Um… hi everyone, I am currently writing an if novel for which I’ll eventually post a demo on the forum. I need to know a few things before that -
Where can I create the cover art for it?? The app icon, etc. I don’t wanna create something flashy but at the same time not something generic.
How can I post a demo?? I’m currently writing my wip in CSIDE. So… How do I do it?
How can I change the font for the stats, like, I’ve seen a lot of games have different styles of fonts for their stat pages like… GENERAL STATS will be written in a cyberpunk theme something…
So… Yeah, these are all the doubts that I have rn.
I’m sorry if these topics have already been discussed but I would be grateful if you were to just share the link in the comments.
Thank you
Dont invest too much time or money at the early stages. You can use stock images for example. Unsplash has many high quality images you can use. Photopea is a free online alternative to Photoshop. If you’re not against it, you can also use AI image generators.
Later you can commission the final art for the game when you’re feeling more confident.
The best place to post your demo has traditionally been Dashingdon. There are other options, including self-hosting.
I’m writing from my phone, so it’s not confortable to look up the other posts, but you’re right. All these topics have been discussed before. I suggest searching the forum with keywords in the future. And welcome!
Thanks for the tip, ig I’ll just post the demo for now and then once I’m confident that people really like it then maybe I’ll add the cover art and all that stuff.
And yeah, I’ll look into the forum again.
Be careful about the licence. Not all stock can be used commercially (it will say). How are you with a bit of photo editing? You can quickly knock up something quite easily if you know how (but requires practice if you haven’t done it before. Not a bad thing to learn though). Example is this one that just has a little colour correction, small amount of manual shading, a filter and a title added. I didn’t want anything too time consuming to make as it was just for a speed game I wrote for itch, but it works as quick, free cover art. Even if you’re not up for photo editing, at the demo stage, even just the straight stock image will be enough to set the scene. I recommend against paying for commission art until you’re sure you want to publish it (and you can always make your own if you want to or costs are an issue.) As Eiwynn says, don’t use anything AI generated you want to use in publishing.
It’s a png image. Choicescript is not easy to customise multiple texts on one page so adding images is usually easier. Make sure its png with a transparent background.
Thank you so much .
I think I’ll stick with just posting my demo for now and then once I’ve submitted the 2nd arc as well ( IF people like the story) then I’ll start perusing through how to make cover arts etc.
Thanks for the help
I did not know that. Did they announce it somewhere? Anyway, good to know.
Edit: That’s actually a little upsetting. I understand this is a thorny issue right now, but painting all AI with a broad stroke as something evil is a little ignorant. A lot of these tools, especially from serious companies like Adobe, use only licensed images (or are moving towards that) where the author explicitly gave permission for this use. In fact, newer versions of Photoshop come with AI embedded in it. Some of these tools are paid and if I had spent some money on generated images only for CoG to turn it down blindly I would be more than a little upset. That is not even considering the logistics of how they would vet that.
I’m not sure where they announced that stance of theirs, but I’m a pretty regular at this forum and I didn’t know that.
It’s under the required asset guidelines for HG on their main page. Unless you’re getting ready to publish something you might have missed it. I’m not sure if it’s been announced globablly but they definitely tell you if you are submitting artwork for a game. I’d say if you want to have a case to use AI you’d need to prove the generator was strictly only drawing from appropriately licenced stock. (Most cannot guarantee that at this stage, so I think COG is being cautious as I think it’s going to be a messy area legally in the future. Even if Adobe does manage to pull off the commercial AI, this is highly dependent of their stock archive being genuinely stock and not stolen images. There’s also this thing where to date, you cannot copyright AI created images which could cause headaches if other apps decided to grab the promotional material for one game and use it on their own.)
Just as a disclaimer, I’m not trying to convince anyone that CoG should allow AI generated images (although I’m personally not against it, though it’s different discussion). The only thing I think they should do is be more clear about it. Anyway, I guess anyone who wants to publish through them should read their guidelines. So that’s that.
As stated by the clause @Jacic (thank you for linking it), it is all about the legalities of publishing AI “at this time.” and not about it being good or evil.
To protect themselves they want a clear and free legal right to the art assets to be established and traceable (like a car’s title).
Assets, even those by Adobe or another using only their images, still are questionable, legally, when used in a creative work like a game.
It might take 5 years or it might take 20 for this area of the law to be settled, but I respect HG wanting to protect themselves from expensive litigation.
You don’t need any of that right now. If you really want a cover just because it makes the project feel more legitimate, just make a working cover in PowerPoint (or whatever) for the time being. Here’s one I did just now in five minutes.
Upload your game’s text files (and any image files, if you have them) onto Dashingdon.
Start your game, grab the link in the address bar, and post that in your WIP thread. That’s the best way to get people to play the game – the alternative is a complicated set of instructions to export an HTML file, so I’d just stick with Dashingdon.
Alternatively, if you just want cool cyberpunk text only for your stats screen, here’s how you do it:
*image cyberpunk_stats.png center Stat Screen
And include a .png that’s just the cyberpunk text for your stats screen. Yep, it’s just an image file in all those games.
Canva is great for all your design-related needs!
By the way, you said you’re not a fan of AI, but I recommend using it as a beginning for the coding. It’s imperfect, and you still have to do manual work, but it helped me speed things along.
I literally could not recommend anything less. Imagine aspiring to be an NBA basketball player but instead of practicing free throws you just have a machine do your free throws for you.
Well, it’s not doing the coding for me, especially in later stages (it can’t really handle complicated tasks lol) but DID it helped me figure out what to do in the initial stages by giving my example of how the codes should look.
Reading coding manuals and guides can be scary and prevented me from starting the writing process for a long time, so I’m really not ashamed to admit I got that help
Thank you so much .
One last silly question . Where do I get those stat page images from?? Is there a website for those that has images reading ‘Stats’ etc, or do I have to make something from a photo editing tool?
Anyways, thanks for the help, hope you have a good day
Thanks for the suggestion .
I haven’t really had much problem in the coding section (yet).
But maybe I’ll see how AI can help me out if I’m stuck.
Thanks for the help:heart:, hope you have a nice day .
. Also, not much of a fan of AI generated images. I love doing things on my own.
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. Where do I get those stat page images from?? Is there a website for those that has images reading ‘Stats’ etc, or do I have to make something from a photo editing tool?
