Author Topic: Screenshot Run!  (Read 4435 times)

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Offline Raylin

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Screenshot Run!
« on: July 01, 2009, 06:41:27 pm »
I've seen a lot of empty (no screenshots) archives on ticalc.org.
And, it saddens me because all the work those people put into their games isn't recognized because of their lack of screenshots. So, a concept I came up with while trolling is this...

Before you release your masterpiece to the world, why don't you throw a Pause command into the game loop? It may be overbearing if your loop spins through cycles like a hurricane, but you'd be able to have screenshots! And your game would be noticed moreso than the other guy!
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Offline noahbaby94

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Re: Screenshot Run!
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2009, 06:47:26 pm »
care to explain a bit more.
That's what she said!!!

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Screenshot Run!
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2009, 06:56:21 pm »
True. I can understand people not doing animated screenshots, because I heard certain ppl not being able to run CalcCapture or VTI Capture on their PC and not everyone have access to calc ROMs or can use ROM dumping programs. Not to mention certain games won't run on emulators.

However, every linking software comes with a screen capture utility. Just press ON while game is running (or add a pause command), then screencapture!

Even if not animated, it will still grab more interest.

Also, if you do animated screenshots, please, do not speed them up! This is some sort of false advertising, because it's like if you wanted to pretend the game runs friggin fast, but in fact it's really slow. People notice these things often. The busy indicator runs at rapid rate, so they tell themselves: "wait, the author is trying to fool me, the program must not be that great"

And finally, your description needs to actually describe the game, not just contain "PLZ download my game it rules lol!"

Unfortunately, though, we cannot really do much about this right now, since only ticalc admins currently have the ability to add screenshots to files from retired authors. If Ticalc ran another summer screenshooting thing with the community like they did in 2004 and 2005, this would help a lot.

Oh and one thing I don't understand is why some people posts screenshots of the crappiest parts of their game. For example, let says someone has a graphical RPG. The dungeons looks great, but the menus are all text. I see some ppl just screenshooting the menu and not even showing the dungeon eye candies. Do you want to know the worst part? I even seen screenshots showing nothing on the screen, just the graph axises. I even seen a screenshot showing an ERROR!

Personally, back when ticalc BASIC archives were in one category of games listing all 3000 programs in one single page, I avoided pretty much everything that didn't have any screenies. Now, I don't mind as much, but I at least like to see a preview of what I'm downloading. Heck, even a Youtube link works for me.