1213 (Episode 1) - by Yahtzee

Started by , Thu 29/12/2005 23:46:45

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m0ds

Episode 1 of the new fullyramblomatic game, 1213 is available from Yahtzee's website. If you enjoyed the demo, why not try episode one! If you didn't even try the demo, you really should take a look at this episode. It features an interesting use of the AGS engine and is of course up to scratch - the usual Yahtzee standard we look forward too :)

(say in robotic voice) DOWNLOAD NOW
http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/1213/



Quote
"Oooooh! It's a bit like Another World!"
- Ron Gilbert

Quote
"Oooooh! It's a bit like Prince of Persia!"
- Peter Molyneux

Quote
"Oooooh! It's a bit like Saw!"
- Danny Glover

Quote
"Oooooh! It was actually made using SCRAMM!"
- Anonymous

DoorKnobHandle

#1
Quote from: m0ds on Thu 29/12/2005 23:46:45
(say in robotic voice) DOWNLOAD NOW

(reply in robotic voice) AYE AYE, MASTER! ;)

Awesome. I thought it would take him a little longer, but the demo left me breathless.

*downloading*

Gregjazz


AlbinoPanther

This is so good it remindes us of old school 286 days.I spend a lot of hours playing Prince of Persia with my dad(it was and is the only game that he ever wanted to play).Now i will share joy of childhood with my girlfriend ;D.

This Yahtzee guy realy needs to consider rejoining our forum :P

Rocier

oh my god oh my god. New yahtzee ags game. Sooo exciting! and to think, YOU thought prince o persia style platformers were dead!

Ozzie

Already played through it. Yeah, it's pretty short, although very fun.
Half the playtime I got stucked in part because I pressed one button twice so the action got undone again. Took some time until I figured that out....yeah, I'm probably stupid.
Awaiting the next parts....
Robot Porno,   Uh   Uh!

Iv4n

Sometimes the displaying time of the messages is too short.
Anyway it's a great title.

Rui 'Trovatore' Pires

Nice, really nice. Nothing about it is in any way new or original, or even unlike the sort of thing we've come to expect from Yahtzee, but it still manages to be fun to play. Good gameplay can make or break a game, and it made this one.
Reach for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

Kneel. Now.

Never throw chicken at a Leprechaun.

Isxek (not logged in)

Quote from: LJUBI on Fri 30/12/2005 00:16:01
This Yahtzee guy realy needs to consider rejoining our forum :P

Pardon my complete "n00bie-ness" on this, but did Ben actually "leave" the forum? Or does he not just post as much?  :)

mozza

Played and finished it. A great game and interesting use of AGS Engine. Makes me want to play the rest of the episodes more and more.

visy (the guy who made Lassi Quest)

Very nice game indeed, I'm looking forward for other episodes, the story somehow sucks me in ;)
Still working on 8-bit stuff, mostly NES and Atari 2600:
http://oldskool.wamma.fi

Gregjazz

Quote from: Isxek (not logged in) on Fri 30/12/2005 22:16:19
Quote from: LJUBI on Fri 30/12/2005 00:16:01
This Yahtzee guy realy needs to consider rejoining our forum :P

Pardon my complete "n00bie-ness" on this, but did Ben actually "leave" the forum? Or does he not just post as much?  :)


You're missing out. Go research the whole tangled story.

Vince Twelve

That was brief but fun.  It's a great idea for a game and it's well excecuted.  It has the level of polish that you'd expect from a Yahtzee game.  Because it's so good, I feel that I have to look at it with an even more thorough critical eye.  Especially when there are future chapters on the way that could fix the few, but present, flaws.

Usability wise, the game makes a couple missteps.

1) The auto-save function, while well intentioned, is quite flawed.  The few autosave checkpoints built into the game help to make sure that you don't have to replay too much of the game if you die and haven't saved.  However, Yahtzee should have been a bit more careful with his placement of the checkpoints.  For example, I noticed the autosave feature and decided that I didn't need to save, thinking that it would cover my ass if I died.  After the part in the game in which you
Spoiler
use the bomb to blow up the debris in your way
[close]
you descend down a shaft between two rooms.  When you go down this shaft, it auto saves.  However, I accidentally pressed the space bar near this shaft and fell down, through the checkpoint, to my doom.  The game then auto loads the autosave and I die again... and again... and again...  It was kind of funny.  But probably not something you want in your game.  I had to restart.

2) From a usability standpoint, the controls are a bit wonky.  It wouldn't be too hard to allow the player to customise the controls.  (see Kinoko's GoA demo)  Also, why have two different buttons for jump?  Though you get used to the controls fairly quickly, wouldn't it be more natural to have a combination of left/right and the up button to preform a horizontal jump rather than using a separate button?  It just felt a bit strange to me (totally nitpicking, though).  It's also annoying that the player has to come to a complete standstill before he can do anything (shoot, crouch, jump).  I also felt that the player moves too slowly (it seems you can move faster across the screen by hopping all the way).

3) This is my largest and most easily fixable gripe.  If you're going to make the game keyboard controlled, don't make me switch to the mouse if I don't want to.  It would be quite simple to provide keyboard support for the menus and keypads.  In my game, Anna, you play the game using the keyboard to move the character around.  I considered using the mouse for the puzzle screens, but realized that it was not good desing, from a usability standpoint, to make the user switch controls like that.  Therefore, everything can be done using the same simple keyboard setup.  I would like to see the keyboard control extended to the menus and other interfaces of the game.

Again, I'm just nitpicking an otherwise great game here, but I think with just a few easy fixes, the game could take a few more steps toward greatness.

mozza

Quote from: Vince Twelve on Sat 31/12/2005 06:42:05
1) The auto-save function, while well intentioned, is quite flawed.Ã,  The few autosave checkpoints built into the game help to make sure that you don't have to replay too much of the game if you die and haven't saved.Ã,  However, Yahtzee should have been a bit more careful with his placement of the checkpoints.Ã,  For example, I noticed the autosave feature and decided that I didn't need to save, thinking that it would cover my ass if I died.Ã,  After the part in the game in which you
Spoiler
use the bomb to blow up the debris in your way
[close]
you descend down a shaft between two rooms.Ã,  When you go down this shaft, it auto saves.Ã,  However, I accidentally pressed the space bar near this shaft and fell down, through the checkpoint, to my doom.Ã,  The game then auto loads the autosave and I die again... and again... and again...Ã,  It was kind of funny.Ã,  But probably not something you want in your game.Ã,  I had to restart.

I experienced the same thing. I laughed until I vomited so much I threw up my stomach and had to go to the hospital. :P

Vince Twelve

Quote from: mozza on Sat 31/12/2005 08:36:06
I experienced the same thing. I laughed until I vomited so much I threw up my stomach and had to go to the hospital. :P

The flaw is even more serious than I thought!

xelanoimis

Nice game!

The controls are just fine. One that played FlashBack knows that.
But, it really needs a run option - maybe by keeping shift key pressed, or autorun and slow it with shift key. It would make it more dynamic.

I don't know if it works with a joystick/gamepad (probably not), but it shure would be nice. Also the mouse issue on the keypad: could use numeric keys, and/or some sort of cursor (if joystick suport would be possible).

Nicely balanced enemies. I like how they respawn  when you reenter the room, and also how they are disabled when the progress reach specific points. Nice strategy on the final boss.

Nice retro graphics too. You may change color palette in the other episodes, or on different locations. FlashBack did that nice. It would be cool to have shaded areas, where you don't see very clear where the monsters are, behind walls, poor lightened rooms and stuff like that. Would enhance the thrilling atmosphere.

Also keep the good puzzles in the next episodes too. If maps are getting bigger, don't make it run from an end to another every time it needs to solve a puzzle. Keep it in the adventure style.

Good luck with the next episodes.

PS. Don't abandon the pure adventure games, I've played your "5 Days A Stranger" and "7 Days A Skeptic" and they were very good games. I would like to have more of that too.

Alex

jetlag

I recorded a speedrun for this game.

http://www.americangirlscouts.org/agsuploads/files/1213speedrun.rar

12:48, no saves, no deaths.

I did made a few mistakes, but I'm happy with the end result, especially killing the boss.
Mistakes were hanging between guards (ouch), using shower when I didn't need to (don't hear that too often), placing key left of the boom, killing zombie when I could have used the path under it, some other walk/jump/shoot /crawl mistakes, mixing up the keys on keyboard and walking when I could be jumping.

I compared walking and jumping, and concluded that jumping is +10% faster!

This must be the first speedrun for AGS. I just did it as a joke though.

MrColossal

Well I played and beat it but after giving a big reply and offering suggestions to 5DAS and having no reponse back from Yahtzee but him adding just about every suggestion I made, I'm less than encouraged to offer a review.

But I agree with Vince, don't make me switch to the mouse and don't let things like; killing enemy near bottomg of screen platform, jumping over to platform, grabbing ledge, switching to lower screen, pull self up, enemy is back, happen in the next chapter. Sure there's a way around it but it wasn't a puzzle but a work around to a poor bit of level design.
"This must be a good time to live in, since Eric bothers to stay here at all"-CJ also: ACHTUNG FRANZ!

lakerz

1213 is a cool game!  Interesting use of the AGS engine.  I can't wait for the next episodes.  ;D

Kweepa

I like it a lot.
Good stuff!
I didn't like the respawning guards. The zombies were fine though.
It's a shame there wasn't some way to skip the text boxes, as they really slowed down the gameplay.
The boss fight wasn't very "tight" but nonetheless quite entertaining.
Looking forward to the next installment.

Quote from: MrColossal on Mon 02/01/2006 00:02:42
Well I played and beat it but after giving a big reply and offering suggestions to 5DAS and having no reponse back from Yahtzee but him adding just about every suggestion I made, I'm less than encouraged to offer a review.
Why did you make the suggestions? To get a response from Yahtzee or to to improve the game?
Were your suggestions unique? Perhaps they were common suggestions. Maybe he really doesn't read these forums. (:=)
Still waiting for Purity of the Surf II

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