Topic: Awards 2011 - for your consideration thread

[bicilotti]

The AGS Awards 2011 have just started!

Did you make a game in 2011 and would like it to be nominated/voted for? Post it here!
Your post should come with a download link, some informations about your game and screenshot(s) (thumbnails preferred).
This is an 'official' showcase, so don't be shy, it's perfectly ok to peddle your game!

A couple of notes:

• This thread is for "for your consideration"s only, if you want to discuss the awards go to the main AGS Awards 2011 thread.
  
• If you think a game deserves attention but the author is not around here, feel free to add it yourself! Really!

edit: you might also want to consult the AGS awards 2011 categories and tell us where your game excels

* m0ds note: Please, game considerations ONLY in this thread. Keep all other discussion elsewhere please :)

[poc301]

Time for my shameless plug for my release for 2011: Murran Chronicles 3 - The Lifedrinker of Landsdowne

The Murran Chronicles: Episode 3 - Lifedrinker of Landsdowne

Game Download Link (120mb):
Click Here To Download!




Plot/Storyline
-------------------
Shortly after your adventure with the mystery in Montana, you are given a case involving mysterious deaths in Landsdowne, Massachusetts. The bodies of two men in their early twenties have been found recently, and according to local authorities both dead men looked to be in their seventies when their bodies were found. There is no explanation as both men were thought to be healthy, and in the prime of their lives. Add to this the odd reports of a pack of strange animals roaming the town at night, and you have your work cut out for you. Is there some sort of vampire creature on the loose as some of the town rumors suggest? What is behind the rumors of odd goat-like creatures that have been seen after nightfall? Are the two related? You are thrown into the midst of an age long battle between good and evil as you investigate the case of the Life Drinker of Landsdowne.
  
About The Game
------------------------
Life Drinker of Landsdowne is in 640x480 resolution, running in Hi-Color mode.   This game is more than twice as long as the second game, and contains much more content, many more characters: some with dynamic locations, and 3 different endings depending on the paths and choices you make as the player.  

This third game in the series is the first to not feature the police cruiser as your primary mode of transportation.  Dust off those walking shoes, there is much to see in the town of Landsdowne.

This game will also feature something new to the Murran Chronicles: day and night cycles.  Explore the town during the day, and return to places as night for a whole new look at them.  

Specs:

Total Playable/Interactable Rooms : 45 (More than 1/2 of them with Day/Night versions)
Additional cutscene/other Rooms : 23
In-game specs
------------------



Screenshots (Click for full image):


   


Download Link (120mb) :
Click Here To Download!

Suggested Categories of Nomination:
Best Game (Why not dream big!)
Best Original Story
Best Dialogue Writing
Best NPC (Gary, the punk-rocker)
Best Character Art (Neil did some amazing spritework)

Thanks,

Bill

[icey games]

Begin your quest with Dave, Tifa, Muffy, & Christen as you venture the shogin tower in search of the shogin crystal.

Features:
Auto-Job changing
Online chatting
DLC import
Avatar maker





Download

[pcj]

Vohaul Strikes Back

Download link
Announcement thread
Games database page

Plot:
When a fallen arch-nemesis returns to wreak vengeance on the galaxy, it's up to space janitor Roger Wilco to tread the treacherous ice world of Radon, outwit an army of simian commandos, and lead the indigneous people in a revolution to take back the planet and defeat the diabolical mad scientist Sludge Vohaul.
  
About/Specs:

Resolution: 800x600, 32-bit, compiled in AGS 3.2.1
Roughly 90 playable rooms
Cutscene/other rooms: Roughly 35

This is probably the longest Space Quest game ever released - official games included.  VSB is the product of about a decade of work from many team members.  A voice pack is being planned for future release.



Screenshots (click for larger version):


More screenshots available at http://www.sqvsb.com/screenshots
Game discussion forums available at http://forum.sqvsb.com

Thank you for your consideration.

[Ponch]

For your consideration:

Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday - Chapter 3

Pictured: A Thrilling Cutscene! (There were LOTS of those in this game!)

Why vote for this game? It's just the greatest Barn Runner game ever! (Which may not be saying much, but it's a personal best! And that's gotta count for something, right? )

What do you need to know about this long-delayed yet finally released game? I'll tell you!

Database Page
Announcement Page
Barn Runner's Number One Fan Page

Check out my stats panel.

(Which seems to be the thing to do this year)

The work of one man over a period of two and a half years (four if you count the original build which was lost when my old hard drive crashed and I had to start the whole thing over from scratch). The greatest labor of love since Neil Armstrong built a rocket in his backyard so he could go to the moon and get his frisbee back!

Stats:
640x480, 16 bit, made with love using AGS 2.72
421 rooms (103 of them playable)
Oodles of cutscenes, all hand drawn and rendered with AGS herself (no FLICs or other such trickery!)
Tons of optional arcade sequences, mini games, and other goodness. Plus a gratuitous sex scene!

I've been making AGS games since 2003 and haven't won an award yet. But this year, I hope my magnum opus will finally send me soaring into those halcyon heights.

Please consider voting for my game, and thank you for your consideration! 

[TheJBurger]

FYC: 

Azriel Odin, ex-assassin, arrives on the rain-drenched planet of Barracus to find someone.  When things go horribly wrong, he can only seek help from the very criminals he used to work for.

Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a man called Delta-Six wakes up in a hospital with no memory.  Without knowing where to turn or who to trust, he vows to escape before he loses his identity completely.

As fate brings these two men closer together, we discover a world where life is cheap, identities are bought and sold, and a simple quest for redemption can change the fate of a whole galaxy.






AWARDS
Independent Games Festival 2010 - Student Showcase Finalist
Featured at IndieCade 2010 @ E3
Indie Games Arcade 2010


FEATURES
Full Voice Acting + Developer Commentary
4-8 Hours of Gameplay
Over 80 hand-painted backgrounds
A fine-tuned action system, fair to both action and non-action gamers
A traditional verb box point 'n click interface with the "KICK" Verb
Neo-Noir soundtrack by Nathan Allen Pinard

PRESS

"Without a doubt, this is already one of the best adventure games of 2011; visually, aurally and thematically stunning. A phenomenal achievement."
-Alternative Magazine Online

---
Cheers! 

[DuncanFx]

For your consideration: Death on Stage

Winner of MAGS January 2011
My first game, created in just under a month.
Download here (5.5mb)

Plot: A young magician 'dies' on stage and must re-invent himself in order to save his dreams of stardom, with the help of some bizarre characters.

Featuring:
6 Rooms
5 Characters (and a rat)
Fully animated intro/outro
320x200 16-bit colour hand-scrawled artwork




Thank you for your consideration. Cheers!

[WHAM]

For thine consideration,  m'Lords and m'Ladies, I have produced three candidates during the past year:

1. He Watches (DEMO)
http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1477

A short playable demo showcasing the story, visuals and the atmosphere of the upcoming He Watches. The game is to be a combination of classical ghost stories and horror themes and more modern gameplay mechanics and internet horror (labelled "creepypasta").

Potential nominations:
- Best Demo
- Best Music

      



2. Submerged - LaSol
http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1404

The game that managed to win the MAGS competition of February 2011: Submerged - LaSol. An underwater adventure in which you must help Stan Winston, an unlucky janitor, to escape certain watery death.

Potential nominations:
- Best Short game
- Best Voice Acting ()
- Best Programming (how do we decide this one? Released source is reviewed?)
- Best Innovation
- Best Sound Effects
- Best Puzzles
- Best Music

      



3. Of the Essence
http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1426

Of the Essence was a technical experiment into a more direct and more action-oriented gameplay and was created for the MAGS competition in April 2011. While the deadline of the competition caused the game to get cut short of content, the game itself is still a working example of gameplay and tech. Besides: this game comes with achievements! See if you can get all of them!

Potential nominations:
- Best Innovation
- Best Music

      

[Ghost]

For your consideration:

Chance Of The Dead

COTD was made for MAGS, July 2011, to the theme of "A Second Chance". The game puts you into the slightly mouldy shoes of undead cheerleader Janet Burdie, who is resurrected from the dead to make her greatest wish come true: Enter her signature cake into a local baking contest.

For me COTD was an exercise in making a very short game a very complete package, and thus we have:
* lots of custom animations
* logical, simple and somewhat funny puzzles
* a cool soundtrack by m0ds
* three rooms, with a total of 230400 pixels (  :o )
* three characters (plus one very cute dog)
* more double entendres than you could shake a rather short pipe at

COTD won the MAGS (by default) and generally was well recieved (really, see HERE and HERE, or just watch a hilarious Let's Play!), with graphics, animation and story being mentioned as strong points (much to my joy!).

Game Database page

Why not give it a try and your consideration? Think about it, the result would be GRATEFUL DEAD!

[Radiant]

Watch the Let's Play video!

For your consideration: Indiana Rodent (Raiders of the Lost Cheese), the biggest platform game ever written for AGS. In particular, think of the technical difficulties in creating a tile engine in AGS, with eight-way scrolling and parallax background, using the Arcade Adventure Game Studio for a decidedly non-adventurey approach. Furthermore, for the retro fans, it has great chiptune music by several composers.



The game started as part of this year's One Room One Week, where it was voted Best Programming and Best Music. It has since evolved with better jump physics, greatly improved graphics, more enemies, and most importantly, more and larger levels. It includes a boss enemy, as well as secrets and unlockables. If you want, download the old version and compare it to the current.

See this thread for details. The full game is part of the AGS Bake Sale, so only a demo is available for download.

Four out of five mice recommend this game for

• Best Non-Adventure Game
• Best Programming
• Most Tasty Cheese

[markbilly]

For Your Consideration - Prime Minister's Questions: The Game

DOWNLOAD PAGE





I would be honoured if you could all consider PMQs: The Game for a few awards this year. The game was a resounding success, and got more coverage than any games developer could ever hope for. PMQs was featured in publications from Rock Paper Shotgun to the Guardian and the New Statesman and reached over 8,000 unique downloads, many of those in its first two weeks.

These are the nominations I think it deserves:

*Best Short Game
*Best Gameplay
*Best Non-Adventure Game Created with AGS
*Best Character Art

Many thanks,
Mark

PMQs: The Game features sound effects by Matthew Brown.



Go to the Games Page.

DOWNLOAD PAGE

[TomatoesInTheHead]

Humbly asking you to consider, at least to play if you haven't:

Tales of Otubania
(it's not as bad as it sounds)


(it's not as bad as it looks)

This short, comedic game features random, computer-generated, thus dadaistic setting/story/puzzles, which is quite original and will make you vote for it!
The game was released back in 2010, but wasn't added to the database until 2011, so it couldn't be part of last year's awards. And that's why I want to bring it back up here.
Tales of Otubania is fully voiced with (only) my lovely voice, and the dialogues, monologues, comments and characters are intended and said to be funny, also there's much to try out besides the direct solution, almost every silly action and interaction gets a different response.
(bad things: some annoying flaws in the gameplay, like having to use exits instead of walking to them, and inventory has no visible hotspot (it's always the center of the icon), and as you can see, terribly simple, but hopefully still working graphics. Well, and illogical puzzles, because they're generated by my very own Artificial Non-Intelligence)

But don't take my words for it, listen to what these enthusiasts said in the comments section on the games database page:

"[...] above average."
"[...] understandably weak [...]"
"[...] worth the time it takes."
"whimsical [...]"

It was rated with 5 Cups by the AGS rating panel, 2 of which are even blue!

Games Database entry
(the comments are in fact not that bad!)

Completed Games Announcements thread
(including some more infos about the making-of)

Download

There are even two "Let's Play" videos of the game available on YouTube, one by our very own community member Domithan, the other one by someone who found it somewhere else I think. That being said, I'd of course appreciate if you play the game yourself!

Should I recommend some award categories in which I'd happily see my game getting nominated?
Well, here you go:
* Voice Work
* Non-Player Character
* Dialogue Writing
* Original Story (in the sense of an original idea for this experiment, and some amount of creativity to fit a story to the puzzles and setting given by the story generator)
* Joke Game (if this category is chosen to be included)
* Innovation (decided by the commitee, but still!)

[Wesray]

For Your Consideration: The Far Corners of the World - Chapter 1: The Book the Box and the Key

This is my first released AGS game, and all things considered it turned out quite well I believe. You can get the game HERE.



Story:

Stats:
- 82 screens, including 52 playable rooms
- 59 characters
- 80 Inventory Items
- 162 views
- 35 GUIs

A few player reactions (see HERE and HERE):
- As far as the game goes, in a word: Wow! [...] TFCotW hooked me BIG time.
- Excellent Game! Nice solid, original puzzles!
- This is an absolutely outstanding game.
- So far it's wonderful - interesting, charming, not too hard, but not too easy.
- A brilliant example that graphics aren't everything.
- Fine writing, well depicted characters and some old school puzzle solving, I am enjoying this greatly!
- Thoroughly immersive and enjoyable.
- Great game, everyone should play it.

Some suggested award categories:
- Best Original Story
- Best Puzzles
- Best Dialogue Writing
- Best Player Character
- Best Non-Player Character

[Akril15]

I doubt I stand much of a chance against most of the other games released this year, but oh well...


Adventure: All in the Game (sequel to Adventure: The Inside Job) may not offer much in the way of challenging puzzles, but if you're a seasoned adventurer in the mood for a casual stroll down memory lane, then this may be the game for you. It features both hi- and low-res graphics, numerous characters and scenes from multiple classic adventures (both popular and obscure), a good deal of original art and animation, and plenty of tongue-in-cheek references to various adventure games as well as the genre as a whole.

Join Thalia James as she attempts to train a new recruit to the Computer Games Maintenance Society. On the surface, this may not seem like a challenging job, but as it turns out, this particular recruit is from a genre that hasn't exactly been on good terms with Adventure...

--------------

Screenshots (click to enlarge):




------------------

Featuring:
-A new and improved game navigation system
-Modest dialogue trees
-Highlighting cursors -- always know when your mouse is over a clickable hotspot
-A "Touch" cursor in the inventory window (yes, I've finally figured out how to make it work)
-Audible footsteps
-A more cohesive GUI design scheme
-Short-range teleportation -- hold down the spacebar and click the walk cursor where you want the protagonist to go, and she will "teleport" to that location, or at least to the nearest walkable area (Why did I include this feature? Because I couldn't get a walk speed slider to work to my satisfaction.)
-An Adventure Game Expertise setting! There are lots of references to both well-known and obscure adventure games in Adventure: All in the Game. If you aren't getting most of the references, simply lower this setting and they'll be explained for you.

------------------

Suggested Award Categories:
Best Dialogue Writing
Best Animation

------------------

Download the game

Visit the game's website
(which includes a walkthrough, behind-the-scenes info for when you've completed the game, as well as some potentially useful code which I felt like sharing.)

[Mods]

 
For your consideration: For the Music nominations please consider my music from 3 soundtracks. I've put together some special higher quality editions for your consideration:

Chance of the Dead (17mb) with a homage/blatent rip of the Amazon Queen theme
Night of the Testicle (40mb) with its sloppy take on the Back to the Future theme
I Forgot (17mb) with its sombre tone

Of course I urge you to consider all of those games (and The Visitor) for best game/best short game too!

And if you want, please consider my own, Night of the Testicle - you may even think about Lefty McBollock as the best player testicle, and Andy Penis as the worst non player character.

or 11-11-11 !! Even though you are likely judging a slightly buggy version 1.

No demos this year...  : Saints missed the deadline too, but please keep it in mind for next time  Otherwise Jim will cry if people forget.

Thanks for reading... Best of luck to everyone and thanks bicilotti for overseeing the event for another year!!   - -  

[Alan v.Drake]

I'll be humbled if you consider my creation:

Wretcher, what this demo  offers is but a mere shadow of what it's meant to be, a short experience unrelated to the story but with a reasonable load of atmosphere. I hope those of you who didn't had a chance to play it earlier will enjoy it.

Features: Atmosphere and manual dithering.

Games Database entry
Download

[Baron]

Please consider the work of some of my Swarm members for Byte of the Draculator


Jack Pumpkinhead is a strong candidate for BEST MUSIC 2011

ShiverMeSideways did a phenomenal job voicing Merrick, the lead vampire, as did the background cast of SpacePirateCaine, Studio3, Hudders, cat, ddq, kconan and Sinitrena.  They deserve BEST VOICE WORK 2011.

Hudders dialog writing could easily qualify for BEST DIALOG WRITING 2011

And why not honour the whole swarm with a BEST SHORT GAME 2011.

EDIT: And, as per swarm lobbying, why not vote for Merrick as BEST PLAYER CHARACTER 2011?


Games Database Entry/Download

[Bogdan]

I think this game deserves attention, but the author is not around here. So I'm gonna put it up.

Something Novel

It's a horror adventure game by Seb Greaves.

Plot of the game:
"J. Stanson is a multi award winning horror novelist, known around the globe for his prowess in weaving tales of misery and woe.
But one fateful evening his role is transformed from narrator of the terrifying, to subject of it, as he and his fellow authors are
thrust into a nightmare situation of their very own. Can you survive the night to tell the tale, or will this be the end of Stanson's story?"

It features
*5 characters, including a very interesting and original antagonist!
*More than 10 rooms where you explore a creepy mansion.
*Interesting puzzles.
*all inventory items have unique interactions for other objects in the game.
*And much more ...



Link to Game Database

Link To Completed Games Thread

Link to Download the game(5 mb)

[Rocco]

For your Consideration:
City of Thieves: Rescue Sandy

Burglar Simulation




Story:
Dave Miller, an retired burglar is forced to burglarize until his depts are paid off.
The syndicate boss underlines this special pressure by hijacking and imprison Sandy, Daves beloved Girlfriend.
Only successfull burglarys can avert the evil events.

Mingames:
- Picklock
- Alarm deactivation
- safe cracking




* Released for MAGS 04/2011


Download the game HERE.
Go to the Games Page.

It should be nominated in:
*Best Non-Adventure Game Created with AGS
*Best Programming

[RayManiac]

Here's my newest published version of...

Maniac Mansion Mania - Episode 40: Trapped in the cellar v. 3.1

Short Adventure Game

 

Story:

Dave and Sandy had planned with Razor to visit one of her gigs... But Dave, stupidly, lost the tickets at his house and both start to look for them... until they enter at the cellar and suddenly found they're trapped. Now it's Razor who has to find the cellar key to free her two friends.

Released in the AGS-Forum on 12/12/2011

Features:

-one easteregg
-Contents six languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese)

I would like to nominate my game for:

Best Short Game

Best Dialogue Writing

You can visit the game page here

Download