Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

[ndchristie]

If i can provide my own opinion, my screen is very bright and well calibrated (not perfect, but very good) and I would also consider your screen unnecessarily dark.  Unless you plan on having a very dark game I feel like you could bring it up quite a bit; in fact I'd recommend this as I think the bullets on screen will be blindingly bright and wipe out any sense of the background unless you had absolute calm for a moment.

[Ninja Crow]

> That really doesn't make any sense.

I know, and I tried like half a dozen times, and in three different screen resolutions (INI hack...).

I don't even know what stdrt.exe is.  So I searched it, and found this at the click team forums - don't know if it helps?

[CrazyMLC]

     

[IMG ]Error[ /img]

      

I also get this error.

Nice to see you back working on this, Howard!

I'd like the comment on what I can see, the backgrounds.
I can make out the shapes and forms, but it's taunting me. I can't really see the whole image for what it is, primarily because it's just too dark!
The stars seem dim, as when you go outside in real life the stars are shining brilliantly in the night sky.

Otherwise, from what I can make out, it's beautiful.

[Howard Day]

ndchristie: I had simply calibrated it to be as dark as possible and still be readable on my monitor. Luckily, the first level has no energy weapons, and the second has only limited usage.
Ninja Crow: I have done a few things I hope have fixed your crash. since I'm not gettingthe same thing, I can't test my fixes.
CrazyMLC: Hope the new build fixes it for you, as well. I have lightened it up considerably - in fact it's more than twice as bright.

There's a new compo, sans stars. much brighter.
http://www.hedfiles.net/AbsentEdenIntro2.exe -50MB

Enjoy, and I hope it works...

[Ninja Crow]

In the image you posted, I can now see a dim, navy blue band across its centre.  I don't know how you feel, philosophically, about the imagery being visible in all possible monitors (though making it 'as dark as possible', especially if your monitor happens to be set rather bright, seems like a sure way to catch at least some people at a disadvantage...) so if this is getting to be too bothersome for you, I won't feel a bit bad if you back-burner or drop the issue.

As for the new intro - same problem.  I know nothing about MMF, but when I Googled 'stdrt.exe' the page I found seemed to suggest that it might be created because of a compressed runtime.  Do you compress your runtime?

[ptoing]

Hm, I have no problem with the new image. Looks good to me, the banding is nicely hidden by the diffuse dither.

Ninja Crow: If you seriously see quite visible banding it might be your monitor not having the full 32 bit or even 24 bit range.

[CrazyMLC]

It's perfect now, Howard.
The brightness, I mean.

I tried it again, and I got the same error.
Maybe I can send an error report later.

But, I went over to a friend's computer (he uses linux) and he was able to run it.
It looks good, but the framerate is a little low. The scene with the ship entering the atmosphere needs a bit of work, the ship's effect to make it look like a fireball could be better.
The bullets just seemed to come out of nowhere...
Perhaps you should add a little scene of turrets popping out of the ground or something to that effect?

[Howard Day]

NinjaCrow: Gaaaah. I'm frankly not willing to go any brighter on the night time scenes - it's already very hollywood bright - far brighter than I think it probably should be. I realize that's neccessary for people of various monitor configurations; but if all you can truly see is a blue band, you might consider re-calibrating your monitor to a test image. I do compress my executable - because when I didn't my sound management system didn't seem to work at all. Unfortunately, that very same sound system seemed to be causing the vast majority of the bugs I've been dealing with. I've removed it in the latest version. That also means no sounds.
ptoing: Good, glad it's up to snuff.
CrazyMLC: Damn. On the atmo entry, I agree that the fire ball could use some smoke behind it, also perhaps a faster framerate.
http://www.hedfiles.net/AbsentEdenIntro3.exe -50MB
Uncompressed executable, no sounds effect engine.

Hope that works.

[Konrad]

I'm with you Howard. The background is much too bright now IMO. Stay with the brightness it initially had. You can't take every monitor configuration in consideration, especially those not calibrated.

[CrazyMLC]

Hey, mine's calibrated. 

At the size the game seems to be at, it seems like it's for a hand held console of some sort. If that is the case, you should try to optimize your brightness for that screen.
But still, it could go a little darker.