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ZFGC Weekly
« on: May 18, 2009, 04:34:39 am »
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Volume 11, Issue 2 - May 17, 2009
irc.kbfail.net #zfgc

1. Community Announcements
2. Best of the Forum
3. Weekly Awards
4. The Big Question


Community Announcements

-- The voting on Contest #9 seems to be over. Due to real world constraints of those who set it up or my inability to see who won if it is posted, it cannot be said yet how participants faired. However, if you have not seen the the entries yet it is recommended that you do - entries can be located in the Submissions child board under Contests.

-- The board changes mentioned in Announcements have been delayed indefinitely due to discussion in the staff boards. The problem is likely my fault in not explaining the concept in terms of the bigger picture better. Sorry about that.

-- Old-time ZFGC members therabidwombat and FRoG32 have created a commercial, professional game out for the iPhone now called "Castle Conflict". In addition to being under $2 to purchase, it shows what you can do if you are motivated in development. So check it out, it's in the Completed board under Projects.


Best of the Forum

King Mob's Decision.
http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=3937.0
Quote from: King Mob
Okay, guys, I've made my decision. Sorry to keep you hanging on.

I have decided to turn The Shadowgazer into an original game. That means The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer is no more.

I know this won't be popular with everyone and, believe me, it wasn't a particularly easy decision to make, but what started as a little love letter to my favourite game series has become quite an involved hobby, and as much as I want to see someone actually finish a full-length Zelda fan game, I'd be crazy not to do something more with mine - particularly given the kind of interest it has attracted lately...

That, and the fact that I'm genuinely more enthused about a new game than I've ever been about the fan game. :D

I understand the concerns about the amount of work this will now mean, but I wouldn't say I've found there to be a lot of work I'd already done that has gone to waste - I'll need to adapt a lot of the custom sprite work, sure, but the engine will pretty much stay as is. Music, on the other hand, don't know what I'm gonna do about that yet...! :P

I'll prepare an 'official statement' (lol) to greet visitors to the Shadowgazer website and my YouTube channel, and try and mitigate any backlash with the promise that The Shadowgazer will be back, better than before.

Don't know where its new home will be yet - my own domain, most likely - but I'll let you guys know as soon as it has one. And I want to thank you guys for your support over the years - I don't think anyone who hasn't attempted something like this would understand how much feedback and support is needed just to keep you motivated, and I probably would have given up a long time ago if I had kept it to myself. I think sometimes people underestimate that. So, thanks again. :D

See you around.

KM

Gotta Catch Em All!
http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=34241.0
Quote from: RyuKage2007
So, with the recent talk about a new Pokemon game I got to thinking, what is the longest amount of time everyone around here has put into a Pokemon game? Any generation btw.

I feel proud yet geeky in saying I logged 200+ hours on Pearl when I first got it.

Body Art Discussion.
http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=34250.0
Quote from: bertfallen
Whats your opinion?

I've wanted a tattoo for quite a while now, only the more I went into thought about the more tattoos I ended up wanting so eventually 1 tattoo turned into 7. Anyways, I sometimes look at bodyart books just for kicks to see what tattoos people have done. and cos they have boobs in the books and was looking at a recent book, and it dawned on me how completely batshit insane some of those people are.

I mean I knew about the whole mutilation what with sticking hooks in your body and there was a pic doing its round across the internet of a girl with loops in her back which she threads a ribbon through blah blah blah, but apparantly amputation is the new thing for body art, and I'm not on about a way for people who've had unfortunate accidents to express themselves, these people were actually chopping off their limbs themselves, perfectly good limbs...Its usually just finger tips or toes...BUT STILL...tattoos and piercings are ok to me, but amputating perfectly good limbs...thats a bit too far. Anyone else agree?


Weekly Awards

GBC Custom of the Week
King Tetiro's Villain Rodri
http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=34251.0
Quote from: King Tetiro
Rodri : The main villain of The Legend of Zelda : Return to the Mask (The fan-game I'm making). Rodri was a skilled Hylian Knight who wanted more than respect. During the events of Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf attack the castle and Rodri knew that power was the key and so joined Ganondorf. After these events, Rodri went to the Gerudo Desert to train under instructions of Ganondorf. Now two years later he returns to find Ganondorf gone. Filled with revenge, Rodri vowed to bring Hyrule to his knees.

Any crits will be nice. But I need you to repost the sprite highlighting the problem.

He's not for use! He's the villain in my fan-game.

EDIT: Noticed the dimension of the canvas. LOL.

LTTP Custom of the Week
TomPel's Barinade
http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=34258.0
Quote from: TomPel
Some of you might remember a Barinade sprite I did pretty long time ago. Well, I've started fixing it so it looks more like lttp-styled sprite.

There are two Barinades side by side, because the other one is an animation frame placeholder (you know, the rotation animation).
Still much to do. I'm not so sure with the palette I've used, but I'll keep on experimenting.

Music of the Week
Dayjo's RPG Music Pack
http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=34240.0
Quote from: Dayjo
This music pack is available under the GNU GPL.

Feel free to download for use in a project or just to listen to them, if you do find a use for them, let me know :)

Free To Use RPG Music Pack Part 1
http://blog.dayjo.org/?p=335


Big Question

Last week's question: If you could redesign Link's looks, what would you do and why?
Summary of answers: Many of the design updates incorporated existing styles found in other video game characters or involved armor and things related to a different sort of time period.

This week's question: How do you think developers could be better served and recognized on ZFGC?


Author of this week's issue: 4Sword

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Hammer Bro. Mike

Hammer Bro. Mike
Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2009, 01:18:57 pm »
  • The Mike
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I think if they advertise their game a lot which helps. The Shadowgazer got a lot of attention.
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Internet Tough Guy.
Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #2 on: May 19, 2009, 09:34:04 pm »
  • Things to see and people to do.
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If new projects were announced on the main site, that could bring them more attention.
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The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone thought to themselves "You know, I really want to set those people over there on fire." - George Carlin

(!@#$%)

Hear the haunting words (They'll find you alone)
lost children with no heart are crying (Turning their hearts into stone)
and you're the lost mother they're calling
Go now, run and hide (seek more than vengeance)
I hear them crying at night (your pain is their satisfaction)
outside when the planets are falling (for the rest of time)
They want to feel and know you hear them (Go now, run and hide)

  • http://giantcock.netne.net/
Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2009, 11:57:31 pm »
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Advertisement alone only works if what you have is interesting and well made. The attention that the Shadowgazer got was attributable to its qualities which led to contest victories and others giving it publicity because they thought it was good.

Announcing projects on the site would be a possibility if the projects being announced met a certain requirement. This would be to avoid the "spur of the moment" projects that just get conceived, the ones with no demo or trailer, etc. This also allows gives the one announcing the project on the site something to talk about. Additionally, if a project had a key update (i.e. new demo and screenshots), creating a topic in News/Updates (which also shows up on the main site) might be in order and is something I am trying to work towards.

Otherwise, I was thinking of rewarding and recognizing those who worked on individual resource types. Typically it is found that those working on team projects tend to specialize in either the graphics, coding, or music of the game, and they also are more active in the resource boards that their specialty entails. If someone proved themselves to be very important to a certain resource type on ZFGC, they could also be given some local moderator power in the board that reflects their specialty and would be given a higher priority in future staff hirings. Might also give them a user rank with color and a location on the site where they have a profile listing some of their best accomplishments. I don't know, that's a big dumb idea too crazy and outside the box right?
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Jeod

Team Dekunutz, Doubleteam
Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2009, 12:12:33 am »
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Otherwise, I was thinking of rewarding and recognizing those who worked on individual resource types. Typically it is found that those working on team projects tend to specialize in either the graphics, coding, or music of the game, and they also are more active in the resource boards that their specialty entails. If someone proved themselves to be very important to a certain resource type on ZFGC, they could also be given some local moderator power in the board that reflects their specialty and would be given a higher priority in future staff hirings.

IMO it wouldn't work well. Graphics and Audio are almost completely opinion when it comes to quality. Programming on the other hand is more fact on quality, but each programmer is unique in how they manage their code. Promoting individuals because of these skills would be looked on by some as bias.

On an unrelated note, I think higher priority for "Project of the Week/Month" would give developers the attention they deserve. Increase the size of the box so it isn't merely a square on the front page. Allow the creator/team to comment and create their own tidbit unique to the feature, along with an FAQ. It differs from the topic as more people will read it when they enter the site, and will find the topic if they want more info.
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"You should challenge your fates. When all else fails, you can still die fighting." ~Yune
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Zelda GBC+ Engine for Multimedia Fusion 2
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Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2009, 12:41:35 am »
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Well the idea as I read it there is not very detailed - which is the crux of achieving any understand with a new idea. I seem to run into that a lot, explain something too well making sure to cover certain things which could go wrong and I am seen as long winded with the merits of my idea thrown out and hardly considered. Say too little and misunderstanding is rampant.

Determining the quality of graphic works is easy on a fan gaming forum because there is a style that is worked towards. Beyond customs, rips and contributions to team projects can also be used as credit towards the rank. It's not that radical of a concept at all, it just formalizes something that users have been doing for a while on the forum already and rewarding them because their work benefits ZFGC. It's about what is good and useful. Audio might be harder to do in this respect but the ranks related to graphics and coding would be easy.

About the Project of the Month, that has been a major thing which I reintroduced and improved. The size of of it on the site could be enlarged, but there are only so many ways you can dress up a project and talking about it. It'd be neat if more people had linkable YouTube videos for trailers. There has been talk of having a banner at the top of the forum index for the Project of the Month as well. Otherwise, the interview is basically a FAQ - when conducting the interview, I make sure to ask the person interviewed if there is something specific they want included. Otherwise, the topic is visible on the forum, given a news item on the forum index, has its topic stickied, and is posted on at least one affiliate forum.

That already is a lot. When it comes to adding more, what also has to be considered is who is going to do what - it's what makes it realistic.
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Jeod

Team Dekunutz, Doubleteam
Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2009, 12:50:28 am »
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Ah, that is a fine point, 4Sword. However, I still hold that it may be seen as bias, but that can be regulated by site staff. As for PotM, I as a regular member haven't noticed all of the things done for the feature. Either it isn't really visible or I just don't pay enough attention.
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"You should challenge your fates. When all else fails, you can still die fighting." ~Yune
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Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2009, 01:03:19 am »
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Meh, I'm a little saddened that last month's Project of the Month topic hasn't gotten any replies yet when it is pretty neat that MG-Zero's project was done in C++. But there are some benefits which seem pretty ordinary - which is good that they seem so normal, but bad that they get overlooked. For example, topic views for the projects can go up by hundreds and in some cases thousands, there is more traffic brought to the site, the news item for the Project of the Month regularly gets between 200 and 300 views, etc.

It'd be neat if there were more team projects because there would be more to talk about, more of a possibility of exclusive content from being nominated, something more interesting to read, and whatnot. Meh, I do think you are right though in that the main page of the site having the Project of Month should be bigger. Frequently if the title is too big it messes up the vertical formatting, and the box could have more - including a link to the news item for it. The shortening of the news item titles also allows for that section of the site to be horizontally shrunk.
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Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2009, 04:29:06 pm »
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I'd love to work in a team and I have some ideas which would be fun to see realized. But many people are already working for themselves or are here to relax.  If someone has an interest in working as a team, they just have to let me know.

Back to question of the week. I don't know about recognition. I think ZFGC does already a lot, the rest has to come from the developers themselves in the form of demos, videos and screens.
About the 'serving' part I think the resources section is really cluttered. It has 3 different types of topics:
1) Donations of resources usefull to developers to use in their game[ex: http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=34025.0],
2) requests for resources for individual projects [ex: http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=34216.0], and
3) People showing of their skills, but it is not really usefull for developing [ex: http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=34290.0]

It makes it sometimes hard to find useful resources. Also the search function is a bit difficult to use.
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DJvenom

super-sage
Re: ZFGC Weekly
« Reply #9 on: May 27, 2009, 02:07:10 am »
  • Colbydude was here.
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if peoples ideas weren't shot down with over-explained retorts.
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I do art
I ermmm... DID do art
I do art
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