MAGS May “Rats” (RESULTS)

Started by MAGS Host, Mon 30/04/2018 23:03:35

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What is your favourite game of MAGS May?

Rainbow Skunk Prism and the Vermin-Truder
2 (11.1%)
The Rat Pack Do Cheesy Castle
2 (11.1%)
The Rat Pack
2 (11.1%)
Commando Raid
5 (27.8%)
Rat Playing Game
1 (5.6%)
The Burgomaster
1 (5.6%)
Lab Rat Maze!
0 (0%)
Echo in the Clouds
5 (27.8%)

Total Members Voted: 18

Voting closed: Mon 25/06/2018 00:11:30

Mandle

I thought a bit about why I wasn't feeling the full motivation to work on my game and I realized that it was partially because I wasn't fully feeling the crawling skin factor that I got from "Bad Mojo", my inspiration for making this game in the first place.

I have never felt that awful skin-crawling feeling from a game quite as much as I felt it in Bad Mojo.

So, yeah, I went and googled a bunch of images and plugged them into the game to hopefully provide this effect.

In any case, my skin crawled while searching such things as "rat drowned in toilet" and "spider attack"..

While I was looking at and working on the images I was brushing imaginary creepy-crawlies off my legs and neck...

Gotta go sleep now. Dreading the dreams that will come tonight...

Cassiebsg

Testing is underway, and we're trying to iron out all faults and specially those pesty bugs that refuse to be squashed... (wtf)
I hope I have just sent the last test version out, and that my next step will be to release the game upon unsuspecting innocent AGSers... (laugh)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

VampireWombat

At some point I seem to have made a mess of my game...
Good thing I have 11 hours left. How many npcs, how the game is solved, and which functions remain in the game will be a surprise for everyone... especially me.

Mandle

#203
RAT PLAYING GAME

You play as a sewer rat who, one day, detects a delicious smell coming from a plate of food accidentally left out overnight on a restaurant counter somewhere far above his sewer-pipe lair.

YOU MUST DEVOUR IT!!!

Along the way you will encounter enemies to fight, poisonous bait, a powerful final boss enemy and, hopefully, some moments to make your skin crawl.

Save up your XP and return to your lair to buy upgrades to your stats and skills and maybe eventually you will defeat the final boss enemy and get to the exquisite prize!

[IMGZOOM]http://i68.tinypic.com/2ilkor4.png[/IMGZOOM]

It's 2AM... I'm almost collapsing right now so I'll just put the link for the game download and fancy the post up a bit more tomorrow:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

WARNING: PLEASE DON'T USE ANY KEYS EXCEPT FOR A,S,D (and Left Mouse Click)... I haven't had time yet to debug using keys not needed in the game...

(I fear I introduced some nasty bugs at the last moment while trying to fix an issue... I will deal with them later if they crop up... No more energy left right now for further testing "tonight")

EDIT:

YUP! Bugs galore!!! (see my next post below for more details)

* Don't use the DODGE button in combat. It is bugged and useless at the moment. Dodge skills are still vital though (see my post below for more info)

* The RUN away option in combat is a bit bugged: If the enemy is between you and your lair you will try to run through the enemy and get pulled back into combat. If you run again I think you can escape.

* Sometimes the game starts to run super-slow in the restaurant area and even ALT-X is hard to use to force-quit from the game. I don't know if this is only my crappy system or an actual bug.

* The rat cannot turn back after starting the climb up the side of the restaurant counter. Using movement direction keys here might break the game so just let him run. He must be too tempted by the smell of the food so close at hand I guess?

* A few other minor issues.


I did manage to play the game through from start to finish and win it despite these problems. I did have to force-quit (spamming ALT-X until it worked) when the slo-mo issue happened a few times and go back to my last save.

Feel free to give it a go but remember that bug-fixes will be done soon so you might want to wait on that or at least replay the game after the issues are solved.

VampireWombat

I've come to the conclusion that whatever mess that would come out of what I now have wouldn't be fun for anyone to play.
To save everyone unneeded pain, I'm dropping out now. But Massimo and Twitch will return.

Slasher

Sorry to hear that VampireWombat.

Hopefully we'll see you next month (nod)

morganw

Quote from: Blondbraid on Fri 18/05/2018 21:03:45
I have been working on my entry together with Morganw and HandsFree about the black plague and the rats spreading the disease.
Unfortunately HandsFree was called into action elsewhere, but here is the entry from Blondbraid and myself.

The Burgomaster



Download from Game Jolt
Alternative download link (Windows)
Alternative download link (Linux)

Cassiebsg

Lab Rat Maze!

Ever wondered what a lab rat feels when someone places him into a maze? Well, now you no longer have to wonder! Experience it for your self!
Feel frustrated by the unfair tasks, extreme level of memory and other skills requirements that evil humans put poor rats through!



Superb resolution of 640x400 pixels & 32bit color!
Point&Click style! And keyboard helper (use keyboard as help certain tasks).
Two levels of difficulty! (Only difference is how you experience the maze, not how hard puzzles are.)
Music by Eric Matyas!

Game by Cassiebsg and Gurok (who coded the maze).
Beta testers: Durq, morganw and Shadow1000

Download/game page link: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2258/
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

selmiak

Soon, there will be fire in the sky! Or was it just an Echo in the clouds?!

Hobo

#209
Echo in the Clouds
Brought to you by Hobo, Pinback, selmiak and Myshkin

[imgzoom]https://imgur.com/Dnk5aUn.gif[/imgzoom]
Download the demo here: DOWNLOAD HERE

Edit: Here's the AGS game page link.

MAGS Host

#210
The contest is over and voting us underway until June 24th

Eight entries this time. That's more like it! Well done everyone.










Rainbow Skunk Prism and the Vermin-Truder by DBoyWheeler
The Rat Pack Do Cheesy Castle by Slasher
The Rat Pack by CaptainD
Commando Raid by fernewelten
Rat Playing Game by Mandle
The Burgomaster by morganw, Blondbraid and handsfree
Lab Rat Maze! by Cassiebsg and Gurok
Echo in the Clouds by Hobo, Selmiak, Myshkin and Pinback

Vote using the poll at the top of the page.

Voting ends June 24th

Let me know if any details are wrong or you want to add a team member.

Mandle

#211
WOW!!! 8 entries!!!

And, yeah, it seems I did manage to introduce a few mysterious bugs (no pun intended) around 2AM last night...

I have, however, done a playthough of the game and managed to win it despite the bugs but sometimes a weird thing happens (on my system at least) where the game gets into a super-slow loop and even ALt-X is hard to use to get out of the game.

This only seems to happen after the player has cleared the rim of the toilet and usually somewhere on the restaurant floor.

But sometimes this doesn't happen and everything goes smoothly.

Also, there is a new bug where you cannot turn back after you start the climb up the restaurant counter. I guess our rat is too tempted by the goodies on the counter above and can't help himself?

The Dodge button in combat seems very bugged so probably best not to use it until fixed. You don't really need it anyway. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't invest points in dodging skills: they are vital!!! The rat tries to dodge every attack automatically anyway. The Dodge button is just a system where if you consciously make a dodge then you get a better chance to hit or run away next turn. Like I said: it is currently broken so don't use it until further notice.

Also, the run away system is now broken, but not completely. I had it working so that the rat would run left or right depending on which side the enemy was on but that is not working now and the rat will only run back towards his lair. So, if you are on the other side of the enemy from your lair and run you will get pulled back into combat. But if you then run again you will get away (I think). This works in the pipes at least. It could break the game in the toilet/restaurant area. Not sure. But by the time you are up there you probably won't be needing to run much anyway.

There are several other issues as well: stuff that worked before but not anymore. I'm sure most are simple fixes so I will take a look a bit later after I've recovered from the 12 hour session yesterday.

Apart from this to-do list I'm quite pleased with my game and amazed that I got it working yesterday as well as it does.

Play now if you wish (I'd really like to know if anyone else gets the weird game-freezing) but please play again after bug-fixes: Notification to come.

But, for now, I'm gonna go play some of the other entries. Need to step away from my own game for a bit. I'm waaaaaaaaaay too sick of looking at it for now to maintain any kind of perspective or sensible thinking process...

Mandle

#212
I'm going to update my impressions of the games here as I play through them:

The Rat Pack
Spoiler
Oh, so much fun!!!

The rats' voices jumpscared the hell of of me the first time they popped up but I got used to it and they added so much fun and many a laugh to the game!

I won it on my second try. It was perhaps a little easy once you know what to be careful of. In a future version maybe EASY, MEDIUM, HARD, IMPOSSIBLE difficulty levels could be added? I know it's hard to get balance just right in these kinds of games, especially during a MAGS, but with a bit more time I think it would add a lot to the game's replay value.

Nevertheless, the game provided the fun of slowly growing in power until the things that terrified you before became just minor annoyances. This is the main fun of any RPG/Sim game: feeling that your power and abilities are growing, and that you are overcoming harder obstacles because of this, and this game does it well!

The random events were just frequent enough to affect the gameplay a bit but not so frequent that they become annoying or eclipse the main, central strategy play.

Wonderful game!!!
[close]

The Burgomaster
Spoiler
As I have come to expect from a historical game featuring the art of blondbraid this game really does a great job of pulling the player into its world. The graphics are lovely and really made me feel the claustrophobic streets of the town and suited the gloomy and opressive state of fear and distrust hanging over it. A nice little history lesson concerning the ironic persecution of the Jews who, because of their customs, did not put up with the rats, and therefore did not catch the plague so much, and therefore must be the guilty ones causing the whole thing! I've always suspected that old women living alone outside of town with many cats were persecuted as witches for similar reasons.

A lovely and touching twist at the end which cleared up a few confusing points in the game like why are we in the doctor's house as if it is our own and how do we know how to mix the elixer... Nicely tied up!!!

The ending "cutscene" was a bit abrupt but I suspect that was cut short for time reasons.

A short and charming game very well done that didn't overestimate what is possible to make in just a month.
[close]

Commando Raid
Spoiler
Well, what can I say? So far this is the game that I have had the most fun with! The puzzles are great. I completed it without hints but did get deliciously stuck a few times for a bit, but never to the point of frustration. And I always felt the solutions were fair and hinted at enough by the game.

One thing I maybe could have done without was the way characters fade in and out when they go through a door. Interesting choice there but it didn't really work for me. I would have prefered they just appeared instantly and not because it made me impatient. It just detracted slightly from the inworld reality for me. Just an opinion and not a huge issue.

I loved the maze area!!! So much fun to navigate around! I'd say a fair few players may complain about the slow walkspeed in the starting room but I didn't really mind it. The laid-back music suited a slow stroll along the sewer-bank.

I did encounter some glitches in the maze room:

The first time I entered the maze room the game screen went black and the music got stuck in an infinite loop. I tried again and the same happened. I figured out that I had to change the graphics setting to "software driver" (or whatever it's called) in setup and then everything worked fine.

Also, There is a wall between areas L-79 and 79L but it's not doing its job: If you are in L-79 and click on the exit door in 79L the rat walks to the wall and then fades from view, going "through" the exit he shouldn't be able to reach. Handy short-cut but not intentional I'm assuming...

A few other minor problems were:

the mop end not disappearing from inventory after you have attached it to the handle.

Opening the ransom note causes the room music to stop and never return. This made the final room feel a bit lonely for me as there was no other room to go to to restart the room music.

MAGS games almost always have bugs though so no biggies and nothing really game-breaking.

The humour was pretty much spot-on for me. Never got annoying and when it was funny it was very funny!!! I especially liked "Were you raised in a PLANT NURSERY??!!". That almost made me spit my drink.

LOVED THIS GAME!!!
[close]

The Rat Pack Do Cheesey Castle
Spoiler
Up until now The Condemned was my favorite ever Slasher game. But now this is my new favorite!!!

Well, maybe... I'm not sure if anything can replace my love for The Condemned... Let's maybe call it a tie!

But more about this game:

Excellent game design! And here is why:

* The player understands straight away that the upsidedown design choice of many starting inventory items to use up instead of collecting is the main mechanic of the game... Instead of hoarding we are depleting!!! Now the player doesn't have to be constantly scrubbing the screen for new items.

* The game draws you forward and you can never go back. Now the player knows that they haven't missed anything.

* Once the player enters the castle they can immediately understand that this is a heist story: Grab as much cheese as you can but even if you don't you can still finish the game. You can rush to the ending or take your time figuring out each cheese heist solution... WOW!

* There are three unique characters that talk in turn and, even though the AGS speech mechanic makes it hard to tell who is speaking, I felt like I knew who it was because of the way in which they said it. Character individuality!!!

* Lastly, the theme of the impoverished masses versus the uber-rich overlord might seem a middle-ages theme but also applies now where we have exhausted the potential of capitalism where it is pretty much as much an end-game scenario as feudalism was back in the middle-ages... It cannot continue to work once the end-game conditions are reached... Happened with feudalism and will now happen with capitalism... Great lesson in this game...

I'm very conflicted now about my final vote...
[close]

Echo In The Clouds
Spoiler
The AMAZING visuals, animations and mood are all spot on! The gameplay interfaces are perfect (well, some capital letters at the start of the console descriptions might be nice)... At the moment it seems to be an interactive fiction though where the game just guides you forward through the story. Maybe there are some puzzle sections missing like rerouting the pressure to the airlock door etc. which will be in the final game?

A puzzle or two wouldn't go astray, unless the goal is interactive fiction in which case it's fine.

I did encounter one bug when I pressed the other button on the crew member's tablet. It failed to delete the current text and everything became unreadable.

Nice cliffhanger ending. I'm thinking the tunnel of clouds is maybe the gateway to the afterlife and the orbs flying by are souls on their way through. So either maybe our character is an "angel" manning "God"'s updated technology or mankind's science has discovered the gateway to the afterlife and are trying to conduct a mission to understand it. Probably wrong but either story would be very cool!
[close]

Lab Rat Maze
Spoiler
I had some problems running this game on my crappy old computer. It kept telling me that some file names didn't match or were missing from the game folder. Did you rename any files after compiling?

Anyway, I downloading it at work and have been playing it there.

Absolutely entrancing maze/puzzle game!

The opening movie is just WOW!!! Cassie, did you make that movie in Blender?! Like, you modelled and animated it?! If so, you are ready to produce a full 3D animated game (taking up like 50GB of course)... (laugh)

The coding of the maze is some kind of black magic I don't even pretend to understand. Gurok is a wizard! Always suspected so...

The only problems I noticed with the maze coding were:

* Sometimes the rat would travel through unexplored (black), and yet mysteriously passable, areas on his way to the goal I clicked and explore them on his own. Psychic rat!!!

* There is a floor-pad in the upper-right area that becomes visible from beyond a solid wall even before the player has unlocked that area.

Now, the push mechanic... Yeah, I know you are going to work on that. It's really hard to use and tedious to push an object a long way. How about you just hide the object when the rat starts pushing it, change the view of the rat to an animation of him pushing the item in front of him (like Mr. Jingles in The Green Mile) and then, when he drops it, change his view back to normal and teleport the object to its new position? Just an idea.

I actually deleted my own saved game after I almost got to the end so a 9-year-old student of mine could play it while the rest of the class was doing a test she had already done.

She had about 30 minutes with the game and managed to solve it up to the same point I had (she's been my student since she was 2 so has a lot of experience with puzzle-solving games of mine that I use in class :P ). She told me that the "Simon"-style trial-and-error memory puzzle was the most fun.

I'm still yet to complete the final top-right area because of lack of time on the work computer after that.

I told my student we will play again during game-time in her lesson on Monday and she is really looking forward to it.

However, I think I've seen enough of the game to be able to say that it is a ton of fun and that if anyone ever completed it as a totally blind first playing with no hints in the "hard" maze mode they must be a genius! (And they probably also missed the AGS initials in the maze (laugh) )

UPDATE: I finished the game with the same student I mentioned before. I couldn't really understand the logic behind the final puzzle so we just kept pushing buttons until it worked out. I didn't get the reason for the red boxes as it seemed we could just run through them anyway. It was still a satisfying feeling to have completed this excellent game
[close]

Rainbow Skunk Prism and the Vermin-Truder
Spoiler
As I had already had the complete story of the game, including the solution to all the puzzles, spoiled for me before I played it, and had even seen the final fate of the bad-guy, I couldn't really get much enjoyment out of the gameplay.

So, it's very hard to comment on anything except to say that the simple, colourful graphics are appealing. The walkcycle... not so much...

Maybe next time the author can avoid spoiling his own game for future players before it's even released?
[close]

My vote went to:
Spoiler
Commando Raid.

It was really a coin-toss for me between Commando Raid and Cheesy Castle but in the end I went with the former.
[close]

CaptainD

#213
Okay I'm going to do my best to play all the games this time... will keep this post updated as Mandle is doing with his (btw thanks for the kind words buddy, I am indeed working on an expanded version of the game! ;)):

Rainbow Skunk Prism
Spoiler
Very short and not so sweet for poor Mr Ratman!  Colourful visuals and logical puzzle.  Good choice of music tracks too! ;-D)
[close]

Commando Raid
Spoiler
I'm afraid I haven't got very far with this one - might be missing something obvious.  I like the rat's scuttling animation and the dialogue is quite amusing.
[close]

The Rat Pack Do Cheesy Castle
Spoiler
Enjoyed the banter between the characters.  Most puzzles were easy but the very first one had me going for a while!  "You need some more cheese cheese cheese" will be on repeat play in my head tomorrow... thanks for that! (laugh)
[close]
 

fernewelten

#214
Quote from: CaptainD on Mon 04/06/2018 14:28:25
Commando Raid
I'm afraid I haven't got very far with this one - might be missing something obvious.

Well, have a look in the comprehensive Tips and Hints in this forum article!

Happy Adventuring! :-D

[I've moved all the hints and tips to the article given above and sorted them. Let's keep the environment tidy! ;-) ]

Shadow1000

#215
Ok I just played all the games and here are my thoughts:

Rainbow Skunk Prism and the Vermin-Truder
Spoiler
Features about 2 1/2 minutes of gameplay. Bright visuals and the same walkcycle as past games by this author. I played it again after the second release and the music is an improvement.
[close]

The Rat Pack
Spoiler
Looks like a good idea and a lot of detail to the simulation. I spent some time trying to work out an algorithm that will keep me alive more than a few rounds but at some point I felt that it just was not compelling enough to persist to the point where I have 1000 rats
[close]

The Rat Pack Do Cheesy Castle
Spoiler
Really well-done game! Simple but adequate story and puzzles on the easier side, but plenty of gameplay. I am very impressed by the multiple playable characters and the fact that one task can be completed in more than one way. Very complete for a MAGS entry done with time contraints. Overall a fun playing experience
[close]

Commando Raid
Spoiler
Excellent game. I liked how the story unfolds and the graphics. I particularly enjoyed the puzzles. They are more complex and well-designed than usual for a MAGS entry. I am not a fan of maze puzzles but somehow I enjoyed this one. The end seemed a bit rushed but that's understandable because of the time constraints for the contest
[close]

Rat Playing Game
Spoiler
I love RPGs! I spent significant time developing my character before I felt ready to go out into the big word (i.e. toilet) but unfortuately the game froze up and I could not continue :( If Mandle decides to tweak up the technicals of the game I will want to give it another try
[close]

The Burgomaster
Spoiler
Mandle's description is perfect for this one. Brilliant implementation of the environment that really puts you into the period and makes you think and feel that you are there. Fast historical note: one additional reason Jews were less affected was because of ritual laws that required washing hands before eating, ritual immersion, washing corpses and so on. The connection between hygiene and spreading of germs was not understood in medieval Europe.
[close]

Lab Rat Maze!
Spoiler
Very creative! The graphics and play environment are beautiful. I found that the gameplay needs a bit of tweaking but overall a good experience
[close]

Echo in the Clouds
Spoiler
The strong point here is the awesome pixel art! This looks like it has what it takes to become a full game. (It says demo on the opening screen so I assume that something is underway). I didn't feel that I had enough of an idea as to what was going on in the story and gameplay was more a series of things to do rather than actual puzzles. The rats seemed more peripheral than central at least at this point
[close]

My vote:
Spoiler
The game I enjoyed the most overall was Commando Raid. The experience of the puzzles as well as the NPCs, humour, complex puzzles that require combining items and disassembling them really stood out. The puzzles were right in that spot where I had to think about what to do and try different combinations but I was able to complete the game without help or hints. I think that for a classic adventure nut like me all the attractions of adventure games that pull the user in are present in this game and it deserves my vote
[close]


Stupot

@Fernewelten

Did you know, you can nest the spoiler tags within each other. So you could save space on your post and people can click deeper into the nest depending on how much help they need.

fernewelten

Quote from: Stupot on Tue 05/06/2018 00:00:20
Did you know, you can nest the spoiler tags within each other.

Great tip! I've grouped the hints in my posting now.

Mandle

@Shadow1000

I've fixed the game-freeze bug I'm 99% sure, and that version is uploaded to same link. I'm going to be fixing as many other bugs as possible in a few hours hopefully so maybe hang on until then before trying again.

Mandle

#219
YAY!!! I think I've finally crushed all the bugs in my game (except for the actual ones you have to crush yourself)...

I will update posts above in a bit and finally upload the game to the AGS database after I play it just a bit to make sure it's all A-okay...

But, for now, if you want to play it I'm 99% sure it is bug-free!!!

EDIT: DAMN THE 1%!!! Okay, one last bug fixed and should be good to go!

NEXT MORNING EDIT: CHEESUS CHRIST!!! I played a bit more this morning and noticed something strange and when I went into the code saw that I somehow deleted a vital line of code before compiling last night. Corrected now and working fine! The good news if anyone downloaded the last version is that save games will still work.

This should be final version! There's still a few glitches but nothing game-breaking so they'll just have to stay until after MAGS.

***IF ANYBODY PLAYED MY GAME BEFORE THIS FINAL VERSION I WOULD REALLY LOVE IT IF YOU COULD DOWNLOAD THIS "BUG-FREE" BUILD (FROM THE SAME LINK ABOVE) AND GIVE IT ANOTHER TRY. THE GAME HAD MANY BUGS AND NON-WORKING CODE IN IT BEFORE, MAKING IT PRETTY MUCH IMPOSSIBLE TO FINISH THE GAME. I HAVE PLAYED THIS NEW BUILD FROM START TO FINISH TWICE AND, ALTHOUGH QUITE CHALLENGING, THE GAME IS NOW COMPLETABLE...YAY!!!***

Also: I'm kind of glad I didn't see this video before this MAGS round or things could have gotten real dark, real fast:

THE MOUSE UTOPIA EXPERIMENTS

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