I'm guessing Inkscape might be possibly of the cel-shading style of the legend of zelda-the wind waker. Maybe that's another program or something, but it seems like it fits.

Zelda Wind Waker is 3D models rendered with a cell shading renderer. But yes the style would be easy to emulate with Inkscape.

If you want to see examples of vector art in modern games, look at flash games - for example Dofus and zOMG are 2 flash-based mmos.

Ok, so the cell shading thing is a seperate renderer.

Can you cell-shade 2d like in the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass? Also, I was talking to my friend about collision detecting and he said it was really complex and hard to do. He suggested I use free movement instead.

Cell shading was originally a 2D technique, it is named after 'cells' which are the clear plastic sheets on which both anime and western animation were painted until computers were used instead. Phantom Hourglass is actually the same as Wind Waker, 3D models rendered in a cell shading style, but again like Wind Waker it is a style that is easy to emulate in Inkscape.

Are you trying to find examples of games that use actual 2D vector graphics? Try the Grow games, all the PopCap Games, and I may have mentioned them above but Dofus and zOMG. Viewtiful Joe and Yoshi's Island both have classic cell shading styles, as do many 2D games based on an anime series or cartoon; for that matter if you don't specifically need a game as an example, practically every anime series and western cartoon series has art that is some variety of cell shading and could be easily done as vector art, if it isn't originally. Many popular webcomics (VG Cats, Penny Arcade, Ctrl+Alt+Del) and online Flash Cartoons are great examples of vector art: Homestarrunner, Radiskull and Devil Doll, Retarded Animal Babies. Also commercial cartoons like Powerpuff Girls, Southpark, and Spongebob Squarepants - I dunno for sure what they are made with, but they sure look like vector art.

I don't actually know what kind of game you are making, and I'm not a programmer, so I couldn't say about the collision detection, whether it would be particularly hard and whether it would be necessary for the kind of gameplay you want. I'm not sure why it would be hard since in a 2D game the math is simple - every object in your game is a rectangle, the game keeps track of the movement of the playable character's rectangle and any projectiles or movable objects like crates and monsters, and if two rectangles try to occupy the same space the game checks to see what should happen - should the playable character walk in place, push on the object, obtain the item, do damage to the object, be damaged by the object, bounce off, change state, or pass through. Your friend may be thinking of 3D collision detection which is much more complex.

Oh yeah, I bet that's what he meant. I found out there's a cel-shading thing for gimp, so I might use it. I'm fairly confident I can now do the graphics I intend. I drew some stuff out yesterday when I was bored and picked a new concept so this will be interesting.

A cell-shading thing for Gimp? What kind of thing? Normally cell shading is done in a Gimp/Photoshop type program by defining regions with a lasso tool and optionally turning them into layer masks, but if someone invented something to help automate and speed up the process that would be cool.

No, what you said is basically what I had to do. I looked through a tutorial of how to cel shade, only to realize I've been doing it almost automatically without even knowing it.

Ah, ok. So are you going to go with Gimp instead of Inkscape then?

Both maybe