Playing Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on my Wii U (it'll have to do until I can afford to repair/replace my 3DS and get MH4), Final Fantasy Record Keeper on my Android and Soldner-X2 on my Vita. All quite fun.

I personally prefer female protagonists. I honestly feel like there aren't enough female characters in games that aren't designed to be "men with boobs" but instead are actual women whose strength comes from powers and abilities as well as feminine qualities. I don't think there's anything wrong with a sexy female lead character. The female form is beautiful and appealing and there's nothing wrong with emphasizing that. Hence why Bayonetta is one of my favorites and why I design my characters the way I do (which I hope to be sharing in due course).

Having a playable female lead (or being able to create one) is a major selling point for me.

Off the top of my head:

Tifa (Final Fantasy VII)

Samus Aran

Dante of Devil May Cry (not to be confused with Dante of DmC)

Bayonetta

Squall (Final Fantasy VIII)

Old school games like Gradius III and R-Type III did it for me back in the day, but more recently I find myself enjoying Soldner-X2 a lot. It's hard to find a good shump nowadays that doesn't descend into the irritating "bullet-hell" territory.

I wish Radiant Silvergun was on a system I had access to. I'd been hearing how awesome that game was for years, but never played it. (I did play Ikaruga, didn't enjoy that much).

Amazing work. The atmosphere and animation are mighty impressive.

Hi, I go by the name Dualmask on the web (you can find me under that username on deviantART, Tumblr, Twitter, and on FB as DualmaskArt). I'm a self-taught character designer, storyteller and writer whose always wanted to make games. I went through many different softwares for the purpose of becoming an independent game developer, and I think Construct 2 is the one I'm going to stick to. I'm a late bloomer but my dream has always been to make video games...and I hate writing code so that's what brought me here. Really liking Construct so far...I've made a little test of the engine for a character I created, and as soon as I'm able to post links on the forums, I'm eager to get some critiques and advice on how to improve. For now, I'm going to try to be an active participant in these forums because I have a lot to learn and maybe even a little bit to offer.

Dualmask

I checked out your stuff on DA. You're pretty good. Some of your stuff is better than good. But you do seem to draw mostly hot chicks. There's nothing wrong with that, who wouldn't buy a game loaded with hot chicks, but you're going to have to diversify your repertoire. All kidding aside, I think when you get focused on a solid idea for your game, you'll do fine.

Yeah, my gallery is loaded with the ladies. Frankly with as many games out there that are focused on grizzled dudes with five o'clock shadows, muscles or guns to spare, the world could use a bit more hot chick-focused games. After all, you're supposed to do what you love, and what I love is to create media focused on pretty girls. But diversification isn't a problem...when the time comes to add the males, I've got plenty of designs to choose from.

Thanks for checking out my work. May we both excel in our game development pursuits.

Dualmask

I have a nearly identical story. I guess I'm a little ahead of you though. I started with C2 a year ago. I have focused on a single game concept and it's really materializing. You may find C2 to be extremely fluid in getting your ideas into tangible form.

I got your private message, but since I don't even have enough rep to send PMs yet, I'll have to reply here.

I don't strictly speaking do pixel art--I use Flash and Photoshop to turn my drawings into cutout-style sprites. The URL probably won't work as you said but you can look me up on deviantART under the username Dualmask (same as here). I have a folder in my gallery titled "Sprite Work" that shows some of the characters I've made.

I love 2D platformers more than pretty much anything. Mega Man, Castlevania, Metroid, more recent titles like Guacamelee, Moon Diver...heck, I'm even a huge Terraria fan. Those are the kinds of games I want to make...but with my own characters.

Hi, I'm new here, and I was looking for a topic to post in first. I just turned 37. I've always wanted to make video games, even went to school for computer animation and programming, but then life happened--a family, a full time job, etc., slowed me down. I spent my youth coming up with game ideas (board games mostly) and the desire never went away, even though I tried to suppress it by focusing on illustration, novel writing, comic-making, freelance art, etc. Since the desire to make games never went away, I kept recording game ideas and taught myself how to make my own game character sprites for whenever I managed to gain enough skill to actually bring them to life in an interactive way.

Been through many different programs trying to simplify the game development process as much as possible and, after looking into it rather deeply, I'm leaning toward using Construct.

My game development experiences have been...well, nonexistent, really. Aside from making sprites, I find it difficult to stick to one idea long enough to bring it to life. I try to simplify my concepts as much as possible, but in the end I end up struggling to come up with my own environments and the like. I just get a little jolt whenever I think about making games and I know I don't want to live the rest of my life without at least trying to create a game.