We're hosting another 2-week game jam starting on Nov 13th! If you're interested, join up here:
https://itch.io/jam/advxjam2021
Teams and individuals are welcome. Any engine and any interpretation of narrative game is cool with us.
Sounds great. I definitely won’t have time but I’ll be looking forward to seeing the games.
Bumping this as it starts tomorrow. Who’s entering?
I have every intention of it. Though I can't say 100% until the theme is announced.
The theme was announced 4 1/2 hours ago. I have a voice actor for the main character and the main idea and starting point for the game already figured out.
Hope to see others from here join in.
I think I'm going to try for the first time this year! I like the theme a lot...after such a crappy year, it would be nice to focus on people trying to have a good time.
I guess this thread is a place to discuss the games in the jam. I've tried a few of them. Didn't try the two non-narrative games that were submitted and removed.
Elia, Ilaria & the Kids Having a Good Time at the Sea (or at least they try) has its own thread here (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=58605.new#new).
Great game - highly recommended.
Duty First also has its own thread here (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=58615.0).
Another great game - highly recommended. (These two games can get their comments in their own threads.)
The shop of good memories is a small feel-good-piece with limited interaction. I can see why some people may like this kind of thing, but it's not my cup of tea. Basically, you click on objects to read some nice memory, and you can write in your own.
The Party Line is a text adventure where you click instead of type. It's actually great fun with some nice puzzles. You walk around in a mansion where there is a huge party going on, trying to find and steal treasures. Along the way, you have to solve or create problems for the partygoers who get in your way.
SCART Insertion Happy Time Adventure 2020 is a joke game in text adventure (typing) form. It's realistic, I'll give it that. But not very funny, IMO. My greatest problem was that it didn't run in Edge, but once I tried in Chrome, it worked fine. Very short - playtime a minute or two, perhaps.
A Further Shore is one of these choose your path tales, or visual novels. The player needs to escape from a mysterious island. The whole game may or may not be read metaphorically. There's decent writing here, so this is not a bad piece if you like this kind of thing, but I doubt it will convert those who are not into the genre.
There're 43 games submitted. I'd be happy to read anyone else's recommendations.
I haven't played many games from the jam, but one I recommend is Hair of the Dog (link (https://hardwidge.itch.io/hair-of-the-dog)).
It's very well-made and I found it quite funny. There's also a nice mechanic involving different times of the day. Definitely worth play!
I'll try to try (heh) them all, but I'm not a great fan of text adventures, so I'll be playing the graphical ones first.
By now, Hair of the dog is the best. Surprisingly good in everything - art, humor, puzzles, voice acting. I also liked Intergalactic Wizard Force, it has a nice He-Man & the Masters of the Universe vibe.
Oh, and of course Elia and Duty First. Because AGS games are the best ones :-D :-D :-D
I haven't played any of the games yet since there was an unofficial extension given and I'm still working on my game.
But I did see a couple of minutes of Hair of the Dog being streamed yesterday and echo that it should be played.
The jam doesn't have a very good visibility in regards to the outcome. How do I see all the games that were produced, apart from the handful of links kindly provided by heltenjon?
Here you go: https://itch.io/jam/advxjam/entries (https://itch.io/jam/advxjam/entries)
Quote from: VampireWombat on Mon 30/11/2020 16:08:46
Here you go: https://itch.io/jam/advxjam/entries (https://itch.io/jam/advxjam/entries)
Thanks!
I haven't played it yet either, but I did see a Twitch stream interview of the maker of Swarm of the Plague Babies and it sounds odd and interesting. Charbert also made Yorkshire Gubbins.
Despite issues I had yesterday, I'm still being prodded to finish my game.
BUMP!
Since Covid has scuppered our hopes of running an in-person AdventureX in 2021, we're holding another narrative game jam starting on Nov 13th! If you fancy it, sign up here:
https://itch.io/jam/advxjam2021
Quote from: Ali on Tue 21/09/2021 22:45:54
Since Covid has scuppered our hopes of running an in-person AdventureX in 2021, we're holding another narrative game jam starting on Nov 13th!
By the bye … you could even have a game jam in those years where you
do have an in-person convention. 8-)
It would offer lots of possibilites. You could jam
after the convention and use the convention to advertise the jam. Or conversely, jam
before the convention and use the convention to present the jam games in some way.
How does one submit an entry to the Jam? ???
Upload the game to Itch.Io and then there's a page for submitting the game on the jam's Itch page.
https://itch.io/jam/advxjam2021 (https://itch.io/jam/advxjam2021)
Ah, okay, thanks.
Don't have itch.io, so no Jam for me. :)
Good luck to all those who enter though.
OTOH, I don't do Discord, so I might contribute a submission, but there's nothing where I could sign up beforehand.
So if a submission comes, expect it to be a huge surprise. 8-)
Quote from: Cassiebsg on Thu 23/09/2021 15:38:08
Don't have itch.io, so no Jam for me. :)
It's free to create an itch.io account, so the jam is open to everybody. Unless you have a particular issue with itch.io?
Quote from: fernewelten on Thu 23/09/2021 15:42:02
OTOH, I don't do Discord, so I might contribute a submission, but there's nothing where I could sign up beforehand.
You can sign up right now by clicking Join Jam (https://itch.io/jam/advxjam2021) on the page. That way you can get notifications when submissions open and close. The Discord is entirely optional!
Joined!
It's been so long since I finished anything, so let's see how it goes!
For those who don't have an itch.io account, you can sign up here (https://itch.io/register) (all you need is an email address).
I discovered I had some of the games from last jam still lying around on my hard drive, so I played Francium at the Zoo (https://the-icehouse.itch.io/francium3). This is the third in a series of games about a small robot community, and if this game is anything to go by, they're all worth checking out. The robots have funny personalities, and the puzzles solutions tie well into who they are. There are some annoying bugs in the save game function, but the game is still playable if you keep separate save slots...the barriers you have cleared may come back after reloading. Still, the game is short enough to play in one go. Recommended.
I played another one from the 2020 jam: One Last Good Time (https://bennystarfighter.itch.io/one-last-good-time). Very sad story about dementia. It's well done, really well done, but it's hardly a feel-good game. I like the attention to detail, like
Spoiler
how the pictures on the walls gradually lose their faces, or how the geography stops making sense.
I guess you know yourself if this is your type of game or not.
The jam is on! Theme is CONTACT.
Not completely sure yet if I'll participate myself, anyone else planning to take part?
I won't be making my own game this year, but roped a friend into it, so I'll be helping her out with coding and design. Hope we manage in time, so far the concept seems all over the place and somewhat... um... experimental :).
(https://i.imgur.com/IQEJ0dI.gif)
The first game for 2021 is in, and it's...a non-narrative platformer without an ending (I think). Which fits the name: The Unending Story (https://sourgamer.itch.io/the-unending-story). Let's hope for more elaborate entries in the next two days.
The deadline has passed, and 19 entries are in. There are some familiar names among the entrants here. ;) Looking forward to playing the games!
Because my daughter is learning Spanish and has the day off from school tomorrow, I checked out Language Spy (https://standoffsoftware.itch.io/language-spy) first.
This is a short adventure where you have to play in another language than English (being a spy who's supposed to pick up the language of the neighbour city). The real intention is to have a fun learning tool. It's not a beginner's game, though, you have to have some knowledge of the language chosen in order to understand the game. The game itself is fairly easy and fun to play. I had to choose German in order to understand everything - my low level Spanish didn't cut the mustard. The game is made in Unity by StandOffSoftware (host of the $105 Adventure Game Challenge).
I've never tried an ARG before, so I gave Contact.zip (https://secretfoxfire.itch.io/contactexe) a shot. This isn't an adventure game. Inside the zip file there are an assortment of files that can be opened in various office programs. I managed to sort it and read the story, and I understood how I was supposed to decipher a code, turning sound signals into an alphabet. But this didn't look like any fun to me, just work. Later, I needed that alphabet to crack a password for another file, and I decided not to spend my time on that. This sort of game will appeal to someone who thinks cyphers and codebreaking are fun in themselves. It wasn't my type of game. Perhaps it's funnier if you do it together with someone, like we did with the Crime Investigation Unit game in the Rumpus room of this forum.
Too bad. There were a couple of ARGs submitted to last year's AdvX as well, Aenigma (https://rocinante.itch.io/aenigma) and The Haunted Track (https://secretfoxfire.itch.io/the-haunted-track). Now I don't think I will ever try them, unless maybe in cooperation, like a party game.
I haven't played Contact.EXE yet, but I did play the dev's ARG game from last year's jam and I thought it was excellent (except for one bit that totally stumped me and I had to ask Ari for help). It's a similar idea, you have a distorted recording and a PDF and you have to make sense of some Pacific Northwest-style weirdness:
https://secretfoxfire.itch.io/the-haunted-track
Maybe I just enjoy codes too much, but it felt like giving you a chance to do the kind of raw detective work that adventure games often don't give you the freedom to do.
Quote from: Ali on Mon 29/11/2021 09:59:53I haven't played Contact.EXE yet, but I did play the dev's ARG game from last year's jam and I thought it was excellent.(snip)
Maybe I just enjoy codes too much, but it felt like giving you a chance to do the kind of raw detective work that adventure games often don't give you the freedom to do.
Yes, I'm not saying this one was a bad game, simply not my cup of tea. Please post about this one, too, if you play it! (nod) Raw detective work is about right. In the Rumpus room game I mentioned, different people solved different clues, which is why I imagine this may be funnier if played with a group. EDIT: Link to the Crime Team Investigation thread: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=58218.0
I played two very good and totally different AGS games:
Ossuarium (https://hvavra.itch.io/ossuarium) by Honza and his friend is a strange tale that I enjoyed very much. I won't tell about the story in detail for fear of spoiling it, but we're in the 1300s, and the art looks like wood carvings. It's very stylish! This one looks good, sounds good and tells a good story. Difficulty level is fairly easy. Recommended.
Contact (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2580-contact/) by Ukz530 is a horror story. His games are getting better and better technically, and monster fans will like this one. It's an engrossing and a bit ambiguous story, with fun action sequences and logical puzzles. It's short, but there's a lot in there anyway. Also recommended.
I played The Package (https://analoglimb.itch.io/thepackage), chosen because I had almost no time and the blurb said it was very short. (laugh) And it is. This is basically a demo, or perhaps the first chapter in what the author hopes will become a longer story. The game is a single scene where a clueless new agent/spy meets his handler for the first time. We don't get to know much about the story or why the protagonist seems so uninformed about what is going on - that's clearly intended to come later. The game is made in unity and looks beautiful with the characters being animated shadows in the dark. Difficulty level: tutorial. Play length: you can try all three scripted variations in a couple of minutes. Looks like a nice beginning for a longer project, at least graphically. There's not much to say about the story yet.
I played Tales from the Outer Zone: The Construction (https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2582-tales-from-the-outer-zone-the-construction/), which is an entry in the Outer Zone series. I've had Cyborg Seppuku on my hard drive for a while without playing it, but will definitely get back to the rest of these games. I like Dune, and this game world is heavily inspired by that. It manages to put a lot of lore/background into a few descriptions and conversations, and it also has some nice robot programming puzzles. And it's an AGS game, added to the database today. (nod)
I've been looking forward to this one: The Will of Arthur Flabbington (https://gugames.itch.io/flabbington) by Gugames. I'm a great fan of Guga's games, and this one is no exception. The game is made in unity, and it's a demo of a larger story (I hope). If you have played any of this author's games before, you know you can expect humour, solid and original puzzles and fluid animation. In addition, this game features very good voice acting, as well. Highly recommended!
Well, I actually began work on a project for this jam. Unfortunately, due to my snail-like work ethic, I got no further than a nice GUI.
I'll work on the game and hopefully release it at a later date, but congrats to everyone who managed to get their game made before the deadline. :)
I had unzipped a file called "build" by mistake when I was trying to unzip The Construction, so I tried it today. It turned out to be The Weeping Chronicler's Tale of Cursed Valaria (https://illaberek.itch.io/cursedvolaria). This is a dungeon crawler made in unity. First person, your sword in front of you-thing. The game is in development, so I just got a taste of the beginning. There are these scrolls hanging in the air, and to read them (and get to know the story), I had to fight my way past some monsters. I don't think they could hurt me in this version, at least they were no trouble. I'm not sure if the author is trying to write in an "old" style or just doesn't know English all that well, but the scrolls made a peculiar impression. There's no scripted ending so far as I could tell. I won't be coming back to this one, I think. It's in the early phase of production still, so I can't judge the quality of what it will become, but it's not my type of game. I'm a thinker, not a fighter.
And I played Hoofield (https://summerb76.itch.io/hoofield), which is a Seinfeld tribute of sorts, packed with in-jokes about the developers themselves. Unity/Powerhoof game. Well worth a go for us Seinfeld fans. Ten minutes of playtime or so, fairly easy. It's one of those games where the real fun lies in clicking around the apartment and check out the descriptions.
The Unending Story (https://sourgamer.itch.io/the-unending-story), the platform game that was the first game submitted, is taken out, bringing the number of games down to 18.
I played Fixalot (https://studiohazy.itch.io/fixalot), which is a Unity game with large and funny characters. I enjoyed this game's inhabitants, the humour and logical puzzles, but couldn't progress further because of a bug (also reported on Itch by Hobo). People ask about things in the comments that I never encountered, so it seems clear that either the Mac version works better, or that the bug hasn't been present in all versions of the game. I hope the author manages to fix it - I want to see more of this one.
I also played Leave (https://bitsandcrafts.itch.io/leave). This is a somewhat sad art game made in Unity. It tells the story of an alien and his contact with our world. Well worth a go for the graphics and sound and the mood it sets. Very short and not terribly difficult. The focus is on telling the story.
I played We've been trying to contact you (https://tompdan.itch.io/weve-been-trying-to-contact-you). This is an absurdist kind of horror story. The interaction is largely to run around and try to find the next trigger to advance the strange story. Not badly made, and not a bad story if one likes the kind of absurd tales where nothing really makes sense in a logical way. Still, there's no real puzzles, and the storytelling falls a bit short compared to the great tales told in other games in this jam. Gameplay: five minutes.
And I tried Torus Trap, (https://ernieboros-games.itch.io/torus-trap) a small unfinished Unity game. The player runs around the space station while everyone else is in cryo. I guess we are supposed to follow the task list until something goes wrong, but this isn't possible yet. It looks like it could be fun, with bright, clean colours, but there's not much to do so far.
Then I played The Adventures of Captain Walkins (https://negator2vc.itch.io/the-adventures-of-captain-walkins). This is yet another unfinished prototype, this time a Star Trek Next Gen homage. I could play until after talking to some aliens on a planet, but not follow up on their problem. The game is made in Godot and runs in a browser, with large pixel graphics, retro style. I like the original Star Trek enough that I might check this out if it is finished. At this stage, it's a demo.
And I played Space Spy: Contact Uranus (https://olivieryc.itch.io/space-spy). This a really fun game made in Unity. The player is undercover at a villain gala on a space ship and has to figure out who his contact is. The characters are stereotypes - the flirt, the drunk, the gambler, the evil mastermind and so on, but it's all done intentionally for humorous effect. Good-looking, nice-sounding and funny. And the puzzles are quite fun and need some work to solve. Medium difficulty, I guess. The flaw is that there doesn't seem to be any save function, and the game is long enough to not necessarily do all in one go. There also are unintentional dead ends - I placed items on top of each other and couldn't get them back. No save meant restart. The game is still good, and I can safely recommend it. But be prepared to play for an hour or so.