At 12/3/06 07:51 PM, Masterswordman wrote:

At 12/3/06 07:50 PM, DFox wrote: Why not just try to conductive ourselves like we're not kids, behave, not spam, when we're about to say something irrelevant, don't, and try to keep this thread open?

I think its too late for that.

Oh I think not my friend.

Luis stated it would be locked at the end of the year. Now, at the end of the year, we're all conducting ourselves like gentleman and carrying on intelligent conversations that enrich the value of the Flash forum, they can't lock it. Let's not give them a reason to. If there's no reason, then it's safe...

So, should we try it?

We don't expect monocles and sipping tea, but at least some noticable change for the better.

At 12/3/06 07:56 PM, jmtb02 wrote: We don't expect monocles and sipping tea, but at least some noticable change for the better.

I say old chap. Indubitebly!

???

At 12/3/06 07:56 PM, ShirtTurtle wrote:

At 12/3/06 07:51 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: Because they would just be spam topics, which is what general is for.

By regness thats what i meant, weeklies and activities. Not spam.

lol, I see, well yeah, I agree with you then. I think it was hashbrown who did the last lot of weeklies, he should do them again.

OK, we're kind of in a no mans zone here, so I figured I'll attempt to start a topic of discussion.

We're all into Flash, and we think we know what makes a good Flash. I think we could all agree that good drawings and effort make a good movie or game good.

Now, there's obviously something more. Take a game like Kitten Cannon. Graphics were pretty good, nothing spectacular. Gameplay, well, simple, nothing too special. How did it do? One of the most popular Flash games of all time.

Another example, the helicopter game. I mean EVERYONE knows what the helicopter game is. Graphics? Pretty bad. Gameplay? Just OK. How'd people like it? Everyone loved it and it still to this day is pretty popular.

What made these games successful? I believe it's the "it" factor. They had that extra special something that made them a gem. I'm not sure what that "it" factor actually is, and I thought that would make a pretty good discussion.

In your mind, what IS the "it" factor? It can apply to movies or games. I'm curious to hear some responses.

Well, I'm back, my computer contracted a virus due to me being the stupidest person on earth for 3 minutes and while I was in that dream-like state I opened limewire and downloaded an .exe just to see what happens :)

Thankfully it was a horridly coded virus, if not I would've been dead. Imagine if it was an auto-execute program? lol

Anyways...

Erm.

I go to Flashregs.net when I'm in school... therefore I am scared to click the "this makes me hot" link... but yet I'm curious... what is in that thread?

watch it be gay pr0n or some other not safe for work stuff :-/

At 12/3/06 08:11 PM, DFox wrote:
In your mind, what IS the "it" factor? It can apply to movies or games. I'm curious to hear some responses.

"It" must be originality.
Because something had not been done before, it was a total surprise.
Therefore everyone felt stongly about it as it actually gave them emotions.
It made them feel as if it had changed them in some way. So, they decided to love it.
I'm thinking its muchharder to be original with games, because they have pretty much made a genre fro every type of game. And creating a unique script would make it extra difficult.

its me shirtturtle if you didnt notice. I have reached my 4 replies in have an hour limit.

At 12/3/06 07:51 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote:

At 12/3/06 07:47 PM, ShirtTurtle wrote: Why not create threads with flash regness in them rather than a site.

Because they would just be spam topics, which is what general is for. Plus it would set a bad example to new flash users and all that shit. If no one's up for a site maybe bring back the weeklies

Weeklies?

......
I think a problem with this thread is that there's only so many things regarding Flash that can be discussed before we start running out of ideas or start repeating ourselves.

What makes a good game? What makes a good movie? How do you overcome your crippling fear of failure? Are you a lazy arsehole? How should Newgrounds' voting system work? Has the size increase encouraged folk to be lazy and submit full, uncompressed audio, or is it exclusively a blessing? How do you guys decide when/if to upgrade flash? Do you worry about institutions and networks where folk can't upgrade the player themselves?

Apart from speed (which we could always have more of), is there anything you actually feel you'd like to see added to Flash? When creating, do you consciously try and maintain a similar look and feel across creations, or experiment and break your own mould?

I don't really know what has been discussed here. There's so much irellevant shite and witterings that it's near-impossible to find the actual engaging discussions of real relevance to the flash author. If the shite was cut, this thread would be a sparkling cave, full of diamonds and other gems, in the form of textual info.

At 12/3/06 08:11 PM, DFox wrote: In your mind, what IS the "it" factor? It can apply to movies or games. I'm curious to hear some responses.

For me the "it" factor for games is mainly simplicity. In my opinion flash games and all web games are just a way to kill time. I don't want to spend 15 mins playing through 5 "training" levels, learning the controls, before I actually start the game for real. Things like the hellicopter game are great because it loads up and bang! you're read to play.

Take Little Soldiers for example, it looks great, but they take an entire level teaching you how to move, when all you have to do is click! Then they spend a level teaching you how to use items, and a level teaching you to use weapons. All this could be done it a simple tutorial menu.

Also both those games you mentioned have high scores, so if you're with some mates, it's always fun to see who can get top score!

At 12/3/06 08:23 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: Also both those games you mentioned have high scores, so if you're with some mates, it's always fun to see who can get top score!

Ah, that's a very good point. I didn't really think about the competing factor, but that must play a big part. Because the competing factor stems in to a lot of things that make a game more enjoyable.

And shirtturtle, I agree that it is the uniqueness also, because a movie such as: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/195918 is my all time favorite, and probably a lot of other people's also. It doesn't have the greatest animation or drawings I've ever seen, but there's just something about it, and maybe that's the originality.

Hmmm well I always thought that regs should have a place to go to chat with each other on the forum without some newbies and a place where they could have their own sort of collabs going on, and whilst you say use PM but what if its like a bunch of us carrying on something, then you may say use msn chat, but then some of us don't add each other to msn. Maybe for a flash reg thread you need to have some credantials to join it sort of a VIP room. That would cut down on some spam cause I'm sure(I'm guilty of it to) some of us just get the sillys and happen to be on newgrounds whilst we have these sillys.

At 12/3/06 08:22 PM, Bezman wrote: Weeklies?

Weeklies were a competition where'd you've have a week or so to complete a some sort of flash challenge, be it AS or animation based.

Here's a great example of a weeklies comp.

Now that I look back at it, that was a great time on the BBS, there was a few of these going on, and it was also the time of the swans. JPI need to come back a posts more swans.

At 12/3/06 08:47 PM, ShirtTurtle wrote: i miss them sooo much

Yeah, if/when this gets locked they should be remade. It's kinda gay though how everything uploaded to denvish's site in that thread no longer exists...

At 12/3/06 08:11 PM, DFox wrote: Now, there's obviously something more. Take a game like Kitten Cannon. Graphics were pretty good, nothing spectacular. Gameplay, well, simple, nothing too special. How did it do? One of the most popular Flash games of all time.

I think the sick humour just appealed to folk. Very memorable concept. After playing to see the animations, many would rush to tell others of it.

Original gameply at the time, ne? (Whole setting initial velocity, with objects thereafter halting/furthering progress as we just watch.)

Random nature makes everyone feel that they can do as good as the leader if only their kitty had bounced a few feet to the left or whatever. Some folk keep playing and return for that reason.

Another example, the helicopter game. I mean EVERYONE knows what the helicopter game is. Graphics? Pretty bad. Gameplay? Just OK. How'd people like it? Everyone loved it and it still to this day is pretty popular.

Graphics are simple, but entirely functional, clearly showing hit areas. No fiff faff.

Gameplay is simple and intuitive. Accessible to all. Again, original at the time.

Well judged controls and spacings in level generation.

Measure of 'skill' is enough to make folk feel they're actually proving themselves with their score. I remember when this came on, a bunch of us guys - after a C workshop - halted our usual game of wheely-chair-tag-racing to compete for high scores on this for a while.

Randomly defined patterns keep folk guessing and allow for some easier rides on occasion (hence a feeling of improvement) whilst not overpowering the feeling that skill plays the main role.

In your mind, what IS the "it" factor? It can apply to movies or games. I'm curious to hear some responses.

I believe in no 'it' factor - just a strong concept, executed in ways to enhance the strong points of that idea. If there is any factor beyond common-sense good creation, it's simply a lack of similar productions beforehand and good timing.

At 12/3/06 08:44 PM, Mr-Chainsaw wrote:

At 12/3/06 08:22 PM, Bezman wrote: Weeklies?

Weeklies were a competition where'd you've have a week or so to complete a some sort of flash challenge, be it AS or animation based.

Here's a great example of a weeklies comp.

I remember that. So basically just a wee competition? we could easily make up something. Hell, I'd have a try at it if asked. I may guage the difficulty of the AS thing badly or make other mistakes, but I'd give it a shot.

Maybe each week a different person could do them?

Now that I look back at it, that was a great time on the BBS, there was a few of these going on, and it was also the time of the swans. JPI need to come back a posts more swans.

Swans?

At 12/3/06 09:07 PM, Bezman wrote: Swans?

There was an another weeklies thread, where you were given a line then you had to make a picture around that line. Kirk drew a swan saying "quack" which promted JPI to draw lots of swans saying quack on flashregs.net (the thread got deleted with the rest of flashregs). They even made up the "roffle", where you'd sit on a waffle iron, then the king swan would wank our your grilled arse marks. Good times.

Yeah all those swans that say quack. You either liked it or you wanted to take a baseball bat to his head.

"it" is addictiveness. People are addicted to things that make them feel good or happy, like cigarettes. It's just what makes people feel good, like the helicopter game, its totally addictive because its always challenging and you can always go farther. Eventually that gets boring though. Simple games last so long because they're addictive and the gameplay is fun.

you know...if that adds anything

RE: Gaming and the x-factor
I think I like a well rounded package in terms of a game, good solid programming and a good marrage of art makes for a good experience in my world. Theres games that have great concepts but poor visual execution, just as there are games that are all looks and no rewarding play, I felt that Call of Duty 3 was that type of game, yeah its a console game but I feel that it still shares things that any game developer flash or not can take from it. Visually beautiful game but the level design was boring, you never grow a fondness for any of the characters or dilemmas they face, i found it to be a dull experience.

Animation Challenges and other ideas
Anyway in other news, I will introduce some 'challenge' based things when the next art forum challenge kicks off. Tom gave me the greenlight to do so, and so I shall. Basically it will be a flash forum based contest to run with the art forum contests that stamper and goons create. If there is any actionscripter around that would like to sit and discuss ways of not ignoring the AS buffs please reach out to me via PM, at this point the 'contest' will be animation based because thats my thing and i look out for my people. But if theres someone who would like to take the leader role in something AS-based then lets talk.

============

New posting style?
Oh yeah please follow the above format in terms of replying and introducing new discussions to the thread, lets give that a shot and see if it makes things easier to manage here.
One of the tough things in my opinion was keeping track of all the topics being discussed and what are new topics spawning. So maybe if we have a small boldened header then people can quickly skim through and follow replies and new topics more closely.
Also notice i didnt start a new reply to introduce something new to talk about i just put a new bold header on it and went to town. I noticed a few people who like to reply to a bunch of topics in one fat post and thats cool and i think that putting bold headers on what youre replying to may make it easier to people to skim through and see which one of your replies to which topic interests them. What are your thoughts on this?

RE: Posting style

I also wanted to add that with the new posting style it may make it easier for people to not feel like they have to do away with their small spasm of messages or sarcastic remark to a subject, those are welcome as long as you either:
A) Introduce something worthwhile to the thread in that same post
B) Are replying to a slew of topics

Example: if I am replying to a bunch of topics in one post and one of the topics i want to give my one liner or poke fun at Orbs colorblindness or something immature then fine you can do so if you are really using your post to condense 20 new posts into one long one where you mixed in your spam under a healthy layer of new topic or intelligent conversation to other subjects going on.

Questions / Comments

RE: "It" factor

i think i'm a little bit of an example of the "it" factor. a game i made when i was 12 (Rammer - killer) was somewhat successful. i got a few fans and even several tributes. my game didn't have great graphics, replayability, high scores, indefinite levels, or any of that stuff. so why did i get a small amount of people in <3 with me from it? no fecking clue. someone play it and tell me plzkthx.

but on topic, i don't think it's just simplicity, originality, or addictiveness. it's all of those things. if a game has all that, it's probably got a good change of being a meme. just look at Line Rider! the graphics are shit, it's missing key features, and the concept of drawing lines and sledding down them sounds boring. but somehow, it became popular because of how it pulled it off! some people even imply it's an art form by how they use it. Line Rider is probably the only game out there of its kind, it makes you want to keep going, and there's no complex interfaces or controls to do. just draw the lines and sled down them.

RE: Posting Style
this makes everything look so shnazzy ;D

RE: Flash Challenges
I vote Agnri Faic shirts for prizes!

honestly. who wouldn't want one ;P

At 12/3/06 10:44 PM, Reedo11 wrote: This thread getting locked
I kinda thought this thread was for flash people talking about anything they want, without having to go to the general forum and getting banned/flammed for no reason.. I guess not :(

RE: Thread getting locked
Well nothing is final yet, and I'm fairly optimistic about the new posting style so it may not be locked if it turns out that people are being responsible about using it and people are able to navigate this thread easier and be able to go back a page or two and quickly skim through to topics that interest them. Lets try it out this month and see where it goes.
From here on out any replies not following the style will be deleted, I'll take this week to PM people that their post was deleted and to repost using the new format and then after that then you're on your own and should know the rules. Its a bit of a pain I know, but if we are to keep this thread semi useful lets try out this extra nag for the sake of this thread.

RE:New posting style
I like it. It might be hard to catch on.

RE:Flash Challenges
Also awsome. Similar things have been tried before, but they sort of just died. But if a mod or admin does it, it should really boast popularity.

Animation Challenges and other ideas
So... it'll be similar to the 'weekly' previously linked to?

I'd like to see one art/animation task, one interactive design task and maybe a few AS tasks.

Reason: art/design-based stuff can be done in a great variety of ways. If the challenge was a 10s dancing mermaid clip, for example, someone could theoretically enter using nothing more than a crappy drawing and some tweening. Someone else might try coming up with a stylish character, get them moving fbf, work out some nice choreography... On the other hand, I think that all AS stuff has a more definite entry level and can only be advanced so far. It'd allow everyone who wanted to to compete if there were, say, 3 different tasks, with level 1 being something so basic even I could take part.

By interactive design, I mean maybe level design for a specific gametype. Maybe game rules and components are given, maybe with links to a basic engine, and we need to create the best thing we can that meets the requirements. Not so much like a theme and limited pallette, but more like, "Okay, you've got to create 1-level shooter, completable in 30s, these are the controls, go design the movement patterns and whatnot now."

Just an idea.

"Create a demo, lasting under a minute, of a game designed to teach basic arithmetic to children."

Maybe not a good one.

"Make a one-level platformer spanning no more than 3 screens in any direction. Scissors must be involved!"

Kind of...

New posting style!
Should help make it more readable. But while I'm in a pernickety mood, adding 'Re:' makes it kinda less instantly identifiable what the topic is.

And what should a hypothetical person do, if they hypothetically wished to address a small off-shoot contained within another, hypothetical, post? Should we just clump together miscellaneous stuff at the bottom?

Hypothetically speaking of course.

misc

At 12/3/06 10:31 PM, Rammer wrote: a game i made when i was 12 (Rammer - killer) was somewhat successful. i got a few fans and even several tributes. my game didn't have great graphics, replayability, high scores, indefinite levels, or any of that stuff. so why did i get a small amount of people in <3 with me from it? no fecking clue. someone play it and tell me plzkthx.

Which version? There's a few...

Line Rider! some people even imply it's an art form by how they use it.

That course must have taken ages! I always found the thing terribly frustrating to use, hard to edit and hard to judge exactly how to keep him moving how I wanted without falling off.

RE: 'It' Factor

Maybe its a less abstract reason. Maybe people just like the simplistic games that are on the front page of every game site on the net, rather than entangled in the mess of Newgrounds.

At 12/3/06 11:15 PM, Bezman wrote: Animation Challenges and other ideas
So... it'll be similar to the 'weekly' previously linked to?

Animation Challenges and other ideas
No it wont be like Hash's weeklies, they will run for as long as the Art threads challenges run, typically two weeks it is looking like. I didnt like how disposable the weeklies were. Specially with things like animation, it takes a good deal of time to make something quality.

Animation Challenges and other ideas

So, when do you think the first one will start? I've always found that kind of thing very interesting.

RE: New Posting Style
Ehh, I didn't see that post, sorry, lol

It's because of people like me this thread might get locked xD

I'm still probably doing it wrong

RE: The "It" Factor - Rammer's Game
I liked it because it was animation/reflex/timing based, and completely original. If there's another game like it point it out to me, I've never seen it before... and thus proving the point that originality is a BIG factor.

RE: Line Rider
That was an effing fun game, but I agree with you, the overall quality wasn't great. It was the gameplay... something about seeing something get whacked around by your lines is fun :3

hope i did that right

So, when do you think the first one will start? I've always found that kind of thing very interesting.

RE: Animation Challenges
It will start when Stamper and Mindchamber/JohnnyUtah start a new challenge, we are too late for the little girls with big weapons contest so we'll just plan it out thurougly and be ready for the next one. More info soon.

At 12/3/06 11:46 PM, Luis wrote: It will start when Stamper and Mindchamber/JohnnyUtah start a new challenge, we are too late for the little girls with big weapons contest so we'll just plan it out thurougly and be ready for the next one. More info soon.

RE: Animation Challenges

Sweet! Can't wait! :-)