The problem is that many people start with a "great idea" which then after a few weeks of enthusiasm gets lost and the project left unfinished. Artists aren't just going to jump onboard something when they will have heard that from other developers many times before and are just left with unfinished and unwanted art.
Thing is, there are a LOT of assets already available here which I can (and have already) manipulated to work in my game. Sure, there might be conflicting art styles, but that can be resolved later - it doesn't stop the creation of a game idea.
Personally, I find something as close as possible and use that as placeholder art, and then show off your working idea. Once you've shown off your idea, you might pique the interest of artists here to produce some art.
I'm working on a project, and I have a LOT of rough assets, but I'm not going to focus on making it look great until I have a fully working game - the reason is that my ideas on implementation changes as I'm looking to get the *feel* of it right first.
For instance, for the longest time, I had buttons on screen for movement, but I've removed them and focus on swipes which all of a sudden made the movement in the game feel much more natural. So my art requirements for movement arrows have been removed.
Once I've finished the game, I'll know exactly what is required for the art, and I will be demoing it here so artists can hopefully take an interest in the game and produce the art needed for it.
In fact, my aim is to make the look and feel of it as modular as possible, so artists can make and check without me needing to change code.
And what will I do if no one takes interest? Two options: pay for it or do it myself.
And here is the key question before starting any game project: how much are you wanting invest into something where you may be the only person in the world who likes playing it?
If 2 weeks could be a bit much, what do artists here think about a monthly art challenge, with 21 days for creation and the remainder of the month for voting?
The coding challenge could then be in step (one month behind) with the same restrictions, and it would just be the single art challenge to incorporate.
edit: how about we try the two single week challenges this month (as one challenge is done), and then next month try a longer month challenge? We can compare what people think of at the end of it.
poss added the featured art section? Maybe a comp art section? ;)
It's a good idea, I don't know how hard it would be to implement though... perhaps as long as everyone used the tag "challenge" it could show the latest challenge entries and the latest art excludes challenges?
im not feeling the "claim" the artwork either, if developers use the same artwork and create 2 different games then that's great!
That is exactly what I'm saying - there is no penalty for using the same artwork, however... I'd like to give incentive to art that might be left unused.
All I'm saying that is that if devs just state which assets they are using before the challenge is finished, then other devs can use that knowledge to use different assets if they so wish.
I do agree with extra kudos for using more than one comp asset for the project, that's a great idea.
Someone could put together a terrible entry with the sole purpose of using all the assets just for the kudos :-/
This gives me an idea though - how about extra points for each "well used challenge art asset"? (via voting)
So for part of the voting scheme, we have "well used" entries for each art asset to be voted for - and "well used" is in the eye of the beholder.
This gives incentive to not only use as many art assets as possible, but to use them in such a way that is meaningful to the entry.
I don't think we have to worry about a conflict of themes too much: the challenge is to use the graphics from the different art challenges, and for any art gaps, pull them from only OGA.
True, there might be an artistic conflict (hd backgrounds vs 1 bit 8x8 sprites), but combining them is part of the challenge :)
I'm sure that doing the coding challenges will highlight areas where we (as in OGA assets) might be lacking - and thus go on the list of future challenges! ^_^
@chasersgaming
You make a valid point about potentially saturating the latest art, however as we have only 1 art challenge done, let's review that in a few weeks - it may be okay, and it may be not, and if it is being saturated, then we could discuss solutions then.
I like the idea of a bonus for using some of the challenge art assets, but not so sure about the 'unique' stuff, why try and restrict who can use what? I'm not sure it serves anyone to have folks compete to 'claim' assets, in some ways it works against the entire idea of OGA (ie open assets).
The idea behind it is so that all the art that was submitted in the art challenges, or at least, as much as possible is used.
There are a total of 8 submissions for "Reborn". However if all the developers decided to just use the same single submission, it doesn't show any love to the the other submissions. And I would love coding challenges to hopefully give more artists an incentive to join in, as they will have something that they can point to see their work in action.
The "unique use" isn't to force people into using other works, but rather to give incentive to use something unique.
Although there wasn't any sound submitted with the reborn challenge, if there was a single entry, and everyone used it - that's fine - everyone is at the same level as no bonus point are given.
Do you have a really good idea for a game but someone else has claimed the art you wanted to use? Use it anyway - a really good game will be getting lots of votes anyway.
Maybe a better example would be this: Imagine monthly contests, one for art and one for code. They can run at the same time, the art gets a new theme every month, and the code challenge gets the theme from the previous month's art challenge.
Yes, pretty much this. The art challenges looks like it will be a biweekly challenge (one week for an idea to form, one week to produce the art), so a coding challenge every 4 weeks which takes the previous two art challenges, with 3 weeks for dev and 1 week for playing/voting/rest/thinking about the next challenge.
Just to be clear, my view on these challenges is to show off artists work here on OGA - so much gets posted here and I rarely hear of it being used.
Therefore, in conjunction with the art challenges, I would like to see a coding challenge based on the art submitted for the challenges.
Obviously the challenges won't provide content for *everything* - so the extension to this is that all other assets have to be sourced from OGA only.
I'm on board with a 4 week cycle - what do you think - 3 weeks coding, 1 week rest/voting?
Also, if we do 4 weeks, that should require the last two elements of what has been done for the challenges (as it looks like there will be an art challenge every other week).
This could potentially lead to an interesting conflict of design (imagine one week where the challenge is "red backgrounds" and the next is "red characters"!) but it is through restrictions that we can be inventive!
I don't want contributing artists to feel left out by people not using their assets, therefore I propose a unique asset bonus scheme, so for each submission that is the unique user of a challenge asset, that submission will get a bump of 10 points each. For two unique uses (one for each week - maximum), that's a 20 point offset.
This will require all developers to snag a submission for their own, so if a developer decides to use an asset, they should "claim" it by commenting on the submission that they are going to use it. if they do not and other devs use it, then you lose out on the unique bonus.
Finally, I'm not fussed about badges and stuff - for me, it's just the taking part and showing the artists here how much we value their efforts. Oh, and having fun in the process ^_^
may I suggest that for themes, rather than voting, we have a separate thread for potential theme ideas?
Then, as dannorder was the one to relight the fire on this, let him choose a theme. If he can't think of one, then he can choose one from the list in a theme idea thread. This could be passed onto another mod if/when dannorder wants a break.
edit: also, just to further clarify, would this be a challenge every other week?
The problem is unfortunately taking formatted text and the underlying formatted code for this, and the formatted code generated by Word and Libre Office are, quite frankly, horrific - it overrides existing formatting to ensure the html porduced matches what you entered into the wordprocessor, and to do this it inserts class names without knowing if those names are used else where. This is, quite honestly an issue with wordprocessors and their formatting.
Most places will only allow unformatted text, and then use custom formatting, i.e. [b]bold[/b].
The editor used here allows for HTML formatting, so people can post just what they need - formatted text, inline images, etc, and see the result before it is posted.
Normally, I would recommend the switching of the entry to just plain text, but people do need it for when they are using the entry to post art as well - there is no distinction between a forum reply and a new content page.
The only thing I could suggest is to check if there is a newer version of this editor, which might be able to cope with Word.
Also, just to check - did you try using the "Cleanup messy code" button on the toolbar (next to the double quotes symbol) and see if that resolves the problem for you?
Unfortunately, this is something that I have tried to resolve. Many, many times. I used to host a story site, and I had to deal with people copy and pasting their work from Word into a formatting text entry box like we use here - and there were a LOT of issues with it.
My final solution ended up with me creating an RTF file format converter that would render the document into simple HTML and forcing that as the method of entry. Entry of text for comments and stuff was restricted to unformatted text entry - which then strips Word formatting out and you're left with just the content.
The problem is that many people start with a "great idea" which then after a few weeks of enthusiasm gets lost and the project left unfinished. Artists aren't just going to jump onboard something when they will have heard that from other developers many times before and are just left with unfinished and unwanted art.
Thing is, there are a LOT of assets already available here which I can (and have already) manipulated to work in my game. Sure, there might be conflicting art styles, but that can be resolved later - it doesn't stop the creation of a game idea.
Personally, I find something as close as possible and use that as placeholder art, and then show off your working idea. Once you've shown off your idea, you might pique the interest of artists here to produce some art.
I'm working on a project, and I have a LOT of rough assets, but I'm not going to focus on making it look great until I have a fully working game - the reason is that my ideas on implementation changes as I'm looking to get the *feel* of it right first.
For instance, for the longest time, I had buttons on screen for movement, but I've removed them and focus on swipes which all of a sudden made the movement in the game feel much more natural. So my art requirements for movement arrows have been removed.
Once I've finished the game, I'll know exactly what is required for the art, and I will be demoing it here so artists can hopefully take an interest in the game and produce the art needed for it.
In fact, my aim is to make the look and feel of it as modular as possible, so artists can make and check without me needing to change code.
And what will I do if no one takes interest? Two options: pay for it or do it myself.
And here is the key question before starting any game project: how much are you wanting invest into something where you may be the only person in the world who likes playing it?
That is a question only you can answer.
If 2 weeks could be a bit much, what do artists here think about a monthly art challenge, with 21 days for creation and the remainder of the month for voting?
The coding challenge could then be in step (one month behind) with the same restrictions, and it would just be the single art challenge to incorporate.
edit: how about we try the two single week challenges this month (as one challenge is done), and then next month try a longer month challenge? We can compare what people think of at the end of it.
It's a good idea, I don't know how hard it would be to implement though... perhaps as long as everyone used the tag "challenge" it could show the latest challenge entries and the latest art excludes challenges?
That is exactly what I'm saying - there is no penalty for using the same artwork, however... I'd like to give incentive to art that might be left unused.
All I'm saying that is that if devs just state which assets they are using before the challenge is finished, then other devs can use that knowledge to use different assets if they so wish.
Someone could put together a terrible entry with the sole purpose of using all the assets just for the kudos :-/
This gives me an idea though - how about extra points for each "well used challenge art asset"? (via voting)
So for part of the voting scheme, we have "well used" entries for each art asset to be voted for - and "well used" is in the eye of the beholder.
This gives incentive to not only use as many art assets as possible, but to use them in such a way that is meaningful to the entry.
I don't think we have to worry about a conflict of themes too much: the challenge is to use the graphics from the different art challenges, and for any art gaps, pull them from only OGA.
True, there might be an artistic conflict (hd backgrounds vs 1 bit 8x8 sprites), but combining them is part of the challenge :)
I'm sure that doing the coding challenges will highlight areas where we (as in OGA assets) might be lacking - and thus go on the list of future challenges! ^_^
@chasersgaming
You make a valid point about potentially saturating the latest art, however as we have only 1 art challenge done, let's review that in a few weeks - it may be okay, and it may be not, and if it is being saturated, then we could discuss solutions then.
The idea behind it is so that all the art that was submitted in the art challenges, or at least, as much as possible is used.
There are a total of 8 submissions for "Reborn". However if all the developers decided to just use the same single submission, it doesn't show any love to the the other submissions. And I would love coding challenges to hopefully give more artists an incentive to join in, as they will have something that they can point to see their work in action.
The "unique use" isn't to force people into using other works, but rather to give incentive to use something unique.
Although there wasn't any sound submitted with the reborn challenge, if there was a single entry, and everyone used it - that's fine - everyone is at the same level as no bonus point are given.
Do you have a really good idea for a game but someone else has claimed the art you wanted to use? Use it anyway - a really good game will be getting lots of votes anyway.
Yes, pretty much this. The art challenges looks like it will be a biweekly challenge (one week for an idea to form, one week to produce the art), so a coding challenge every 4 weeks which takes the previous two art challenges, with 3 weeks for dev and 1 week for playing/voting/rest/thinking about the next challenge.
*ahem*
Just to be clear, my view on these challenges is to show off artists work here on OGA - so much gets posted here and I rarely hear of it being used.
Therefore, in conjunction with the art challenges, I would like to see a coding challenge based on the art submitted for the challenges.
Obviously the challenges won't provide content for *everything* - so the extension to this is that all other assets have to be sourced from OGA only.
I'm on board with a 4 week cycle - what do you think - 3 weeks coding, 1 week rest/voting?
Also, if we do 4 weeks, that should require the last two elements of what has been done for the challenges (as it looks like there will be an art challenge every other week).
This could potentially lead to an interesting conflict of design (imagine one week where the challenge is "red backgrounds" and the next is "red characters"!) but it is through restrictions that we can be inventive!
I don't want contributing artists to feel left out by people not using their assets, therefore I propose a unique asset bonus scheme, so for each submission that is the unique user of a challenge asset, that submission will get a bump of 10 points each. For two unique uses (one for each week - maximum), that's a 20 point offset.
This will require all developers to snag a submission for their own, so if a developer decides to use an asset, they should "claim" it by commenting on the submission that they are going to use it. if they do not and other devs use it, then you lose out on the unique bonus.
Finally, I'm not fussed about badges and stuff - for me, it's just the taking part and showing the artists here how much we value their efforts. Oh, and having fun in the process ^_^
may I suggest that for themes, rather than voting, we have a separate thread for potential theme ideas?
Then, as dannorder was the one to relight the fire on this, let him choose a theme. If he can't think of one, then he can choose one from the list in a theme idea thread. This could be passed onto another mod if/when dannorder wants a break.
edit: also, just to further clarify, would this be a challenge every other week?
The problem is unfortunately taking formatted text and the underlying formatted code for this, and the formatted code generated by Word and Libre Office are, quite frankly, horrific - it overrides existing formatting to ensure the html porduced matches what you entered into the wordprocessor, and to do this it inserts class names without knowing if those names are used else where. This is, quite honestly an issue with wordprocessors and their formatting.
Most places will only allow unformatted text, and then use custom formatting, i.e. [b]bold[/b].
The editor used here allows for HTML formatting, so people can post just what they need - formatted text, inline images, etc, and see the result before it is posted.
Normally, I would recommend the switching of the entry to just plain text, but people do need it for when they are using the entry to post art as well - there is no distinction between a forum reply and a new content page.
The only thing I could suggest is to check if there is a newer version of this editor, which might be able to cope with Word.
Also, just to check - did you try using the "Cleanup messy code" button on the toolbar (next to the double quotes symbol) and see if that resolves the problem for you?
Unfortunately, this is something that I have tried to resolve. Many, many times. I used to host a story site, and I had to deal with people copy and pasting their work from Word into a formatting text entry box like we use here - and there were a LOT of issues with it.
My final solution ended up with me creating an RTF file format converter that would render the document into simple HTML and forcing that as the method of entry. Entry of text for comments and stuff was restricted to unformatted text entry - which then strips Word formatting out and you're left with just the content.
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