Andrew Fenn over at FGD-forums have just opened a survey about Open Source Games and financing, more info here and here OPs blog-post.So if you got some spare minutes please fill it in and contribute some statistic for the community.
Head over and fill in the survey now
(I helped in a small part by creating the coin in the artwork at freegamer.)
I did some tetris backdrops for bughunter2s java tetris as if a C-language* tetris is not enough, but he is pardoned as this is a “school project” yeah right? Anyway it will be open source, just not released yet. So here is the images enjoy:
*or was it C++? I’m no dev so why should I care?
Added intro screen
Many of us “know it better than you”-people have already told the tale of why FOSS games can not compete with commercial grade games. Yes we are all talking about content, we lack the content to look as dandy as the gem-sparkling commercial games.
We don’t even make it easy to create the spark of a jaded plastic toy either. No, we make bad choices over and over, cramping out the life-force of contributors. Forcing the entry-level of contribution sky-high just due to one of the contributors being very good and the rest just ‘willing to help’. The problem here is not that the general Joe can’t carry out the level of skilled contributions as that of the sole contributor-god. No the problem is that we don’t harness the creativity of that sole good contributor, and help him help the others to do great contributions.
I was browsing a forum the other day and noticed a “graphics needed” thread, being me I was drawn to it like a moth to light. But reading the thread got me just annoyed and irritated.
figure 1 — Example of a photo, a illustration and a 3D render, all are objects.
In this particular case they needed images for objects that was in the inventory of a container/vessel, call it inventory. Immediately I think RPG style icons, ok size, easy to eye and place for other elements to use needed space. But no, here we got full 512x512 px images, all in different forms; 3D renders, photos, Illustrations (see figure 1) — you might now be thinking “good they accept any kind, many contributors” which might be true. Now think of the ‘quantity or quality’ question; is it better to have a ‘sea of shit’ or a ‘pond of gold’? To me the answer is easy: I want a lake of brass.
For being a graphic designer it’s not really the flashy elements that makes me accept a product, I can well settle with a not so super designed thing, as long as the style is coherent.
How would a smart graphic project manager go about asking the community for this? Well I got a couple of ideas to solve this kind of issue. First, decide on what kind of images you accept — the more who are able to contribute to this the merrier, but don’t go overboard. Second, decide on a size for the images — in this case i would go for a max size of 128x128 px as that is a standard large icon size, could go down to 22x22px to you then just need a bit more skill to make it look good. Third, do a template, make them all fit together on some way, be it background, shape or another but for the love of milk don’t let them be all and every kind.