Rather than let it wait for weeks, I rushed to crop a bunch of pictures and write a bunch of commentary about IGF 2007!
It was a really great year and we had a lot of fun. It's starting to feel like my life is an infinite loop of Comic-Con and IGF. Not to mention we're going to our second PAX this year, so throw that one into the rotation. Wash, rinse, repeat! It's always a good time, though.
I went to a talk by Koji Igarashi from Konami, the guy who makes the Castlevania games. He talked a bit about their challenges with sprite characters in high definition. One solution has been to make 3D games that play from a 2D perspective, while the other was to use traditional hand-drawn animation. However, Koji noted that traditional animators aren't as experienced with animating for games. Sounds like there could be jobs out there for traditional animators who are...
There were related concerns from other companies I talked to, who were finding they couldn't cram high-resolution art into the size restrictions of their games. We faced a similar challenge when it came time to turn Alien Hominid HD into a 50 meg game for XBLA, so we developed some cool tools that made it work.
Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers feature 100% hand drawn, high-definition art. There are tons of traditional animators right here on Newgrounds who are drawing with a Wacom tablet. After all this talk about sparking a 2D revolution, I feel like we really are on the cusp of something... With the release of the original TMNT arcade game on XBLA this week, I can't help but wonder what it would have been like if they released the original game, but with hand-drawn art that was identical to the cartoon. It would have been pretty cool, right?
What I'm getting at is... Think about how your art can apply to gaming. I'd love to see a lot more artist / programmer teams come together the way many already have here on Newgrounds. I think there's a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon. ;)
BTW... Don't forget that Pico Day is less than two months away! This would be a good opportunity for some programmers and artists to team up and WIN CASH!
