You know, this whole time I was kinda thinking the game dev portion would be in the same submission as the movie/song portion, but now I'm not so sure. I was so concerned with how to weave the separate minigames together that I forgot about weaving the games and song/movie together. Perhaps there should just be two submissions? One song/movie collab and one game collab? I mean I love the idea of bringing people together and everyone contributing to one big project like this ultimate sand castle lego city, but the song collab is already underway and I'm not sure I have any ideas about how to do it anyway.

Should we post that new thread we talked about to recruit people and have people contribute their ideas of what they consider NG classics?

At 3/7/15 08:50 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: You know, this whole time I was kinda thinking the game dev portion would be in the same submission as the movie/song portion, but now I'm not so sure. I was so concerned with how to weave the separate minigames together that I forgot about weaving the games and song/movie together. Perhaps there should just be two submissions? One song/movie collab and one game collab? I mean I love the idea of bringing people together and everyone contributing to one big project like this ultimate sand castle lego city, but the song collab is already underway and I'm not sure I have any ideas about how to do it anyway.

If things really don't turn out too well, we could always make two separate projects. I'd like to at least give this big collab thing a try though.

Should we post that new thread we talked about to recruit people and have people contribute their ideas of what they consider NG classics?

A lot of old people users don't even come here anymore, so I deem this approach an unfair generalisation. Luckily we have the NG History and Flash History pages, which I already dug through for info. If you want to know about past classics, just name me a year and I could give you a quick rundown.

Here's a crude depiction of what I pictured the menu to be like. It's sort of like a point&click game where you enter an arcade, click on one of the machines, and then use the arrows to pick a game. Once you start the game, it may enter a new scene in flash where the game resides. Hmm, it may also be useful to use the same keyboard bindings for every game in the collab, or maybe controller support? Anyway, I hope that was helpful somehow.

At 3/9/15 07:50 AM, Whirlguy wrote: If things really don't turn out too well, we could always make two separate projects. I'd like to at least give this big collab thing a try though.

Okay, but how do you envision the movie collab tying into the game collab? Could the movies be involved with the collection quest? Should each animator place a Teletubby in their segment that the viewer can click on?

Oh, and the art mural should be tied in too, right? I seem to recall art murals already having hidden objects in them, so the collection quest could work with that too, right?

At 3/10/15 05:06 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: Okay, but how do you envision the movie collab tying into the game collab? Could the movies be involved with the collection quest? Should each animator place a Teletubby in their segment that the viewer can click on?

Dear god no, that would be awful lol. I was thinking just one achievement for watching the whole thing, much like they did in Africa Dudes:

• 

  Africa Dudes

  by Stamper

  AFRICA, WOO!

  Movie

  658,927 Views

  (Ages 17+)

The point&click aspect of the menu will likewise take people to a movie theater and art gallery, so it all comes together quite nicely that way.

Oh, and the art mural should be tied in too, right? I seem to recall art murals already having hidden objects in them, so the collection quest could work with that too, right?

That's a good idea! My vote for the reference that should be used goes to agnry faic.

At 3/10/15 07:28 PM, Whirlguy wrote: That's a good idea! My vote for the reference that should be used goes to agnry faic.

So... you like the idea of hiding things in the art, but not in the animations?

Is it agnry faic or angry faic? That works fine.

At 3/11/15 03:11 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: So... you like the idea of hiding things in the art, but not in the animations?

Well yeah, animations are to be watched. Animators don't work on their animations just so people can go and look for hidden medals. How are the people who watch this going to find any easter egg medals in a video anyway? They would need to somehow pause the video, just to go looking for it. It takes away what it all really should be about, don't you think? References will be fine, but linking them to medals is overdoing it.

Is it agnry faic or angry faic? That works fine.

agnry faic, I think. I've seen both variations.

Well, that's fine. But some animations do have clickable easter eggs, you know.

• 

  Thanks for all the fish!

  by AntonyC

  A musical romp with the Hitchhiker's-Guide Dolphins.

  Movie

  201,149 Views

  (Everyone)

• 

  Warriors of the Portal

  by Osuka

  NG characters have been locked in a maze, and they must kill each other to survive

  Movie

  611,262 Views

  (Ages 13+)

At 3/12/15 01:08 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: Well, that's fine. But some animations do have clickable easter eggs, you know.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/305260
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/568732

That's true, and both are quality projects. The concept itself just never worked though, in my opinion. By the way, do you have a suggestion for the dimensions of the project? I was thinking something along the line of 960×540 myself, which should be 540p. I want to get started on some of the menu art soon, seeing as the song is reaching completion.

We also need to decide on a framerate. With animations I would normally go for 24fps, but since there's also going to be games... What do you think @TharosTheDragon?

At 3/18/15 04:21 PM, Whirlguy wrote: That's true, and both are quality projects. The concept itself just never worked though, in my opinion. By the way, do you have a suggestion for the dimensions of the project? I was thinking something along the line of 960×540 myself, which should be 540p. I want to get started on some of the menu art soon, seeing as the song is reaching completion.

That sounds pretty big to me. I think that's so wide that it looks bad on NG because it extends beyond the frame on the page, doesn't it? Also it can be a pain for artists and animators to have to fill that much space I think. 800 sounds plenty wide to me but I don't really care since I'm not an art guy. I'd go for something more like 600 if the artists find it easier to fill the space.

As for frame rate, I tend to prefer slow frame rates so that it's easy for the animators to fill the frames. And as far as code is concerned, slower frame rates are less likely to lag on slower computers. Lag is definitely a concern with a collaborative project like this. But again, beyond that I don't really care. I'm not super HD perceptive. Anything faster than 16 FPS looks fluid to me.

At 3/21/15 11:27 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: That sounds pretty big to me. I think that's so wide that it looks bad on NG because it extends beyond the frame on the page, doesn't it? Also it can be a pain for artists and animators to have to fill that much space I think. 800 sounds plenty wide to me but I don't really care since I'm not an art guy. I'd go for something more like 600 if the artists find it easier to fill the space.

As for frame rate, I tend to prefer slow frame rates so that it's easy for the animators to fill the frames. And as far as code is concerned, slower frame rates are less likely to lag on slower computers. Lag is definitely a concern with a collaborative project like this. But again, beyond that I don't really care. I'm not super HD perceptive. Anything faster than 16 FPS looks fluid to me.

Oh right. I got so used to the mp4 player, I forgot size could even be an issue haha. I made 1280×720 animations once or twice, so I thought 960×540 would be reasonable. I assume some people don't have big screens though, and others work with laptops, so that may not be a wise decision after all. Both the Metal Gear Solid and Streetfighter Collab were in 720×480, so let's go with that instead. 24fps sounds good to me then.

At 1/14/15 12:58 PM, WhiteLightning wrote:

At 1/12/15 12:27 PM, chris-the-stick2 wrote: i would like to work on this.....

do you accept flash movie parts? will this be a flash collab?
i also write and voice-act, if that helps.

i remember NG for many years....

i was lurking NG since 2000 and i eventually joined NG on 2006, one year after the 10-year celebration.
i saw many good things in here, and i have many stories to offer.

My idea is that we first collect a list of every animator we can who would like to animate their character.

We'd need to get some music pros to make an awesome track in the background, and I then I can come up with a way to put them all together into an epic Newgrounds music video.

We could even get artists in on it for some awesome backgrounds.

What do you guys think? Sound fun? I'm totally up for managing the collaboration - I'd just need to collect pieces from everyone.

Also... Newgrounds is 20 freaking years old, holy crap.

this definitely is a GOOD idea, whitelightning!!!!!

the problem is, how can we gather all of the best NG animator's into one piece?
also if that counts, i would like to take part in the 20-years of NG collab, both as an animator, and as a voice-actor.

Alright, it's time to get this thing started soon! Here's the beginnings of the menu I'll be working on. I'm probably going to change what the main part of the menu looks like. It's a bit too bland for my liking. It doesn't scream "NG Anniversary." I may also add more locations later on, like a "scene select" or "achievements" page. It may also be fun to get a bunch of writers together for a "Fictional History" of the website (150 to 200 words per person sounds about right). And there may be a credits page somewhere. The idea was to fill up the menu with clickable NG characters. Clicking them will result in getting a medal. These characters may (or may not) talk. Some well-known NG characters don't even talk, so I have my doubts. Also, that mural is supposed to loop someday. I suck lol.

Width: 720px
Height: 480px
Frame Rate: 24fps

===

About the clickable characters in the menu; since there will be 25 animators, I thought 25 NG characters would be good enough. Of course there's a lot more to choose from, so I tried narrowing it down to a final list of most "classic" characters from over the years. I also tried to focus on characters with a fun appearance (For example; salad fingers is kind of stiff and lame, but Pico isn't). I'm not very satisfied with the results though. I would love to add characters from Xiao Xiao, The Arfenhouse, Badger, Weebl&Bob, Journey Of Reemus, Larry, Prosnorkulus, Binding Of Isaac, Battleblock Theater and probably a lot more. Please let me know if you think anything is missing or should be replaced with something else.

01. Pico (Pico's School, 1999)
02. Beebo (Beebo, 2001)
03. Alien (Alien Hominid, 2001)
04. Hank (Madness, 2002)
05. StrawberryClock (Clock Crew, 2002)
06. Foamy (Neurotically Yours, 2003)
07. P-Bot or A-Bot (Newgrounds Portals, 2003)
08. Couple (There She Is!, 2004)
09. Bitey (Brackenwood, 2004)
10. Salad Fingers (Salad Fingers, 2004)
11. Dad (Dad 'n Me, 2005)
12. Blockhead (Blockhead, 2005)
13. Captain (Tankmen, 2006)
14. Chocolate Man And Cripple Boy (Nameless, 2006)
15. Jerry (Jerry, 2007)
16. Random Knight (Castle Crashers, 2007)
17. Cat Face (Cat Face, 2008)
18. Nameless Main Character (Time Fcuk, 2009)
19. Kenstar (Girlchan In Paradise, 2009)
20. Leo and Satan (Leo & Satan, 2010)
21. Meatboy (Super Meatboy, 2010)
22. Fernando (Fernando The Manwhore, 2011)
23. Zone-Tan (ZTV News, 2012)
24. Calamity or Icky (Warlord-Of-Noodles Animations, 2013)
25. Detective Nwar (NWAR, 2014)

===

@TharosTheDragon, there's something I've been wanting to discuss about the games in this collab. As you may notice, I've added random "start screens" for the games section. These are 600×400 pixels, and I'd like for each game developer to make one of these (not necessarily pixelated). I will probably warp them in Photoshop later on, so as to allow for a cooler perspective in the game selection screen. Similar to the images provided, they should all start with the game title, followed by "Insert Coin" and then the company (username). Of course we could also ask for title art only, and add the rest on our own.

Here's a set of guidelines I've thought up. I'd like to know what you think of them:

1) Each game developer makes a game that should take them very little time to make. A beginner game if you will. No more than one level.
2) The game should run in one frame and will not have any saves. Once the game is left, it will reset. IF we decided on keeping high scores, these will be saved locally.
3) The collab is not limited in its genres of games, but they should all have a clear goal. Reaching this goal will unlock a medal.
4) Keybindings should be the same for each game: WASD or arrows for movement, and then the JKL (or something else) for performing actions. We could make this thing controller-enabled, but I'll leave that open for now.
5) Pixel games are nice, but not mandatory.
6) As for the deadline, how does June 28 sound? That gives us a week to compile everything. You might encounter bugs though. Let me know if you need more time.

If you have any ideas of your own, Tharos, I'd love to hear them!

===

@TricycleLord, @mattmatty, @foursnail, in case you guys still want to organize the Art leg of the collab, you may want to learn how TurkeyOnAStick managed his "Worm" collabs. Apparently he worked in 3 teams. He started with Team A, eventually Team B took over, and Team C followed afterwards. This approach required a certain amount of people to complete. The whole thing eventually became a seemless loop. We're looking to make something similar.

Here are some art guidelines to get us started:

1) Project Dimensions are decided on. I conclude that every piece of art in the mural should be 720px wide and 420px tall. To see how that looks, you may check the filler images I've been putting within the menu. First click art, and then go to the mural.
2) The collab organizer starts with an artwork of his own to get things rolling.
3) Everyone should hide exactly one Agnry Faic in their artwork. People may unlock medals when they find and click these.
4) Right now, June 21 sound like a good deadline to me. How does that sound to you?

If there's anything you'd like to include/change, please let me know!

Hey, really nice work with that sample, @WhirlGuy.

Let's see, Adam Phillips is represented. Sexual Lobster, David Firth, even Zone Sama is represented. Hot Diggety Demon is there, although I think Mickey the Dick is a better choice than Jerry. Like you said, Jazza is missing so Larry should be in there. The Weebl definitely needs to be there since we're talking history, so throw in Magical Trevor. Isaac doesn't need to be if you have Meatboy, although I'm not sure which one people like better. I do love Several Journeys of Reemus. Harry Partridge should be there, so I guess one of the Starbarians would be a good pick. And don't forget Egoraptor: put Girl-chan in there. I feel like The Shadling should be there since the art portal needs representation. Even though people hate him, he's a very representative part of Newgrounds.

At 3/30/15 07:32 PM, Whirlguy wrote: @TharosTheDragon, there's something I've been wanting to discuss about the games in this collab. As you may notice, I've added random "start screens" for the games section. These are 600×400 pixels, and I'd like for each game developer to make one of these (not necessarily pixelated). I will probably warp them in Photoshop later on, so as to allow for a cooler perspective in the game selection screen. Similar to the images provided, they should all start with the game title, followed by "Insert Coin" and then the company (username). Of course we could also ask for title art only, and add the rest on our own.

The title art isn't a bad idea, but I'd rather go without it. You'd be surprised how hard it is to make sure every collaborator provide extra content like that. We'd end up missing title art for certain games and then we'd be in the position of having to make it ourselves. When we tried to ask our art collaborators to make ending screens for Lil' Jose's Build-a-Bot, we didn't get a single one and test-object had to make all of them himself. I'm not blaming the artists or anything. That may have been a communication issue. All the same, I don't like the title screen idea.

But what I do like is the game select screen. I presume what you were thinking is that when a player clicks the title art, the game would take over the whole Flash window. Here's what I think should happen. The entire game should be played on that game select screen, so everyone's game would just be 600x400. I think we should put a standardized username button underneath the game window that links to their NG profile. That way it doesn't matter if they don't wanna credit themselves inside thier game. The background of the game select screen except for the interactive elements should just be a big bitmap to keep from interfering with the performance of the games. If you're worried about people clicking between games accidentally, I'm thinking we should have the kind of button that you have to hold down on them to use. Obviously we wanna still make it easy for people to browse quickly, so maybe the home and end keys can be used when people wanna skip between games quickly.

Should the first game you see depend on where you click on the screen that takes you to the game select screen? Or should it be chosen at random or should people always see the same game first?

At 3/30/15 07:32 PM, Whirlguy wrote: Here's a set of guidelines I've thought up. I'd like to know what you think of them:

1) Each game developer makes a game that should take them very little time to make. A beginner game if you will. No more than one level.
2) The game should run in one frame and will not have any saves. Once the game is left, it will reset. IF we decided on keeping high scores, these will be saved locally.
3) The collab is not limited in its genres of games, but they should all have a clear goal. Reaching this goal will unlock a medal.
4) Keybindings should be the same for each game: WASD or arrows for movement, and then the JKL (or something else) for performing actions. We could make this thing controller-enabled, but I'll leave that open for now.
5) Pixel games are nice, but not mandatory.
6) As for the deadline, how does June 28 sound? That gives us a week to compile everything. You might encounter bugs though. Let me know if you need more time.

If you have any ideas of your own, Tharos, I'd love to hear them!

1) Many games don't really have a concept of levels. I think the best way to limit people is to say the compiled file size must not exceed 1MB.
2) I've been thinking about what to do if people want to have persistent data, since of course their game object should be destroyed and constructed every time someone leaves their game and comes back. I don't think it should be a problem. And I'll want their entire game to be in a movie clip, so it doesn't matter if they want multiple frames. Needless to say, there should be no preloader though.
3) Yes.
4) I presume you want it uniform so people aren't confused about the controls. I think to allow for preferences we should have both Arrow keys and WASD, and ZXC can be an alternative to JKL. Space bar as well?
5) I presume you said this to go along with the old-school arcade theme, but I really don't want to impose our personal preferences on the collaborators. It's all about the kinds of games they like to make.
6) A week is a little tight, but I suppose it's manageable. Might wanna make it two weeks to be safe.

Say, do you know of any other collabs that include both movies and games? Maybe we should advertise this as the first collab of its kind.

At 3/31/15 07:16 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: Hey, really nice work with that sample, @WhirlGuy.

Thanks a lot :)

Let's see, Adam Phillips is represented. Sexual Lobster, David Firth, even Zone Sama is represented. Hot Diggety Demon is there...

Oh right, it may be a better idea to make a list of artists that should be represented. I kind of feel this is more about characters than it is about their artists, but still, here's a list of some big names we have in the list right now:

01. Tom Fulp (4x)
02. Dan Paladin (3x)
03. Krinkels
04. StrawberryClock
05. IllWillPress
06. MindChamber
07. SamBakZa
08. Adam Phillips
09. David Firth
10. The-Swain
11. Johnny Utah
12. LazyMuffin
13. HotDiggedyDemon
14. The Weebl
15. Bluebaby (2x)
16. Egoraptor
17. Oney
18. Sexual-Lobster
19. Zone-Sama
20. Warlord-Of-Noodles
21. danmarkowitz

We may indeed make some room by removing one of Bluebaby's characters. Either Time Fcuk or Super Meatboy. We may also exclude a couple of game characters by Dan Paladin. Games include Alien Hominid, Dad 'n Me and Castle Crashers.

I'm not too sure about adding The Shadling. Her work is superb and real popular, but I'm not sure whether her devotion has provided characters with iconic status. For the same reason, I haven't been able to add anything by users like bill-premo, Ricepirate, Gonzossm, Catoblepas, TommyVF, Luis and many others. I'm worried that adding characters from the art portal will also be unfair towards other art-portal regulars like say, Sabtastic or Death-Ink. Not to mention people from the audio portal, who are getting left out of this thing completely. Keep in mind that many things that won't make it into the menu, will still be referred to in the movie. Anyway, I've thought of more people who could make it on the list:

01. LegendaryFrog (Kerrigan's Adventures, 2002)
02. Evil-Dog (Punk-O-Matic, 2004)
03. Sarkazm (Smile!, 2004)
04. Eddsworld (Eddsworld, 2004)
05. GMan250 (Numa Numa Dance, 2004)
06. Stamper (Penicorns, 2006)
07. rtil (Metropolis Circuit, 2007)
08. Zeebarf (Journeys Of Reemus, 2008)
09. RobsH66 (Fallen Angel, 2008)
10. Weisi (Shark Games, 2009)
11. JamesLee (Tarboy, 2009)
12. Jazza (LARRY, 2009)
13. matt-likes-swords (Epic Battle Fantasy, 2009)
14. Harry Partridge (Starbarians, 2012)
15. Hikarian (Little Merry Ego, 2013)
16. NedelchoBogdanov (Balgar, 2013)
17. Razziberry (Technical Dave, 2014)

The title art isn't a bad idea, but I'd rather go without it. You'd be surprised how hard it is to make sure every collaborator provide extra content like that. We'd end up...

Good point. I've been in a similar situation before. Then again, that was something I've decided on when we were almost done. I doubt there's any problems if everyone knows what to do from the very start. We could always ask for a simple logo anywhere between 500×250 pixels, which we may later copy and paste at the top of a black screen and turn that into their start screen. A little reminder every now and then goes a long way too.

But what I do like is the game select screen. I presume what you were thinking is that when a player clicks the title art, the game would take over the whole Flash window. Here's what I think should happen...

As much as I like the idea of having a responsive border - with joysticks and buttons that would be moved by animated hands, depending on what buttons are pressed by the player - I think we're better off without any borders at all. It has nothing to do with your approach or anything. In fact, having people send their games within Movieclips sounds like a very solid plan.

If we wrap a bitmap border around the actual game, wouldn't the joysticks at the bottom of the screen block the player's view? Removing those joysticks doesn't sound like a very good option either, as they are pretty much the reason the border even exists! I'll assume you don't want these joysticks overlayering the game, so this is probably where you want to show those usernames; underneath the game. If that's the case, we'll have to cut into the height of the game even more, just so we can make room for the border. Should we really have to?

Also, we can't warp the screen dimensions, which ruins the perspective I was going for to begin with. We could still add a transparent overlay image to help each game look like it's being played on an RGB Television display, but it wouldn't be necessary if we jumped "into" the game, with a fresh new screen.

Again, if we agree on a bitmap border, the menu implies that the arcade is never actually left. That means we can't go canceling out any noises from the environment, as it would be an odd thing to mute the entire arcade (I'm planning to create soundscape loops for each menu location. These loops should alternate when you switch position. I should probably have mentioned that before). Another positive note for jumping to a new screen, is that developers get more freedom on what to do with their audio.

If you're worried about people clicking between games accidentally, I'm thinking we should have the kind of button that you have to hold down on them to use. Obviously we wanna still make it easy for people to browse quickly, so maybe the home and end keys can be used when people wanna skip between games quickly.

Sounds a bit convoluted to be honest.

Should the first game you see depend on where you click on the screen that takes you to the game select screen? Or should it be chosen at random or should people always see the same game first?

Good question! Let's go with random.

1) Many games don't really have a concept of levels. I think the best way to limit people is to say the compiled file size must not exceed 1MB.

True, let's go with that then.

2) I've been thinking about what to do if people want to have persistent data, since of course their game object should be destroyed and constructed every time someone leaves their game and comes back. I don't think it should be a problem. And I'll want their entire game to be in a movie clip, so it doesn't matter if they want multiple frames. Needless to say, there should be no preloader though.

Sound good to me!

3) Yes.

Yes.

4) I presume you want it uniform so people aren't confused about the controls. I think to allow for preferences we should have both Arrow keys and WASD, and ZXC can be an alternative to JKL. Space bar as well?

No spacebar. The rest sounds fine. We should probably leave room for instructions somewhere in plain sight. Maybe there's letters engraved on the buttons within the game select screen?

5) I presume you said this to go along with the old-school arcade theme, but I really don't want to impose our personal preferences on the collaborators. It's all about the kinds of games they like to make.

Haha, you're absolutely right :)

6) A week is a little tight, but I suppose it's manageable. Might wanna make it two weeks to be safe.

Sounds good!

Say, do you know of any other collabs that include both movies and games? Maybe we should advertise this as the first collab of its kind.

Hmm, that's actually very plausible! Truth be told, I don't think I've ever seen a massive minigame collab, period. I wonder if anyone has tried this before?

My reply just got randomly deleted, so I'll sum up.

I think you misunderstood me. Don't mean to imply that you interact with the image of arcade console controls. Just navigation buttons and profile link.

I think we can switch games with regular buttons if we keep developers from using the mouse in their games.

That's fine if you still want to go with the title art idea. Let me know when I should make the forum post.

Joysticks shouldn't obstruct the screen, even if we go with just title art.

At 4/1/15 08:53 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: My reply just got randomly deleted, so I'll sum up.

Huh? That's odd.

I think you misunderstood me. Don't mean to imply that you interact with the image of arcade console controls. Just navigation buttons and profile link.

Hehe, I know. You mentioned using a bitmap. I couldn't help but bring up the idea. Sorry about the confusion.

I think we can switch games with regular buttons if we keep developers from using the mouse in their games.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable.

That's fine if you still want to go with the title art idea. Let me know when I should make the forum post.

Cool, I will definitely let you know! I want to run all three legs of the collab at once, so I hope the guys responsible for the art department will respond soon.

Joysticks shouldn't obstruct the screen, even if we go with just title art.

I see, the image explains it quite well! I guess I'll fix it by zooming out a bit more.

Alright, let's see what's happening!

Audio: @Whirlguy
24 out of 25 songs are currently finished. Once this is done, the animation, games, art and writing collabs should get started all at once on the forums.

Animation: @Whirlguy
I still have to prepare some information before I make the first post. The menu concept isn't completely finished, and we still need to decide which characters will go in the menu.

Games: @TharosTheDragon
Details have been discussed. We're ready to fire.

Art: @TricycleLord
We're currently discussing what to do for art. Seeing as Sabtastic's Picollage is awfully similar, we're changing plans. We may also abandon the art gallery idea. This isn't for certain.

Voice Acting: @Whirlguy
We may (or may not) include voice actors. We'll see how that goes.

Writing: @OneFineGentleman
Whether OneFineGentleman will take the job isn't certain. I've seen him write fictional histories before, so he may just be exactly what we're looking for.

At 4/2/15 06:28 PM, Whirlguy wrote: Games: @TharosTheDragon
Details have been discussed. We're ready to fire.

Still not clear. Are we going with your title art idea?

At 4/9/15 12:36 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote:

At 4/2/15 06:28 PM, Whirlguy wrote: Games: @TharosTheDragon
Details have been discussed. We're ready to fire.

Still not clear. Are we going with your title art idea?

Yes please. I think all we need is a fancy game title and optional logo. The white space in the image below is just an indicator of how big the logo may be. The void will be black in the end.

Oh, the song's finally finished by the way!

• 

  CTSG4: Anniversary Edition

  by Whirlguy

  After 7 long years, CTSG is finally back for Newgrounds 20th Anniversary!

  Song

  Cinematic

  39,081 Views

  PLAY

I'm still a bit icky on the mix and will probably go back to work to work on it some more. It is however good enough to get the animation thread started, so I will do that either tonight or tomorrow! There's still some preparations I have to make, so I can't be too sure when.

So yeah, this is your cue. If there's any more questions you'd like to ask me about the games, let's hear them. If not, then let's get started! :)

At 4/9/15 04:23 PM, Whirlguy wrote: So yeah, this is your cue. If there's any more questions you'd like to ask me about the games, let's hear them. If not, then let's get started! :)

Really nice job on that song!

I thought of something. I think we'll want two spots for profile links on the game select screen to allow for a coder and an artist. It should be designed to still look okay even if there's only one person, though. And if there are more than two contributors on the minigame, I'll ask that they be credited in-game. Also on the game select screen, there needs to be a spot to indicate if you've already beaten the game and if you've found the angry faic in it.

EDIT: Oh, I think I just realized what you're trying to say with that picture. You want the profile link to show up as part of the title art on the arcade screen. I guess that's fine. Hopefully we can make room on there for the angry faic and game complete indicators as well. And you want the title art to be a sort of amorphous logo with the empty space around it filled in with black, rather than a completely rectangular image. We could ask for transparent png's I suppose. Does this mean the maximum dimensions of the title art are different now? What are they?

At 4/9/15 06:04 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: Really nice job on that song!

I thought of something. I think we'll want two spots for profile links on the game select screen to allow for a coder and an artist. It should be designed to still look okay even if there's only one person, though. And if there are more than two contributors on the minigame, I'll ask that they be credited in-game. Also on the game select screen, there needs to be a spot to indicate if you've already beaten the game and if you've found the angry faic in it.

EDIT: Oh, I think I just realized what you're trying to say with that picture. You want the profile link to show up as part of the title art on the arcade screen. I guess that's fine. Hopefully we can make room on there for the angry faic and game complete indicators as well. And you want the title art to be a sort of amorphous logo with the empty space around it filled in with black, rather than a completely rectangular image. We could ask for transparent png's I suppose. Does this mean the maximum dimensions of the title art are different now? What are they?

An achievements page within the menu could be nice. After swapping some ideas with TricycleLord, I realized the menu should be within the home of Newgrounds' supposed biggest fan. We both concluded the art gallery didn't belong there. Besides, we're planning to drop the mural and go with something different. The idea was to go with Newgrounds figurines, but they don't seem to offer much room for hiding an anrgy faic. I'm not too sure how the height of those images will be doing either. Anyway, what I really wanted to say is we could change the art gallery into an achievements page if you want.

The dimensions I gave you last time were smaller, but it's more or less the same. If it fits within the white space, you're pretty much good to go. I'll set a maximum size of 600×280.

Also, I messed around with your credits idea and came up with this:

Alright, let's get this thing started!

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1388594

At 4/9/15 07:14 PM, Whirlguy wrote: An achievements page within the menu could be nice. After swapping some ideas with TricycleLord, I realized the menu should be within the home of Newgrounds' supposed biggest fan. We both concluded the art gallery didn't belong there. Besides, we're planning to drop the mural and go with something different. The idea was to go with Newgrounds figurines, but they don't seem to offer much room for hiding an anrgy faic. I'm not too sure how the height of those images will be doing either. Anyway, what I really wanted to say is we could change the art gallery into an achievements page if you want.

The dimensions I gave you last time were smaller, but it's more or less the same. If it fits within the white space, you're pretty much good to go. I'll set a maximum size of 600×280.

Also, I messed around with your credits idea and came up with this:

I'd prefer no achievements page in the menu. That's overkill. Ordinary NG medals will do fine.

I like the idea of Newgrounds' supposed biggest fan, and I think a mural would work fine with that. Up to you, though.

Profile pictures for the links could work, although they sorta break the pixelated theme.

I don't like having the text "achievement unlocked" appear above the game logo. It's misleading, because an achievement could be anything. We're specifically talking about an Easter egg. Also, we need another thing to indicate that you've beaten the game. I was thinking simple icons in the corner would work. Obviously an angry faic would indicate that you've found the angry faic, and I guess you could make a pixel version of it if you wanted. As for beating the game, it could be a simple star, or an NG tank, or a happy clock (my preference).

Right now I'm working on making all the template code to hand out to collaborators before making the thread, and after I post the thread I'll work on making a sample submission. I think we might attract more people if I call it a game jam. Does that sound all right?

At 4/10/15 02:45 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: Profile pictures for the links could work, although they sorta break the pixelated theme.

Hmm, I could always scale down the images to make them look pixelated.

I don't like having the text "achievement unlocked" appear above the game logo. It's misleading, because an achievement could be anything. We're specifically talking about an Easter egg. Also, we need another thing to indicate that you've beaten the game. I was thinking simple icons in the corner would work. Obviously an angry faic would indicate that you've found the angry faic, and I guess you could make a pixel version of it if you wanted. As for beating the game, it could be a simple star, or an NG tank, or a happy clock (my preference).

I've been thinking of icons myself (in fact, it was my first idea), but I feel they're very easy to miss. There's probably no proper place to put them either, and I'd like to keep things subtle. Having text at the top seemed straight to the point, and while it partially covers the logo, it doesn't seem too obtrusive. We could always change the text to something else, like say "Game Complete", or something like that.

I think for art medals we might want to have an anrgy faic icon with a counter next to it that says "2/18", or something like that. I also intend to keep the mouse scrolling controls the mural had. And it should loop as well.

Right now I'm working on making all the template code to hand out to collaborators before making the thread, and after I post the thread I'll work on making a sample submission. I think we might attract more people if I call it a game jam. Does that sound all right?

I think you're right. Sounds good to me.

At 4/10/15 09:10 PM, Whirlguy wrote: I've been thinking of icons myself (in fact, it was my first idea), but I feel they're very easy to miss. There's probably no proper place to put them either, and I'd like to keep things subtle. Having text at the top seemed straight to the point, and while it partially covers the logo, it doesn't seem too obtrusive. We could always change the text to something else, like say "Game Complete", or something like that.

Change the text? I think you might not be understanding me. We need two indicators: one to tell you if you've found the Easter egg, and one to tell you if you've beaten the game. Icons are more subtle than a big old banner hanging down with text. And less obtrusive. I don't think they'd be easy to miss because the people that will benefit from them are gonna be looking for them. As for a place to put them, well they'd be smaller than the profile pictures that are in the corners, and so if all else fails our indicators can replace the profile pictures since the pictures aren't really necessary.

Oh by the way, sorry if this has already been discussed and I forgot but were you thinking of having full screen capability? Because I was thinking since you want to have minigames take over the whole stage we'd let players leave minigames by pressing escape. Of course that interferes with full screen.

Another option would be to have an overlay that consists of an ever-present quit button. I'd need to let our collaborators know where that button would be.

At 4/11/15 01:26 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: Change the text? I think you might not be understanding me. We need two indicators: one to tell you if you've found the Easter egg, and one to tell you if you've beaten the game. Icons are more subtle than a big old banner hanging down with text. And less obtrusive. I don't think they'd be easy to miss because the people that will benefit from them are gonna be looking for them. As for a place to put them, well they'd be smaller than the profile pictures that are in the corners, and so if all else fails our indicators can replace the profile pictures since the pictures aren't really necessary.

I thought people were just supposed to beat the game lol. I didn't know there would be easter eggs too. Oh well, why not? I was planning for those profile avatars to be clickable, since those names at the bottom don't look like they can be clicked, but whatever. Let's just drop the avatars and replace them with achievement icons instead.

At 4/11/15 02:14 PM, TharosTheDragon wrote: Oh by the way, sorry if this has already been discussed and I forgot but were you thinking of having full screen capability? Because I was thinking since you want to have minigames take over the whole stage we'd let players leave minigames by pressing escape. Of course that interferes with full screen.

I hadn't really thought about it, but a full screen mode would be nice to have. We can easily do without it though.

Another option would be to have an overlay that consists of an ever-present quit button. I'd need to let our collaborators know where that button would be.

There's a third option; giving people the option to quit at the "game over" screen. However, since I'm not a game developer, I think it's better if you made a choice between the available options. If you're going for the overlay quit button, I guess the top-right corner would be a good place to put it. Or maybe bottom-center.

At 4/11/15 08:41 PM, Whirlguy wrote: There's a third option; giving people the option to quit at the "game over" screen. However, since I'm not a game developer, I think it's better if you made a choice between the available options.

For one thing, I think it's best to allow the players to quit whenever they want to. And for another thing, leaving fundamental functionality like the ability to quit the game up to each individual developer is just asking for trouble.

Think of the home button on an iPhone. It makes it so that no matter what, even if some app developer made an app with no exit or if an app glitches and no longer responds to the touch screen, that home button will always be a way out.

Btw, it looks like my template is finally in working order and so I'm going to start writing my thread starter now.

Here's my topic: http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1388712