MAGS September(Winner Announced) Topic: Only One

[Tijne]

No worries, I'm fairly new at this as well! @_@;

And I believe that your game is excellent, as is everyone else's. ;_;

[Dualnames]

Okay, no more entries peeps! Wait till I post them all up.

EDIT:
Vote HERE

It ends in 48 hours, whenever I find time on the 27th.

[Gudforby]

Four games, neat! Guess I have some playing to do tonight...

Congrats to all on their releases!

[Crimson Wizard]

SomeSickSelf, you have a good game there; nice clean graphics (I dunno why you refer to them as "terrible MS paint graphics", I've seen games which had worse, and were still playable ), and really good writing.

....and... actually I was stuck there last night...  will try harder.

[Crimson Wizard]

Allright, I finished two games this far.

Ardent Fever by Tijne is a strange one (that does not mean 'bad' ),

Spoiler

reading description I thought it is a drama/thriller, then I was spooked by the sudden explosion during introduction; I had sound voume turned high and wearing headphones .
But it turned to be some sort of ironic sci-fi comedy.

[close]

To be honest I did not like graphics there much, except for maybe room with many doors (door animation is cool): game's drawn crudely; I understand, however, that it was made in haste (same problem I had with my game).
Main character's walking animation stands out most of all, it reminded me irish dances XD with his hands behind back and twitching legs.
(who am I to judge character animation anyway... I, who used poor overused Roger as a base for my character.... :)
As for puzzles, I progressed rather swiftly, but there was this disturbing thing about random sayings when you tried to do something wrong or not in time: for example I was trying to

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open panel with screwdriver

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several times and character kept saying stupid phrases, although I was sure there's something important. I suppose it would be better for him to say something like "I don't now why I should this now", or "I should have a purpose to do so".
The ending was somewhat confusing. Well, I've got the idea, but it was so much of a sudden. That illness possibly made sense with symptoms mentioned, but it was not easy to guess it may be the cause, mainly

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because there were no clues that these humanoids on the ship never experienced that "illness" before.

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The North Crown (or Veeblefetzer) by SomeSickSelf is a creepy one; although it is short I'd say it has a good atmosphere (and very good text!), and player gets a strong feeling that something terrible is going to happen,

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seeing a monster leaves dead animals on his path...

[close]

But it is too short and ends abruptly. Actually I didn't get the very last puzzle, I just

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was using "trident" on that teleporting anomaly mindlessly over and over again, and suddenly - blam! - I won.

[close]

Also the ending sequence is confusing as well.

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It is was strange to see how a common guy suddenly accepts the offer from unknown creatures to lead armies against darkness....

[close]

I suppose main fault here is that the character is not developed - at all. You simply know nothing about him.
I may make a suggestion: if you take the beginning of the story, - maybe 3-4 rooms before the city, - and evolve it into a longer story, this may end in something much more satisfying. I really liked the style of these scenes. The city scenes were made more roughly.

I am playing Helme's "Minion" now, game's funny but I am getting stuck all the time

[arj0n]

Dual, for my own idea and to avoid 'problems', when is it allowed to give comments about the games:
After the voting results to not influence others who are maybe going to vote or just after playing before voting or voting results?
Thanx.

[Crimson Wizard]

when is it allowed to give comments about the games:
After voting to not influence others who are maybe going to vote

I wouldn't recommend anyone to be influenced by other people's opinion when it comes to games; everyone has its own preferences in visual look and puzzles, and its own level of tolerance for overall silliness of the game .

[arj0n]

I wouldn't recommend anyone to be influenced by other people's opinion when it comes to games

Me neither
But I remember there have been some controversy about this subject so I would like to know the "official rule" on this...

[Leon]

There is no official rule about this. That's why the controversy started in the first place. I now keep from commenting (other than bugs/errors etc) until after voting. Just to be safe and not influence anyone. But you can comment on any game at any time if you like.

Since there is no rule, I'd say use it at your own discretion.

[Tijne]

So long as you don't post who you're voting for, and list a (more or less equal number of) things good/bad about each game, I believe things should be okay.. 
...And since Crimson is a participant, we know he's slightly biased.


...Though I could just feel this way because I agree completely with Crimson's assessment of my entry's general flaws..... and want to create my own list of comments later today.. xD

[Crimson Wizard]

...And since Crimson is a participant, we know he's slightly biased.

Actually I think I know whom I will vote for... and it is not me

[Dualnames]

Guys, guys. From my "official" side, the comments should be allowed. If it seems better, people can just hide them using [ hide ], but they should really be there.

[discordance]

Well, I just frantically downloaded all four of these today and took a ferocious shot at them. No idea if I'll be able to finish them all in time to vote (probably not), but I did manage to get through The Deed and wanted to remark that I rather liked it. It had a cool atmosphere to it. Nice music. Nice backgrounds. Nice very simple story. I don't think I've ever played a game with only one character in it before, and I found that cool too. Even though the PC was Roger with red pants, it had a really cool fairy-tale feel, somewhat haunting, even. So thumbs up to that one.

The other three, well, hopefully I'll get far enough to formulate an opinion by, like, tomorrow. Like, really fast tomorrow.

[Tijne]

My comments on the games --  Read at your own peril.

--The Deed--
Best:  -- Story, Artwork, Atmosphere
Good: -- Puzzles,
Weakest Aspect -- Ending, Standard GUI Interface*, Lack of Animations
Comments:

Spoiler

Other than the depressing Endings.. (both of them Dx), the GUI was the only thing I actually -disliked- about this game.  If you had a custom GUI, you would have secured my vote. xD  The game also lacked animations in comparison to the other two, though it's not really a big deal since it's a MAGs game and you had the best Artwork.^^;
When first playing through, I thought, "Why is there this huge empty space in the middle of the area that does nothing?", but that was excused later. :x  All the puzzles were solvable and logical (Booyah, I got it without any help! ), the Atmosphere was -very- nicely put together via the artwork music and writing.--  speaking of which, all three of them were done very well.  Nicely done Crimson.    Oh;  No bugs found and the game was in the bounds of the rules, so again, Nicely done! 

[close]

--The North Crown--
Absolutely Bestest Best:  -- Writing.  You rock at this.
Good: -- Story, Atmosphere, Artwork
Weakest Aspect -- Lack of Music*, Making Sense? Heh..
Comments:

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There was no music/sound effects?  Or did I just not get that in the download? @_@  Made me very sad as Music is very important to me to set up the atmosphere.  However, you did Very well with including the Atmosphere in both the writing and backgrounds.  If you had any hint of music, I would have said you had the best atmosphere out of all the other games since the quality of the other two were high.  Oh well ;_;.  Other than a little few bugs, the game played out well.  Or so I think.  I'm still a little completely lost in what happened.  A few parts of the story are still blurry/unclear to me.  On the up side, you have ABSOLUTELY FANTASIC writing.  And you were obviously within the rules.

[close]

--Minor Minion--
Best:  -- Puzzles, Humour
Good: -- Story
Weakest Aspect -- Artwork, Writting/Grammar*, Ending,
Comments:

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  Aside from the fact that it was made in German, there were a few, what I felt was inappropriate or misleading responses when combining / using items or trying to use/look at certain things during certain parts of the game.  That may be due to translation problems though so I excus'd those. ^^;.  Other than that, the Ending was kind of sudden and didn't feel very satisfactory, to -me- at least.  Though it did make me laugh a little. ^^;   The Artwork didn't seem as good as what Cold Mead had, but that could just be me. @_@

I wasn't sure whether the game was trying to have a comical or 'dangerous' atmospheric mood half the time, between the music, writing, and artwork.. so it gave off a kind of confused feeling overall, though individually worked well .  There were also a few small bugs, bugs similar to the ones found in Cold Mead which made me a little sad that those same bugs existed. @_@;
On the other side, the game -really- shines in its puzzles.  Very, very creative yet logical, though sometimes difficult, .  The finely salted humor was also a nice break from the other two more serious-ish games.   It was more ''fun'' playing this game than any of the others!

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Who to vote for?  I'm not really sure.  All of the games were excellent. @_@;... I think I'm going to go with

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The Deed, as the story and atmosphere appeal to me more than the other two.  ... ^_^ ... though I wish I could have found a happy ending. :p  Ditching a loving princesses and the right to rule a kingdom to become a secluded farmer surrounded by magical red flowers that have very cruel magical thorns...or... desecrating the magical holy-like land the flower grew on0 just to give one of the flowers away a 'wedding present'..... .... ...yeah both are sad. ;_;

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[Helme]

Well, I don't think it will change the result of the voting, but I just updated Minor Minion.
I hope I corrected all typos and grammar problems.

[Crimson Wizard]

Ah, yes, I finished Minor Minion yesterday.
Game was fun, but required some non-standart thinking. Or maybe my mind was tired after making my own game, don't know. Anyway, I had to use couple of hints from Leon's walkthrough.

Gameplay itself made an ambivalent impression. It was very funny in general, but with some quite gruesome episodes.
Only bugs I found were related to character sayings about using two items together, for example using "shrunken head" made character say same line twice. But that were not much distrbing anyway.

--The Deed--
Best:  -- Story, Artwork, Atmosphere

I've never really believed I'll be ever praised for artwork looks like I underestimated myself.

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Other than the depressing Endings.. (both of them Dx)

[close]

Uh.... too bad you found second one depressing. I guess I had to show some philosophical evolution

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how prince realises the importance of restoring the nature, not only gathering its fruits.
Yeah, right, as I noted in readme text, this game is based on a short story I wrote years ago. Idea that I had in mind is to point this selfish behavior of fairy-tale heroes.... kind of "ecological" topic

[close]

[Tijne]

Yeah, I thought your painted backrounds were very well done. ^_^, 

I just couldn't help thinking that

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There was a princessess still waiting her loved one to return home safetly.  Sure, he's taking better care of the ecosystem.. but at the expense of treating the one he loves, their familes, and the entire kingdom Dx.

[close]

.  It was still an awesome story though. ^_^

[SomeSickSelf]

I just wanted to stop by to thank everyone for their feedback and give a special thanks to everyone who had such nice things to say about my writing.

In response to Tijne, yes, you downloaded the right version, or rather there is no version of the game that includes music or sounds.  It's unfortunate, I agree, but I was so desperate to get the game done, and I just didn't feel like I had the time.

[arj0n]

Here's my comment on this months mags games,  in release time order:

Minor Minion:
Pros:
The best puzzles plus and a bit longer game play then the others.
Humor: funny animations and characters, an all round amusing game.
Cons:
None

Ardent Fever:
Pros:
Humor; nice scifi parody style atmosphere.
Very nice idea that phlebotinum cursor, imprinting an object into your inventory in stead of taking it.
The doors and the imprint-an-object got cool soundfx.
Cons:
Several elements are not used which confused me while playing
(maybe next time change these into not being a hotspot before release when there's time left.)

The deed:
Pros:
Nice story with that focus on that flower.
Cons:
Short and quite easy solvable game.
No animations

The north Crown:
Pros:
A strange but cool way of using the teleporting element also as a puzzle by using the trident.
Like said before: good writing.
Cons:
Bit to short.
No music, music would really have even more increased the atmosphere.

All four games did comply with the rule: Only One:

Minor Minion: only one "person" gremlin is left to beat the evil villagers [the minion]
Ardent Fever: only one person is able to save the ship [stow-away]
The Deed: only one object needed to finish [rose]
The Northen Crown: only one ruling puzzle-element to finish the game [trident]

My favorite this time was Minor Minion

Last thing:
All four games were great, congrats to all four of you!
Entering this contest and creating such games within a week makes you all a winner

And now, voting results please... :

[Dualnames]

Voting results:

Winner is Helme.

A big number of votes for all candidates there!

Helme, check your pms..