While you have a point, AnS, I suspect that any poll that doesn't have a neutral-looking option will be plagued by complaints. Even if "neutral" is always used as "weak no". This is one of those places where logic just doesn't triumph.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Presumably anything that'd make your health drop would be against the rules. Keep that 99 pegged!
Edit: oh, yeah, another random thing I noticed: when you have the Hyper Beam, if you morph while firing, sometimes you'll make a partial bomb spread (typically I only get two bombs centered on Samus, so it's not really much of a "spread"). I assume this means that Samus is temporarily considered to have a charged shot ready whenever she fires the Hyper Beam.
Something to do while waiting for the self-destruct to start, I guess...
Edit again: this one's totally useless AFAICT. If you do a bomb spread while underwater, the bombs have a massive range -- but only if you aren't wearing the Gravity Suit. Probably works on the same principle that the Gravity Jump does.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Incidentally, a lot of cartoons, American and Japanese alike, are made in Korea these days. And Batman: The Animated Series was animated by a Chinese outfit, if I remember correctly.
In any event, LagDotCom, you're perfectly within your rights to dislike a style (especially if you have specific reasons for disliking it), but that doesn't mean that the style is flawed or inferior to other styles.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
My college dorm had a MAME cabinet. From what I recall of the guy who did maintenance on it, the biggest issues were finding the right kind of display, and getting the controls hooked up to the computer that ran the thing.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I don't think you're going to get a definition that everyone agrees on, mainly because "anime" is basically Japanese for "cartoons" (I'm sure the translation isn't literal -- if nothing else, "cartoons" carries a "for kids" connotation that "anime" doesn't have -- but they're used in similar fashions). It's not like American cartoons have a defining point to them. There might be more stylistic variation in American cartoons than in Japanese ones, but then again they've also been around for about four more decades so they've had more time to proliferate. Anime itself has done plenty of evolving.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Well sure, a lot of people who draw in a given style aren't thinking too hard about why the style is the way it is. So you'll have a lot of crappy drawings in the manga style because works using that style are popular and people just imitate what they see without understanding the fundamentals. That doesn't mean there aren't good reasons for the style to be the way it is. After all, you can't have everyone imitating each other. A skilled animator is going to have that knowledge of the fundamentals of drawing and the basics of the style, because you can't use the style to full effect without it.
As for eyes vs. mouth, honestly the eyes are a lot more emotive than the mouth is. I'm not saying that you can't read emotion from the mouth alone, but it's far easier to do so with the eyes. They're the big signallers we look to when wanting to know how someone feels. You could do an entire animation with just pairs of eyes in the darkness (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone has), but it'd be much, much harder to do with just floating mouths.
Remember, in animation, you have about 1/24th of a second for your frame to make its impact. 1/12th or 1/8th if you're duplicating frames. (And assume the huge amount of just static people standing around in your average anime style is because they have to be there for the scene, but they aren't trying to make an impact on the action. Scenery, in other words.). You need big motions to make that impact! Take the action as far as you think it can go believably, then take it a bit further. If it turns out you went too far, you can edit it back down. But usually you won't need to.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I found this one interesting, so I'll comment.
All the examples you give are aspects of magnitude; that is, the eyes/heads are too big, etc. Whereas 'drawing eyes on top of hair' is just plain wrong, rather than a caricature. What sayeth thou?
If you look closely at Golden Age (1930's/1940's) cartoons*, one thing you'll see from time to time is that they "break" joints to create better movement -- that is, the joint bends backwards, opposite the way it'd normally bend. This is "just plain wrong" -- but it creates a better result than if they didn't break the joints. The animation is smoother, more dynamic, and oddly enough, more believable.
In short, animation is not a sequence of life drawings. You draw what you need to draw to get the desired reaction from the audience. In this particular case, you draw the eyes on top of the hair because the eyes are vital to reading emotion (in fact, you can convey just about any emotion solely through the eyes if you draw them well). You could of course choose different hairstyles for your protagonists, but as noted earlier, part of the overall style for Japanese cartooning includes really weird hairstyles and I guess they don't want to be constrained by having to leave the face free. Every once in a while you'll see a character whose eyes are hidden, though -- most commonly by opaque glasses, but also by hair, hats, hoods, and the like. Frequently these characters are more "mysterious" than others on the show.
The great freedom of drawings is that they do not have to imitate life.
* If you're curious about Golden Age animation techniques, I highly recommend The Animator's Survival Kit, a book by Richard Williams, who was the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I seem to recall hearing that Mike Tyson's Punch-Out has audio cues for everything, which means that it can be played by deaf people with enough patience to learn the cues by trial and error.
Edit: as pointed out by Warp down below, of course I meant blind people here. Whoops.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I just noticed something while playing a ROM hack (A More Differenter Zebes). I was in Maridia, suitless, and shot a vertically-aligned door while falling onto it. It stays solid while it's opening, of course; I turned during that period and when the door opened, I was instantly at full fall speed, just like with the crumble blocks.
I don't know if this'll ever be of any use, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Edit: incidentally, 105 missiles and 28 super missiles is not enough to kill Mother Brain if you don't have the charge beam. Even if you restock on missiles after taking out her barriers, you'll be 2100 damage short...
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Why do they think they can get away with saucer-sized eyes, huge heads, hair that could be used as sawblades, or 500ml sweat droplets?
It's just part of the style. You could make similar complaints about just about any animation style.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Initially my stance was similar to yours, Slowking, but apparently the different trading items do different things when RBA'd, so they technically fall under that "give you an ability, but you can get rid of the item" bit that Petrie was talking about.
Memory glitches do weird things to run categories.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I don't know all that much about this game, but I definitely recommend comparing Proto form against the other available forms for different levels; IIRC most of the MMZ series bosses can be taken down really quite rapidly so the extra damage may not be helpful there (and extra damage during the levels is rarely useful), but being able to take more damage during the main level can be very helpful indeed.
Of course, you also have to consider the time taken to switch forms...
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Man, that business on level 13 with the two slider traps was nuts. Nice reflexes there. And an awesome overall run. Pity about that dark level.
My only concern is that the game will change enough by v1.0 that your speedrun will be invalidated. Say, if the jetpack were made impossible to get before level 8 or something. Or, y'know, if the final boss is made harder.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Ehh, you can make write-only code in any language. Just because you can't pack a lot of meaning into a little code doesn't mean that you can't make code that makes no sense. :)
I'm curious what the DATA block does. Is it a set of instructions for how to draw the image? A bitmap? I might be able to figure it out myself if I knew what MID does, but there's also those $ and : businesses. Who puts $ after the variable name, anyway?
Edit:
Bisqwit wrote:
"there is a hat. the hat is blue. there is a feather. the hat is decorated with the feather. there is a man. the man dons the hat."
This version's a lot more amenable to change if, say, you need the man to have a scarf too. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Ehh, I don't see the harm in it, and it serves a legitimate use: by posting in threads when they get moved here, people who care about the thread/game will know what happened to the submission. Previously these actions were "silent".
As for what the bot says, that's just silly fun.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I think Highness's main point is that you should only be using as many bullets as it takes to kill an enemy. Sometimes when you deal with an enemy with many hitpoints, you keep firing until the enemy starts exploding, but that means that some of your bullets are pointless. This is a stylistic thing -- it doesn't affect your speed at all unless there's lag, but it makes the run look sloppy.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Looked entertaining to me. Shang Tsung gives some nice variety to the game, though you did chain the same combo several times in a row at a few points. What was with the sudden Rain vs. Noob fight, though?
Keep in mind I know basically nothing about the MK series here. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
