MAGS November “Body of Water” (VOTING)

[RootBound]

As I wrote in the completed games thread, it seems I uploaded an older build of the game by accident. If you downloaded it (it seems not many people did yet), please replace it with the new version. Same download link. I feel very silly.

[RootBound]

@jwalt, I just played your entry. It was fun, and I really like the animation! Would love to see more in this vein with the pre-rendered assets.

[RootBound]

For those who may not have time to play very much, here's a full playthrough with me adding a new score to my high score list at the end.

[pell]

I'm bowing out. I was very excited about the script I came up with, but the puzzles were kind of meh, so I got distracted with other things.

[RootBound]

So there's a new version of my entry uploaded because I found a bug that freezes the game instead of displaying the high score list. It's fixed now. You'll need to complete a playthrough before the update will go into your save games, though. Or you can delete your saves (which will clear the high score list). Everything else is the same, no changes to gameplay or anything else.

[Kara Jo Kalinowski]

These are 2 very different games, will be interesting to see how the vote goes.

[jfrisby]

Babar & I present...
BOTOS DO DIABO
A fever dream horror somewhere in the Amazon...



Download: https://jfrisby.itch.io/botos-do-diabo

This one has some violence, blood, *scares, etc.. if you're sensitive to that (*AGS level jumpscares). It got pretty experimental and weird this month. :p

[TheFrighter]

Cool! 

Just a minor nuisance: you didn't indicate the OS!

_

[jfrisby]

Just a minor nuisance: you didn't indicate the OS! _

Thanks for catching this, I was pretty tired when I uploaded it.. We'll have a linux build up soon too!

[Babar]

Babar & I present...
BOTOS DO DIABO
A fever dream horror somewhere in the Amazon...



Download: https://jfrisby.itch.io/botos-do-diabo

This one has some violence, blood, *scares, etc.. if you're sensitive to that (*AGS level jumpscares). It got pretty experimental and weird this month. :p

Since we got no "STOP NOW CRIMINAL SCUM!" from Stupot yet, I've uploaded some final tweaks, and added a linux build as well. Same link as before. Enjoy, everyone (including me, who will now relax with the other entries).

[RootBound]

Babar & I present...
BOTOS DO DIABO
A fever dream horror somewhere in the Amazon...

Spoiler

well the leg scene was genuinely horrifying. Good job making the game playable and intuitive throughout the strangeness.

Spoiler

I have a bit of a science-fiction brain, so I have a hypothesis that maybe explains all of this (in a forced and totally unnecessary way. The game works better as a fever dream without explanation).

Spoiler

The character is "unstuck in time" in the vein of Slaughterhouse-five. Once he gets to the end of his life, he starts traveling through time backwards. He wrote the note warning himself to watch his legs, and he wrote the note from his lover because he knew he would never die before ever reaching home, and wanted to release himself from longing for her, despite the pain it would cause. He took the baby from the raft because he knew that traveling forward in time would not save the baby either, so he carries the baby with him now, traveling further into the past, and when he gets far enough in time before the flood that the baby will have a chance to grow up, he will release it back into the regular time stream. The baby then grows up and becomes him.

...As I said, the game is better without anything like this. 

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[lapsking]

Botos Do Diabo

Spoiler

A good short game. Limited pallet works well and having few colors helps with creating the ambience without becoming boring, since it's a short game. The interface is easy and puzzles are straight forward. Using some inventory items on some objects are left without any explanation or reaction from the character. For me, having a story (even though fever dream) was a bonus. It successfully creates an eerie atmosphere.

[close]

Bad to the Coral

Spoiler

A very polished game. Creative idea, conscious topic and nice graphics. I enjoyed the different gameplay.

[close]

[jfrisby]

Spoiler

well the leg scene was genuinely horrifying. Good job making the game playable and intuitive throughout the strangeness.

Spoiler

I have a bit of a science-fiction brain, so I have a hypothesis that maybe explains all of this (in a forced and totally unnecessary way. The game works better as a fever dream without explanation).

Spoiler

The character is "unstuck in time" in the vein of Slaughterhouse-five. Once he gets to the end of his life, he starts traveling through time backwards. He wrote the note warning himself to watch his legs, and he wrote the note from his lover because he knew he would never die before ever reaching home, and wanted to release himself from longing for her, despite the pain it would cause. He took the baby from the raft because he knew that traveling forward in time would not save the baby either, so he carries the baby with him now, traveling further into the past, and when he gets far enough in time before the flood that the baby will have a chance to grow up, he will release it back into the regular time stream. The baby then grows up and becomes him.

...As I said, the game is better without anything like this. 

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I love all this so much!

Spoiler

.. and its probably super generous to the reality of the plot in this   (Poor Jackson, and whatever he is raking in?!)
That makes the bottle make sense a lot more, ..and the baby stuff!
I'd drawn a bunch of closeup's that seemed fun, and we tried our best to cobbled them together..  it seems like a lot of horror kind of feels like that though?  Just a series of very emotionally manipulative scenes   Thanks for the kind words!

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Spoiler

I enjoyed Bad to the Coral too, drawing a bunch of trash looked fun!  I really wanted to assign nets to hotkeys for net-size (1-3?) but that might make it too intense

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[Kara Jo Kalinowski]

Spoiler

I enjoyed Bad to the Coral too, drawing a bunch of trash looked fun!  I really wanted to assign nets to hotkeys for net-size (1-3?) but that might make it too intense

[close]

I agree with this 100%, if there was a version 1.01 or something that's definitely something that should be added

[Stupot]

Sorry for the delay, everyone.
Time to vote.

	GillPartyBus by jwalt
	Bad to the Coral by Rootbound
	Botos do Diabo by Babar and jfrisby

As always, let me know if I've missed anything in my haste.

[lapsking]

I missed playing GillPartyBus. Just saw it yesterday.

Spoiler

It was more of a humorous short animation rather than a game. It didn't have puzzles and interaction and look at buttons mainly did the same thing. Nevertheless, it was a fun experience.

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[cat]

GillPartyBus

Spoiler

Fun setting, great dialog writing but like in the previous game, there nothing to do. It's not a game but a short film.
That Tabata eyebrow inside joke made me really laugh out loud and I was glad to see the crab in its new home in the end.

[close]

Bad to the Coral

Spoiler

Interesting concept. I liked the sprites of the falling objects a lot. I played it for a while in slow mode until it became boring, then in fast mode until I died (which didn't take a long time). Maybe I'll try that again another day but I stopped now because my hand started to hurt.
A keyboard short cut for choosing the net would have been a nice UI feature.

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Botos Do Diabo

Spoiler

So, this is quite difficult to review for me. The graphics are wonderful, again a great color scheme and lots of detailed drawings and animations (was the baby based on a photo of your baby?).
The story was flowing like the river, but gameplay felt like just clicking to trigger the next chapter. Which from a philosophical point of view fits the theme, but wasn't that much fun to play.
The atmosphere was amazing, with a great build-up of tension. However, as a climax, there was the scene with the leg. I didn't manage to solve the only real puzzle of the game in time and died. I didn't have a save file, so I had to play again from the beginning. This means that I tried to get by as fast as possible and the complete atmosphere was ruined for me and not restored for the rest of the game. Having an autosave right at the beginning of the scene might have prevented this. But the way I experienced the game, I was left with an indifferent feeling (which might be a good thing after all, since I actually don't like horror).

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My vote

Spoiler

Ok, this is a difficult one. From the production value, Botos Do Diabo is a clear winner, with Bad to the Coral a close second. But especially for MAGS, I like to judge games by the way I feel after completing them. After playing Bad to the Coral, my wrist hurt. After playing Botos Do Diabo, I was somewhat disappointed because of the ruined atmosphere. So, in the end, I voted for GillPartyBus, because it made me laugh.

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[Babar]

Botos Do Diabo

Spoiler

So, this is quite difficult to review for me. The graphics are wonderful, again a great color scheme and lots of detailed drawings and animations (was the baby based on a photo of your baby?).
The story was flowing like the river, but gameplay felt like just clicking to trigger the next chapter. Which from a philosophical point of view fits the theme, but wasn't that much fun to play.
The atmosphere was amazing, with a great build-up of tension. However, as a climax, there was the scene with the leg. I didn't manage to solve the only real puzzle of the game in time and died. I didn't have a save file, so I had to play again from the beginning. This means that I tried to get by as fast as possible and the complete atmosphere was ruined for me and not restored for the rest of the game. Having an autosave right at the beginning of the scene might have prevented this. But the way I experienced the game, I was left with an indifferent feeling (which might be a good thing after all, since I actually don't like horror).

[close]

Thanks for the very honest feedback!

Spoiler

We went back and forth on whether the game should feature death on that scene (and the sinking and the tourniquet) several times, and only finally plugged in the death hours before the deadline. We had assumed that 50 seconds would be more than enough time to solve the puzzle, but I think your idea of an autosave is good, and something we can implement, post-MAGS).

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[cat]

Spoiler

We had assumed that 50 seconds would be more than enough time to solve the puzzle

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Spoiler

I know, quite embarrassing that I didn't solve it. But I was really feeling the pressure and stress. I focused on the leg and tried all inventory items again and again and just didn't look somewhere else. The game really got me until this point.

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[heltenjon]

Here are my thoughts this month.

GillPartyBus by jwalt:

Spoiler

Funny, and also nice use of the rendered graphics. There's not much interaction, though I liked what there was. (But I miss Josh and Davy!)

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Bad to the Coral by Rootbound:

Spoiler

I think this is a great non-adventure game with very good replayability on hard mode. Slow mode is too easy. Of course, it's a limited game genre, but I was impressed by how good it delivers. Possibly a contender for CaptainD for the non-adventure AGS award this year?

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Botos do Diabo by Babar and jfrisby:

Spoiler

Very atmospheric and plenty of WTF moments. I liked this one a lot, being a horror fan and all. However, the game is on tracks with little branching. In a sense, this one and GillPartyBus are similar in that regard. Both games involve going forward and dealing with what appears on the player's way.

[close]

My vote:

Spoiler

Rootbound. This was a very hard decision. I think I've voted for Babar and jfrisby every time so far in MAGS, and voting for something other than an adventure is not something I would normally do. But I admire Rootbound's little action game, as it proves the versatility of AGS.

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