Lucky Dip week

[Stupot]

How about this?

Rules:

• Sometime this week you must go to the AGS games database and click on the 'Lucky Dip' link.
• Whichever game it lands on you MUST play. Unless:
• You judge it not to qualify as being a 'game'
• The game is commercial, and you don't want to buy it
• You have already played the game
• When you have finished playing the game, you must:
• Write a post in this thread saying which game you played and what you thought of it (or bang out a full review if you have time)
• Leave a comment on the game's page
• Leave a player rating on the game's page

Feel free to do this more than once
Happy Lucky Dipping

=====================================

I got Eric the Anteater.
Will add my thoughts in due course :-)

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

Alright Rapstar 1.5, let's give this a go... (sheesh a non-adventure game ).

edit: Oh  wow, I don't think that was a proper game, uh-huh.. yeah!
Rapstar 1.5 is a turn-based rap-battle game, your opponent will rap some combination of uh-huh, yeah, come-on.. then you do the same, someone loses HP then you do it again.. I still prefer the OSD battle engine.
There is clearly some indeterminable mechanic underneath the combat, but it is fairly un-engaging. Funny little idea, but I kinda hoped for something that would hold my attention past three rounds.
May I have another spin?

[Andail]

Excellent idea! I'll post more after work tonight.

[dactylopus]

This is a pretty nice idea. 

I landed on The Lost Prince Of Lorden - Part 1.

I've downloaded, but have yet to actually play.  It looks good from the screenshots, and previous comments seem generally favorable.

I look forward to playing and rating this game, and will post again once I have done so.

[CaptainD]

Nice idea - I got "Plumber Boy", which looks pretty interesting!

[kaput]

Really nice idea!

I got A Cat's Night. I will play it and return with news from the North.

[jwalt]

I'll give it a try, but not making any promises about actually completing the tasks.

Got "Kinky Island - Demo" from 2006. Began wandering around the island, taking in the "scenery."

[Ponch]

I got "Escape From the Garage" from 2006. I'll give it a spin tonight and report back.

[cat]

I got the very recent A punk with wheels.

Let's see what it is like.

Edit: Nice game! Good graphics, rather straight forward puzzles and good humour. Sadly lacking any music and sound.

[Ghost]

I LuckyDipped "Next To Evil", and it looks very stylish. http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1364/
Will have some fun with that- apparently it's short, so I shoud be able to post more soon.

[edit]

Well- "Next To Evil" is a 2010 MAGS game by Joel Page, made for the theme "The Bad Guy".

You play Duet, sister to the World's Queen, in a fantasy setting where magic is commonplace and Duet herself has a rather unique talent;

Spoiler

she can duplicate herself (and sing with herself in perfect harmony).

[close]

Right at the start she's approached by a mysterious stranger who seems to want to see the queen dead. And while Duet apparently has little love for the vain queen, she is NOT an evil person... but how good is she?

The game's plot works nicely if you like your fantasy with a little extra drama. There's quite a bit of dialogue to read through and the relatively few characters you interact with all have their little quirks. Much is just hinted about, but that usually works for me, I tend to fill empty spaces with some guesses.
That being said, this is a game that tells a story. Puzzles are few, and, once you're in the groove, never really get very complicated. But it's clear that the tale is the important thing. You figure out how to use Duet's power, you get the usual fetch quests, and between that you get glimpses at relationships, moral values, and what makes a person evil. I'm okay with that, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea. It's also truly a serious story, with little humour and few frills. You get the point quickly, and Next To Evil does see it through.

Graphics are generally good- simple, but the game really has a stylish "flat-shaded" look, with small character sprites that look decidedly 8bit. Someone clearly put some love into the character portraits, which are stills but all rather unique.
There's background music and some singing, apart from that there's no voice over- the music is pleasant but really remains in the background, never drawing too much attention to itself.
There are a couple of odd design choices in the game, and since the readme merely covers the hotkeys for load/save/quit, it takes a while to figure out that the game basically has a BASS interface. There are some glitches like characters poking from behind a walkbehind, or pixel hunts (even for an exit that clearly should be triggered somewhere else), but that is small fry, overall the game plays nicely.

I have some expectations in a MAGS game- I expect a short and traditional game. NTE delivers and I didn't feel disappointed after the ~20 minutes I spend on it. It never felt very fresh or exiting, it was like picking up a pleasant "More Of The Same" paperback from an author you generally like.

[bicilotti]

Nice idea - I got "Plumber Boy", which looks pretty interesting!

One of the best if not the best platform game made with AGS. It's hard but rewarding!

[Eric]

I've done pretty poorly with my Lucky Dips so far. I first got a game that was actually just the source code for fighting sequences, my second was a demo that no longer exists for a commercial game (that still looks kind of interesting though --  Odissea), and my third was a find-your-way-through-the-maze game, which is what I believe Hell will look like for me when I die.

Still, I persevered and got through the maze in 873 moves. I forgot, however, to find the treasure first. Oh well.

[Ponch]

Sadly, I must report that "Escape The Garage" earned its "one cup" rating. The hotspots were hard to find, the inventory items were huge, opaque, and hard to use properly on the little hotspots. Most of things to click on had no response anyway, so I couldn't tell if I was even clicking on the right spot most of the time.

Final verdict: One of the hardest "escape the room" games I've played, and for all the wrong reasons.

[CaptainD]

Plumber Boy turned out to be a rather nice - if fiendishly difficult 8-bit style platform puzzler.  Well I say fiendishly difficult, but I suck at those games so maybe it isn't.  Has a real retro charm about it.

If you like retro platformers, you should definitely check it out..

[AGA]

Well- "Next To Evil" is a MAGS game, made by Joel Page. I haven't been able to retrieve the MAGS theme, but the game's from 2010 judging by the comments.

There is a MAGS website!

[Ghost]

There is a MAGS website!

Emberassing... Edited my post!

[Khris]

I got "The Simpsons Adventure" but the download link was broken. The next try yielded "El Profe", which is spanish and has no translation available.

Just now I dipped again and got Beasts, which is a short and nice 1st person adventure. It has decent enough puzzles and simple but effective graphics.
The only two cons are that for some reason, you can't right-click to change the mouse mode, you have to use the provided buttons, and, since this game is really old, you have to play it in a small window where the action only takes up the top left quarter on top. You can switch to 640 in the setup though.

This thread is a great idea btw! Way too often, decent games slip a few pages back in the forum too quickly and stay largely unnoticed.

[TheBitPriest]

This is a great idea!    Nice excuse to take a break and play a game. 

I hit Cacho Quest.  I'll give it a try latter today.   

[Ponch]

Sweet! My next lucky dip will be Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday 2

I've got a feeling this game is going to be GREAT!

Actually, after another dip, my game will be Bob's Quest II

Man, why do I keep dipping these old games? 

Look for a report soon...

[kaput]

A Cat's Night review

A Cat's Night is a charming little tale by Pietro Turri, in which you control a big friendly cat by the name of Orazio. Your task is to save the Forli cat shelter from being knocked down by the so called 'bad humans'. Using your intuition, as well as a little help from your friends, you must help Orazio come up with a cunning enough plan to put a stop to the demolition. All the while assuming the role of peace maker, detective and hero to your feline chums.

The game features a nice and relaxing soundtrack by Mark Clark that enriches the calm, friendly and welcoming atmosphere. The game's graphics are drawn in a sketchy cartoony style, the likes of which are seen in most of Pietro's games. Though there are some inconsistencies in the style, they work well to provide an enjoyable experience. A noteworthy example of Turri's design choices would be A Cat's Night's inventory system, that comes in the shape of a cat, allowing the player to scroll over the eyes to look at an item and likewise scroll over the paw to pick up an item. A nice quirk to compliment an all-round quirky game. 

If you like cats, playfully cute humour and a meaningful story, there's a good chance you'll enjoy this game. Whilst A Cat's Night appears to have been created for children, the writing is good and the story well rounded, making it a game for most audiences. Whilst the writing is good, sometimes it's a little hard to read ie clashing colour choices and a sometimes messy font.

What ultimately brought the rating down for me here were some badly placed hotspots. The cursor lacks a cross-hair and sometimes it's a little difficult to line it up correctly. There is also an area within the game that is at first almost invisible ie the storeroom area. The game also includes some pixel hunts and wacky puzzle solutions but nothing too bad that made me want to quit.

I give it 3 out of 5 cups.