Pixelween: Icons of Horror 9/27-10/13 - GAME OVER -

[Ponch]

Holy poop! Actual game play screen! (Not a mock up!)



Pixelween has inspired the first official Barn Runner Halloween game EVAR!!!1!

[abstauber]

Phew, finally






Sprites, GUI and text only

Spoiler

It's The Devil's Rejects

[close]

Actually I'd really like to see a game based on that movie. But on the other hand I've never played/liked  Manhunt either - there seems to be a difference between watching and acting

Edit: Oh, forgot about the stats.

Spoiler

Otis: 28 colors
Baby: 32 colors
Cpt. Spaulding: 29 colors

[close]

Guts Coin: 44 colors
Background: 39 colors

[Khris]

Not even halfway finished, but I'm also working on something else and ran out of time



Background: 10 cols, 41 8x8 tiles
Sprites: 15 cols
Total: 21 cols

Shouldn't be hard to guess.

Spoiler

   Dawn of the Dead (2004)

[close]

[Dualnames]

Holy poop! Actual game play screen! (Not a mock up!)

Pixelween has inspired the first official Barn Runner Halloween game EVAR!!!1!

I thought I'd never say that in my life...

But I think I just jizzed in my pants.

[Matti]

Cool, Khris, I wanna play that!

[abstauber]

@Dualnames:
Your post should count as an entry too

[R4L]

I'm so entering this, I think I got here a little late though.

EDIT: A little W.I.P. menu screen.

Currently playing the NES game of this movie. Excellent stuff.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Hell yeah, Captain Spaulding!


Oh no, it's time to choose a winner, and yet I have 3 favorites:

A.  Green Boy's Van Helsing vs. movie monsters game!  Very slick presentation.  It's clear what's going on in the game, the colors are pleasing without going overboard, and Frankenstein is a fresh, hulking variation on the original.  Way to go!

B.   Fully Automatic Mojo!  A C.H.U.D. reference and Prick combine to form a game of almost epic Voltronian goodness.  The visuals don't seem hurt by the color restrictions and Ponch's clean style makes the gameplay areas clear and pleasant to look at.  I would have liked to see an entirely new ui from the typical Sierra interface, though.

C.  Devil's Rejects!  I'll start by saying that while I hate Rob Zombie and his movies, I absolutely love the character of Captain Spaulding and, having met Sid Haig, I'd really like to see the guy get better roles because he's an awesome person.  The colors here fit the scene well and Spaulding himself is instantly recognizable.  My only comment would be the verbcoin seems a bit crowded.


And the runner ups:

a.  House By the Cemetery!  I think the top bar that shows Dr. Freudstein is the most clever and interesting of all the entries, though the side bar seems a bit oversized and the 'action shot' isn't very exciting.  I think a bit more effort would yield a really interesting game approach, though!

b.  Sweet Home (title screen)!  This has a very pleasing, retro look, but doesn't conform to the 'needs to be an action shot from the game' rule.

c.  Dawn of the Dead (the remake)!  I like the clear health bars, character designs and minimalist background artwork.  What bothers me a bit is the enemies look more like hungry hungry hippies or bums than zombies, which sucks some of the menace out of the action shot.  Also, a lack of blood and guts in the scenery just makes such an apocalyptic scenario seem a bit sterile.  This is another entry that could really shine with more effort put forth, and with gamepad support could easily be made in ags now...so make it!



As I enjoyed the top 3 entries equally and for different reasons, I decided to leave it up to fate (ie, a 1d3) to decide the ULTIMATE WINNER OF PIXELWEEN.

That winner is:

GREENBOY!


However, as I love Halloween I have prepared something special for everyone who entered.

Some of the most dangerous artifacts in horror history have been placed into my care, and now I place them in yours:

Green Boy!  Take this PHANTASM SPHERE from another dimension and guard it well.  The Tall Man could come after it at any time, so beware!

Ponch!  I entrust to you none other than the NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS!  Beware the Deadites who are drawn to this evil tome!

Abstauber!  You have the awesome task of protecting the LAMENT CONFIGURATION, gateway to Hell!  Pinhead and his Cenobite brethren
are sure to be hot on your trail, so good luck!

And for the rest of you brave souls, I present:

HAUNTED PUMPKINS!  Nasty creatures are sure to come knocking at your firewall for these, so guard them well!

And now it is up to YOU.

[Armageddon]

Well, couldn't make it in time, cheers!

[kconan]

  Cool contest and awesome submissions!  I think Greenboy's Frankenstein was my favorite monster character, and I love the idea of the "hero" yelling at the heroine for crying in Eggie's entry.

[Ponch]

Gasp! A winner is me?!? Well, almost, at any rate. Rest assured, ProgZ,I shall treasure this pixelated trophy and lord it over all my non-trophy winning friends for years to come. It's going on the mantle next to my  fourth grade spelling bee ribbon and that "You have won second place in a beauty contest" Monopoly card.

Also, I love the idea that an adventure game version of the Devil's Rejects came this close to existing.

Lastly, I see that Dualnames finds CHUDs as exciting as I do! Yay!

[abstauber]

Hey, third place. Not bad, not bad at all And these beautiful animated trophies really make up for the quite high entry terms. Great work everyone.
My favourite sprite was Andre from Khris' entry - spot on Super Famicon style.
Also I keep my fingers crossed that one day Eggie decides making a game for us.

@ProgZ
You actually met Sid Haig?! Man, sometimes I wish to live in the US too.

@Ponch:
Since the first Barn Runner I've played, I wonder why you are working with this particular 100% saturated palette. It sure creates a nice "high-res MS-DOS 16 colors retro feeling" and I've never seen that somewhere else. (That's not covered in your interview )

[Eggie]

And now I want all of these games to be made

[Dualnames]

@Abstauber: you sneaky! next time
@Ponch: Ponch I have my texas shotgun loaded. And a ticket. Just in case.

[Ponch]

@Ponch:
Since the first Barn Runner I've played, I wonder why you are working with this particular 100% saturated palette. It sure creates a nice "high-res MS-DOS 16 colors retro feeling" and I've never seen that somewhere else. (That's not covered in your interview )

The Barn Runner look came about from the old Colorforms toy, strangely enough. At least, that's what I was thinking about way back in 2003, when I was first kicking around the ideas for Barn Runner. Eventually, sometime around March, I think, I created my first build with Game Maker (heresy!).


Pictured: Barn Runner Prototype 3 "Robot Riot" (The prehistory of gaming mediocrity)

The first few builds were side scrolling shooters. I didn't want the super old school 8 bit sprites. I wanted hand drawn sprites like Street Fighter II (or, in a moment of startling honesty, the rather obscure shooter Wetlands, which was the game foremost in my mind when I started this series.*)

I wanted those sprites to be easy to animate (and so easier for me to find any errors in animation!) while I built the first game, so I decided on solid color with no shading. Thus, Prick's gray trenchcoat is only one shade of gray, with no darker bits of gray to give it wrinkles or a feeling of dimension, or any of those fancy things.

After a while, I really came to like the flat, saturated placeholder look of my sprites and I decided to keep it. By this point, I had several very nicely (in my opinion) done backgrounds that looked rather like airbrushed paintings that I had scanned in on my flatbed (which I had, because they were*). But I chucked them and used the same "line art flood filled with a simple colors" technique I was using on the sprites. I think this gives the city locations a very plastic, artificial feeling. Other then the occasional gradient, I try to stick to this aesthetic as much as possible for any locations in Arcology 19. The BGCZ locations, on the other hand, are a different matter.

To set those places apart from the city as quickly as possible, I decided to use a "photographic texture badly applied" to really sell the "over-reality" of the last green place on Earth. Tree trunks use actual photos of tree bark. Grassy fields use pictures of grass. And so forth. I don't know how successful this second approach was, but I know it certainly jumps out at me every time Prick steps out of his car somewhere in the BGCZ.

I hope that answers your question.

Congrats on your trophy, by the way.

And sorry, Dualnames. But in Texas, the CHUD hunting season is over in the spring. You'll have to wait until next year, dude.


- Ponch
----------
* And now the truth is out!
** Mostly, I was just giddy at the chance to dig my ancient airbrush out of storage. (I used to make extra money on the side airbrushing t-shirts and license plates back in the day. Ah, the 80s!.)

[abstauber]

@Ponch
Wait a minute.. is Prick killing Johnny 5?!
But yeah, that was most insightful. I already assumed you did your design choices on purpose on not on lazyness

Oh and of course congrats on your Necronomicon


Not to mention GreenBoy, this years master of horror!

[Ponch]

I already assumed you did your design choices on purpose on not on lazyness

Now, to be fair, I'm also terribly, terribly lazy.

[GreenBoy]

I feel so honoured.   :'(  (why isn't there a smiling and crying emoticon?)

Actually I'm super surprised I won this bad boy, the other entries were fantastic.  That trophy is going straight into my signature.  I'm eating a hotdog to celebrate.

So what do I do now?  I start the next competition ae?  Guess I better get my thinking cap on.