Slashdot Mirror
Liberated Pixel Cup Art Contest Launches
Liberated Pixel Cup is an ambitious project backed by the FSF, Creative Commons, the Mozilla Foundation, and OpenGameArt to "program a bunch of free software games"; before the programming can get properly underway, though, they're looking for art that the game logic can manipulate, and they're using a contest to organize collecting it. Now, writes new submitter paroneayea, "Liberated Pixel Cup has announced that the art contest phase has just started. Several other bits have been announced as part of the post, including prize amounts, and a style guide, asset directory, and interactive demo section. Let the liberated pixeling commence!"
Similar to the TIGSource Assemblee Competition. I think I might actually enter this one, though. It really is a fantastic idea for artistically-deficient programmers like myself who otherwise wouldn't be able to create something at a passable level.
Note that despite the emphasis on art in the description, this phase refers to the creation of music and sound effects as well as graphics.
I know there is a big selection bias involved in being an artist, where a lack of realistic expectations is kind of a given, but seriously... I can't even read this summary it's so optimistically cavalier about the scale of the task described my eyes just glaze over. Doing difficult things without purpose isn't art.
When I hung around the "Fine Arts" class in high school, I used an acetylene torch to cut up scrap into shapes I could then weld together into fanciful animal or plant shapes. I'd guess about fifteen girlfriends wound up with my creations gracing their front lawns. Art? They thought so. Years later, they were still out on their lawns, so their families agreed? Me, I just thought it was either fun or interesting to do.
Then I got into pottery in the "Arts & Crafts" class, and THAT impressed me. Shimpo wheels, building kilns with fire bricks, all the interesting chemicals that go into glazes, Raku and reduction methods (suck the O2 out of silver oxide and you've got silver!).
Too bad there's no money in it. I loved it.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I'm a programmer. I love games. I just finished my first HTML5 game: http://magigames.org/runestone_defense.html I used some OpenGameArt.org art in there, even.
I am SO looking forward to entering this contest as a programmer. Solo - HTML5. Oh yeah.
I wonder about the library rules. I used Jawsjs http://jawsjs.com/ in my last game, and it is open source, but I was looking at ImpactJS, (NOT open source) for my next game.
Anyway, more open art for people like me to use = good stuff in my book. Look for my entry when the programming phase opens.
Continuing the thought (sorry):
Then I got into pottery in the "Arts & Crafts" class, and THAT impressed me.
But is that "Art?" Good pottery well done *can* be art. Usually, it's utilitarian/useful (hence "Crafts"). Japanese pottery (ie. Raku) is fantastic stuff. There's whole civilizations, about which we only know of their pottery. Mere mortals can take mud and turn it into rock that lasts longer than their civilization, to be found by later civilizations' archaeologists.
For a mere craft, it can be pretty seductive. Art? What's art?
Meh. Depends how you do it. I think Mona Lisa is overrated. I've seen pottery that damned near glowed with life in the right light. There are glazes that were once used regularly that have been lost and we cannot replicate today.
Sorry for the segue. This's dear to me.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
My god. How many times have I seen that same sentence over and over and over again. Compilers are extremely complex and take a lot of man-hours to be able to use. Those with the skill to do it generally want to get paid. Then, I think it was spreadsheets. Ummm... After that it was an OS kernel. And then I think WYSIWYG word processor.... Web sever, web browser, 3D modelling software, etc, etc, etc.
It's not just games. Software is complex. It takes a lot of man-hours to do. Currently, we have culture where some people write free software. Quite a few of those people get paid to do it now too. It's great! For a long time software has been ahead of the game in terms of "free culture" (by which I mean the products of creative effort that are freely distributable, not necessarily free of charge). Slowly other areas have been catching up.
Games have historically been difficult to create in a free software project because while there were plenty of programmers around, artists and musicians have been lacking. Game designers have actually been plentiful, but they have been stuck in the modding scene (and often doing incredibly creative work) rather than in new development. This is slowly changing.
The one place where free software game development really needs to improve is in realistic business models. I don't actually know of any full games (rather than engines) built on a free software model that are profitable. With business software, you can charge for support, but with games you can't. I would like to see someone try to do it, possibly using merchandizing, serialization and sponsored development (i.e., Chapter 2 brought to you be Coca Cola). It would take good marketing skills, which is lacking the most in free software development. Mozilla makes $100 million a year and they don't do support. I don't think it's a stretch to think that a decent game could do as well.
Probably not.
Quality game design is extremely complex and takes a lot of "man-hours" to arrive at something playable. Those with the skills to do it generally want to be paid...
Same could be said for any software.
In case you haven't noticed, the world is full of wonderful free software written by people with skill, and surely it took a lot of "man-hours".
I'm actually quite surprise why it hasn't been done by now; FSF would've backed it up in the past as well.
Is there a good sprite editor for Linux? Or do people just zoom way in with Gimp and use a 1x1 pen tool?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Nah, you dumb fuck. You're projecting.
The orginal poster said "but it's just casual, not good enough". The point wasn't "it's mediocre for a casual game" (so what? it's fine for 4 weeks of hobby time, wtf is wrong with people, I'm tempted to say "show me YOUR games then before we continue the conversation"), but "it's a casual game period".
If you want to make a separate point how mediocre games add clutter, do that. But don't just dive in arguing for something the OP didn't even say, and then talk about non-sequiturs.
Now to your shitty "point".
What "clutter" does a hobbyist game add? Do you have some kind of library in your head of everything anyone ever made or said? If you cannot navigate around things you don't like, blame yourself, but don't try to stifle others doing something they like in their free time. Critics like you are like the comic book guy in the Simpsons, you can't do shit other than moan, and you can fuck right off. I smell your impotence.
The point of the poster was, he couldn't have made it without free graphics, and is grateful they exist because hey, it's fun to make a little game -- doing this or working in your garage, who the fuck cares. You're basically saying someone who painted their car should have instead let an artist do it, or simply leave it as it is, because that's just "clutter". Nobody asked you to play the game, nobody claimed it's the shit, surely not the author. So WTF? Just remove your eyes and ears, that will cut the clutter right out at the source. You're welcome, too.
Also, put your money where your mouth is. If you imperfect games piss your petty, pitiful self off so much, offer constructive criticism. I guess you're too fucking stupid to even do that. Gamers. Gah.