MAGS December: "Rebirth" (Winner Announced)

Started by Atelier, Mon 02/12/2013 20:29:07

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Myshkin

Good luck all of you who are still in! I'm going to be out of town for a week so I am officially out. Hope to play a few finished ones when I'm back! With the amount of free time I have and the speed I'm working at I think mine will take at least another few weeks anyway.

Dualnames

So, here's my entry.

DAKOTA


Screenshots:

Story:
Dakota, is a horror game with a bit of investigation.
Taking place in a motel, on Christmas Eve in 1962, Dakota, Minnesota, the game tells the story of an unsolved case, narrated by the only survivor of that night.

"One man dead by a 6 bullet revolver."                                                                             
"Any reasonable man, would have categorized this as a hit and run. I know I should have."
"But I found seven darn bullets on the body."                                                                       
"The shots were not apart, and everyone witnessed that they barely separated each other."


Features:

  • Simple left-click interact/walk - right click examine interface
  • Several GUIs to spicen up gameplay
  • J-RPG inspired artwork and visual style
  • Horror gameplay
  • A story told from three perspectives
  • Pretty particles including rain, noise and snow[/i]


Thanks For playing, please let me know what you think.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Peder 🚀

Mine and Atavismus entry:

The Story:
"The story is about a man who wakes up in a white technological medicalized room. Sounds familiar? But this man is not anyone…
Based on a true story and hypothetical future."

Screenshots:


WARNING!
This game was designed to run using a 2x nearest-neighbour filter, if you are unable to run the game using this filter we advise you to play the game in full-screen mode!


Atelier

Thanks guys that's brilliant! I think that's everybody. I'll start the voting in a couple of hours when I get back home.

Atelier

The competition has now ended and voting is underway. Please visit the MAGS site or make your choice right here:




Dakota by Dualnames
Cryo by Peder Johnsen and Atavismus

Click on the game title to download. Be sure to play all the entries before sending your voice! Good luck to all participants.

VOTE

Abisso

First of all, congrats to both the teams!

I've already played and completed your entries. Though for both, I'm not sure if I got the best ending available. I'm not even sure there's a different ending for Dakota, but I'm fairly positive there's other 2 for Cryo.

One thing is sure: they're surely 2 completely different experiences and approaches to game-making.

Dakota is much more narrative, basically a slightly interactive game whose main focus is telling a story. Graphics in japanese rpg-style (quite nicely put together, I must say) and a good atmosphere, thanks to several changes of ambience, pace and visual effects. Not much challenge, but a neat experience. Good interface, responsive character. Maybe a bit too much info in a short span, but the way it's repeated and explained makes it quite easy to have a clear idea of the events at the end of the game.

Cryo is more interactive and offers some challenge. Some of the puzzles looked really crazy at the first attempts, but they turned out doable and entertaining shortly after. The medicines' one I still don't understand fully (though I suspect some sort of subtle critique to the sanitary system). Graphics are minimal, maybe too much for my taste. And a lot of white, so much that you almost can't open your eyes! Couldn't you use at least a darker tonality, like, for example, vanilla? ;D
Interface is what I liked the least: I hate not having a way to know what I'm clicking on, or at least if I'm clicking on something or not. This made
Spoiler
finding the Computer Theory&Practice book
[close]
a matter of repeated clicking. And the character usually walked far from the clicked objects.

Anyway, thanks to both of you for a pleasant hour of play (maybe less? I actually didn't bother to check).
Welcome back to the age of the great guilds.

Atavismus

Thx for your comment Abisso.
Indeed two different approaches.
Besides, I have to sincerely congratz Dualnames for his really polished game with good atmo ;)
About white gfx, I guess it's a matter of brightness adjustement.
About label, it's a choice: you have no label in real life hehe (mind, the cursor changes when on something)
About "vanilla", Im very glad you noticed the allusion, congratz (I put some others all along the game...)

Abisso

Quote from: Atavismus on Wed 08/01/2014 12:24:10
Thx for your comment Abisso.
Indeed two different approaches.
Besides, I have to sincerely congratz Dualnames for his really polished game with good atmo ;)
About white gfx, I guess it's a matter of brightness adjustement.
About label, it's a choice: you have no label in real life hehe (mind, the cursor changes when on something)
About "vanilla", Im very glad you noticed the allusion, congratz (I put some others all along the game...)

Did the cursor really change? I swear I didn't notice. It might be due to the fact I've played in a window, although with 2x filter on. I'd seriously consider doing a remake with different graphics. Do you really need all to be so small on the screen, and those huge rooms (which, by the way, don't even take up all of the available screen)? I'm saying this because I tried to imagine how the game could be with a graphic style like, for example, Ben Yahtzee Croshaw's one, and my mental depiction was very satisfying. A lot of puzzles would be much more pleasant as well.
That said, the current style is consistent and has its own charm, but it just doesn't fit such a game in my honest opinion.

I noticed a lot of other references in the choice of books, but the only global one I got is that.

Spoiler
The whole thing about "white", though true, was mainly an attempt to slip in the "Open your eyes" reference as well, by the way. ;D In case you didn't know, "Abre Los Ojos" (which translates as "Open your eyes") is the Spanish film whose Vanilla Sky is a remake of. I only watched the former, because I read that Vanilla Sky is not just a remake, but an exact reshoot with the same sequences, and just different actors (except for Penelope Cruz). I enjoyed the original a lot, anyway.
[close]
Welcome back to the age of the great guilds.

Atavismus

Abisso, since years, Peder and me have tonnes of ideas, but we are always blocked by gfx coz none of us is good at drawing.
As we want to go back on AGS, I decided to draw those minimalist gfx in order to finally finish a game.

But you are right: we would like to make a remake with better gfx and an extended story (as the lift shows it, I had several floors in mind).
Of course, we'll consider it only if the game has enough feedbacks and downloads (no point to extend something useless :O)
So people who wants to redraw Cryo are welcome: contact us!

Hidden references are always fun to add and even more fun when people find them.
I also prefer the spanish version, even if the US one is good too.

Daniel Eakins

Forgive me for such a newbie question, but don't the rules say that game assets must be completely new apart from music and sound? Dakota's main graphics are ripped from Illusion of Time (or Illusion of Gaia as it is called in North America), a JRPG for the SNES. Don't get me wrong, I'm just curious as someone outside of the competition.
We all have our time machines, don't we?

Atelier

Quote from: Daniel Eakins on Fri 10/01/2014 14:20:55
Forgive me for such a newbie question, but don't the rules say that game assets must be completely new apart from music and sound?

Yes, that's true. The thread in Completed Games says "J-RPG inspired artwork and visual style". But I've looked at some screenshots and at minimum, the drug addict in the beginning is directly taken from it.

Well, we'll have to see what Dualnames says.

Dualnames

#31
Yeah, they are ripped, besides the drug addict that I didn't draw on, the rest were drawn on, so yeah, whatever you guys want to do. In my defense I didn't have the time to draw on them as much as I wanted, so if you feel like it I may withdraw the game from the competition.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Atavismus

If I have my say, I am for maintaining Dakota.
Sure, ripped gfx are a significant help but, imo, no big deal, that's only games, just for fun!
Go for a reminder of the law and let me lose with Honour :D

Abisso

Quote from: Atavismus on Fri 10/01/2014 22:19:14
If I have my say, I am for maintaining Dakota.
Sure, ripped gfx are a significant help but, imo, no big deal, that's only games, just for fun!
Go for a reminder of the law and let me lose with Honour :D

Very honourable of you, indeed!

As a supporter of having clear rules and limiting exceptions to an absolute minimum, I have an opposite view. Of course, it's no big deal! No prize, just a funny competition: but the contest is cool because it has got rules, guidelines and deadlines.
Creating graphics from scratch takes a lot of time, and steals precious days that could be used to make better puzzles, sfx, music tracks and so on. As a matter of fact, I think Dakota looks much better than Cryo, visually speaking.

But if it's true that the graphics have all been painted over, except for the drug addict, I think we can consider them "almost" original.

So I guess the decision is up to our dear Atelier! :-D
Welcome back to the age of the great guilds.

Dualnames

Look guys, I forgot about the rule, and when I did remember it took much time to repaint, and they still look like the originals. Basically, I didn't make the game to win, I made the game because i felt so inspired to do so after watching Planet Terror. Thanks for the kind words.

@Atelier, if you want you may take down the entry, I don't mind at all. It's all in good faith, Peder and Avatismus worked hard on their entry, and deserve to win regardless of whether I'm participating or not.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

selmiak

Did you really repaint or overpaint these backgrounds or did you just overlay a colorful layer in a blending mode and said artwork done?
If it was just the second point I think this is not what MAGS is about (except when the theme is copy+paste your own adventure...), as much as I like Dakota and also having it tested and all...

Dualnames

The backgrounds are combining and editing tiles, so they're original per se. Basically I've made several games editing pictures, so that's basically the art style here as well. If you want i can make a list of where and how everything was created.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

selmiak

nah, this is too much, imho if you think that you didn't violate one of the few mags rules, especially
QuoteYou are not allowed to use material already created before this competition. Your game must be completely new! Music and sound is an exception;
then it should be fine.

Stupot

Is anyone else struggling with the "perseverance" sequence in Cryo? Is there a way around it for us slow typers? (or am I the only slow typer?)

Atelier

Votes!

Dakota by Dualnames - 1 vote
Cryo by Peder Johnsen and Atavismus - 8 votes


Thanks to our participants, and congrats to Peder and Atavismus!

Re. painting over graphics: it doesn't matter in this instance as Cryo won anyway; but, I may be inclined to allow paint-overs if the source is freely available to the public, as the rule is for audio - provided it's done sparingly (not constituting the majority of the game) and transparently. Even so, it's not worth making much of a comment on as this is the first time it's happened afaik.

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