a line at genital and nipple detail. Sometimes, it’s useful to have a “line” that makes the decisions easier. I have removed a couple of things I really liked that that had nipple detail but were pretty tastefully done. I have removed a whole lot more explicit photographs and the crudely drawn penises…I can’t even guess how many there have been. We also don’t allow photographs (though clearly photomanipulated/transformed works usually make the cut) or screen shots from games or generally art made mostly from someone else’s art. It doesn’t mean those aren’t art. We just don’t want the collabs to be an image dump. The guidelines we have may not be perfect, but they actually make it easy to exclude a whole lot of what we want to exclude with fairly few “difficult cases”.

tl:dr There is non-pornographic art that we would remove from Kongregate, but that doesn’t mean we think it is porn or that it isn’t art.

Topic: The Arts / This is now a dump for my art/music

I’m pretty much with Laxaria—very nice sound, but seems too repetitive over time. Definitely good work though.

As for how to find your other post, if you look at your avatar in a post, see how it says (currently) 5622 posts under your name? Click on that and it will list your posts so you can page through them. If you posted less, I’d find it for you :P

Topic: TDP4 Team Battle / if you want to know what when on .....

I’m locking all the threads that don’t seem to clearly be about the game or with lengthy or inappropriate images. Please flag posts and report abuse on users profiles for things like this. Happy gaming :)

Topic: The Arts / [song] Input on some songs

I’m glad it was helpful. I don’t know what you use to mix your tracks, but sometimes there are good forums available where really experienced people using the same program will listen and make suggestions. I “use” (maybe I should say, plan to use and have tried a couple of times to record vocals, but it always sucks in some really major way ;D) Audacity and they have really great forums with both informative sticky posts and people who do professional sound work that will often listen and make suggestions. So you might want to see if such a thing is available.

Topic: The Arts / [song] Input on some songs

Really good work. It’s a bit hard to judge the first without the vocals.

I’m sorry for not giving the detailed response that Zshadow and some of the people commenting in the collabs have. The main thing that strikes me about needing improvement is that some places everything sounds good but it blends together too much and nothing stands out. I may have some minor hearing decline in certain ranges that makes it seem more so for me, however. I would still suggest when mixing that you listen with an ear to what instrument should be foremost in the mix at that particular time and up the volume on it a bit compared to the other instruments. Especially with those buzzy bass and guitar sounds, I think it’s important everything not be at too static a volume throughout. You want the feel that you’d get with a band where each member knows “okay, this is my time to shine, I’m going to step closer to the mic and really rock it….okay, now I’ll step back a bit”. In some places I felt the performance, especially on keyboards, could have used more tension and energy. It can be harder to make sure that energy is there when recording everything yourself.

You’ve got a lot of talent, and your basic compositions are really good. Thanks for sharing them with us, and please post links to the newer recordings when you have them. I’m especially looking forward to Symphonic Metal with new sounds.

Like others, I especially like Memories, especially for a game where you want a mix of moods and levels of intensity.

There were also some parts of Sym

Topic: The Arts / Obscene Artwork?

Actually, we have a bit of a “line” on Kong at genital and nipple detail. That doesn’t mean it’s not art or that it’s porn, just not for Kongregate. Nude drawings most likely wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the collabs or forums, particularly if it gets flagged. I didn’t make the rule, and I think most would agree that it isn’t perfect, but I actually have found the guideline useful as a curator. In really borderline cases (a tiny bit of not very realistic nipple detail on a very non-porn piece of character art made in Flash) I have changed from an embedded picture to a link with an explanation added by me. Obviously, we’re far more concerned about keeping actual porn or shock images off the site, but we want to avoid things that would prompt parent complaints or blocking of Kong from a high school computer lab where students really would benefit from access to the forums and tutorials here, for example. And we also don’t want to minutely argue every piece we make a decision on—hence the “detail” guideline can be helpful.

If you have a nude drawing that you want to share with the community, I recommend running it by a curator or forum mod first (depending on where you want to post it), or putting it up on a deviantArt account and providing a link to your dA account, explaining the nature of the drawing. This is especially helpful if you have a number of drawings to share.

Of course, many charcoal nude drawings are almost completely lacking in the detail I’m referring to, so it may not matter.

Topic: Kongregate / Official Voting Thread for the Best of 2010 Quest

Mardek Chapter 3 (The Mardek series is probably my all time favorite Flash game anything’s)

Topic: The Arts / WARNING: Controversial Art Gallery~

I like the newest a lot. Some really nice details—like the shoes and the lace especially. I totally want those shoes. I would be unable to walk like an adult in heels that high and rarely want high heels, but those are some awesome shoes :D

And for those questioning appropriateness, Kong is a teen and adult site, and we don’t aim to be squeaky clean. We have a line at “genital and nipple detail” where we remove art from Kong, but even that doesn’t mean it’s always offensive, just not for display on Kong.

The explanatory title is appreciated, though, Tilty, as that allows people to decide whether and when to open the thread or not.

Topic: The Arts / Island Survival

Cool :)

Just to clarify for the person who made the Forum Game comment way back on the 1st page—Forum Games that really area art based, i.e. people post stuff and the thread leader responds by making art that is NOT just cut and paste or a fairly simple application of a filter application, then they do belong in the Art Forum unless the creator chooses to go with Forum Games instead :)

Topic: The Arts / Groups/contests Sign Ups & Directory

Sorry for the slow response, rigariga, but you don’t need to sign up for request threads or gallery threads, only contests and groups. So go ahead and start yours. Bob, good luck with your contest.

Everyone—please leave me a shout or a whisper when you make a request here. I am quite, quite busy with life stuff and don’t keep up with this thread the way I should.

Topic: The Arts / I was thinking...

I like the idea. I once had a plan to do a number of well-known admins as Kongai cards, but it proved a bit beyond me for the effort I was willing to put in.

Topic: The Arts / NaNoWriMo 2010! [Laxaria: Please use new thread!]

I’m still thinking about it and not feeling ready to commit. My son has actually decided to develop the “poetry magic” story himself, by dictating it to me. He’s also asked me to start making up bedtime stories rather than reading him one from a book, and I’m now doing one based on “Cursed Treasure: Don’t Steal my Gems”. So…I have ideas for shorter works that I could draft in a month, but it’s very hard for me to commit to anything right now.

Topic: Off-topic / Learning to compose music without any experience?

I am also just starting writing songs—though I just play (piano or ukulele) and sing. I’m responding just to your point question about how not to lose the melody. Often when we have an idea, we think we know it, but we really don’t, we often have something more amorphous that changes every time we imagine it. For the basic melody, I find that it helps to sing or hum a part over and over and then pick it out on the keyboard after I get to the point where it’s not changing all the time, and I’m pretty sure I like at least part of it. Sometimes I start with the chords or start putting them in pretty quickly, but other times I’ll have most of the melody done from singing alone.

When I do the latter, I often come up with something odd enough that I can’t arrange it myself, so I ask for help from better musicians. Someone good at hearing a song and then figuring out the chords will be good at this. I have a couple neighbors, both play piano and sing, and I would sing a part over and over, while one tried harmonizing vocally and the other would play chords. Sometimes the singing one would feel strongly that a certain note should be in the chord somewhere, and we’d discover something that worked better that way.

Topic: The Arts / Music? In this forum? It's more likely than you'd think.

When and if the change comes, as raw said, the description will clearly state that it’s for original work. I am sure that mistakes will be made, just as we occasionally have a “post cool images from google here” thread pop up from time to time. So we’ll just ask that you flag those so that we can move or lock them as appropriate. The threads that belong here would be threads for people to post links to their original music, to discuss the programs/instruments/tools they use, to get help starting out, perhaps a Secret Artist where people briefly describe their favorite computer game and why and the artist matched to them can use visual, literary, or musical media to somehow evoke that game and person—which just might, might, be the excuse to buy an ocarina that I’ve been waiting for. Who knows what will happen? But we’ll make sure that arguments about the best Heavy Metal Band EVER get moved.

Topic: The Arts / Groups/contests Sign Ups & Directory

What cybre1 said :) What sort of group are you looking for? What kind(s) of art do you do? I may be able to make some suggestions, however, if you just check out the active threads with [group] tags, you’ll figure out a lot about what their members do. If no one has posted for a couple of weeks or more, send a message to the owner (that would be the person who created the first post in most cases) and ask if they are still involved or planning to be soon.