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Creativity of the day

Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:43 am
by Skomakar'n
This is inspired by a topic at another board, which is really fun to read and post in. Basically, tell us about something you created recently, be it a conlang, a game, a drawing, a movie or whatever. I'll start off right away, copying my last post from the other board.

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I had about 20 minutes left of battery power on my Linux laptop, and I told my friend that we should do something really, really quick and crappy before the battery ran out. In about 15 minutes, I ended up with this:

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Once again, this was made in C++, using SFML.

All you did was steer the black rectangle around using the W, A, S and D keys, trying to catch up with the green one, that fled from you.
The whole point was for the green one to be impossible to catch, but since its movement was partially random, I ended up coming in contact with it sometimes anyway. Because of this, I decided to add collision detection, and a counter for the number of hits.

Later during the day, I went back to the project, still accompanied by a couple of friends.
As you can see, the caption of the window is "Horor.", which is Swedish for "Whores.", which was just something I wrote to have a caption at all. It was the first word that came to my mind, for some reason.

Any way, one of the friends said this aloud, but, on purpose, pronounced it as the English word horror. Inspired by this, I opened up GIMP to assign some proper graphics to the game, for an idea had come to my mind. I created a dark background, a shining character sprite, and a dark enemy sprite. In addition to this, I also created a radius of light to be emitted from the main character.

Why? Well, my idea was to have the enemy (the one to catch) concealed within the darkness of the level, only visible if within the radius of light being emitted from the character, to add an additional spice and level of difficulty to the game.
Now, this looked pretty nice and all, but some elements were still missing for this to be a proper game. Therefore, I added a time limit, and a set amount of times one would have to come in contact with the enemy before the time ran out, in order to beat the level. I put this into a simple level system where each level would have its own time limit and amount of hits to be done.

Then a final piece of graphics was added, which was a small bar covering the top 32 pixels of the game window, in which the amount of hits so far, the required amount of hits, the number of the current level, and the time left would be displayed.
I added some level transitioning, and the gameplay was more or less done. Finally, the caption was changed into "Horror! Horror!". Screenshot time.

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This one displays a level. The character is in there, but the enemy is concealed by the darkness, and is hiding somewhere.

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Success! After beating a level, one of five different confirmation phrases is randomly selected.

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Fail! If you lose, you have no choice but to go back to level one.

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Later on, I decided to reuse the light graphic for the intro that is displayed upon startup.
The light moves from left to right, revealing the following lines, one by one:

Opera Royale Software presents...
a small game made by...
Adam Emil Skoog
Erik Schröder
Horror! Horror!


Once the light gets to the final line, which is the title of the game, it stays there, to continue revealing it until the player presses S to start the game.
Now, Erik hasn't done anything yet, but he will be doing music. I don't know if he has any middle name he would like to display there, like I have displayed mine (Emil).

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The logo, which is nothing but plain text revealed by the light at the moment.
If I'm not too lazy, I'll probably add a more personal logo there later on.

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I decided to simply put the instructions before the first level, written in a very cheesy way on purpose, with a final paragraph to level out the seriousness.

I'll see if I add any more elements to any of the levels, such as obstacles that will make you lose.

Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:25 am
by Solarius
Cool! :)

Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:15 am
by Viktor77
I created these recently using MS Paint (Windows Vista version but on Windows 7 since Windows 7 version is so stupid and impossible to use anymore).

A house in my city which once looked like this (now it's covered in vinyl siding). I used this original drawing to bring it back to life:
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Titanic Facebook:
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Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:29 am
by Nortaneous
^ that paint thing is pretty awesome

the last remotely creative thing I've done:

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I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it was like 6am so what do you expect

Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:01 pm
by Torco
pretty awesome house, and good work on paint, Vik. kudos

Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:38 pm
by Viktor77
Nortaneous wrote:^ that paint thing is pretty awesome
Torco wrote:pretty awesome house, and good work on paint, Vik. kudos
Thanks! I love the simplicity and limitedness of MS Paint haha. It fits in well with my personality since I also used to be obsessed with Roller Coaster Tycoon and Runescape (both extremely simple games). :P

BTW I like the swirls in the background of that sig(?) you made Nortaneous. What program did you use?

Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:57 pm
by Nortaneous
Viktor77 wrote:BTW I like the swirls in the background of that sig(?) you made Nortaneous. What program did you use?
GIMP

not sure how I generated the spiral bits, but most of the effects in that thing are either sharpen or unsharp mask

(and nah, just some random thing I made; 200px is way too tall for a sig)

Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:16 pm
by Christopher Schröder
A blank-verse poem. I wrote it when I really needed an escape, if that makes any sense.

Greenfield Waltz
Over hill and dell, let us take our dance,
Through rivers and bright woods, o'er fields of green,
'Cross the wild skies, through the cloudy brakes,
Petals on the breeze catch us as we pass.
Through the whispering woods, waltzing on the winds,
Bounding 'cross the blooms, we shall take our leave
'Cross the leas unknown, sheltered by the sky
Looking to the stars and the golden moon.
Whispered, late in June, 'cross the froth of pearl,
Our tale shall be told — how we crossed the waves
Flying through the night, gracing river banks,
Coming off the sea, in a cloud of mist
Through a shrouded world, bright with diamond dew.
We shan't linger here, too dear is the cost
We must not forget, lest our words be lost —
Written 'cross the page, at the midnight's stroke
Stands the record clear of our coming here.
From this precipice, let us take the view
Of the valleys dear, veiled in molten blue
As our waltz pretends whirling without end
'Cross the memories of an ancient time
When gables were green, when the leas bloomed blue
When all was set right, when one's words were true.

— C. Schräder, 14 February 2010

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:19 pm
by Radius Solis
There is a certain fun to be had in succeeding in creating good art with bad tools (c.f. chainsaw carving). Looks like that's what you've got going there, Viktor; it looks good.

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:28 pm
by Viktor77
Radius Solis wrote:There is a certain fun to be had in succeeding in creating good art with bad tools (c.f. chainsaw carving). Looks like that's what you've got going there, Viktor; it looks good.
Thanks. That's very true. For me, anyways, I have trouble learning programs like GIMP or Photoshop due to the immense options available. When all you have is pixels and a few paintbrushes it's a lot easier to master their use and then use them to create mediocre art.

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:57 pm
by Nortaneous
Viktor77 wrote:I have trouble learning programs like GIMP or Photoshop due to the immense options available.
options are easy to deal with; just ignore them

that's the only way I can stand to use GIMP, at least

Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 3:22 pm
by Qwynegold
An Octavian comparison of Finnish and IE-langs and Japanese.

Finnish word – meaning Other language word – meaning Notes
-kO - INTERROGATIVE SUFFIX Jp: ka – INTERROGATIVE PARTICLE
anoa – beg (for money or help) Jp: tanomu – to ask a favor
antaa – to give Jp: watasu – to hand
ei – no, not Sw: nej – no, ej – not (old-fashioned); Jp: iie – no
hammas – tooth Jp: ha – tooth
istua – sit Jp: isu – chair
ja – and Jp: ya – and (used when listing examples of something)
kampa – comb Sw: kam – comb; Eng: comb
kasa – heap Jp: kasaneru – to pile up
kuu – moon Eng: moon
lippu – ticket Jp: kippu – ticket Just a joke!
lukko – lock Eng: lock; Sw: lucka – hatch
maito – milk Eng: milk; Sw: mjölk
matto – carpet Jp: matto – mat Just a joke!
meri – sea, ocean Lt: mare – sea
mukaan – tag along Jp: mukae – pick up someone, meeting
nauraa – to laugh Jp: warau – to laugh
nenä – nose Sw: näsa – nose; Jp: hana – nose
nimi – name Jp: namae; Sw: namn; Eng: name The -mae in namae means front, but the na morpheme means name.
pissa – pee Sw: piss – piss, kissa – to pee; Eng: piss
rikon – I break Jp: rikon suru – get divorced Just a joke!
runo – poem Sw: runa – rune, obituary
selkä – back (anat.) Jp: senaka – back (anat.)
sininen – blue Ru: siniy – (a shade of) blue
sisko, sisar – sister Sw: syster – sister; Eng: sister
tai – or Jp: tai – versus On'yomi.
todella – really Jp: totemo – very
torni – tower Sw: torn - tower; Jp: tō – tower Tō is on'yomi.
tovi – a short while Jp: toki – time
tuutti – (ice cream) cone Sw: tuta – horn (that you honk with)
tytär – daughter Sw: dotter – daughter; Eng: daughter
uni – dream, sleep Jp: yume – dream
vene – boat Jp: fune – ship, boat
vesi – water, veden – water's Ru: voda – water; Jp: mizu – water
örkki – orc, ogre Eng: orc, ogre

Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 4:29 am
by Skomakar'n
Today, I made sure that it is possible to compile our game onto all of the three platforms that we are aiming for at the moment; Linux, Mac and Windows. I'm not talking about the game that was made in one night and displayed in my previous message, but a much more serious project which will most probably take at least a year from now to finish.

I have two computers; one is running Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, and one is running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The game is mainly being developed on the Ubuntu one, and the Ubuntu one has the most updated C++ tools, as it's running the latest GCC 4.5 snapshot with partial support for the new standard, and lovely classes such as std::thread already implemented. I have managed to compile this snapshot for the Mac as well, but it doesn't seem to want to get installed. I'm not sure at all how to do to get this support on the Windows compiler.

Because of this, I began by removing the C++0x specific code that the project had (a couple of strongly-typed enumerations, that were turned into classical ones). I downloaded MinGW and compiled it on the Linux computer, and I downloaded the Windows version of the graphics library that the game uses, and after spending some time on writing a nice terminal command for g++, I managed to compile the game into a Windows executable which ran perfectly in Wine.

Now it was time to make it compile on the Mac. I already had the graphics library files installed on it, and I had previously confirmed them to be working, as the game in my previous post was written with it too, and as the screenshots reveal, it obviously works on the Mac. This game, though, which had many more times the code, did not compile perfectly right away. As the Mac version of the library had some problems, I had to work my way around these in order to avoid crashes, but once I had managed to do that, it worked fine on the Mac as well, and I am now able to compile for all three of these systems without any changes to the code, and without always requiring a computer running Windows, even though I should obviously test the program in a true Windows environment as well, and not just only in Wine.

It's fun, though, that it does work in Wine, since that means Linux users will have access to two versions.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:17 pm
by Skomakar'n
This:

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About 3 hours of work.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:46 pm
by Nortaneous
hlurrrrrr, more fuckery with GIMP

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and I made myself a desktop before remembering that I don't use this screen resolution anymore, and I don't even have a monitor that would support that resolution:

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although I wouldn't use it anyway, since this one that I made a while back is way better:

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Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 4:53 am
by Astraios
Nortaneous' Red Desktop wrote:I'm going to really hurt your eyes!!
That thing should come with a warning!

Not that I don't like it, it's quite interesting - but it just hurts to look at for any length of time.

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 6:12 am
by the duke of nuke
I'm quite proud of my map of Meduzís. It's mostly, but not completely, finished.
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Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 9:35 am
by Viktor77
I'm proud of this MS Paint drawing I did of my dream house.

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Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 10:02 am
by the duke of nuke
Your Paint drawings have a very nice, clean look to them. Detailed but not cluttered.

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 10:27 am
by Skomakar'n
Viktor77 wrote:I'm proud of this MS Paint drawing I did of my dream house.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/ ... krum77.png
Very nice, but why does it look like a JPEG?

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 11:05 am
by Viktor77
thedukeofnuke wrote:Your Paint drawings have a very nice, clean look to them. Detailed but not cluttered.
Thank you.

I love your maps too, they looks almost old worldish, and the detail is incredible such as the coast lines and the tiny protrusions that add such reality.
Skomakar'n wrote:
Viktor77 wrote:I'm proud of this MS Paint drawing I did of my dream house.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/ ... krum77.png
Very nice, but why does it look like a JPEG?
Deviant Art. XD

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 11:36 pm
by Nortaneous
Astraios wrote:
Nortaneous' Red Desktop wrote:I'm going to really hurt your eyes!!
That thing should come with a warning!

Not that I don't like it, it's quite interesting - but it just hurts to look at for any length of time.
If you think that's eye-burning...

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Over 1000x1000 pixels of psychedelic John Adams. I have no life.

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 11:56 pm
by Torco
thedukeofnuke wrote:I'm quite proud of my map of Meduzís. It's mostly, but not completely, finished.
Image
see now that is win

Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 12:19 pm
by Astraios
Nortaneous wrote:If you think that's eye-burning...
*is reduced to typing in Braille*

Posted: Fri May 07, 2010 8:30 pm
by Skomakar'n
All night has been spent working on a collaborative birthday present, made one day before the big day.
I'm making the graphics and the programming, and the brother of the one whose birthday it is has made music.

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Mac OS X: http://www.operaroyale.com/tmptmp/PawntewzMac.zip
Windows: http://www.operaroyale.com/tmptmp/Pawntewz.zip
Linux: coming up