I disagree completely. I think adobe is doing great work with Flash. The problem lies with the portals, who are selling sometimes great games for no money and throw them in between a bunch of mediocre games.

I've seen great Flash games and some of them are very popular, outside of the portals. Have you seen AdamAtomic's work?

By no means I am discrediting flash development. The problem is the audience and the way the product is delivered to the consumers. Flash portals incentivate a "play once and trash it" mentality that only very good game designers or a the marketing support of a publishing company manage to counter. Yet one must admit flash itself has a few shortcomings regarding longevity such as no mod support, no expansions, etc.

I find your comment very derogative towards Flash developers. Would you like it if 3D artists would tell you to work with a "real" art style instead of pixel art too?

Quote

real game engine

That's a bit of a logical fallacy you just did there since the two examples are not comparable at all. Exactly one of the problems with pixel art and general 2d art for videogames is that, or at least that is what I feel, nowadays it's excessively focused on flash development, which somehow diminuishes it's status towards a more "hardcore" gaming scene (if I'm allowed to use such expression). People tend to think 2D is either limited or outdated because they've got used to 3D on more solid game platforms, and most of the contact they have with 2D is essentially via flash games, which tend to be simpler and a lot shorter.

I'm sure Adam will love it if you say to his face that Flixel is not a "real game engine". I'm sure he would be better to spend his time on engines like Game Maker or BYOND, which are not Flash and therefore real.

You're putting words in my mouth. When I said "real game engine" I was merely considering flash as a language/platform, not as an engine. Which no matter how good it looks, sometimes, it's still pretty limited. And I personally dislike game maker and byond.

Monochrome
Then why not do both?  Publish on flash platform to catch up publicity and collect some stray bucks, while also create a stand alone free distributive with a possibility of expansions and put it on a separate website. 
The main problem in being recognized is to reach your audience. If not by extrimely popular ArmorGames then how else?

This bothers me now, because I also have a platfomer mockup in my sleave and an idea to release it somehow with profit.

If you want to make money, I'd say go for flash. Just like rikfuzz just said:

This is getting pretty OT but Flash is easily THE most convenient route to reaching the widest audience and there are fair few well documented ways to monetise the platform. Wasn't Playfish recently sold for $400m or something crazy?

And personally I think he's totally right on the point he makes. Problem is there are different kinds of audience, and the one that frequently plays flash games is not used to replay old titles unless you're talking about something with a greater longevity like runescape. Mainly what defines it, is your final objective. If you ultimately want quick cash. flash is indeed the way to go. If, however, you intend to create a small yet solid community around your game, I'd say pick something else. Still keep in mind the second choice means little to no cash at all. Then again, it's all up to your choices.


And finally, I want to apollogize if I offended anyone, but I merely stated a personal opinion regarding consumer pratices and modern game development based on personal experience. Like all platforms flash has it's advantages and shortcomings; it's merely a tool, and it's us that choose what to make of it. Yet be warned that ignoring reality itself for the sake of platform preferences might be a mistake, especially if your objectives don't match the platform of your choice. I've seen some great flash games around the internet, but aside from runescape and a few more memorable ones, they're essentially oriented to quick casual play rather than providing a more durable and enjoyable experience to the player which is, to a certain extent, connected both with the limitations of flash itself and general market tendencies. And on the other hand I often feel sorry because every once in a while some amateur developpers come up with great game mechanics (fancy pants adventures for example) which end falling short to a community that's not used to play the same game twice.

That is all.


*EDIT*

Another thing I would like to reiterate is that flash can actually be a good platform for starting developers who want to get some attention or experience so they can later venture into more complex development. The Behemoth devs are natural flash programmers who felt the need to go beyond flash in order to venture into a more professional market. Yet they used flash as a marketing strategy when they created a demo to promote their first game, alien hominid.

Quote from: Monochrome on December 12, 2009, 11:42:50 am

It looks really good! Just tell me it's not flash. I'm tired to see people wasting their talents on flash these days.

Is there any other real alternative?  Flash, from what I can see, is the most easy and clear way to publish and monetize your game.

There are plenty of alternatives. Flash games are regarded as mere timewasters rather than real games, not to mention the only clients you will ever get are huge flash games sites like armor games or miniclip, where there's so much variety your product is most likely to end up forgotten in a matter of days. If you're amiming for actual acknowledgement I'd say create something on a real game engine, and release it for free, adding the possibility to expand it later with extra levels and so on.

Added an extra dark red tone along with a few extra shades. While the bridge between the darker tones is still noticeable I feel  adding yet another tone would be useless at this stage. Looks a bit softer now. Any opinions? I decided I won't venture further into the next frame until this one isn't perfect, so please, give me all your feedback.

names the top of the back.

also look to your palette a smidge (on a similar note of eliminating jaggies):

your red ramp by value goes like this:


see the hopskip between the reds?

also, because the model is mostly made up of the first 4 values and because the human eye can discern on-screen differences between medium-dark tones better than elsewhere, it's more important to try and balance these out or add another tone to smooth.

Also you have some redundant values (2 to be exact) which i think are the result of splicing and shifting colors over time and not ealizing they've ermerged (see the shadow tone on the hand is different, and the dark bright red up top is not the dark bright red of below...)

I'll try introducing an extra dark red value inbetween the 1st then. As for the redundant values I could only find the one in hand shader. Where is the other one? It's a bit hard for me to keep track of all these things since I'm using mspaint. Can you point me to any specific software (preferably free) that allows me to keep track of all this stuff? Keep in mind a lot of the things you mentioned are new to me and any new bit of information is precious. As for creating animated gifs what kind of software should i use, given that i'll be working with animated frames later?

Booooo no smurfs!  They only make up 200% of the fairweather fanbase...(with blood ravens taking up another 150% despite having the most tepid backstory offered in the game universe since 1990)

Indeed. I do like the Ultramarines but they're overrated by most fans. I'll try making a Deathwing recolour instead

Revamp is an accomplishment.  Now moar frames! .

I think I'll give it a rest. It will be mighty hard to come up with new stances and I've been working on this simple frame for almost two weeks.

Also you might want to look at a little of AA to clear a few of the larger edges, and the cross could come back for balance as long as the form is subservient to the pauldron:

Hum, I'm affraid I don't get what you mean. are you talking about all the edges or simply the edge on the left pauldron?