The Great Screenshot Contest!!

Make games! Discuss those games here.

Moderators: Bob the Hamster, marionline, SDHawk

User avatar
kylekrack
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1240
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:58 am
Location: USA
Contact:

Post by kylekrack »

I downvoted Cat 2: In Box because I don't support PLAGIARISM
My pronouns are they/them
Ps. I love my wife
Coryza
Slime
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2020 8:30 am

Post by Coryza »

Prifurin wrote:You cannot rate your own games (in Mogri voice)
Whew, I didn't want to have to actually face the flaws in my entry! Here we go:

1. TMC: The alien elements and colors of this world are interesting, as are the suggestions in the UI elements. Are you a shady intergalactic real estate agent who cleans/flips properties? Is that a thin-necked Nessie emerging from muddy sludge, a submerged street lamp, or just a tilted fungus? There are very interesting ideas at play here. It's animated and so not quite what I would consider a screenshot, but whatevs.

2. Prifurin: The detailed character designs and background images make me wonder about the setting and the characters. Is this lab with winking goo the place where slime salad is made? Why is the presumed-poultry leg wiggling? What is Foxley's ultimate move?? They aren't "screenshot" elements, but the movements add a lot to the presentation. Even though I'm not much for fighters, I'd want to give this a try.

3. Holly: I like the contrasting green/purple dynamic, it catches my attention! I assume this is more of a world map, and it makes me curious about the actual in-level play. Based on past gaming experience, though, I feel like I'm looking at what should be a Super Mario World world map, but there are no eyes on the foliage or stars, which feels a little hollow.

4. Kylekrack: Why does this possible farming sim have a possible timer, or is it just a clock? What is being harvested? Are rats friendly? What's in the bags? The variety of elements on this screen make me curious about the game and its mechanics, but I don't quite get what's going on.

5. Feenick: Instant Ogre Battle vibes, complete with isometric view, opposing teams on raised rectangular field, and character movement types. The uniform tiles and black background feel a little empty, though. If the characters on the right (bird people?) had some distinguishing characteristics between them other than color, I might find it more interesting.

6. Nathan: How did the skeletons get swords for forearms? This dark necromancy contrasts nicely with the rat character, whose shield, axe, and light magic suggest a paladin fighting against the great Sword Lich's sword-armed minions. I wish there were more things to grab my eye, the black background and uniform flooring feel bland. Is the flooring just sod on top of earth? The red lines look like a tiling artifact and are distracting, unless maybe it's the blood of past slain rat heroes?

7. Charbile: I get that it's a Phoenix Wright parody with OHR community references, which looks fun, but it's not interesting specifically to me because I both haven't played a Phoenix Wright game and also because I don't understand many of the references. I wish I did! (please don't smite me great Foxlord)

8. Arti: I like the creepy vibe with going into a weathered building in a graveyard. However, the uniform rain over everything without transparency is distracting, and seeing what I think is one of the generic OHR character sprites isn't so interesting.

9. RMZ: I also get that this is an OHR community reference but I lack the context to understand. At face value it looks like a simple toddler's tablet game, though I wonder if the cats can actually fit in the box. Some Schrödinger's cat elements could make this interesting.
User avatar
Spoonweaver
Liquid Metal King Slime
Posts: 6461
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 7:07 am
Contact:

Post by Spoonweaver »

Coryza wrote:I also get that this is an OHR community reference but I lack the context to understand. At face value it looks like a simple toddler's tablet game, though I wonder if the cats can actually fit in the box. Some Schrödinger's cat elements could make this interesting.
My toddler's do actually like cat in box, so you are spot on. A+
RMZ's joke was pretty dumb and the entry was lazy.
Something akin to the humor found in his older games.

If you'd like to play the google play hit, Cat in Box, it's available right here on slimesalad!
[game]Cat in Box[/game]
Last edited by Spoonweaver on Thu Sep 17, 2020 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Nathan Karr
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1215
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2008 3:51 am
Contact:

Post by Nathan Karr »

Coryza wrote: 6. Nathan: How did the skeletons get swords for forearms? This dark necromancy contrasts nicely with the rat character, whose shield, axe, and light magic suggest a paladin fighting against the great Sword Lich's sword-armed minions. I wish there were more things to grab my eye, the black background and uniform flooring feel bland. Is the flooring just sod on top of earth? The red lines look like a tiling artifact and are distracting, unless maybe it's the blood of past slain rat heroes?
The easiest abstract way to represent an entire skeleton is not to bother counting or properly proportioning the ribs and spine, depict the pelvis as a simple figure 8, only draw the top half of a skull, and depict each limb as a single femur/humerus. So basically, these are abstract sprites of skeletons with entire arms holding swords in their bony hands.

I really like the all black background. Maybe I could've tossed a moon or some faint stars into the sky but it'd have been an afterthought. I was aiming for minimalism and emphasizing visual clarity rather than detail or complexity.

Yes, the floors are just dirt with sod on top. The only reason for the red lines was that I added them to the far edge of the tiles to make the spacing consistent and didn't change them after the fact the way that I removed the sod layers from the tiles with more stacked on top of them. There's also dark green edges to the sod for the same reasons; I suppose I could've sprinkled different shades of green and brown together or drawn individual blades of grass sticking up.

Nathan is actually a vaguely defined mustelid (somewhere between a mink, a stoat, and a ferret) rather than a rat, but this is a recent change and I can't expect people to keep up when I keep making changes to my character like this.

"Paladin" is definitely the closest match for him in standard RPG classes, aside from maybe "Hero" or "Red Mage". Or in D&D 5e, a multiclass build combining Paladin with Divine Soul Sorcerer.
RedMaverickZero wrote:I want Karrible 2
You'll get something spiritually similar soon enough. I can't promise it won't have a platformer segment.
Prifurin wrote:5)Nathan Mouse The
No detail whatsoever but at least what is there looks clear and understandable. No way, is it a lair of complete darkness so you can't see any background at all eh. Red lines look a little disturbing.
+Bonus points for:

very pretty blue hearts

bold font
Blue hearts for a blue blooded warrior prince.

The font can't be that much different from all caps use of the OHRRPGCE default though, can it? Maybe it is, I was just drawing each letter to fit into the spacing as I needed it, 7x7 with a 1 pixel margin for everything other than the apostrophe.

The icons on his shield and next to the text informing you of which axe is being wielded are just the standard axe icon with a little color, and the flying axe projectile is just a diagonal version I've seen in some games' fonts (presumably the actual animation would either be a rotating 4 frame diagonal rotate or an 8 frame rotation).
You cannot rate your own games
I don't see this actually in the vote rules post and see no reason not to rate my own game very highly when, based purely on what's shown in the screenshots, it is close to the one I would most want to play. To me most of the other games just look muddy like muddy brown examples of genres I'm not really all that into, Hollyhart's being the one I rated as most desirable because it's bright and cheerful looking and reminds me of Super Mario 3's overworld so I'd hope it would have similar platform physics within the levels.

"Worst case" is I just show other people how much I like my own idea and it doesn't count towards its own point total, which I have no problem with. Reception of my screenshot is middling to strongly negative mostly, which I kinda deserve for not putting more work into finishing the dirt tiles before posting. I am 100% confident in my decision to go with all black background, though, just like Karrible went with all black floors and many of my games use black battle backdrops (at least for the places where the hero and monster sprites belong).

I can't expect anyone but myself to be as thrilled by the idea of basic barebones fantasy RPGs and action platformers as I am, after all.

Perhaps I should go back and give thorough explanations of why I rated all the games the way I did, since some people definitley gave some fun insights into their preferences in their posts while I just went with a numbered list.
Remeber: God made you special and he loves you very much. Bye!
User avatar
RMZ
King Slime
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:39 am
Contact:

Post by RMZ »

Spoonweaver wrote:
Coryza wrote:I also get that this is an OHR community reference but I lack the context to understand. At face value it looks like a simple toddler's tablet game, though I wonder if the cats can actually fit in the box. Some Schrödinger's cat elements could make this interesting.
My toddler's do actually like cat in box, so you are spot on. A+
RMZ's joke was pretty dumb and the entry was lazy.
Something akin to the humor found in his older games.

If you'd like to play the google play hit, Cat in Box, it's available right here on slimesalad!
[game]Cat in Box[/game]
Well that's just mean. Here I am, the #1 fan of your game, and you attack me. All I want is a sequel with more cats.
User avatar
Nathan Karr
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1215
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2008 3:51 am
Contact:

Post by Nathan Karr »

Nathan Karr wrote:1 Hollyhart1
My reasons: The game looks bright and cheerful, reminds me seriously of Super Mario Bros. 3, which is one of my all time favorite videogames in the only genre as near and dear to my heart as a standard JRPG. This is the only screenshot that instantly grabbed my attention and made me say "I actually want to play that" rather than "I'd be interested in seeing where some element of that goes, but I can't be sure I'd have fun".
Nathan Karr wrote:2 NDK
What can I say? I really like platformers and almost anything starring some variant of my fursona. It could use a tiny bit more platform variety, but I'm sure this is just the grassy outdoor tutorial level before you start going into dungeons or whatever. I see the labeled spell and weapon as indications of some sort of RPG element, like a variety of spells and weapons can take those action slots with different effects, and with that shield on the character I'd bet that when not actively in an attack/spellcasting pose, he'll block frontal attacks like in Zelda 2: Adventure of Link.

Biggest shortcomings I see: [spoiler]I know the person who made this to be the sort to start hundreds of projects and never finish them unless they're really, really short, small in scope, and take very minimal scripting. So even if it was a fun level or two it wouldn't wind up as a fully realized platformer adventure of the kind I'm craving.[/spoiler]
Nathan Karr wrote:3 Charbile
I wouldn't be interested in it for the Phoenix Wright reference, but for the fact that I know Charbile as a creator and love his writing style and am all over games chock full of OHRRPGCE community references.

On the other hand, I might've on gut reflex rated this game too highly just because of the blatant community reference and how much I like Char's writing; I've still never finished playing Hati's Bizarre Adventure after all [spoiler]so I still don't know which of the three top entrants actually won the Ridiculous Games Contest that year, but could hazard a guess[/spoiler]. Revealing the winner of a contest in one of the games in the contest is pretty ridiculous.
Nathan Karr wrote:4 Arti
I think the weather effect is superfluous and I'm not the biggest fan of the default sprites you get whenever you start a new .RPG nowadays, but I'm a big fan of the kind of RPG the OHRRPGCE is actually designed to make. So if it's as basic and straightforward an RPG as it looks to be, I'd be up for trying it.
Nathan Karr wrote:5 Coryza
I like dogs so I'm curious about where the story of this sad dog speaking of radishes is going. It suffers from a samey brownness that a lot of these screenshots share (this, Arti's, TMC's, Kylecrack's, and I'd even argue possibly mine...but mine at least has the super clear black backdrop instead of just more browns).
Nathan Karr wrote:6 Prifurin
I suck at fighting games, but I have a soft spot for Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior and would absolutely be up for a game full of OHRRPGCE community members beating the snot out of each other. As I find both of the pictured gentlemen [spoiler]insufferable[/spoiler] I would be particularly [spoiler]elated[/spoiler] to set the game's difficulty to its lowest possible difficulty, play whoever is the obligatory Ryu/Ken of the game (hopefully [spoiler]me, Nathan![/spoiler]) and spam quarter circle punch to beat them with a series of projectiles because I suck and can basically only win if that or sweeping kicks/jump kicks allow me to reliably stunlock AI opponents.

If anything, I possibly should have rated this one or two places higher; I'm not all that confident in this vote of all of them, but definitely think Arti's looks more appealing than Coryza's and everything that follows this one just doesn't look appealing at all in any way to me. Since this contest is about how the screenshot made you feel about wanting to actually play the game, I have no intent of trying to change my votes now that they've been cast.
Nathan Karr wrote:7 TMC
A brown desert with windmills. Is it farming? Post apocalyptic survival? Neither of those appeal to me in the slightest. It sure looks like a decently drawn example of a brown desert with windmills and a relatively realistically proportioned humanoid standing around in it.
Nathan Karr wrote:8 Kylecrack
I think I see farmers, rats, bags of trash, and a barrel of radioactive waste. At the first pass, I only saw the grid, the dirt, and the farmer; I didn't see any other details until after I'd voted. Since this contest is how good the screenshot is at selling me on the concept, purely on gut reaction I rated it lower than TMC's but on closer inspection I become slightly less certain I'd put it in 8th rather than this in 7th and TMC's in 8th; I'm not going to change my votes though. Is it unplayable OHRRPGCE tactics tech demo #27 or a farming simulator or some sort of rat exterminating videogame? I really don't see any fun to be had in that screenshot personally, much as I love rats and garbage.
Nathan Karr wrote:9 Feenick
Feenick and I simply have completely opposite tastes in terms of things like color saturation, character design, and gameplay rhythm, it seems. I've never found any of his harpy/monstergirl games fun and he's never found any of my games fun so far as I can tell, and this isn't an indication of the quality of our work as far as I am able to judge [spoiler](and going by contest placements past, I would guess that overall the OHRRPGCE community tends to lean more towards preferring his style over mine, and there's nothing wrong with that)[/spoiler]. Nothing in this screenshot makes me think "I'd like to be playing that right now", from the palette to the font to the color choices to the perspective; the pink character seemingly having a tail and the large amounts of black background are the things I find most visually appealing there.

If anything, I might've [spoiler]placed this one higher than my real feelings, and been consistently voting Feenick games highly in previous contests merely out of respect for obvious hard work/fear of coming across antagonistic even though I found them utterly unrelatable and not fun to play or look at (aside from False Skies, which has the "fun to look at" part down for me because of Game Boy RPG nostalgia).[/spoiler]
Nathan Karr wrote:10 RMZ
I wasn't a fan of Cat in Box the first time around. I [spoiler]lazily copy/pasted Giz's quotes about it from IRC into my review of the game without attribution[/spoiler] back when it first came out and [spoiler]nobody called me out on the plagiarism[/spoiler]. I thought it was an interesting tech demo that you can make a simple OHRRPGCE game and port it to mobile devices.

But hey, it's not a brown desert and that counts for something!




So I could take my original votes and sort them into tiers because tiers are fun.
"I Want to Play that" tier
Hollyhart1, Nathan Karr
"You have my attention" tier
Charbile, Arti, Coryza, Prifurin
"No thanks" tier
TMC, RMZ, Feenick, Kylecrack

I'm 100% confident about which tier I put everything in but have some second and third thoughts about their placements within a given tier.
Remeber: God made you special and he loves you very much. Bye!
User avatar
Feenicks
Metal Slime
Posts: 696
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 9:23 pm
Location: ON THE AIR IN THE AIR
Contact:

Post by Feenicks »

[spoiler]1.Charbile
2.Prifurin
3.Hollyhart
4.TMC
5.kylekrack
6.Coryza
7.Nate
8.Arti
9.RMZ
[/spoiler]
User avatar
Spoonweaver
Liquid Metal King Slime
Posts: 6461
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 7:07 am
Contact:

Post by Spoonweaver »

THE END

Thank you all for voting and participating!
Now, for the results!

THE WINNER
1st place! Feenick 1st place!

EVERYONE ELSE!
2nd place: Prifurin
3rd place: TMC
4th place: Hollyhart
5th place: Kylekrack
6th place: Charbile
7th place: Coryza
8th place: Nate
9th place: Arti

last place: RMZ



[spoiler]final numbers
1.Charbile 10 8 4 2 6 4 8 5 4 8 9 6 6 5 = 85
2.Prifurin 9 5 9 102 7 7 7 5 10109 9 +10 = 109
3.Hollyhart 8 108 9 9 6 6 6 8 5 3 5 8 +10 = 101
4.TMC 7 4 106 8 10108 109 6 9 7 4 = 108
5.kylekrack 6 3 7 7 7 8 5 6 9 7 7 5 4 7 = 88
6.Coryza 5 6 5 5 2 2 4 8 5 3 2 8 6 +10 = 71
7.Nate 4 9 5 4 3 3 1 2 2 6 7 7 3 2 = 56
8.Arti 3 7 3 2 1 5 3 3 7 4 2 1 2 1 = 44
9.RMZ 2 1 2 3 4 1 4 9 1 4 1 4 1 3 = 40
feenick 2 6 8 109 9 103 108 8 1010 +10 = 113
[/spoiler]


Feenick, message me your address if you would like to receive you prize of random items from my garage.
Last edited by Spoonweaver on Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
RMZ
King Slime
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:39 am
Contact:

Post by RMZ »

This contest was fun. We should do another one of these for October.
User avatar
Bob the Hamster
Lord of the Slimes
Posts: 7658
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 2:34 pm
Location: Hamster Republic (Ontario Enclave)
Contact:

Post by Bob the Hamster »

Even though I didn't vote or participate (this time!) I want to shout out my thanks to everyone. This was very fun to watch!

I also want to comment on Coryza's picture. Even though it was rough around the edges, I found it super compelling. I want it to be real! I want it to be a point-and-click adventure, heavy on the jokes and light on the puzzles. I want that doggy to find the love it deserves. I want that doggy to eat that radish
User avatar
Spoonweaver
Liquid Metal King Slime
Posts: 6461
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 7:07 am
Contact:

Post by Spoonweaver »

In a strange turn of events feenicks has refused the prize package and demanded the prize be sent instead to the person in Last place.
I have adjusted the contents of the package accordingly and package should arrive in about 2 days.
RMZ has agreed to film and share the process of opening the prize package.
Coryza
Slime
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2020 8:30 am

Post by Coryza »

Bob the Hamster wrote:Even though I didn't vote or participate (this time!) I want to shout out my thanks to everyone. This was very fun to watch!

I also want to comment on Coryza's picture. Even though it was rough around the edges, I found it super compelling. I want it to be real! I want it to be a point-and-click adventure, heavy on the jokes and light on the puzzles. I want that doggy to find the love it deserves. I want that doggy to eat that radish
Thanks for your encouragement, James! I've been an OHR lurker on and off since 2008, and it's been great to actually participate with others in the community now. My submission was really fun to put together, and to have James himself comment on it is so cool!

I've never done pixel art before, so this was my first experimental effort, which definitely shows. I appreciate the feedback from everyone, it's given me some motivation to refine these ideas. Maybe it will turn into something more!!
User avatar
Rue
Slime Knight
Posts: 135
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:01 am
Location: Bellevue, WA
Contact:

Post by Rue »

since I refused to participate, that's sort of like negative participation. doesn't that technically mean I'm in last place?

since now I'm technically the winner, I demand that the person in first place gets the prize.
User avatar
charbile
Metal Slime
Posts: 601
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:18 am

Post by charbile »

But Rue, my good man, would you deprive RMZ of receiving what will likely be a signed copy of his favorite game, Tim Tim?

Am with Bob, was very fun seeing everyone's concepts. [spoiler]Prifurin the best though, sorry Feenicks, let me have the mic. You did good but Pri really deserved--lol. You should make that ogre battle game, btw.[/spoiler] My pal Coryza's pic was very interesting, want to know what is going on in it.
User avatar
RMZ
King Slime
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:39 am
Contact:

Post by RMZ »

Spoonweaver wrote:In a strange turn of events feenicks has refused the prize package and demanded the prize be sent instead to the person in Last place.
I have adjusted the contents of the package accordingly and package should arrive in about 2 days.
RMZ has agreed to film and share the process of opening the prize package.
This means Cat in Box 2 is the real winner of the contest. Thanks for believing in the game Feenicks! Now we just need Spoon to make it.
Post Reply