MAGS October "Finish Your MAGS Game" (VOTING)

[Stupot]

Theme: Finish Your MAGS Game
Set by: Stupot

Time to vote.

	Hour Al by jwalt
	The Sphinx of Time by Babar and jfrisby
	Chupacabra Crunch by VampireWombat
	MvM Demo: Patience is a Virtue by Perpetuall

As there were no entries for August, and therefore no one to set the theme for October, I thought it would be a good idea to have another "Finish Your MAGS" edition, to breathe new life into one of your old abandoned MAGS games.

No extra guidelines, but it might be worth remembering that the haunting season is upon us, so you are invited, but by no means obliged, to include something spoOoOoky.


(May delete gif later)



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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[eri0o]

_{(please leave the gif I love it)}

[pell]

I'll finish my part of a game heltonjon and I worked on a while back if it's not disqualifying to have done a little design work outside of the challenge month. I think I'm going to have to redo the assets I made, but some of the designs for them were worked on after the month was over. Very little actual game logic was done, and even that will probably need a fresh start.

Edit: Would this be allowed, Stupot?

Edit again: Given that it's probably outside of the spirit of MAGS to have done any work outside of the competition month, I'll finish our game outside of MAGS. Maybe I'll revive one of my own unfinished MAGS ideas.

[Stupot]

Hi Pell,

If you feel that the amount of work you did outside of the contest month would give you an unfair advantage, then it might be better to set it aside, but if the extra amount you did was just a few bits and bobs, then it might not be too much of a problem. Maybe discuss it with heltenjon and see what you both agree on.

Also, if anyone reading this has any views or objections, please voice them below.

[heltenjon]

Well, the point of the theme is to make the community members finish their games, so it shouldn't be too strict. I agree wholeheartedly with Stupot's comment.

Anyway, using pre-existing assets are generally allowed now, I believe, so using sprites drawn earlier would be a bit like using stuff from the trove, RoN or Background Blitz, which I don't think is a problem for participation. But maybe original art made in the same month would impress more and gather more votes.

[Kastchey]

I think we can trust the participants to use their common sense.

[pell]

Thanks for the responses. If I decide to stay in with this game, I'll redo some of the design work.

[Cassiebsg]

I'm confused. If this is  "finish your mags game", then isn't it normal that a lot of the game is done? Or is the theme "discarded mags ideas"?

[Stupot]

I'm confused. If this is  "finish your mags game", then isn't it normal that a lot of the game is done? Or is the theme "discarded mags ideas"?

I think Pell's concern was whether the theme is intended for games that were worked on only during the MAGS contests they were meant for, since Pell had done more work on their game after that period.

I don't see a problem myself, unless the extra amount done is an incredibly unfair amount.

[Cassiebsg]

Okay, tks for the extra info. It confused me.
Now, if I stop procrastinating, I might actually have one finished this time around.

[jwalt]

I'm reasonably sure I'll have something Alien related. I thought one of my puzzles would involve binary bitwise manipulation, but I'm very unsure I going to be able to do it. Right now I'm only confusing myself. In other words, the puzzle will likely be there, but it may be totally screwed.

I upsized to 640x480, and I'm having a lot of problems with portions of the BASS template GUIs, as well as the smallish Say text size. I managed to "fix" the Esc, but the other F-keys seem to be belly up, and I'm not sure why. I am sure I probably won't be able to fix all these issues before I dump it on you folks. Cause I's too stoopid.

Happy with my title: Hour's First Contact. Also pretty happy with my Hour character. Not too happy with Glob, but such is life.

Edit: Spent a bit more time rereading the help file about fonts, and I now have font sizes that are making me happy.

[pell]

I upsized to 640x480, and I'm having a lot of problems with portions of the BASS template GUIs

I noticed this when I scaled up as well. The logic scales up, in other words invisible buttons are where they should be for a scaled-up interface. But the graphics are too small and in the wrong place. I'm assuming if I replace the graphics with scaled-up versions it would work. But I'll probably just work at the original size for now.

[jwalt]

I upsized to 640x480, and I'm having a lot of problems with portions of the BASS template GUIs

I noticed this when I scaled up as well. The logic scales up, in other words invisible buttons are where they should be for a scaled-up interface. But the graphics are too small and in the wrong place. I'm assuming if I replace the graphics with scaled-up versions it would work. But I'll probably just work at the original size for now.

May be more than that, at least in my case. I've been dinking around with the BASS Save Gui, and while I've got the labels and buttons in their proper place, I seem to have lost the functionality. What I'm working on is short enough that not having save/reload won't be a game killer, but still... May have to resort to a DIY method?

On a more pleasant note... I'm making good progress with my effort. Need to tidy up a couple of dialogue trees. May also change the Anim8or camera angle for one of the characters, since my current views seem distorted. Might also redo one of the characters from scratch, although I've grown rather fond of his/her/its appearance. We are, after all, dealing with Aliens, are we not?

[Cassiebsg]

Damn, RL keeps getting in the way. 
Not looking like I'll finish any of the MAGS games this time around either.

@jwalt, if it's a very very short game, what I usually do, is make it a single savegame slot. F5/button saves to that slot, and F7/Restore restores that slot (if it exists). Easy and fast to code. 

[jwalt]

Damn, RL keeps getting in the way. 
Not looking like I'll finish any of the MAGS games this time around either.

@jwalt, if it's a very very short game, what I usually do, is make it a single savegame slot. F5/button saves to that slot, and F7/Restore restores that slot (if it exists). Easy and fast to code. 

I was actually able to fix the resize issue and get the GUIs to save/reload with the F-keys. Got hung up for a bit because the game saves evidently save the GUI states as well. So it was working for a new save, but when I reloaded a previous game, the GUIs went back to being messed up. I cleared all the saved games and began again, and I had it working just as expected/wanted. I'm fairly confident that it's no longer an issue. However, I've no clue where the BASS template sends the saved games. They certainly don't show up in the Saved Game folder.

Now trying repeated play throughs of the game to try and break it. Seems rock solid, so far. Still too much of a movie, but that's life for me. Also, it's not really that much of a game, but I've learned a ton of stuff about both AGS and Anim8or. Well worth the effort.

[heltenjon]

However, I've no clue where the BASS template sends the saved games. They certainly don't show up in the Saved Game folder.

I think they are supposed to go under Users -> Your username -> Saved Games -> folder with the same name as your game folder. Is that where you are looking?

[jwalt]

However, I've no clue where the BASS template sends the saved games. They certainly don't show up in the Saved Game folder.

I think they are supposed to go under Users -> Your username -> Saved Games -> folder with the same name as your game folder. Is that where you are looking?

I'd changed the game's name a couple of times now. I'd been looking where you said they should have been, and once I remembered what I was currently calling the game, bingo, the files were there. What's that Simpson expression: D'oh.

I'd likely never figured it out without heltonjohn's nudge. Thanky.

Even found the .pcx picture, so, apparently, all of the F keys are working.

[jwalt]

I am aware that there are quite a few days left before this competition ends, but I'm afraid to try to stuff any more into the box. So far, it seems well behaved; I haven't been able to break it. If anyone wants to take it for an early spin, it would be appreciated. Believe this will stand as my entry.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/tk1nsnfthrpyavn/HourAl.zip/file

I'll have to generate a screen shot. Don't have one handy at the moment. I'll edit one in as soon as possible.

Edit:

[VampireWombat]

I wasn't sure about doing this one or not. I couldn't think of an unfinished MAGS game I wanted to work on this month. But I did look through an external hard drive and found one. I'll have to do some research for when the game was started, but I'd guess it's from my first year on the forum. I should just barely have enough time to finish it, assuming nothing major happens.

[Perpetuall]

So I've had barely any free time at all to work on the game, just been too busy with real life. If I have enough time today, I'll try to throw together a small demo game and release it, if not, I'll just give a sneak peek of the animations I have done this month once I'm done. I plan to keep working on this over the next year and hopefully finish it when my life is a little less hectic.