A PW FAQ

Got an army you want some constructive criticism(CC) on? Use This Thread!

Need some help with drawing your army? Use This Thread!



First things first, what is PW?
PW, or Pixel War / Paint War / Picture War is a game mode where two or more players use pre-drawn characters (from a sprite sheet) to fight against eachother by moving around their army on a pre-drawn map.
The army is usually drawn with MS Paint or GIMP, and so is the map.

General rules of a PW
1: Save the pictures as .png
2: Use your common sense for what's possible and what's not.
3: Do not resize anything, it fucks up the quality of the image.
5: Do not make the map you are playing on smaller/bigger.
6: Do not draw penises, it's not fun nor is it mature.
7: Do not go god-mode with your army, it ruins the game.
8: Write beneath the media-tags what you added or did with your soldiers.
9: Use your common sense for what's possible and what's not. (I know it's rule nr 2, but it can't be stressed enough!)
10: Have fun!


So, what do you need to play PW?
First, you need an army. If you're completely new to PW there are some free armies for you to use in this thread, but it's highly recommended to draw your own.
You should draw several poses for your soldiers when doing your sprite-sheet (the army, all together in a big picture showcasing your troops), as this makes it easier to show when you move your soldiers, when they take cover and do stuff in general.

The army
Like I mentioned earlier, this is the one thing you need to be able to play PW.
An army is usually a couple of soldiers (with different poses, such as running, standing, kneeling and aiming), some sort of drop-ship (helicopter is the most common type of drop-ship), battle-tanks and air support (airplanes, helicopters or soldiers in jump-suits).

Here, let me show you an example of a sprite-sheet.

This is the sprite-sheet, it's a small one as you can see as it's only having a couple of soldiers on it, and a few poses for the soldiers.

The general size of a human being is around 20 to 25 pixels high, so you should use this guideline when you draw your army.
Stealing other peoples sprite-sheets without their consent or taking individual characters or vehicles and recolouring them is considered bad taste, and is looked down upon. Draw your own original army.




How do you play a PW then?
Most PWs use the declare system, where you have to write declare before making your moves.
You roughly have around 30 minutes to make your moves, if you fail to do it within the time limit others may declare.
Some PWs use a turn system, where a number of players sign up for the game and use a list on their turn of order.
Let me show you a few examples of what is allowed (and what is not) in a PW.

DO move within the bounds of realism, having your soldiers in a running pose is also a good way of showing that he's running.
DO NOT teleport your soldiers from one half of the map to the other.

DO let your troops have their fire spread, it's not realistic that they always hit their target, especially not if they are far away.

DO NOT make un-realistic fire angles, the soldier is clearly aiming forward but somehow he can shoot at the soldier in the canyon. Also notice that he is moving, a soldiers accuracy is drasticly reduced while doing so.

In general, using your common sense is the best way of knowing if it's possible or not.

Now then, let us look at how a round of PW usually goes.
For this part I will use the following map
This is an awfully small map for a PW, they are usually atleast ten times bigger.

First, you will need a sprite-sheet, for this tutorial I will once again use the sprite-sheet JesusMan made.
Secondly, I will need two (for this tutorial, a PW is usually fought between three or more) players.
Me(Player one), and the other me(Player two) will do.

Me declares.

\"A soldier appears on the left, he's standing around so far.\"


Notice how I did nothing with the soldier, it was my first round and I placed one soldier on one part of the map. You rarely do any movement at first, except for showing up.
Let's see how the other me does now.

The other me declares.

\"My soldier is standing on the right, he's not doing anything either right now.\"


The other me just started too, so he's doing nothing right now.
But this is just the beginning. Let's continue.

Me declares.


\"The soldier grabs his weapon, loads it and starts moving towards the edge of the cliff.\"


The soldier is now on the move, and I replaced the sprite accordingly to what he's doing.
Notice how he moved, it was just a short bit and he did not start to fire upon the enemy as soon as he saw it.
Playing a PW is about having as much fun as possible, I would have ruined it for both me and the other me if I had teleported to the spot the other me had his soldier and killed it, and wouldn't have been realistic at all.

The other me declares.

\"He grabs his weapon, puts the safety of and starts moving towards the enemy.\"


You might have noticed that I have changed the way I write about my soldiers, this is because when you play your PW you usually act as if you're the army you are using.
They are now ready to fight, and battle will soon commence.

Me declares.


\"The soldier comes closer to the ledge, and spots the other enemy. He must've spotted me, but I got the higher ground. The soldier kneels down, puts the weapon to his shoulder and begins to carefully aim.\"


The brown soldier is now in a prime position to take down the white soldier, but anything can happen in the field of battle.

The other me declares.
\"The soldier panicks and aims his weapon at the brown soldier, and fires.\"


The other me let's his soldier run and start shooting, a stupid decision since his aim is probably piss poor after moving and then starting fire at once. None of the bullets hit their target, and the white soldier is now at the mercy of the brown soldier.

Me declares.

\"The brown soldier takes careful aim and fires one bullet. It hits it's target, and the white soldier dies.\"


This is a small sample of how a PW round can go, the brown soldier (me) had the upper hand all the time and could easily take his time while the white one (the other me) was in a hurry, panicking as he knew he did not have any advantage at all.
PWs usually go on for far longer however, but given the small map and there only being two soldiers fighting it did not last longer than seven declares.


FAQ

QuestionI got a question.
I have a purple background on my sprites, now how would I transfer the sprite to the map? I think just copy pasting, and then recoloring everything again, but that may take time. Is there another way or easier way to transfer them?

Answer
You need to put your background (purple) as the secondary colour, that way you can copy paste it without any problems.
Here's a small tutorial :

This is what happens when you just copypaste from your sprite-sheet, let's see how we can fix this problem!

Select the background colour on your sprite sheet (in this example it's bluegreenish), you do this by using the following tool :
and right-click on the bluegreenish colour.
You can then copy paste it onto the map without the bluegreenish background.

Remember to put the copying to transparent ;
Using white as the background colour on your sprite-sheet negates this problem, as long as you remember to copy-paste it as transparent.

So this is the end of my tutorial on what a PW is, what you need to play a PW and a small playthrough to show you how to play PW.

Ask questions if you'd like, this is a FAQ for your convenience and if there is something unclear we can probably clear it up