Hello everyone,

My name is Andrew Patton and I am a graduate from Bloomfield College, NJ with a double major in Animation and Video Game Design.
Like a lot of you, I am interested in getting into the video game industry, but I would also like to join the animation industry as well. My specialty is 2D animation/design, and I am also good with various other forms of media entertainment.

My game is called, Calamity Fist of Mayhem. It is a martial arts game based on the classic arcade beat’em up genre. This game has 4 playable characters with different abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Up to 2 players can play at the same time. I created the story and characters with the intention of them being easily adapted into an animation series.

The engine I used is called – OpenBor which is a fan made mod based on the game play of Streets of Rage 2. With this mod, I erased all of the images (characters, backgrounds, and music) and I replaced them with my own, while retaining the same game play elements.

In the final version of the game I have a total of 34 levels including bonus stages and many challenging basic enemies and boss characters, original recorded voices. All of this was completed in January 2012

I would like to share some videos of my game and an eight minute animated short which gives a brief story of the game Please take a look at them.

Futile Shopping Arcade (full Version)
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Rave Club (Part 2 of 3)
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Dark Cave (Part 2 of 3)
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Bamboo Forest (part 3 of 5)
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Animation Movie Explaining the Events (completed May 2011)
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please keep in mind that these gameplay videos was created 1 month before I finished my game.

Also If you want to try out the demo, go to my youtube page. (I must warn you, My demo is almost a year old)

In the near future, I want to completely discard the OpenBor engine and put all of my data into a different engine, which gives me more freedom and no limits as to what I can do (as soon as I find a programmer who is willing to help me or an easy program to use). Since I have completed all of my characters and backgrounds, all I have to worry about is programming. I mainly want to add features that allow up 4 players to be able to play at the same time, a more accurate story mode, and some other features. I would like to be able to put it on Xbox Live or something similar.

If you are interested in seeing more of this game, please leave some comments and I will give the link to the full version. Feel free to look at some of my other projects on my YouTube page. Also, if anyone knows any game engine I can use for free and is simple to use, please let me know.

In the meantime ...
- Enjoy

I didn't look through all of this, but the one thought that hit me immediately is that there is serious room for improvement in your drawing skills. The best thing you could do to your projects right now is to put them on hold completely and improve your drawing fundamentals with pen and paper. Perspective, anatomy, light and shadow.

Until you have a lot more to offer skills-wise, you aren't going to attract people into a project of your own. Volunteering to someone else's project would be a more realistic way to work on a "live" game; it's either that, or start studying programming so you can eventually at least prototype designs of your own.

I didn't look through all of this, but the one thought that hit me immediately is that there is serious room for improvement in your drawing skills. The best thing you could do to your projects right now is to put them on hold completely and improve your drawing fundamentals with pen and paper. Perspective, anatomy, light and shadow.

Until you have a lot more to offer skills-wise, you aren't going to attract people into a project of your own. Volunteering to someone else's project would be a more realistic way to work on a "live" game; it's either that, or start studying programming so you can eventually at least prototype designs of your own.

My response to this is South Park

The screen is rather small for the action. Feels cramped.
Also, it would be better for the screen to be centered on the main character all the time - I always hated that part in brawler games where you couldn't see how many enemies are left or what they are doing because they are beyond the screen region.
Oh, and the main character's strange stance when not facing an enemy makes the game look even weirder - you should probably replace it with something more natural.

My response to this is South Park[/quote]
South Park is drawn that way intentionally, and if you look closely you'll notice that everything that's drawn in South Park has a certain uniformity to it, as if it were to adhere to some rules. The art in this game is simply bad drawing skills and it's so obvious it hurts.

The screen is rather small for the action. Feels cramped.
Also, it would be better for the screen to be centered on the main character all the time - I always hated that part in brawler games where you couldn't see how many enemies are left or what they are doing because they are beyond the screen region.
Oh, and the main character's strange stance when not facing an enemy makes the game look even weirder - you should probably replace it with something more natural.

My response to this is South Park

South Park is drawn that way intentionally, and if you look closely you'll notice that everything that's drawn in South Park has a certain uniformity to it, as if it were to adhere to some rules. The art in this game is simply bad drawing skills and it's so obvious it hurts.
[/quote]

I should have perhaps used the term "Hollywood scribbling". I hesitate to necessarily call the drawing skills as bad without seeing a deeper collection of his works. However the use of bad drawings within different medias has been around for a very long time. In the absence of the OP actually making commentary with regard the style of the drawings presented I chose to interpret this as being a deliberate quirk i.e. Hollywood scribblings.

I do agree however with the feeling of cramped but left it alone in keeping with above thinking.

The screen is rather small for the action. Feels cramped.
Also, it would be better for the screen to be centered on the main character all the time - I always hated that part in brawler games where you couldn't see how many enemies are left or what they are doing because they are beyond the screen region.
Oh, and the main character's strange stance when not facing an enemy makes the game look even weirder - you should probably replace it with something more natural.

Remember, I did not create the actual game engine, so I do not have control over how the screen moves or put focus on the playable character.
Also, if you think about it, not knowing how many enemies are left or not knowing what they are doing off screen adds to the challenge of the game. (Games are not challenging if you know everything that going on, some things needs an element of surprise)
Also about what you said about strange stances, can you name 1 fighting game that does not have characters with strange or awkward stances/movements? This game/animation is not meant to look real; I like to be creative with what the characters can do (without ripping off or coping others) And if you are talking about 1 legged stances, I can show you lots of stances that looks similar (both fiction and non-fiction)

I didn't look through all of this, but the one thought that hit me immediately is that there is serious room for improvement in your drawing skills. The best thing you could do to your projects right now is to put them on hold completely and improve your drawing fundamentals with pen and paper. Perspective, anatomy, light and shadow.

Until you have a lot more to offer skills-wise, you aren't going to attract people into a project of your own. Volunteering to someone else's project would be a more realistic way to work on a "live" game; it's either that, or start studying programming so you can eventually at least prototype designs of your own.

I am never going to stop or put my projects on hold just because you and a few others do not like my art style. I have seen people with worst art styles/skills than me in the game industry and the animation industry both amateur and professional (weather it is on Xbox live, newgrounds, or even famous animated TV shows) and they all manage to attract different fans bases

You have to also put into consideration about how much time and effort it takes for someone to create an entire concept from pre-production to post-production.

Remember – stopping everything does not improve art skills. Continuing your work helps improvement in art skills over time. In other words Evolution (every form of entertainment has evolution in styles)
It does not matter who it is, everybody has room for improvement. There is no such thing as perfection in entertainment/media.

I am not saying you or anyone else have to like my work, but just remember that everyone has a different style of art or a different experience level, so it is only natural that things looks different or do not follow the rules.

I should have perhaps used the term "Hollywood scribbling". I hesitate to necessarily call the drawing skills as bad without seeing a deeper collection of his works. However the use of bad drawings within different medias has been around for a very long time. In the absence of the OP actually making commentary with regard the style of the drawings presented I chose to interpret this as being a deliberate quirk i.e. Hollywood scribblings.

I agree with what you said about the Hollywood Scribbling. This was around for decades in all forms of media
and about explaining my art style, I will explain it at a later in the near future.
You can also look at my youtube page to see some of my other art videos.



in the meantime, does anyone know any free video game making programs where i can make my game (with easy to learn programming)?

if you think about it, not knowing how many enemies are left[/quote]
That's not the problem I'm talking about. Rather when your character is at the edge of a screen with the enemy being beyond the screen boundaries it's quite frustrating.

Also about what you said about strange stances, can you name 1 fighting game that does not have characters with strange or awkward stances[/quote]
Mortal Kombat. Not that it's the only one.

And if you are talking about 1 legged stances[/quote]
That's exactly what I'm talking about. It kinda looks awkward when your character stands on one foot right after stopping. But it's not really a game design problem, so I don't think it's really worth discussing. The biggest problem is that characters are too large for the screen.

That's not the problem I'm talking about. Rather when your character is at the edge of a screen with the enemy being beyond the screen boundaries it's quite frustrating.

First of all, again, this "problem" was around in beat'em ups since the original Final Fight (probably longer). Also as I explained, this is an engine directally based on streets of rage and final fight, so it is only natural that the same "problems" occur.

Mortal Kombat. Not that it's the only one.

Mortal Kombat Have a lot of strange stances from time to time (I do not at all have a problem with strange stances) Strange stances and unnatural stances are a part of the fighting game history.
Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Tekken, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Blazblue, Darkstalkers, ect, they all have strange stances, so this is nothing new.

(And if you are talking about 1 legged stances)
That's exactly what I'm talking about. It kinda looks awkward when your character stands on one foot right after stopping.

In the case of my character, her stance was loosely based on the Shaolin Crane stance (and I also put my own twist to it)
Anyway there are many characters in mainstrem fighting games who uses 1 legged stances (of many different styles)
Adon and Juri Han from Street Fighter, Hwoarang from Tekken, Kitana, Shang Tsung, and lei mei from mortal kombat DA, Kyoshiro and Kuroko from Samurai Shodown, the list goes on.
There are many 1 legged stances in fighting games, this is not new.

The biggest problem is that characters are too large for the screen.

That can be fixed when I convert my game to a new engine, so this is not a problem at all