Adventure Game Studio

What is MAGS?
MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to use AGS to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner.

For more information please visit the Official MAGS Website (http://www.mags-competition.tk)

Why should I enter MAGS?
We're not here to tell you that you should enter MAGS, but merely allow it as a creative opportunity to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, and generally as a good kick-start for the new comers (a.k.a n00bies).

MAGS is the perfect opportunity to make a game, and the wonderful prize is to announce the next month's rules, and all competitiors get the game placed on the MAGS website.

MAGS is meant to be fun and is aimed at everyone, despite their skill. If you have poor art skills work on graphics, and vice-versa, as the voting is based on "favourite" games, and not the most artistic, you may get help for the competiton, but should try not get anyone else to do any part of the game for you.

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With the ruleset of last month's winner Peder we're going popular again:

Topic: Fantasy World

The whole story has to happen in a fantasy world.
In other words: There can be talking animals, floating things (like houses, tables, ...), wierd skies and landscapes etc. Use your fantasy!

A few restrictions:
- There MUST be a wizard as non-playable character in the game.
- There SHOULD be an old magic book in the game as an inventory item (for example, the wizard has lost his magic book and you have to search for it).
- There HAS TO be a blue cup somewhere! Don't have to be possible to pick it up. Since it is supposed to be fantasy it can be a talking one as well.

That's all, no further restrictions.

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All entries should be in by April 25th.

Please post a download link of your game entry to this thread, best with a screenshot. Thanks and good luck.

As the creater of the rules I just want to wish everyone good luck!
And I hope many of you makes an entry! ;D.

Great topic, but my dumb self has a question:

If I, for example, had the idea to make a game, that's set in an environment, that would contain cars and other modern stuff as well as magical mystery kind of stuff (a bit like in the later "Thief"s), would that fit in your understandig of the definition of "fantasy world"? Just to make sure I can do it, since I have an idea floating in my mind.

Oh, and congratulations to your game, Peder. I really liked it!

cheers
nihilyst

Quote from: nihilyst on Sat 01/04/2006 01:44:29
Great topic, but my dumb self has a question:

If I, for example, had the idea to make a game, that's set in an environment, that would contain cars and other modern stuff as well as magical mystery kind of stuff (a bit like in the later "Thief"s), would that fit in your understandig of the definition of "fantasy world"? Just to make sure I can do it, since I have an idea floating in my mind.

Oh, and congratulations to your game, Peder. I really liked it!

cheers
nihilyst

Fantasy is ALOT.
What I see as a fantasy world is that there is things you see that you wont see in real life.
I pretty sure it will fit :).
Just remember the restrictions! and I sure it will go fine! ;)

Good luck of you enter ;)

And thanks ;D

Does the emphasis on "MUST" and "SHOULD" imply that the magic book is not neccessarily a requirement?

Quote from: Klaus on Sat 01/04/2006 00:49:59
- There HAS TO be a blue cup somewhere! Don't have to be possible to pick it up. Since it is supposed to be fantasy it can be a talking one as well.

Go Cuppit! Go Cuppit!

Quote from: Redwall on Sat 01/04/2006 04:54:15
Does the emphasis on "MUST" and "SHOULD" imply that the magic book is not neccessarily a requirement?

The Magic book is NOT a MUST! :). so yes, it is not really a requirement.

non-adventure games are okay, right? if so, i might enter, but thats a big "if".

Quote from: Mordalles on Sat 01/04/2006 20:14:44
non-adventure games are okay, right? if so, i might enter, but thats a big "if".

yeah, if you wants to make a shooting game where you shoot wizards, standing on a flying car with cows singing next to you, to save "The Blue Cup" thats ok...... :P

I shall do my best to enter this one but I can't promise anything... Let's hope I have the time to do something complete for a change.

Quote from: Peder Johnsen on Sat 01/04/2006 20:29:50
if you wants to make a shooting game where you shoot wizards, standing on a flying car with cows singing next to you, to save "The Blue Cup" thats ok...... :P

Why can't I think of sich a brilliant idea... >.<

This time I also want to enter, but I MUST (must again, yes) get some assignments done, or I can't do my exams this year (2 subjects, I want to get rid of them. It's complicated).

I decided myself to do a small entry just for fun and practice :P.
I got no time to make a big game nor medium game, so it will be a small simple game, but I hope it will be fun!

Anyway, as far as I can remember, I am aloud to enter right?
Pretty sure I remember Abisso telling me this when I PMed him my idea to ask if it fit his rules...

Anyway, I not going for the win now :P.
But for the knownledge! ;D

Though, winning is fun, and motivating!

Quote from: Peder Johnsen on Sun 02/04/2006 23:31:11
Anyway, as far as I can remember, I am aloud to enter right?

Yes, that's correct.

hi, i am fully into this MAGS with my game. So hopefully it'll be done before that deadline, though it's gonna be hard. It's a non-adventure so hope people don't mind it haha :)

Nice topic, peder, and congratulations on your win.

EDIT: Is it fine if someone else other than me does the music? I have zero music skills and I have someone who is gonna help me (another AGS member), someone skilled in the art :)

EDIT: Also on that note: Can I have people beta-test and proofread the game before i submit it?

i decided to do an adventure, and its coming along nicely, but i dont think ill make it in time. but gonna try me hardest. i see I'm up against two previous mags winners already (peder and buloght)Ã,  :'(.

LoL

Are you guys sure you want us to use our fantasies... ;)

Anyway just kidding this should provide some interesting entries.

And Mordalles has my vote BTW...  ;D

Goodluck to all afraid my plate is too full to um take on this challenge.

Quote from: Mordalles on Mon 10/04/2006 20:32:53
i see I'm up against two previous mags winners already (peder and buloght)Ã,  :'(.

haha, you shouldent worry!
Not about me winning at least.
I pretty sure I wont! :P......

but who knows  :-\

I'll have a hard start, when I have to compete with Mordalles, buloght and Peder. But I'll try my very best.

Quote from: buloght on Mon 10/04/2006 20:21:32
Is it fine if someone else other than me does the music? I have zero music skills and I have someone who is gonna help me (another AGS member), someone skilled in the art :)

Well, not really "fine" but allowed. You know it's nicer to see an entry completely done by one person. But if you ask someone else to do this please keep in mind not to "double" the time for development. (Two persons can do much more than one and it must be compareable with entries developed by one game creator).

Quote from: buloght on Mon 10/04/2006 20:21:32
Can I have people beta-test and proofread the game before i submit it?

Sure, this is no problem at all...

scorposer is doing music for me. just so that you guys know. im finishing the game, even if you are disqualifying me.

if he didnt do the music, i would just go and steal music on the net, where a lot of the previous mags winners (cedric and the revolution, the family treasure) have done the same.  8) they didnt do the music themselves, did they?  8)

Quote from: Mordalles on Fri 14/04/2006 20:45:46
scorposer is doing music for me. just so that you guys know. I'm finishing the game, even if you are disqualifying me.

if he didnt do the music, i would just go and steal music on the net, where a lot of the previous mags winners (cedric and the revolution, the family treasure) have done the same.  8) they didnt do the music themselves, did they?  8)

It is not forbidden. You can ask others to do it for you, you can get music from wherever. If you're sure about the copyright it's okay. It's just a question of fairness if one game is set up by a number of "profis" working all fulltime on it and has to compete with another entry made by one person alone. Of course this example is oversized but you know what I mean. So to be fair keep it compareable - that's all...

yeah, i understand. but i dont know what you mean with "comparable"? should we make our game smaller? since im entering a full lenght game.

Quote from: Mordalles on Fri 14/04/2006 21:15:02
should we make our game smaller? since I'm entering a full lenght game.

No, keep it as big as you want it to be. One person has one month to create the game, so if it's two working on one game each should have half of a month. Sure this is no fix, you can use this in various ways.
On the other hand one participant goes to school or is at work while the other one has nothing to do and can spend all the time for game creation. Of course this is not forbidden...
In the end nothing can be checked and so it all isn't really strict here. Noone should fear any disqualification.  It's about having fun on creating games...

hi, I'm not really a forum-kind-of-guy (more Silent Jay then Bob) but i'd like to drop a note.

I'm busy working on a mags entry too, but since nihilist was kind enough to inform me i'm up against not one but THREE (maybe more, who knows) former winners, my hope has kinda vanished.

Anyway, I also have something to ask: If I win (maybe hope not totally vanishedÃ,  ;) ) do I have to set the rules for next month? Or can I also decline?

DO NOT drop your entry cause of that :P.
Just cause the 3 of us have winned before doesnt mean one of us will win this one!

I looking forward to all the entries btw ;D.

And as Klaus said:

Quote
It's about having fun on creating games...

Quote from: Stefan Z on Sat 15/04/2006 14:43:41
since nihilist was kind enough to inform me i'm up against not one but THREE (maybe more, who knows) former winners, my hope has kinda vanished.

There's always a chance to win - even with 100 other participants... :)

Quote from: Stefan Z on Sat 15/04/2006 14:43:41
If I win (maybe hope not totally vanished  ;) ) do I have to set the rules for next month? Or can I also decline?

Decline in what way? It's of course possible to say "I don't want to set up new rules at all". For this case (and in case noone enters) there's a list of possible themes and a new rule will be picked from here. What is not possible is to say "I want to set the rules for a special month". It's always the winner of the previous month's competition. An exchange isn't possible as noone knows who's to win of course. You can also make suggestions for the themes list. But this is not limited to winners - everyone can do this and there's no guarantee if it is ever taken as a topic then.
So the only thing you can do is to say "no rules from me" or "here are my rules..." - I guess you'll have at least some ideas in case of a winning. And don't worry: As the rules are checked before publishing they are filled with some additions or reduced in some points in case of need.

Quote from: Peder Johnsen on Sat 15/04/2006 15:01:45DO NOT drop your entry cause of that

My whining wasn't serious, I've already completed more than half of my game, so I'm going to enter my game no matter what (if I finish it in time ;) ).

Quote from: Klaus on Sat 15/04/2006 15:05:19Decline in what way? It's of course possible to say "I don't want to set up new rules at all". (...) It's always the winner of the previous month's competition. An exchange isn't possible as noone knows who's to win of course. You can also make suggestions for the themes list. But this is not limited to winners - everyone can do this and there's no guarantee if it is ever taken as a topic then.

I saw that Peder made the rules, but I didn't know that it was a rule that the winner sets the new rules.

(blush)Ã,  :-[ I now see that it says that the winner may choose the rules right on the first page of www.mags-competition.tk. Forget I asked.

Okay, my game is nearly completed. I'm in betatesting phase, and some sounds are still missing. I hope all the other participants are doing well and can finish their games in time. I'm really curious, what cool games you have created.

cheers
nihilyst

Finished it!


Get it here! (http://www.freewebs.com/stefanzomers/snake.rar)

I should thank InCreator for his excellent tutorial on background making! (which I forget to add to the readme.txt) !

Grtz,
Stefan

I just tried that game quick, and I must say I am impressed..
I left a note in your "completed games" thread...

You gonna beat my entry at least! :P

Here it is, my first self-made adventure game and MAGS game as well.

(http://www.gwebspace.de/hassu-irc/andere/TLH_01.png)Ã,  Ã,  (http://www.gwebspace.de/hassu-irc/andere/TLH_02.png)

This game features:
- verb-style interface
- original piano music
- three different endings

Download The Last Harvest (v1.01) (http://www.longwayhome.de/down/TheLastHarvest_v1_01.rar)
(I hope there aren't any serious bugs, since I can't correct them in the next week.)

Enjoy!
So, and now I can go back to work on my RPG ^^

cheers
nihilyst

great to see the entries.

i probably won't finish mine in time. but ill release it in 1-3 weeks after mags deadline.

Gonna try your game now nihilyst, it looks awesome!! :o ;D.

Damn, looks like I thought I had longer time than I do,, better get my game ready :P.

Two entries are already posted and we're going to reach the deadline soon. So for all those who still want to enter: Please submit your games within the next 48 hours from now (see timestamp of this message). Then the voting will begin.

I won't finish. I'll release my game time sometime ... oneday. Great entries so far!

The Witch, the Wizard and the Blue Cup

Ever wanted to play a game witch a really cliched story? Here you are: Linara is a witch. She dreams that she shall find a powerful magical object (The Blue Cup) to safe the world.

(http://people.freenet.de/Sinitrena/Hexe/Hexescreen.jpg)

Features:
- a really cliched story
- bad voice acting
- worse graphics
- uninteressting puzzels

You can get it here (http://files.filefront.com/Witchrar/;5017562;;/fileinfo.html) or here (http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=87730).

Enjoy

My entry ;D:

Time is up. I guess we're complete now...

For voting please visit the MAGS site (http://www.mags-competition.tk) or make your choice right here:

The Witch the Wizard and the Blue Cup by Sinitrena (http://mags.typo.i24.cc?page=voting&fav=The%20Witch%20the%20Wizard%20and%20the%20Blue%20Cup)
The Last Harvest by nihilyst (http://mags.typo.i24.cc?page=voting&fav=The%20Last%20Harvest)
Snake by Stefan Z (http://mags.typo.i24.cc?page=voting&fav=Snake)
Operation Save Blue Cup by Peder Johnsen (http://mags.typo.i24.cc?page=voting&fav=Operation%20Save%20Blue%20Cup)

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


For the time of voting now you're invited to post your opinion about all entries: Pros and cons of the games. What did you like, what not. In this case it's interesting how you compare the games - if this is possible at all.

I just have to say I liked all the entries, and I wants to wish everyone good luck!

It's really nice to see so many entries for a change, congrats to everyone.

The Witch the Wizard and the Blue Cup
Pros: Good scripting and puzzles, liked the way spells were learnt though it was a bit unclear to begin with.
Cons: The graphics were painful to look at. Limited plot.

The Last Harvest
Pros: Great sense of atmosphere, depth of characters, lots of puzzles, original music.
Cons: Very buggy and a bit of a weak puzzle to get the stone.

Snake
Pros: Just a really fun game, so original and humourous. Bunnies were phwoorsome.
Cons: The GUI was a bit cumbersome, and also very buggy.

Operation Save Blue Cup
Pros: It's got a cow in it. Best ending of all the entries.
Cons: First three stages can be completed without needing to move the mouse, animation was very jerky.

The winner, who knows?

Well, this is a great MAGS. I'm not sure which game I'm going to vote for. I think The Last Harvest and Snake were the best games, but they both have bery big pros and cons, so it's difficult for me to decide. Sinitrena's game was ok, but not nearly as good as some of his other games - I really liked Lonely Night ;D. But the grahpics really are painful to look at sometimes. I must say that I really didn't like Operation Save Blue Cup very much, but I do agree with Wretched that it has the best ending of all the games.

But the real reason why I post this is to ask why we never see any statistics about the votes. I think it would be interesting to know how many people actually vote for the MAGS - and how many votes each game gets. I don't know if this has already been discussed before, since I've only been voting since january '06 (where I tried making a game but failed to finish it), but I would like to know if there is any reason why things are done as they are  ???

Quote from: JuuL on Fri 28/04/2006 10:53:17
But the real reason why I post this is to ask why we never see any statistics about the votes. I think it would be interesting to know how many people actually vote for the MAGS - and how many votes each game gets. I don't know if this has already been discussed before, since I've only been voting since january '06 (where I tried making a game but failed to finish it), but I would like to know if there is any reason why things are done as they are  ???

Hi JuuL. Yes there are reasons, let's go back in time: When the online voting first started in 2003 it was possible to see the current statistics right after submitting a vote. For "nice" voters it was good to see how their favourite game is placed but "bad" voters also had better control to push their game up in the list. That's why the statistics are no longer displayed that way. But the system now - after 3 years of improvement :) - works different and it might be possible to go back to this style of statistic info again.

You might say: "It's not neccessary to see the statistics during the voting period, just show it at the end". This was practised some times. In the last months the time between end of voting and start of the new competition were very short so it wasn't really useful to show the results for just some hours. Displaying the results of the previous month (if they are shown longer) might confuse.

But there's two other things that stopped me from showing the results:
a) Some people were "diappointed" about the number of voters. Seeing about 15-20 people taking part in the voting is actually a very good result but some expect (much) more. So there already were some strange postings about this...
b) If you submit a game (maybe for the first time ever) and see it left back with 0 or 1 vote only this might discourage you from creating more games. Of course this depends on the person: Some try to improve, others just give up. So I guess it's better just to say Game ABC made the race.

Now to help adventure creators to improve their games there's the question during the voting period about your experiences with the entries, pros and cons... That way a participant also can see where his/her game is placed even more detailed.

Perhaps this is a good point to ask you all about how the statistics should be handled. Do you agree with my opinion or should this work in a different way?

Thanks for answering so quickly, Klaus.
I'm not sure about the first argument.  Does this mean that it's possible to vote more than once? (not that I've tried to, of course  :P )
I understand that showing the results of the last months on the official MAGS site could be confusing when a new month's game has already begun. But actually I was thinking about showing them on the monthly thread (like this one).
I think that you're right about how showing results may discourage some game makers. That would of course be a bad thing. But maybe showing how few voters are actually taking part of the vote could also have another effect: Making people want to support the game makers by voting more. I guess it could do both... so the question is if the good or the bad effect will be the biggest one.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really don't know if showing the number of votes would be a good idea.... I was just curious.

QuoteNow to help adventure creators to improve their games there's the question during the voting period about your experiences with the entries, pros and cons...

I think you're right about the importance of telling the game makers about the pros and cons of their games so that it may be easier for them to improve their games. Maybe I wasn't thorough enough before. So here's some extra comments - about why, in the end, I decided to vote for Stefan Z's Snake.

Spoiler

Though Snake had some cons (thin story, average graphics, a few strange puzzles and an almost invisible location that I only found because I was lucky) the game generally worked, and the humour was quite good. The game also had some interesting ideas, like the inability to carry things in the beginning of the game - this was actually what really made me vote for it. I also liked how the way the character's looked changed so much (with and without hands etc.).
The Last Harvest was a really promising game - but unfortunately it didn't live up to it's full potential. Though I was at first fascinated by the mood of the story and the locations, I think the story and some of the later puzzles was disappointing. I must admit that I only tried two of the possible three endings so I might be wrong about this, but I think that we were left without an answer to what was going on - and even without an answer to why our lack of knowledge shouldn't bother us. The four evil spirits were also a bit unoriginal... the description reminded me a bit too much about the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, though I don't know if this was intended or not. Finally, I was I bit confused about the universe of the game. At first I thought it was a medieval universe, so being told by a magician to get a gun really surprised me.

[close]

Quote from: JuuL on Fri 28/04/2006 13:38:06
Does this mean that it's possible to vote more than once?

It was possible in the early votings as I confided "too much" in the fairness of all voters ("only vote once" term) and there was no automated check. But double voters were deleted manually and the result was always correct in the end. Now double voting is not that easy anymore but I still hope people respect the rule only to vote once so checking the votings manually is easier now...

Quote from: JuuL on Fri 28/04/2006 13:38:06
But actually I was thinking about showing them on the monthly thread (like this one).
...
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really don't know if showing the number of votes would be a good idea....

Let's see how we can go on with this after some more opinions are posted, okay?

Quote from: JuuL on Fri 28/04/2006 13:38:06
Maybe I wasn't thorough enough before. So here's some extra comments - about why, in the end, I decided to vote for Stefan Z's Snake.

I think your first comments about the games were already very helpful. The hidden details make it even more complete, thanks :)

QuoteSinitrena's game was ok, but not nearly as good as some of his other games - I really liked Lonely Night

Just so you know: I'm female. (And I think Lonely Night is my best game so far  ;) )

I had no time to play all games this month so I can't comment on them.

But I think it would be good to show the numbers of votes for each game. I'd really like to know how many votes my games get. I think it could encourage people to vote when they see how less votes there actually are and I don't see it would be too bad to see when your game didn't get much votes (or non at all). This just shows that people thought the other games were better not that a game was actually bad. In my opinion it would be a good idea to show the voting statistics in the monthly thread.

Quote from: Sinitrena on Sat 29/04/2006 17:07:04
Just so you know: I'm female. (And I think Lonely Night is my best game so far  ;) )

Oh, great. It's good to know that there are some good female game designers out there. I just guess that my mind had automatically assumed that you were a male clown with green hair wearing a suit. Obviously my subconsciousness is unfamiliar with the idea of "avatars"  ::)
And I have to say it again: I really enjoyed Lonely Night - and I'm still listening to the music sometimes.

I appreciate it when voters/gamers tell what they like and dislike. It helps people improve.
The cons you mentioned about my game will certainly be in the back of my head when making another game, Juul. And thanks for voting for me ;)

I feel I have to apologise for not discussing the entries: I have some work to catch up after I've been busy last month making my entry, so I haven't been able up to play the other games.

About the system: Definitely don't show votes before the voting has closed.

Quote from: Klaus on Fri 28/04/2006 13:02:14
a) Some people were "disappointed" about the number of voters. Seeing about 15-20 people taking part in the voting is actually a very good result but some expect (much) more. So there already were some strange postings about this...

b) If you submit a game (maybe for the first time ever) and see it left back with 0 or 1 vote only this might discourage you from creating more games. Of course this depends on the person: Some try to improve, others just give up. So I guess it's better just to say Game ABC made the race.

a) That's a surprisingly low figure. Then I'm in favour of showing percentages instead of absolute numbers.

b) I myself didn't make my entry to get votes or to win the competition and consider it a very childish approach to say: "Ooh, people didn't vote for me, now I won't make another game". But it depends on the person, most definitely.

Whether or not you should make the votes public? I'd say yes.

Grtz,
Stefan

The voting is over and the winner is very clear again even if it wasn't that easy to decide who's to win, what we can see from the published pros and cons...

So this month's congratulations go to
nihilyst and his entry The Last Harvest

Many thanks to all other participants, too.


For those who are interested in the voting statistics the result in detail can be seen in the voting section of the official MAGS website (http://www.mags-competition.tk) for the next days. It's just a click away: here (http://mags.typo.i24.cc/index.php?page=voting). On mouseover you see the percentage of votes for each entry.
I'll keep this system for the next competitions but if in general you prefer to see the absolute number of voters instead of percentages just tell me via PM. Thanks.

Congratulations to nihilyst!

Showing the percentage of votes seems to be a good idea.

Thanks to everybode, who played my game, and thanks to all who voted for me. I really appreciated the other entries, too, and I'm looking forward to new cool games next month, but I definitely won't participate in May. I'm back on working on my RPG now ^^

cheers
nihilyst

Congrats nihilyst!

I thought your game was the best!
so, I had to vote for you!Ã,  ;D hehe.

Though, the other entries was also GREAT!
But yours won my vote!.


I will probably not enter next months mags, cause I busy recording my music, and making some websites etc...
AND I gonna be an Apprentice! lol...
For real though!