MAGS April “Finish Your MAGS Game” (VOTING)

[Stupot]

Finish Your MAGS Game
Set by: OneDollar

Voting is underway,
Please vote using the poll above.

	Barn Runner: Fashionably Late (MAGS Version) by Ponch
	Steeplejack by GOC Games
	Sherwood by Radiant
	In Our Midst by OneDollar

If you're anything like me your hard drive is full of half-finished, abandoned MAGS entries gathering digital dust. Well time to open up the vault and actually release something!

Find one of your previous MAGS games that you never completed and get it to at least a playable state. Let us know which MAGS it was for (if you can remember) and how far you'd got before you stopped working on it.

If you don't have any suitable games but you want to take part anyway, make a game about finishing something. Or ask if anyone has an old MAGS project they'd like to donate to you.



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 guidelines 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 "favourite" 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
Entering MAGS is simple. First, conceptualize your game following the month's criteria (see above). Second, create your game fuelled only by coffee. Finally, post your game in this thread, including:

* A working download link
* The title of your game
* A suitable in-game screenshot

At the end of the month, voting will begin, usually lasting for fourteen days, and the winner chooses the next month's theme.

Remember that this is a challenge to see what you can do in a month, so any tinkering you do after that, including fixing minor glitches, is against the spirit of the competition. The exception to this is that you may go in and fix major, game-breaking bugs only during voting. We want you to have a game that voters can actually play and that runs on their machines.

So to reiterate, during the voting period fixing major, game-breaking bugs is okay, fixing minor glitches or making cosmetic changes is cheating.

Tips
Here are some ways to make sure you have a game to submit at the end of the month:
* Make a tiny game. Plan small, then cut it in half. Find shortcuts (e.g. if making walkcycles is time-consuming, make the characters static or have it in the first person).
* Plan to have your game playable and submittable with a week to spare. This way you have a week to fix bugs, add some flourishes and maybe even get someone to test it.
* Plan to submit it a day or so early. This way, if there are any technical issues with uploading, they can be sorted out in time.

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Need a little help with graphics? Perhaps The AGS Trove has something you can use.
Don't want to go it alone? Try the Recruitment board.
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[Kastchey]

Yess! Thank you, Brian Eggs! 

[eri0o]

Uhm, I have something I made for the Desert theme that was going somewhere, but I couldn't figure it out and I would like to scrap the desert parts of it and redo as a completely different game. The original was about investigating something that happened in the past long before it got all covered in sand, but I couldn't figure the what.

I think I want to scrap all that and instead make a metroidvania and use survival instead of combat... Been playing survival kids in the Gameboy and want to try a simplified version of that crossed with the first Zelda that takes place somewhere that is maybe a mix of florest and some ruins... Will try to overscope something and cut it back. Don't know much yet.

Here are my random notes in case someone drives by and is feeling particularly gamer designery

Spoiler

You will eventually at some point early find an old car which can drive faster than you can walk but it can't go must places and you yourself get tired if you walk very big distances. I am going to abstract how the car fuels itself, maybe it has top notch solar panel magical tech, it's nuclear powered or just it magically has a lot of gas so it doesn't matter...

Consider making time only pass when you move.

Swamp is unpassable by person but not by car? Things that could block a car but not a person and vice-versa.

Moving at night requires some device that produces light - upgrade to fix car headlights? Can I impose this naturally somehow???

Resting during day requires some way to block light? Can we make a cottage???

Can some additional way of seeing the world be given to the player? Maybe a dog that sniffs things... Alternatively something is only visible at night

Carrying things limit in player vs car vs cottage?? Should the car be a moveable cottage?

Does making the car being somewhere that you can rest requires some upgrade?

Zelda like -> full life you can jump higher?

Is there a way to constrain the world on rooms? Maybe there are caves, and then you can obtain things from caves - you use "abilities" to navigate the world and survive, and pick up new abilities in caves.

Need to figure the objective, I was thinking of flipping I rented a boat as you would now control Julie and need to find whoever was the main character that is lost and then emit some signal to trigger a rescue for you both.

Edit: have an idea for objective, you come looking for whoever is the main character of I Rented a Boat and the helicopter goes down in a strong rain, both you and the pilot survives, the pilot is injured and he guides you on a few survival skills until the day passes and it's morning, he contacts the base using a radio and a new helicopter appears to pick him up. As he is being rescued you decide to stay to keep the search he gives you the knife and the radio, and says he will be back to look for you on the next day with clear wheater.

Now that you have the knife you can exit the place you are by clearing some foliage and begin exploring. Stats will only start to constantly update as you exit this initial area for the first time.

[close]

[DBoyWheeler]

Ooh!  Very interesting theme!  It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this!

[OneDollar]

I should say the theme was outright stolen from inspired by the MAGS discussion thread where it seemed like something people would be interested in.

I've been looking through a couple of my old projects this morning. There's two obvious ones that had a fair bit of work put into them before I ran out of time, but I'm struggling to find the game designs for either of them. It's going to be a memory test to figure out which one is closest to being finished and how the game was supposed to work.

[Cassiebsg]

Ooooh... maybe this will get me out of the stagnation.
I have a at least 2 I would love to finish, one of them is at least realist to finish (Stable Pete) since most is done (the end is already even programmed into the "demo", just no way to see it). It wouldn't take too much to finish this one... specially since I even still remember all the puzzles and story that I had in mind.

The second one is That day, though this one would require a bit more work and rattle my brain heavier, since I don't remember the puzzles, just the rough story line.

Then I do have 2 other projects, but they would need more work to make them realistic for this current time frame.

I'll probably put Stable Pete in the "let's give this one a try" and That day in the "If I manage to finish Stable Pete and I'm in a roll, I'll try for 2 in one"...

[TheFrighter]

The second one is That day, though this one would require a bit more work and rattle my brain heavier, since I don't remember the puzzles, just the rough story line.

That could be very nice, I vote for this! 

_

[Kastchey]

I got this little thing collecting dust since May 2019:



I gave up on this one pretty quickly, because I realized I wasn't going to get enough time that month, and because I couldn't think of a story and a puzzle sequence that made enough sense. Maybe I can give it another go.

[eri0o]

I have a car that you can enter and exit: >>surviving v1<<

I will try to share to force me to finish something but don't guarantee...

[Durinde]

Ahh, all my old abandoned projects are on a long dead laptop! Maybe I have some files for something somewhere.

[newwaveburritos]

What if you submitted a super buggy obviously unfinished game for MAGS??  Uh, asking for a friend...

[OneDollar]

I think if it was originally submitted in a state where it was obvious to players that it was very unfinished that's fine. Fixing a couple of bugs or adding a bit of polish to something that was already fully playable would go against the spirit of the theme though.

[newwaveburritos]

Oh, I was mostly joking.  I think in this context it would absolutely go against the spirit of the theme lol.

[eri0o]

Added placeholder map, basic stats and time that only progress with movement: >>surviving v2<<

Edit: added an edit on the top spoiler with some ideas. I will keep refreshing the top spoiler as a way to note down my ideas.

[cat]

I checked my AGS projects folder and only found two unfinished MAGS games:
- Chekken (raeff is not sure if wants to continue this)
- a project I started together with Ghost where he did the graphics 

[eri0o]

Chekken is a curious name :0

[cat]

We released a demo but nothing more back then:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/competitions-activities/mags-october-genre-shift-results/

[TheFrighter]

 What about the Ghost's project?

_

[heltenjon]

I am swamped in work and will probably not make anything this month. I basically have two projects where I have some graphics, which usually means that I will eventually finish it. And I think I have a few puzzle charts/half-baked stories lying around somewhere. (On paper, so I would have to take an hour to look for it if anyone needs it.)

What if you submitted a super buggy obviously unfinished game for MAGS??  Uh, asking for a friend...

Eh, my friend would like to play your friend's game when it is finished...

Otherwise, lots of interesting game projects going on here. Hope to see them cross the finish line! 

[eri0o]

What if you submitted a super buggy obviously unfinished game for MAGS??  Uh, asking for a friend...

If it's the game I think it's I would like to play and would say yes please.


To update... At the end of the day, there is a chance it rains: >>surviving v3<<