I know this review isn't gonna be too kind, and maybe I am best off NOT knowing what it says, but... Oh man, now I've gone and aknowledged its existence and I can't ignore it or curiousity will eat away at me. So can anybody translate this Goddamn Czech Article on BR (http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/beyondreality.html) for me?
I speak a bit, so I'll do my yearly good deed and give you the gist. The gist because I'm tired and don't feel like typing that much.
He finds it to be an interesting game, and feels that a lot of effort was probably put into it, but that it's a shame that the art is not only so derivative, but badly derivitive, to boot. He feels the character art is about average so far as amature games go, but the animation is sketchy.
The plot, he says, is cliche and the characterization thin. He finds it hard to identify or empathize with the PC. The writing itself is nice, though, and he does like the interface and dialog trees. The puzzles, he finds, are mostly either illogical or overly simplistic.
It also refers to the Defenestration of Prague, but the context confused me.
Derivitive of what, exactly?
Pff.. I liked the game.
Hmm,
I do speak Czech and I have translated a couple of reviews from BonusWeb for people who asked for it (Conspiracy of Songo, Postman Only Dies Once, Apprentice, WWTLF) and I have seen a thread in which someone translated Little Johnny Evil. So it seems this topic pops up every now and then.
I have read Unilin's post and I cannot agree with his "overview" since meaning of this article is almost completely different. It's quite a positive review. I will try to translate it for you ASAP.
jaz
Here we go:
Beyond Reality â€"world of beautiful dreams and terrible nightmares
Ian is an adventurer. But the his last adventure may be too much for him. Rescue mission into dreamworld to save kidnapped girl turns into fight against nightmares in this nice Lucas Arts style adventure .
Today's point 'n click game Beyond Reality is one of the most recent novelties from ever spreading AGS scene. It offers an interesting story, sympatic main character and its graphics and sound are, excellent at many places. â€" but unfortunately it's not free of bugs.
But let's have a look at the plot first. After one of his many exhausting adventures, our hero, Ian, gets into a nasty storm. He gets lost and has to seek a shelter in a nearby hotel. After a little conversation with receptionist lights went out for a while. Then in the darkness, an old man confuses a box of pills and has a heart attack. But even worse, the door open and strange voices could be heard from the outside. Ian rushes out only to see hooded Dream Demon with giant lollipop luring old man's granddaughter out. Abduction is succesful despite Ian's effort and mother of the girl, a member of secret brotherhood and keeper of gates between ordinary and dream world comes late.
After short conversation Ian as a true hero, offers himself to rescue the kid from demons hands. The keeper agrees. Dozens of sleep pills do the job and Ian is ready to discover both, world inhabited by likes of him â€" people who just fall deep asleep, the world created by dreams of thousands of human beings, and, separated only by a thin border, realm of nightmares and creatures from the worst dreams and â€" politicians like Mort Kittensoft. This man was elected a governor which freed his hands to carry out an evil plan. To capture souls of innocent yet esoterically sensible children, which is first step to open a timespace gap which is needed for jump into somewhere between dream world and real world in order to take over both and introduce tyranny. Will Ian be able to prevent this to happen?
Yes, of course, the main premises of plot are not overly original. Journeys into dreams have been there before, as well as saving little child/world scenario is a bit cliché. But story is presented in a very interesting way and at a high level.. Dreamworld has been created with a lot of fantasy so absence of plot innovations doesn't matter at all. Game is pleasantly long, offers numerous locations and interesting characters (rock painting man, guard with arachnophobia) and the puzzles are entertaining (Bag jumping puzzle has been influenced by MI's spiting contest for sure, but it's not a bad thing at all) As for the graphics, roughly half of the locations are excellent, the other half is a bit worse but even those are far from being ugly. Music is excellent all the way and, regarding instalation file size, there is a lot of it.
So, standing ovations so far. But, unfortunately, this game is far from being perfect. But it could have been if only the incredible amount of program and scripting bugs was fixed. When the game was first released, about a month ago, it wasn't even possible to finish it. But one has to be careful even now - some combinations of items could make game freeze which situation only can be solved by loading. So you should save quite often. Game also tends to crash unexpectedly, especially when anti â€" aliasing is on. Then it's not possible to skip cutscenes with Esc â€" game crashes to Windows immediately. Enter some locations in this mode could be problematic as well. I don't recommend to run BR in normal mode under Win XP at all, since it's stable only under Win 95 compatibility mode. But on the other hand, why miss a beautiful adventure game with excellent atmosphere and gameplay because of bugs that can be avoided by frequent saving and occasional glance at a walkthrough which is also available at Plne Hry.
Maybe unilin read another review by a mistake...
Anyway, congrats, fix the bugs and you will be The Ki... The Queen.
jaz
I might as well jump on the band wagon and say I'd be glad if either Unilin or jaz could tell me what either of these say.
http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/novomestro.html
http://plnehry.idnes.cz/navody/novomestronavod.html
I'm 90% sure they're negative, since I don't think the joke would carry over the language barrier.
Actually, I think the second is a translation of the walkthrough I wrote once, since it mentions Cthullu, unless they're refering to Novo's lack of limbs.
Okay, there is a similar thread somewhere on the forums called "Foreign AGS reviews" or something like that. It was even called "Anyone here speaks Czech?" before. (surprise, surprise)
So if any moderator reads this, it may be a good idea to merge the two threads together, since content is the same.
Las, I will try to translate it for you if you're ready to bite the bullet. It's not much of a positive review...
Jaz, you're a hero of the AGS forum, you know that?
Okay, I'm not too sure how to spell this, so my teacher always said that if you don't know how to spell something, you should spell it FO-NET-IC-ALI. So I'm gonna give this my best shot. I'll probably look really dumb, but my teacher warned me about that too.
VAKCLAV HAVE-EL RULES!
I don't really have any idea what I just said, as I was repeating my mother business associate.
Peace out!
QuoteVAKCLAV HAVE-EL RULES!
As far as I know, his term ended quite a long time ago.
So, no.
edit:
Las, are you sure you want to know what the reviewer says about NM?
Hehe, it sounds like it's what I expected it to be, so yes, I do want to hear. Please.
this site has a ton of AGS games..where I can search to see if they did one of mine?
The weird thing is that Novo Mestro got 9/10 and 10/10 ratings...
OK, Las, but it's gonna take some time. It's 0:45 AM now so I guess I will translate it tomorrow (hmmm, or later today in this case) But I will.
Panda: there are two boxes in the upper left area The top one is what you are looking for "hledej v článcÃch! - search in articles. Enter name of your game into "hledaný výraz" field and click on "vyhledej" - search.
No worries, I'm in no rush.
Get ready for cold shower, Las:
Novo Mestro â€" an artistic freeware game?
Novo Mestrois an pretentious freeware adventure game which claims to be artistic and have other than entertaining qualities too. What do you think Is it possible or is it just an advertisement guff?
For some time I've been defending an oppinion that games should rank amongst art just like film or literature. Unfortunately nor critics nor ordinary people accept the existence of „interactive art“. But how should we rate titles like Myst, Atlantis, Ring or Syberia, not to mention an awesome epic TLJ?
The abovementioned titles are fully commercial products. Today's Novo Mestro is a freeware The author proclames that the goal of this game is to be more art than a game on his website. Let's see if he succeeded.
Novo Mestro takes place on three screens and doesn't have a classic story line. You can't finish this game as well and it's not a game actually. Interactivity consists of walking the character across the screens and choosing which of his two friends to talk to first. We can say that controls are true point 'n click classics. RMB changes action, LMB executes the command. Thank to AGS engine saving/loading works fine and this originally DOS game runs well even under newest Windows.
Why should anyone be interested in this game? Art may be a certain reason. Ermm… I don't know what's so artistic on scrawls ten years kid would draw better. In any case, graphics was a huge disappointment for me. It was messy and, well, I'm not afraid to say, ugly.
Last thing to mention is testimony given by main character and his two friends â€" Jesenice and Maribor, some report on the end of the world an transition of humans to more or less energy based lifeform.
Even the last chcance to be artistic had been wasted. Who wil understand Maribor's metaphysical and seemingly profound but bland and utterly boring explications, will lost all the patience during maybe even longer monologues of Jesenice. And not all is explained, only a rough outline of apocalyptical vision of end of the mankind is presented, without any conclusion. Player has feeling of unfinishedness (is thi a word??? â€"probably not, jaz) He doesn't get to solve the outlined problem. Someone might object that Novo Mestro's goal is to raise questions to think about and to come to own conclusion and he might be right. But personally I know better ways of self-reflexion than concentrated boredom of this strange game/game?
To sum it up â€" I don't think that the author has succeded to complete his goals. Novo Mestro is really not a game… it's not an art . Nowo Mestro is one big fat nothing. Who wants to feel intelectual can download it and pretend he understands Maribor's and Jesenice's nonsenses but he won't gain anything as Novomestro will be a bitter dissappointment for him.
On the other hand the game got high marks from people (90%) so WTF.
Hehehehehehehehe.
He half got the game, but not the other half.
He's right in that it's pretentious, it's not art but pretends to be, and that the pseudo intellectual conversation is but sophistry and platitudes.
Which is more than many people understood.
It's sorta sad [but more funny] that he didn't understand that it was meant to be like that, but I guess that the innumerable "spoofs" of www.realultimatepower.net show that it's hard for many people to distinguish.
Anyway, thanks alot Jaz, it's been a great experience nonetheless.
Maybe he didn't get it because he's foreign :) They had to rewrite a lot of the Monkey Island 1 Insult Sword fighting thingies, because they didn't translate well, you know.
It's a bit different... somethimes I have a good laugh playing some game or watching some movie in English, I get the joke but it's just intranslatable. Word by word translations just don't work thus you often have to change the meaning a bit. But if you're at a certain advanced level in some language, you mostly get pretty much everything.
I haven't played Novo Mestro but as I mentioned, people rated this game high despite of the review. Maybe it's just a matter of taste.
jaz
I also think a few forum members were having a laugh with the ratings there...
*Psst* - Hey, Jaz...
I looked around the site and found Czech review of another one of my games. Could you check it out and do the honors? Pretty please?
http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/bestowers.html
Hell, no! I don't want to see you walking around all lofty... (hint, hint)
Ok, I will do it for you ;).
Lofty? Moi?
Thanks, dude.
Here you go:
Bestowers of Eternity –an esoteric adventure
Bestowers of Eternity are undoubtedly a pearl amongst this winter's freeware adventure games. A story of young writer whose world falls apart over the course of two . An esoteric adventure begins.
Just lately we can see a pleasant trend in adventure games as these get more serious. These games don't limit themselves to old Sierra games parody or plain wackiness denying all adventure principles. Humour pour humour's heyday is gone and serious titles with more challenging plot that aren't affraid to go into more serious toppics are more and more common. And BOE is one of the best. The beginning promises a complicated yet pleasant esoteric adventure full of mystery and you can bet the strong atmosphere of this game will swallow you for sure.
The main chracter's name is Rosa. She is a young debuting writer who lives alone in a small flat in the New York city. No relatives, no fiends. But her family' s past is not free from evil events and she she soon has to feel consequences of these. Her aunt had spent twenty years in a sanitarium and she has a fix idea that her body is permanently in fire which consumes it cell by cell. But she is not the only insane. Even Rosa's grandmother had suffered from the same symptoms – and the doctors are affraid that it could be hereditary and that Rosa could soon suffer the same. Just a few could withstand such a news without a heavy impact on their psychique. Guards (or watchmen, gatekeepers...I don't know the plot so I'm not sure what word to use –jaz) strike doesn't add much to her mental state. She even cannot get back to her appartment (which situation leads to uncomfortable realisation of her own loneliness and melancholy life) Not to mention unexplicable seizures of pain that always ocuur to her while nearby merry – go – round in the park.
Start of BOE is very promising. It introduces numerous characters and player can gain a lot of information on them to draw a picture. The game can be thrilling ans satidśfies player regularly by unveiling another part of complicated mosaic of facts behind the events. But these pieces often raise even more complicated questions which is plain excellent. As playing BOE gave me goosebumps at times, the only comments I would have towards story are its shortness and open ending. Author has promised to add final chapters within a few months though (Will you deliver??? – jaz). Of course the maker of game ids fully entitled to make an open ending but BOE plot really deserves a conclusion..
As for graphics – it's solid, however it cannot compare to the top of the line. Maybe, considering a fairly small number of locations, the author coud have put more effort into creating them. But he didn't thus the game's visuals are not exactly stunnning. On the other hand, there is nothing I could say against soundtrack. The music is mysterious, thrilling and varied. It adds much to the atmosphere of the game. Presence of speech vox file could lead to a conclusion that BOE is a talkie. But it's not. There are only a few loops of dog's barking. But who knows? Maybe sometimes we'll se a talkie patch – just like Tiera's adventures
My overall rating of BOE is definitely high. It's a pleasant surprise and one of the best freeware adventure games of this year at the same time,in spite other games that may be longer and surpass it technicaly. But the plot and atmosphere of thos game deserve an A+ and maybe even A++.
Excellent! Good work, dude ;).
EDIT: all those weird –'s are supposed to be - . I don't know why it' s all fucked up.
Hey jaz, I don't have a game review in a different language for you to translate, but I think it's awesome that you took your time to do all of those. I just wonder if you are secretely the person behind them.. hmm...
Thanks Jaz! This definitely makes up for that mediocre "Postman" review they gave me. :-D
Sigh. I need to finish the rest of this game. Can somebody help me find my motivation? I can't remember where I put it...
jackhammer: no I'n not, otherwise I would add a short English overview to each to save myself a lot of work. But I know who writes these, maybe it won't be a bad idea to suggest him that.
I was kidding. ;D
Yeah, it would save you a lot of nagging in the end if you requested that, haha.
But on the other hand, I practise my English while doing these translations so it's not a waste of time for me...
Then send the owner of the site your translations and ask that he post those as well. Offer to help out with more translations, or proofread his.
Whether you enjoy it or not, it's still nice of you.
If you've got nothing better to do, jaz (or unilin), a translation of the czech review of my game at http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/grr.html (http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/grr.html) would be most appreciated. Or even just a summary.
I'm also interested in what they thought of Dada...
http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/dada.html (http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/dada.html)
no worries if you don't want to, I know it's a big ask =)
Bearly Sane:
Grr! Bearly Sane â€"Bear's revenge
Dan is a poor fellow. Not only he has to work his ass out under a cruel boss for a minimum wage but he also has to wear a disgustingly merry bear mask and to be nice to little evil brats. What happens when his patience reaches a critical level?
Grr! Bearly Sane is simply an excellent game. It offers an easy to empathise everyday life story., original puzzles, innovative game mechanisms and it offers a good amusement value. The main character's name is Dan and he is a poor fellow. Why? Well, he works for peanuts, his boss is mean and the job is simply humilating. Kids just kick his balls and dogs take a pee on him. He runs out of his patience faster than it's usual. And what happens if he runs out of it completely? Well, you're going to find out in this game whose name is a clever game with words. Dan finally decides to revenge on his fat arrogant boss after he tells him he won't get no money this month due to improper behaviour towards visitors. (And by „visitors“ the boss meant seemingly innocent boy that kicked Dan's balls once again). That means Dan cannot pay his rent and he is kicked out of his apartment. Misery is complete with a dog taking a pee on his foot.
The Boss Must Die! But â€" how to do this? There is a shooting â€" gallery loaded with potential leathal weapons. But there is also a guy even the owner of the shooting- gallery is afraid of. There are more obstacles scattered through the amusement park/fair. Staff only doors remain closed to him although he technically is an employee. Snack machine allows him to pay for his food but refuses to give it away. And a little graffiti spraying brat won't even let him get close to him under threat of lawsuit since his father is a lawyer. There is an interesting innovation in this game. It's called anger meter and it simply measures how upset the main character is. It 's not there for nothing. Some actions could be done only if the character reaches a certain level of anger. He has to be red - hot to destroy the snack machine or to definitely get rid of his hated boss because he wouldn't even think about such things at a normal sane state.
Anger meter enriches the atmosphere of course, but at the same time it makes the game more difficult since it's not enough to simply use everything on everything and go through all dialogue branches. But on the other hand, the puzzles are mostly logical and make sense. There is a verb-coin interface which is a bit uncommon for an AGS product.
The game is excellent graphic-wise and it features, apart from beautiful (however a bit off- perspective) backgrounds, a fair amount of animations. It runs in 640x480 resolution and it's a pure eye candy. The tunes are also pleasant to listen to. Ending credits with a folk song are funny too.
Almost all important has been said and there is nothing more to say than what has been said at the very beginning: Grr! Bearly Sane is an excellent game.
PS: there is also a walkthrough available.
Excellent, Duzz! And it got 96% rating from readers.
And the other review? :D
Shut up you m@$#@$&@%ing m%@$$%@$^@er!!!
OK, here you are:
Dada: Stagnation in Blue â€" a double dose of depression
This game is simply insane. Deadly ill, depressive, dark and hopeless. People commit suicide after seeing first few screens. They slide on graters to pools of iodine exhorting nameless gods of death and suffering...
Blue word doesn't know nor remorse, nor joy nor joy, nor love. It knows only hate, violence torture, suffering, darkness and horrible, insurmountable disillusion. It is a remarkable experience to play this game. We haven't seen such an atmospheric (yet depressive) title in a long time. Also this game could claim to be an interactive art because it was created using dada methods of random collage. Maybe not exactly using famous Tristan Czara's recipe but Dada is visually completely different from all the rest of freeware adventure games. It's one huge collage of seemingly random elements. But these are part well crafted bigger picture. Dada is also a proof that you don't have to draw well to create a good game.
We don't recommend the children to play this game since it can have a heavy impact on human psychique. And I'm not kidding or exagerrating. Also depressive or mentally unstable persons should beware of this game. It's strange but also judging from discussion forums posts it can do nasty things to your mind. The plot, if there is something like that, spins around suicide. It's the main goal of weird newspaper avatar aka player. While searching for suitable knife he meets a ferryman who gets paid by diamonds, hopeless woman who cries days and nights and hides her face because she doesn't look like beatiful model and - at the first place â€" a disrupted family psychedelically potrayed by huge shadow of father â€" alcoholic and bully, with bottle of beer in one hand and knife in the other, ready to make his wife cry. Why? Because her tears please him. One would expect that player will try to help the poor woman. But no, not in Dada. On the contrary, Dada will force avatar to leave her and her little child at the mercy of her brutal husband. End of this delirium cannot be but bloody and depressive. The story itself is not much dadaistic as you see. Maybe we could see some parallels to expresionism or decadence. On the other hand, as surrealists let their subconscious thoughts flow during their automatic writing, they sometimes even didn't know what they wrote as they fell totally exhausted. Regarding this, Dada could be considered an attempt on „automatic game“ But it's not much positive thought. What more horrors hide inside the author of this insanity?
Audiovisual elements of this game are, how I have said before, formed by dada or surrealistic collage of elements. Graphics are all cut and pasted. Music is a collage of classical melodies of Bach, Beethoven and Pachelbel. Presence of Anne Saxtons lines of verses is also worth mentioning.
However, in this case, using unoriginal artwork is if not legal then it's legitimate for sure as this game (successfully) attempts to be artistic.
Dada was probably a catharsis for it's author. If you want to try something extraordinary amongst more than 1200 freeware games on the AGS site, don't hesitate. But beware. Not everyone could handle all the horrors. Luckily this game has only about ten screens because otherwise… Sanitarium couldn't hold a candle to this one.
It seems you made something unique, DG. Congrats.
Quote from: jaz on Tue 13/01/2004 13:44:10
What more horrors hide inside the author of this insanity?
stickmen 2?
only time will tell
Thanks jaz, you're the czech czar!
Whoa -- that's awesome! :o :o :o
Thanks jaz!
Quote from: DGMacphee on Tue 13/01/2004 14:13:51
Whoa -- that's awesome! :o :o :o
Hah! You didn't expect this, did you??? :D
You got that right I didn't expect it!
The bit where the reviewer says "It is a remarkable experience to play this game" gives me goosebumps!
WOW, great work, jaz! I appreciate your translating efforts....
I'm the author of the czech reviews at Plnehry.cz. I'm also active at the AGS scene - I voted in the AGS Awards and I visit these forums often. But I don't have enough time to do these translations on my own - and also my English isn't as good as Jaz's, so - thanks! :-)
Hey Tomus, thank you for the reviews and keep up the good work
I'm trying to have at least one adventure review on plnehry.cz each week, but I don't review only the AGS ones. But for example, tomorrow I'll publish A Friend Indeed review and I plan to write about some other games, such as Duzz Quest, Garfield, Perils of Poom...
I write also for a paper mag Level and I have a lot of other activities, so I put in the first place the games where a walkhthrough of some kind is available - it's not because of my laziness or lack of intelligence, but I hate wasting time when I got stuck... hm... I generally hate getting stuck! :-)
So if you want to increase your chance of being published on Plnehry and getting about 2-3 000 people who'll read and maybe also download your game, you can post it on http://plnehry.idnes.cz/lokace.html (it's simple, you'll understand it even it's not in English) and send me a solution to tomus@bonusweb.cz :-)))))
And Jaz, if you could copy your other translations of my articles here, it would be great, I'd like very much to read them. And maybe I could post them also on some special page on the web, I have to think about it and how to realize it...
I'd just like to say I don't hold anything against you for the review of Novo Mestro, I just hope you realise it's meant to be a joke now :)
Quote from: Las Naranjas on Wed 17/03/2004 22:07:32
I'd just like to say I don't hold anything against you for the review of Novo Mestro, I just hope you realise it's meant to be a joke now :)
Hm... The thing is I didn't really get the point, so I apologise... writing a review was a mistake, because even the readers were not too interested in Novo Mestro...
And I can clearly see I should try the game again - maybe I'll understand it now :)
Hehe, I much prefered it when people didn't get the joke, but thought that it was meaningful, with you it was like you were close, but not quite there. Maybe, not to diss your English, there was a bit of a language barrier thing, but who knows. Who cares? :)
Maybe there could be a language problem. My english is far from perfect, that's true...
Quote from: Tomus on Wed 17/03/2004 22:29:34
Maybe there could be a language problem. My english is far from perfect, that's true...
Your common English seems good actually, but his game uses bigger and less common words than you'll see in most places. That and sarcasm has language barriers.
I thought it was funny, in any case.
Hi Tomus,
I know you wrote the reviews, I just didn't feel it was necessary to tell the others you are a forum member. I buy Level from time to time, mostly because of your page since I almost lost interest in today's gaming mainstream. You do a really good job.
As for the translations, there is one more thread with a couple more reviews. It was called "Foreign AGS reviews" or something like that. If you want to post them, go ahead, but it would be better to proofread them first because I did the translations mostly in a hurry and I'm aware of many typos and grammar mistakes. You could post here or PM me if you want.
jaz
Quote from: jaz on Thu 18/03/2004 15:42:30
Hi Tomus,
I know you wrote the reviews, I just didn't feel it was necessary to tell the others you are a forum member. I buy Level from time to time, mostly because of your page since I almost lost interest in today's gaming mainstream. You do a really good job.
As for the translations, there is one more thread with a couple more reviews. It was called "Foreign AGS reviews" or something like that. If you want to post them, go ahead, but it would be better to proofread them first because I did the translations mostly in a hurry and I'm aware of many typos and grammar mistakes. You could post here or PM me if you want.
jaz
I still can't find the thread you're talking about...
WOW!!! There is also a review about my game Puddy Penguin! I would love to understand what they are saying about it. I don't mind if it's bad, but I never had any review on my game before!
http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/puddy.html
Jaz, would you be so sweet to translate it for me, please! You would be my hero, and if you ever need anything like music, graphics, sounds, voices... I'll be there to help you out! ;) I'm really flattered that someone wrote a review about my game :P
OK minimi, I will do it for you but I'm not sure if I will have time to do it today and I'll be probably offline till monday. But I will do it, don't worry.
jaz
Quote from: Minimi on Fri 19/03/2004 09:28:19
WOW!!! There is also a review about my game Puddy Penguin! I would love to understand what they are saying about it. I don't mind if it's bad, but I never had any review on my game before!
http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/puddy.html
Jaz, would you be so sweet to translate it for me, please! You would be my hero, and if you ever need anything like music, graphics, sounds, voices... I'll be there to help you out! ;) I'm really flattered that someone wrote a review about my game :P
Don't worry too much, as long as I can remember, it was quite positive, because Puddy is one of the very best MAGS games...
Foz,
Have you been able yet, to translate the review for me? Sorry fgor my impatiency! ;)
Its jaz, k?
yes, whoops.. I was in a hurry, cause im not allowed to use internet on my work, but sorry Jaz, the names confuse me abit ;)
Hey hey hey, Minimi, curiosity killed the cat, remember ;)
Puddy Penguin â€" penguin versus yetti
A terrible monster has settled in the land of Puddy. It killed uncle Boris and threatens all the others. Is there anyone who could face it and kill it or at least kick it off? Everybody fear the monster, only little Puddy is brave enough to give it at least a try..
MAGS is an interesting project which has been running for more than two years already. Monthly AGS Competition. This contest is held monthly and the goal is to create an adventure game using AGS within one month. The rules are set by previous winner. Not only short time limit makes this difficult but also the game has to fit the requirements which change every month. There are three or four contestants every month, games are freeware. The games are usually of low quality because of the time limit but from time to time comes a pleasant surprise.
Puddy Penguin â€" winner of one of previous MAGS contests is one of these little gems. The hero is a young Puddy the Penguin. He lives with his parents in a comfy igloo somewhere in Antarktis (don't mess up with animated cartoon Pingu the Penguin, resemblance is purely coincidental). One day he finds out that horrible and dangerous monster threatens the neighbourhood. When he discovers that it killed his uncle and best friend, Boris and destroyed his igloo, he gets really mad and takes a decision: When everybody is scared, he will fight him ant get rid of him. The basic plot is obvious but not everything is straight as it could seem to be. Puddy will surprise you. Not to mention that the game has two endings which is rarely seen in amateur adventure games.
Technical side of Puddy is fascinating. It's true that scripting, especially combining inventory items is not the best we've seen but visually Puddy is one of the very best AGS games (AGS, not MAGS! - jaz). The fire is burning in the igloo, snowing outside changes the intensity. Graphics are in 640x480 and offer well crafted snow-icy backgrounds. It's more difficult to judge the music since the theme is annoying. On the other hand, the game is so short that it doesn't matter much.
As I have already mentioned, Puddy is very short, it will take you about ten minutes to combine about five items, talk to few characters and beat it. Story is simple but nice, especially the kids could love the little Penguin's stories. The only problem is that the game is in English but there is not much dialogues and it's pretty intuitive too. Only the controls could have been better. It takes some time to figure out which pictogram represents which action. If I was to compare Puddy with complete freeware adventure scene, it would be only a little over average which can brighten your break at work or tame annoying child. But it stands high above rest of the MAGS projects as it can hold the candle to the regular projects. And considering amount of work which had been done during one single month â€" hats off.
Double thumbs up!
Wow! Thank you so much! This review rocks! It's encouraging me to make a Puddy Penguin 2 one day ;) I love you forever, jaz!
I should make a better, and less annoying music-theme, and better interface ;) I had only one month :) Though I don't think it's one of the best ags-games, just maybe original.
There's a new project of me now in heavy development, but besides that I'm going to look if I can make it work PUDDY PENGUIN II ;D
Quote from: Minimi on Tue 23/03/2004 13:21:42
Wow! Thank you so much! This review rocks! It's encouraging me to make a Puddy Penguin 2 one day ;) I love you forever, jaz!
I should make a better, and less annoying music-theme, and better interface ;) I had only one month :) Though I don't think it's one of the best ags-games, just maybe original.
There's a new project of me now in heavy development, but besides that I'm going to look if I can make it work PUDDY PENGUIN II ;D
I'd love to see Puddy 2 as a non-MAGS full lenght game... ;)
I report new czech AGS review: Cirque de Zale (http://plnehry.idnes.cz/adventure/cirquedezale.html)
Quote from: jaz on Tue 13/01/2004 12:46:11
Bearly Sane:
Grr! Bearly Sane â€"Bear's revenge
Dan is a poor fellow. Not only he has to work his ass out under a cruel boss for a minimum wage but he also has to wear a disgustingly merry bear mask and to be nice to little evil brats. What happens when his patience reaches a critical level? Ã,Â
Grr! Bearly Sane is simply an excellent game. It offers an easy to empathise everyday life story., original puzzles, innovative game mechanisms and it offers a good amusement value. The main character's name is Dan and he is a poor fellow. Why? Well, he works for peanuts, his boss is mean and the job is simply humilating. Kids just kick his balls and dogs take a pee on him. He runs out of his patience faster than it's usual. And what happens if he runs out of it completely? Well, you're going to find out in this game whose name is a clever game with words. Dan finally decides to revenge on his fat arrogant boss after he tells him he won't get no money this month due to improper behaviour towards visitors. (And by „visitors“ the boss meant seemingly innocent boy that kicked Dan's balls once again). That means Dan cannot pay his rent and he is kicked out of his apartment. Misery is complete with a dog taking a pee on his foot.
The Boss Must Die! But â€" how to do this? There is a shooting â€" gallery loaded with potential leathal weapons. But there is also a guy even the owner of the shooting- gallery is afraid of. There are more obstacles scattered through the amusement park/fair. Staff only doors remain closed to him although he technically is an employee. Snack machine allows him to pay for his food but refuses to give it away. And a little graffiti spraying brat won't even let him get close to him under threat of lawsuit since his father is a lawyer. There is an interesting innovation in this game. It's called anger Ã, meter and it simply measures how upset the main character is. It 's not there for nothing. Some actions could be done only if the character reaches a certain level of anger. He has to be red - hot to destroy the snack machine or to definitely get rid of his hated boss because he wouldn't even think about such things at a normal sane state.
Anger meter enriches the atmosphere of course, but at the same time it makes the game more difficult since it's not enough to simply use everything on everything and go through all dialogue branches. But on the other hand, the puzzles are mostly logical and make sense. There is a verb-coin interface which is a bit uncommon for an AGS product.
The game is excellent graphic-wise and it features, apart from beautiful (however a bit off- perspective) backgrounds, a fair amount of animations. It runs in 640x480 resolution and it's a pure eye candy. The tunes are also pleasant to listen to. Ending credits with a folk song are Ã, funny too.
Almost all important has been said and there is nothing more to say than what has been said at the very beginning: Grr! Bearly Sane is an excellent game.
PS: there is also a walkthrough available.
Excellent, Duzz! And it got 96% rating from readers.
can you tell us what the walktrough is? ???