MAGS August: "It's Summer!" (VOTE)

[Atelier]

Topic: 'It's Summer!'

This month's guidelines were set by Mandle:

IT'S SUMMER!!! And with summer comes all the awesome summer activities:

BBQs, picnics, hiking, camping, sports, swimming, and one of the most widespread summer activities of all time:



So yeah...This summer's MAGs theme is DROWNING...

Interpret this theme any way you like:

Literal drowning, saving someone from drowning, drowning in paperwork, feeling like you are drowning in a relationship...etc.

Anything goes as long as the theme of drowning is obvious in the finished work...

Ending 5th September

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What is MAGS?

Started in 2001, MAGS is a competition for amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner. It aims to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, and provide a kick-start into making adventure games. Regardless of skill, MAGS is for everyone. Voting is based on "favorite" games, and not the most artistic, or the best coded. If you have bad art skills, use it as a chance to do some graphic work. If you're sub-standard at coding, use it as a chance to give scripting a go. Ultimately, people will vote for the most enjoyable entry.

Rules

• You may work in a team to produce an entry.
• You are not allowed to use any material created before the competition. Your game must be completely new! An exception is music and sound; you can use any audio that is freely available to the public.
• Any modules and templates featured in this board are also allowed.

Entering MAGS is simple. First, conceptualise your game following the month's criteria (see top). Second, create your game fueled only by coffee. Finally, post your game in this thread, including:

âÅ"“ A working download link
âÅ"“ The title of your game
âÅ"“ A suitable in-game screenshot

At the end of the month, voting will begin, usually lasting for fifteen days. The winner chooses the next month's theme, and their name and game is immortalised in the MAGS Archive. For more information, please visit the Official MAGS website.

[Crimson Wizard]

Ending 3rd August

Wut?

[Atelier]

I meant September my good man

[The Great Underground Empire]

Sounds good!  I'll be taking the plunge.

[Mandle]

Cheers to Atelier for getting the ball rolling on this midsummer days' nightmare of DROWNING...

I came up with the theme before heading off to summer camp on an island with 33 students where we swim at the beach daily...This is my seventh time as a supervisor at the camp and I have battled for water safety improvements since the start...But still I go every year with the fear of a drowning incident lurking in my heart...

Water safety has improved greatly though and this year there were no panicky moments except for me having to rescue one frightened girl out of relatively shallow water...No big deal though as we had staff standing by to help out just in case, and I was able to hand her off to another staff member smoothly to get her back on dry land...

The young lady in question went on to become confident enough to swim about 40 meters out to a pontoon and jump off/swim around it without her life-jacket for heavily supervised portions of time, much to her credit...

So yeah...We got back from the camp with no incidents and the main reason I chose this theme before I left for the camp was as a kind of jinx-breaker...

So now guys: Show us whatcha got!

And prepare to start drowning yourself in the undertow that is MAGS...

[WHAM]

Haven't released anything in ages, so it's time to get into MAGS again!
Project codename: "Cold Hand" is a go.

Wish me luck!

[Mandle]

Wish me luck!

Best of luck to both WHAM and PlayPretend with their entries!!! Can't wait to see what you both come up with!

[Radiant]

But I'm drowning in other projects already...

[Tournk]

Interesting theme. I might give it a try.

[WHAM]

First character sprite in a while for me. I tried to keep it quite simple, not too many colours and shades, but still enough.
Next will need to find motivation to animate the walkcycles and some interactions.

[Ponch]

With OROW also competing for my time, I don't know if I'll be able to finish both (or either), but I'm going to give this one a shot.

[The Great Underground Empire]

If it helps, I saw your post and went, "Oh carp, Ponch is joining.  I'm gonna loooose."

This is the kind of background/character art you'll all be seeing in my upcoming entry, tentatively titled "Sirenity".  I'm going for a pop-up, cutout book type feel:

[Mandle]

The art samples look lovely so far guys!

And welcome aboard Ponch!!! (or is "welcome overboard" more appropriate to the theme?)

[WHAM]

Cool pic, PlayPretend. I'm more of a pixel-art through-and-though man myself, but it's still refreshing to see other styles being worked in AGS.

Also: Ponch is overpowered! Maybe working on OROW at the same time will balance him out though... hmmm...

With what we have so far, I see that 4 people are showing interest (Radiant, are you number five?) so looks good! Good luck to everyone working on your games and try not to DROWN in the workload. I'm so sorry

I'll post some progress posts in the thread, but nothing too revealing. I gotta keep some secrets and surprises for the final release.

[The Great Underground Empire]

Thanks Wham, you too!  Art is my suckiest skill, and I admire the hell out of people who can actually draw with pixels and real arty skills.  That's why I build vector puppets and color with textured clipping masks...it's the only way I can squash and push things into shape.   Still, it beats the heck out of the Paint Shop Pro 7 gradients I used on *everything* when I was an AGS newbie 9 or 10 years ago, cringe-lol.  Can't wait to see your game!

[Mandle]

Thanks Wham, you too!  Art is my suckiest skill, and I admire the hell out of people who can actually draw with pixels and real arty skills.  That's why I build vector puppets and color with textured clipping masks...it's the only way I can squash and push things into shape.   Still, it beats the heck out of the Paint Shop Pro 7 gradients I used on *everything* when I was an AGS newbie 9 or 10 years ago, cringe-lol.  Can't wait to see your game!

And for all of your supposed "sucky" skills your popup-book art looks totally gorgeous! Good for you for turning your "limitations" to your advantage I say!

I could sooooo get into a game with that art style, especially once I see the poor soul lured by the siren drowning behind those paper waves!

[Ponch]

Nah. Ponch isn't overpowered. He's overhyped. His track record with MAGS / OROW is mixed, at best. 

And that "pop up" storybook style looks GREAT!

Looking forward to a fun MAGS this month, guys!

[Chicky]

I've drafted up ideas for a simple hacking game and made some funky animations. I'm not going to promise an entry because I have holiday booked for the end of this month (yay!) but i'm going with theme of 'drowning in the bitstream'

Let's see how this plays out.

[vertigoaddict]

Oooh... a little intimidating (that's good I'd say, it fans the flame of motivation{insert firey eyes!!!}).
I love that style Playpretend, it's got a great asthetic!
Well... since everyone's showin' off I think I'll do the same, here's a little sneak:

I'm gonna try and be really ambitious this time around, hopefully I'll manage to do what I want to do in time.
I'm gonna be boring about the title and just call it "All Gone Soon 2" (yay for sequels!).

[WHAM]

Solid progress on my end. Main character walkcycles are about done, backgrounds are all done and all NPC character sprites are designed and drawn (though not animated yet).
Here's another sneak peek (hidden due to being so tall).

Spoiler

"I'm on a boat!"

[close]

I also finished my puzzle design flowchart today, and got a small test build up so I can start to navigate the game and get a feel for things like movement speed etc. So far I feel good about the project, and am really pleased with how fast I've gotten things done so far. Lot's of work still to do!

[Mandle]

Oh wow....WOW!!!

Sooo many potential entries!

Go guys...GOOOO!!!!

Chicky: Great to see you around! Your name actually came up when I met with Stupot, Cat, and Raeff back in spring for Hello Kittens. You were mentioned as one of the top AGS males often mistaken for female based on name, avatar, etc. I think you came in placed just under AprilSkies...

Ponch: I can't believe I'm hosting my first MAGS and such a long-time AGSer as yourself is potentially in the running!!! Your name also came up at Hello Kittens when we found a tiny little cow knick-knack in a store. It had a cute little bobble-head!

vertigoaddict: I cannot wait to see what you come up with! All Gone Soon was one of the most memorable short games I have played. It said so much about relationships in such a brief time. It also taught me that having your characters' backstories fully fleshed out can give them so much more depth even if they are not mentioned directly all that much. I really felt like your characters had full lives outside of the game itself. Please complete AGS2!!! (hahaha only just now realized the acronym....heeeeeey...is that an on-purpose easter egg?!)

WHAM: "I'm on a boat!"....ahhh but for how long I must wonder! Looking amazing! MUST PLAY!!! MUST DROWN IN LOVELY PIXELS!!!

PlayPretend: I've already said it and Ponch also mentioned but...please get your game finished because the art style is something I want to see more of while I'm immersed in your game...

Oh, and I just realised that, given the theme, these could be some of the most immersive AGS games of all-time... (ouch)

[Chicky]

Heh I feel like a celebrity Mandle I've not heard of this 'Hello Kittens' - sounds fun! Count me in if you have another meet up

I don't think the female avatar helps my cause.

Quick update: First puzzle tree is designed and a large portion of the graphics have been completed. Will be putting together the first puzzle in AGS tonight.

[Mandle]

I've not heard of this 'Hello Kittens' - sounds fun! Count me in if you have another meet up

Oh...It was a quick throw-together kinda meet-up where cat and Raeff were coming on a trip to Japan and so myself and Stupot met up with them for a day out in the country...

In fact myself and Stupot are heading out on Thursday on an adventure that might just land us in jail...

Stay posted!

[The Great Underground Empire]

Thanks Mandle and Vertigoaddict!  I'm super excited at how many people are joining too, and all of your art looks awesome!   This is gonna be a great competition!

I work outdoors for a living and I'm sitting inside right now while rain pours down, making the game on my laptop.  Woo creative momentum!

[Mandle]

I work outdoors for a living and I'm sitting inside right now while rain pours down, making the game on my laptop.  Woo creative momentum!

I love being inside my home while it's pouring down rain outside...It's even better if there is thunder and lightning and I don't have to go out anytime soon...

[Mandle]

I don't think the female avatar helps my cause.

OMG don't you ever EVER change that avatar!!!

I have watched that thing for minutes at a time!!!

[Chicky]

Haha Mandle, how can you be sure it's not designed to hypnotise you!

Here's a shot of what i'm working on.

[WHAM]

Ooooh, Chicky, that looks nice! Though, with my recent internet experience, I expect to see an easter-egg dickbutt ascii image there somewhere...
I found a flaw in my map design that forced me to do a bit of a re-design with the placement of a large number of objects and hotspots, so a minor setback and a couple of hours wasted there... Back on track now!

EDIT (to avoid doubleposting): Holy heck! It's been a week! I need to haul ass with this thing! Currently working on the games intro and outro cinematics and related events. Lots of sprites still to add and I haven't even got a single puzzle coded yet.

[Gurok]

Hi,

Not sure where to post this. (Perhaps we should have a thread for administrative MAGS things like this.)

There's a general usability issue with the current mags-competition.info site. It seems for entries after about 2013-05 or so, the PHP to open a popup window generates a "self.close()" in the script inside the window. This has the effect of immediately closing screenshot windows after they're opened.

---

Chicky's entry has me puzzled. I am wondering whether that's dynamic, and if it is, I'm in awe

[Chicky]

Overlay's and alpha channels Gurok, the crt warp and text are baked into the background image, there's a few fun screen glitches that are pre-rendered. There's not much fancy coding going on though

Thanks for the kind words WHAM, i'm excited to see a new release from you

*Edit: Just noticed the competition runs until the 5th September! That's excellent news, I forgot we started late.

[The Great Underground Empire]

Fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffish!  Feeling the clock pressure already.  Saturdays are my one day off and out of nowhere friends have been mobbing me to do stuff on my longest creative free-time days.  Plus my writer-brain is going crazy trying to overcomplicate the plot and see if I can make it "better", i.e. longer.  Off early today, so spending the rest of the day doing nothing but game!

Hope y'all's projects are going awesome, I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!

[Mandle]

I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!

AS DO WE IN YOU!

Best of luck with your writer's-brain. A more involved plot is usually a great thing. Just don't let that brain paint you into a corner time-wise

Of course there is also the option to just release the game at a later date as a non-MAGS, but I think this is also a trap that many people fall into. I know I do. The trap being that once the time limit goes away the game usually just becomes another one of their unfinished projects and never sees the light of day.

Some people do manage to release their "MAGS" games at a later date and in a highly-polished state: Crankosaurus being a great example. But I would imagine that they are in the minority.

So yeah, everyone GO-GO-GO!!!

We are about half-way through the time-limit with still half to go so don't nobody start panicking just yet!

Not until I say so anyways...

[WHAM]

I've been taking the idea of "Ensure that the beginning and the end work, and then fill up the middle-part" to heart.
I've finished the intro cinematic for my game, and am just about done with the endings as well. Next up is some fine-tuning, music picking and then to add as many puzzles and gameplay elements as the deadline will allow!

Making the ending first also has the upside that it ensures I won't start to add more stuff to the story, since I already have a concrete endpoint for it, so I've got that going for me...

Here, have another pic while we're at it:

[Chicky]

Guys it's the 20th! We only have 16 days left to finish our entries!

I leave for Norfolk on Monday so I only have 8 days, eek!

Luckily today I took a day off work to code

[Mandle]

Luckily today I took a day off work to code

Did you call in and tell them in a very nasally-congested voice that you "hadda code"?



I think I may have just won the internets for today!!!

[selmiak]

Luckily today I took a day off work to code

Did you call in and tell them in a very nasally-congested voice that you "hadda code"?



I think I may have just won the internets for today!!!

*signs*

made my day

[Chicky]

Give this man the internets! Haha, Mandle i'm going keep that one in my bag of tricks for next time

[WHAM]

Halfway point, ladies and gentlemen! How's progress?

I had a bit of a realization: I've drawn a bunch of graphics, made cool cutscenes (intros, outros etc) and I've been using a ton of time picking out music and sound effects and making cool, but ultimately pretty useless, details in my game world. I have no game so far... Not a single puzzle, not a single proper game interaction. All I have of the actual GAME is a flowchart mapping out puzzle progression. That's no good! I need to freakin' hustle!

Have a picture anyway. I'll get to coding!

[Chicky]

Well I've finally finished the first big puzzle mechanic, which I plan to reuse twice more with different graphics. I've finished all the audio for the intro section and have got most of the 'server' structures working in AGS. Currently trying to weave in more subtle narrative and make things a little less tedious, oh and I now have full keyboard control - Huzzah! I had a problem with my sprites being huge, but I was being dumb and have now fixed that thanks to Gilbert's help.

Your entry is looking great WHAM, I'm guessing these screenshots are cropped? Good luck with the puzzle implementation

How's everyone else doing? vertigoaddict, PlayPretend, Ponch? C'mon guys, don't give in to OROWC's temptation

*Edit: A couple of screenshots for those who've missed my updates on www.clicknpoint.co.uk



Seems I also crop my screenshots WHAM, LED screendoor looks awesome when I take a close up photo.

[WHAM]

Cheers Chicky!

Yeah, since the game is so small, I prefer to crop the images heavily so you guy's can't see all that I have too early.

Report in, everyone! How are your games progressing?

[vertigoaddict]

Ta-da! Menu screen:

I've been contemplating showing a bit of skin, but I want to hold off showing anything more until I release it.
I pretty much completed scripting the first puzzle.
I'm estimating that, scripting-wise, I am 1/3 done, I wasted a couple of days and I spent most of today cleaning my room.
Let's just hope that after everything is done, I remember to turn Debug mode off before uploading it.

[Mandle]

Report in, everyone! How are your games progressing?

Mine is doing great actually. I bumped up the difficulty of swimming in the open ocean so that drowning happens quicker, thus preventing the player from reaching safety too easily.

Also: gathering, crafting, and hunting are all working properly so far...

Next up: I have to figure out the coding for the player being able to build shelters so that they have homes to go back to and be able to build them up enough so that they don't get totally wiped out during typhoon season...Or potentially found and attacked by natives and/or pirates...

OH SNAP!!!

I FORGOT I'M NOT ENTERED IN THIS MAGS!!!

Errrrrmmmmmm....Please ignore this post...

* Mandle does the flashy thing

[The Great Underground Empire]

I had to redesign the entire story to fit the time I lost trying to make a more complex, satisfyingly adventurey adventure, I got stuck for a bit mentally...now it's sort of a short, playable, extremely dirty and humorous fable.

But all background art is done, now plowing through character art and scripting.  Fingers crossed!

[Grok]

OK, I'll throw my hat into the ring as well



Almost done.

[Mandle]

OMG getting so exciting with all the screenshots and awesomeness and everything!!!

[WHAM]

First puzzle is coded now, but still needs a couple of extra animations and sound effects to make it work. But hey, it's GAMEPLAY! Yay!

[WHAM]

Shameless doubleposting!

Game currently consists of 1540 lines of code, 312 sprites and one room.
I ran out of objects in the room (forgot that AGS has a 40 object limit per room) and thus I had to add a bunch of characters to function as objects instead.

Gameplay is getting along nicely, I expect 3-4 more nights of coding to have the game fully playable from start to finish, then it's off to polish, add sound effects and little animations and TEST!

By the by, if you are reading this and might want to test my MAGS game, let me know.

[cat]

I ran out of objects in the room (forgot that AGS has a 40 object limit per room) and thus I had to add a bunch of characters to function as objects instead.

Is this still the case with the newest alpha of AGS? Then you should report this in the tracker since so many other limits were removed already.

[WHAM]

Is this still the case with the newest alpha of AGS? Then you should report this in the tracker since so many other limits were removed already.

Nah, I'm sticking with the official release version.
No matter which software is in question, I steer away from "alpha" and "beta" releases if possible.

[Grok]

My entry is now in.

Link to completed game thread

[WHAM]

Holy smokes, talk about an early start! You finished your game with almost 2 weeks to spare, HOW DO YOU DO THAT!?
Anyway, congratulations for the release!

[Grok]

Holy smokes, talk about an early start! You finished your game with almost 2 weeks to spare, HOW DO YOU DO THAT!?
Anyway, congratulations for the release!

Thank you
It is just a short little thing without any great complexity...
and I guess i am pretty fast.

Good luck with your entry.

[WHAM]

I just beat my game for the first time. It's short, but it's playable. Still need to add more animations and sound effects, but it's getting close, and I have all weekend for the project!

[Gurok]

Congrats, WHAM. That's a major achievement. Now, crunch, crunch, crunch!

[Mandle]

I just beat my game for the first time. It's short, but it's playable. Still need to add more animations and sound effects, but it's getting close, and I have all weekend for the project!

That is totally news!!! This means even if you forget to wake up between now and Sept 5th you still at least have a MAGS version of the game to release (and polish later), which means you have already crossed the finish line!

[Chicky]

Eek! I leave you guys for one week and come back to two finished fully playable entries, jeepers!

I'm back from sunny Norfolk (after a 6 hour drive) and now have two full days free before the release of Metal Gear Solid V, this game could be disastrous for my productivity so looks like i'm stuck here the next 48 hours try to finish my entry. Someone pass me the cola and potato crisps, i'm going in!

Congrats on finishing early Grok and sounds like your entry is in the bag too WHAM, psyched to play the competition That title looks beautiful PlayPretend.

[WHAM]

Added my games last features, and locked the project down. No new features, only bugfixes and fine-tuning.

I plan to send the game out to a couple of testers on Monday. Hopefully they won't discover anything too drastic.

Here, have one last picture from the game before official release.

[Mandle]

and now have two full days free before the release of Metal Gear Solid V, this game could be disastrous for my productivity

I just contacted the developers of Metal Gear Solid V and they agreed with me that this MAGS is way too important to endanger. They are pushing back the release date a week for the greater good of the indie game-dev community.

These multi-million dollar game companies are just nice that way I guess!

[WHAM]

I just contacted the developers of Metal Gear Solid V and they agreed with me that this MAGS is way too important to endanger. They are pushing back the release date a week for the greater good of the indie game-dev community.

These multi-million dollar game companies are just nice that way I guess!

NOOOO! You've made a terrible mistake! I already got my boss to agree to me having a couple of extra vacation days just after the release so I can get my Metal Gear on!
Take it back! TAKE IT BAAAAACK!!!!11oneoneeleven

[Chicky]

A delay on MGSV at this point would actually be appreciated, something I thought I would never say! The crunch is on, I have Relentless Tropical Juiced and was up until 5am last night. I may have wasted an hour playing Rocket League, but we won't talk of that.

...and I still don't have an ending to my game.

[WHAM]

Game is out to the testers, now waiting for some feedback before release.
*crosses fingers*

[Chicky]

MY BRAIN HURTS

But i'm -almost- done! 67 rooms SO MANY FOLDERS o_o

Good luck on the testing WHAM I probably have more bugs than Australia.

*Edit: Game is now fully playable from start to finish! Now to bug hunt and add some missing sound effects.

My first proper MAGS entry

[vertigoaddict]

I dont have enough time to do what I want to do it seems, life is eating away at my time everytime I think I would have time it would disappear time and time again.
Say that 10 times really fast.
I'm simplifying a bunch of stuff I wanted to do blah blah blah, I just hope it doesn't end up to be a boring game. =(

[Mandle]

Game is out to the testers, now waiting for some feedback before release.
*crosses fingers*

As one of your testers I must just say this:

WOW!!!

Oh, one more thing:

WOW!!!

And, in closing:

WOW!!!

That's all I think I should say, given that the contest is still running but...

WOW!!! nonetheless...

[Gilbert]

WOW!!!
WOW!!!
WOW!!!
WOW!!!

Does that mean the game's quality and size is comparable to FOUR World of Warcraft?

[WHAM]

I think Mandle might be a bit over-enthusiastic here, but I'm proud of the game too.
Release thread here: www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=52632

May the best game win!

[Chicky]

I'm done! Totally super really definitely done!

Will get a beta out tomorrow at midday, if anyone wants to help test I would need reports in before the day is up

But otherwise, I will release and hope that there aren't any major errors in any of the 82 rooms

[vertigoaddict]

I am finally "technichally" done, I just have to add in the voices (that's going to be fun) and it's all a go. Woohoo!

[Chicky]

Here's my entry link to GIP forum. Yay!

It was great fun and feels pretty awesome to finally have a game out there that I can be proud of

[WHAM]

Here's my entry link to GIP forum. Yay!

It was great fun and feels pretty awesome to finally have a game out there that I can be proud of

Cooool... I know what I'll be doing tomorrow!

[Mandle]

SO: Three entries fully released and one more pretty much in the bag by the sounds of it...

How's anyone/everyone else doing? PlayPretend? You still around?

There is about 24 hours left until the deadline!!!

[vertigoaddict]

Unfortunately I haven't completed putting in all of the voice acting, but I'll sort that out around after voting ends (and I probably should fix AGS1 as well in the meantime...)

Here it is:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1959/

Enjoyssss!

[The Great Underground Empire]

I'm still around but no way I'll be finished in time. :/  Life saw fit to fill up my usually free time with friend time and I couldn't say no.  I'm going to push hard to finish it by Monday night but no worries, it's just silliness anyways.   Good luck and super proud for everyone who made it!

[Ponch]

Sadly, I'm out too. OROW gobbled up what little free time I had. I have maybe half the game done, so that's the fifth (sixth?) MAGS game I've started but not finished since my last completed MAGS entry. It's all a bit demoralizing, actually.

Fingers crossed we'll have a "Finish Your MAGS" theme before the end of the year. It would be nice to finish at least one of these things at some point.

Good luck to everyone else!

[Mandle]

Okay....It's time to start the voting. Sorry to hear about the entries that didn't quite get finished and hope to see them released in the future.

Please vote here in the thread but only after having played all the entries please. Vote only for your favourite out of all the entries but feel free to leave comments on the others as well.

If for any reason you wish to vote anonymously then please send me a PM with your vote and I will post it here without your identity.

Whoops...sorry for the bogus instructions...I thought I was supposed to do something but I see not...

[cat]

Two questions:

• Is there an overview of the final entries and where I can download the last version?
• Why is the voting not done on the MAGS-page?

[Atelier]

Why is the voting not done on the MAGS-page?

It is - Mandle, the competition only closed last night, give me a chance Please do not post your votes in this thread or PM anybody.

Four entries this month!


For voting please visit the MAGS site or make your choice right here:

The Cold Hand Reef by WHAM
Linn the Protector and The Seven Daughters of Ran by Grok
Bitstream by Chicky
All Gone Soon 2 by vetrigoaddict

Please vote only once and be sure to have played all games before sending your voice!


Overview and download is available here. I'll close voting on 20th Sep. Good luck all!

[Atelier]

Fingers crossed we'll have a "Finish Your MAGS" theme before the end of the year.

The only way that will be guaranteed is by a Ponch win this year

[Bulbapuck]

Once again a fantastic MAGS competition! All entries were so different that it's difficult to compare them.

As usual (trying to make it a tradition) I made LP's of all the games.
Playlist is here if interested: https://youtu.be/Ks-wLHGAy6c?list=PLEem6SKeUgpUTdSg7d7oRYNsiAD7NyGrD

[WHAM]

Once again a fantastic MAGS competition! All entries were so different that it's difficult to compare them.

As usual (trying to make it a tradition) I made LP's of all the games.
Playlist is here if interested: https://youtu.be/Ks-wLHGAy6c?list=PLEem6SKeUgpUTdSg7d7oRYNsiAD7NyGrD

Oooh man, that IS a bug I will have to look into. Thanks for the Let's Play and letting me know, will upload a fix today.
It was also a lot of fun watching you try and parse what all the speech bubbles meant. Hope you'll take the time to finish the game sometime.

Edit: uploaded a fix already, the issue was with a sprite being assigned an incorrect baseline value, which caused it to appear in an inappropriate (and creepy) place.
EditEdit: Ha! I knew you sounded swedish! Just checked your forum profile. Greeting from neighboring Finland.

[Chicky]

I have had a report of a text entry GUI that doesn't disappear when changing rooms under certain circumstance so I'll be updating the download link tonight with this fix.

Can't wait to watch those let's Plays Bulba!

[Mandle]

I have now played all the entries and all of them are AMAZING!!!

It did however for me come down to my final vote and I was sooooo ripped in two:

For me it had to be either Bitstream or Cold Hand Reef...despite the other two entries being of top quality as well...These two were just of tippy-top quality...

After going back and forth for a long time I had to go with the entry that was simply nothing like anything I had ever seen before from an AGS game:

I voted for Bitstream even though it broke my heart to do so because Cold Hand Reef is an instant classic for the mainstream adventuring community and its story continues to haunt me...

But: Bitstream, while it will probably not appeal to everyone, oh man!!! I was actually IN that world and battling for my freakin' right to breathe with only my hacking abilities to save me (oh yeah and just: the rest of the world)...

MIND BLOWN!!!

EDIT:

OHHHHH!!! After watching Bulbapuck beat the game I realised what happened at the end I think:

SPOILERS ALERT:

Spoiler

I'm thinking the government/corporation sells Oxygen(TM) to the population in breathing devices and that otherwise the entire society is a sealed vacuum. So: either work for the system and get your oxygen or "drown", which is another way the game fits the theme!!! Not just drowning in the bitstream but actually drowning!!!

The main character has a main tank of oxygen and also a reserve (screen: bottom right) and is trying to hack into the controllers' computers to VOID the supply of oxygen (that is being rationed out) into the vacuum of the closed system that the society lives in before his/her own supply of oxygen runs out...

The last sound at the end of the game sounds very much like somebody pulling a breathing mask off their face and taking the first deep breath of real air that they have ever known...

I may be way off base with this theory of course...Hope the author can confirm or deny...

[close]

[Chicky]

Atelier seems to be AWOL

I believe voting was meant to close on the 20th, do we have a backup plan?

[Mandle]

Atelier seems to be AWOL

I believe voting was meant to close on the 20th, do we have a backup plan?

He was online yesterday. I have messaged him with a reminder about this...Cheers!

[Mandle]

......

[Cassiebsg]

Guess he's just too busy... hopefully with positive stuff.

[Stupot]

I've taken the liberty of closing the voting for this. According to the site these are the results for August:
Bitstream - 8 votes
All Gone Soon 2 - 8 votes
Cold Hand Reef - 3 votes
Linn the Protector - 0 votes

So Chicky and vertigoaddict share the spoils. Well done guys. Perhaps between you, you can think of a new topic for October and I'm sure no one will mind if you start a new thread.
Commiserations to WHAM and Grok.

[WHAM]

Commiserations to WHAM and Grok.

;____;

Congrats to the winners anyway! One day I shall rise from the ashes and challenge thee once again!

[Atelier]

Guess he's just too busy... hopefully with positive stuff.

Yeah - I've just started my final year at uni and everything's very intense right now. There is also a Miss Atelier dividing my attention

I intend to make an announcement regarding my hostship very soon.

Thank you very much to Stupot for taking the initiative; and most importantly, I am truly sorry for letting all our entrants down these past two months - please know it does not mean I do not appreciate all your hard work and passion, as ever!

[Stupot]

Miss Atelier is a lucky woman.
You haven't let anyone down. We know you've been busy.
I'm more than happy to share the hosting burdens if you need an extra pair of hands

[Chicky]

Good to hear from you Atelier

Thanks to everyone who voted! I thought i'd won for sure before vertigoaddict snapped up those last two votes, I was really impressed by the length of your entry vertigoaddict

We will have to think of a super interesting topic together, two minds means twice the awesome, right?

Also a big congratulations to WHAM and Grok for finishing their entries and creating two great games in just four weeks!

[vertigoaddict]

I could totally relate to that Atelier (so happy I'm done with uni, break a leg!). Congratulations Chicky... and apparently I won too, wow; honestly with the enteries we had this round I didn't think I'd even make the top two, thanks guys!
You're impressed?! Have you seen Bitstream? =P just...the magnitude of...everything in that.
Speaking of impressed, Grok is very close to becoming another slasher and WHAM is a ball of innovation (I voted for you xoxo).
Hmm, I gotta think of some better theme ideas lol, I'll PM you Chicky sometime later today (it might be tomorrow for you with the time differences).

[Retro Wolf]

Is there going to be a MAGs this month? Or is it being skipped?