If you're curious about the site and you'd like to stop in and chat, check out our IRC channel (you can find the link to it in the top right corner of the screen). It's a pretty active place. :)
...is the Sampling Plus license it uses, which is incompatible with a lot of other licenses. It's a great site and a nice idea, but I wish they'd offer more licensing options.
As it stands, though, a lot of people there are willing to release their samples under other licenses if you ask.
The OGA tileset is intended to be a top-down set of map tiles suitable for use in 2D games, such as RPGs and strategy games. I'm starting out with a generic forest area, and expanding into other types of areas (desert, arctic, town, city, etc). While it has a fantasy-ish leaning for now, I'd eventually like it to have tiles that are suitable for modern, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, and other types of settings.
As for what I need, for now the top prioroty is just producing more tiles, so that's where I need the most help. As it stands, I don't yet have enough for a viable tileset. Once we have forest and town tiles, I'd like to start pushing the set out to game developers. For the moment, though, if you know any devs who could offer specific suggestions, I'd be happy to listen and take them into account.
"Exclusive" in this case refers to the fact that it showed up here first. A lot of the art we get here comes from other projects and such. What we're getting at is that, at least at the time the art was created, you won't find it anywhere else. :)
For the record, though, anyone is welcome to use, archive, and distribute this art under the terms of the licenses it was released under.
I'll give it some thought. The problem that would need to be addressed is the metadata that comes with the files. In some cases, the files are zipped, and the licensing and attribution info are within the zip files, but in the cases of single images and whatnot, there would be no way to know who the image is by or how it's licensed.
Obviously there are ways around this, but it'll require a bit of thought, and I'll need to write a program to export the data. It'd be a bit of an undertaking.
One, it seems to me like Korean style RPGs (particularly MMO's) are "grind-heavy" by nature. The thought sounds horrible to me personally, but they're pretty popular over there, so it could just be a matter of taste. Maybe people like grind-heavy gameplay.
But let's assume, for a moment, that people *don't*, and these games really are poorly designed. I guess the difference between art and design is that good and bad art are both pretty easy to identify (there is, of course, an entire school of thought that there's no such thing as bad art, but I suspect most of those people are bad artists). Good and bad design I think are a bit more nebulous.
If I were to draw a picture of someone, you might look at it and say, well, the anatomy is off, or the shading is wrong, or something. But sometimes if you play a poorly designed game, it just doesn't feel right. You can guess at the flaws, you can follow all the design rules, but in the end, you just have to fiddle with it until you end up with something that feels good. That's a long, iterative process that I think ultimately requries a lot of feedback from your players. Take Wesnoth or WoW, for instance. These are both highly polished games. The key is that they've been around for years, and that whole time, the development teams have been gathering feedback from players and updating the game and interface to make them more fun to play.
You don't end up with good design by accident, and most of the time you don't have good design right out of the box. It takes a lot of time and effort.
Awesome work, as always! :)
Bart
If you're curious about the site and you'd like to stop in and chat, check out our IRC channel (you can find the link to it in the top right corner of the screen). It's a pretty active place. :)
...is the Sampling Plus license it uses, which is incompatible with a lot of other licenses. It's a great site and a nice idea, but I wish they'd offer more licensing options.
As it stands, though, a lot of people there are willing to release their samples under other licenses if you ask.
Bart
I can't wait to see what you'll contribute. :)
Take your time, though. School and life can be crazy.
The OGA tileset is intended to be a top-down set of map tiles suitable for use in 2D games, such as RPGs and strategy games. I'm starting out with a generic forest area, and expanding into other types of areas (desert, arctic, town, city, etc). While it has a fantasy-ish leaning for now, I'd eventually like it to have tiles that are suitable for modern, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, and other types of settings.
As for what I need, for now the top prioroty is just producing more tiles, so that's where I need the most help. As it stands, I don't yet have enough for a viable tileset. Once we have forest and town tiles, I'd like to start pushing the set out to game developers. For the moment, though, if you know any devs who could offer specific suggestions, I'd be happy to listen and take them into account.
Does that help clarify it a bit?
Thanks!
Bart
"Exclusive" in this case refers to the fact that it showed up here first. A lot of the art we get here comes from other projects and such. What we're getting at is that, at least at the time the art was created, you won't find it anywhere else. :)
For the record, though, anyone is welcome to use, archive, and distribute this art under the terms of the licenses it was released under.
Bart
I'll give it some thought. The problem that would need to be addressed is the metadata that comes with the files. In some cases, the files are zipped, and the licensing and attribution info are within the zip files, but in the cases of single images and whatnot, there would be no way to know who the image is by or how it's licensed.
Obviously there are ways around this, but it'll require a bit of thought, and I'll need to write a program to export the data. It'd be a bit of an undertaking.
Bart
I can de-thread all of the comments and make them like the forums. Would people prefer that?
Bart
I have two thoughts on this.
One, it seems to me like Korean style RPGs (particularly MMO's) are "grind-heavy" by nature. The thought sounds horrible to me personally, but they're pretty popular over there, so it could just be a matter of taste. Maybe people like grind-heavy gameplay.
But let's assume, for a moment, that people *don't*, and these games really are poorly designed. I guess the difference between art and design is that good and bad art are both pretty easy to identify (there is, of course, an entire school of thought that there's no such thing as bad art, but I suspect most of those people are bad artists). Good and bad design I think are a bit more nebulous.
If I were to draw a picture of someone, you might look at it and say, well, the anatomy is off, or the shading is wrong, or something. But sometimes if you play a poorly designed game, it just doesn't feel right. You can guess at the flaws, you can follow all the design rules, but in the end, you just have to fiddle with it until you end up with something that feels good. That's a long, iterative process that I think ultimately requries a lot of feedback from your players. Take Wesnoth or WoW, for instance. These are both highly polished games. The key is that they've been around for years, and that whole time, the development teams have been gathering feedback from players and updating the game and interface to make them more fun to play.
You don't end up with good design by accident, and most of the time you don't have good design right out of the box. It takes a lot of time and effort.
Fixed.
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