MAGS 2009-June: Sellout (Winner Announced)

[Leon]

Souls Quest

This game is awesome!! Congratulations. Very high standard!
The only minors are indeed the translation (hope you'll get this fixed after the competition) and the fact that you can't change icons within the inventory. So you need to switch to gear first and then open the inventory. Both issues are minor, the puzzles, story and graphics are superb!

[Dualnames]

Indeed quite a very peculiar yet very well executed entry, a good solid one.

Edited by mod: No need to quote the complete post which quotes another post, especially when it's just the last post above yours.

[Leon]

Maybe I was a bit too optimistic? 
The save function doesn't work..., nor does the options button but I find that less problematic. The save however  :'(

[Dualnames]

I suggest jerakeen to just fix the minor quibbles and repost his entry (telling that he's done so id he's done so, so I can change the download link)

[jerakeen]

Thanks Dualnames for the chance.

Leon, traslation must wait , right now when the inventory is open you can use right click out of the inventory itself to change the icon or can use the iconbar.

With the savegame function i had a newbie mistake in the code, i asked for the title of the window in spanish, this is say "CARGAR JUEGO" or "GUARDAR JUEGO" to know what the "green button" must do, i'll use a variable to do this.

soon i'll put a new link to download the game.

thanks

[Akatosh]

So, that's... 14 hours left now, right?

Well, sleep is overrated, anyway.

Or, you know, not. Turns out there's a practice test tomorrow (Computer Science, no less), which I need to score at least 50% at to be admitted into the real thing, and I need to get up on 5AM to be there on time. Sorry, I'll have to withdraw - the basic structure of the game is finished, but it's... really not enough to be fun, I can't do a code-a-thon till 3AM when I really, really need to pass that test and asking for another extension would be unfair. Life is, once again, showing an uncanny accuracy at flinging excrements fan-ward. Maybe next month. :/

(In case you're interested, this describes the basic tune of the game quite well. Unfortunately, it looks like this right now, and plays exactly as well as it looks like. Ah well.)

[jerakeen]

ok, i fixed this errors in the game:

Now you can right click over the inventory to change mouse mode.
Fixed SaveGame error
Disabled options button in main menu

I changed the link in the first replay i did with the new version of the game.

[Tijne]

I doubt my entry will even be able to compete with jerakeen's, but I may as well throw it out there just so he doesn't win by default. 


Proposal
Meet John Gwar; a man who's under a rather odd curse.  He's got till midnight to have a girl accept his honest-proposal or he'll crumble to dust.
Luckily, John's been dating someone who's rather special to him;  Azura.  Why their relationship isn't exactly lovey-dovey, this little curse gives John all the more incentive to finally pop the question.   He planned an entire night of romance to sweep Azura off her feet.

Unfortunately for him, things never go exactly as planned;


Proposal (22Mb)

WARNING: There's probably a zillion bugs.  And I'm not talking cute squishy-ones either.  Oh well.
SECOND WARNING:  This is my first game evah.  Be gentle.

[Leon]

Well, what can I say..... don't be so modest. For a first timer you did a fantastic job! Great story, good puzzles, decent graphics. Besides that, you've implemented a really brilliant menu system (technnical and presentation wise) and even a decent hint-system.

I'll have a hard time deciding who the winner will be. I'd better read the rule set again to see who came closest to the rules because the games are pretty close regarding the gameplay and presentation. Well done and looking forward to a regular game or the next MAGS.

[update]

There seems to be a slight issue with the walk behind area when you walk north from the 'restaurant' part and to the left. You'll then appear to the right of the painting instead of staying in the corridor.

[Dualnames]

Vote Time
For voting please visit the MAGS site or make your choice right here:

Souls Quest by jerakeen
Proposal by Tijne

Please vote only once and be sure to have played all games before sending your voice! Good luck to all participants.

Voting will approximately last for 2 days (look at the timestamp)

[Leon]

Alright, here's my verdict.

I played both and must say, close call. Both have pros and cons. And both the same. Both game have textual problems. Both have a poor puzzle (the carrot and the suddenly lost ring) and both have good puzzles (the riddles, although solvable by brute force, and the removal of Ms Meek).

The story of both games was good and complete. I liked the graphics of Souls Quest a bit better because they were a bit more polished but that's just personal. All in all, a very close finish. I then must say that my vote goes to Souls Quest. A solid game (Proposal had a few crashes but these were announced..) that came closer to the rules given.

In my opinion both games failed to really sell their product. I missed the screaming, persuading commercial product advertisements. I couldn't really find the selling point/product in Proposal, more a personal quest. The restaurant didn't do much to sell their product. In Souls Quest there was a product to sell, there was some advertisement and that's why my vote goes to Souls Quest

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

It's not really the CL, Leon, but anyway... 

Good work getting these done!

[Leon]

It's not really the CL, Leon, but anyway... 

I'm not suppose to criticize in a competition? I was comparing both games and holding them against the ruleset. What else am I supposed to do here?

[Gilbert]

Sorry, ProgZ, but I'm with Leon here. What is the point in not allowing crits, especially when it's an activity relying on voting for its results?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Well, the voting 'is' held anonymously on the MAGS site, I suspect there's some good reasons for it, like avoiding hurt feelings and such.  I don't see a need tell people what you don't like about their games outside of a forum where it's asked for (or places were they ask for feedback themselves).  Maybe I just think too much about the feelings of the developers on issues like these, but that's where I am in this argument.  

[Leon]

I never knew voting was anonymous? I know once in a while entries are kept anonymous on request (or was that OROW?) but other than that it's not wrong to motivate your voting?

[Gilbert]

One point of participating in a competition is to get your work compared to others anyway, so it's not really necessary to stop people giving feedback, regardless of the voting is annoymous or not.

[Tijne]

These games are made in 25 days (Or less, I started 7 days into the competition. x_x), and by both experienced game-makers and people completely new to it.   A lot of people have different strengths/weakness, and some people may find critisim a little harsh and not welcome it publically (especially on such tight time constraints, or if the critisim is aimed at their particular weakness.)  Don't want to scare away someone new by saying they suck, publicly, when they aren't asking for it. xD

A lot of other games are made with 'teams' so people can work together and compensate for each other's weaknesses.  MAGS are suppose to be done more or less alone, so it may really bring out your weaknesses. =)  I'm really bad at both artwork and beta testing, for one thing and have used MAGS to try to improve both. ^_^

Also .. If you have a reputuation here you could theoritically sway other people from one game to another regardless of which they like more.  Just listing flaws or highlights may influence others.  There's also the matter of what you're critizing...  Like, you're suppose to vote for your -favourite- game, and your favourite may be influenced by music the most, or because it followed the guidelines to a 'T', while other's may be solely based on jokes or gore or some other element.

I really didn't/don't/won't ever mind the critisim publically or not.  [So you don't have to hold back ProgZmax, I betchya had a few choice words for me. ], But I believe those are all reasons for anonymous voting.  I have to take Prog's side and say critisim isn't always welcome publically for this particular thing, though Private Messages should hopefully be O.K for anyone.




On ring-puzzle critisim;
There was a small time near the end I was going to remove that ring puzzle.  I had my little brother play through the game once, and suprisingly as soon as he lost the ring, he went straight to where it was located and grabbed the ring in a few clicks, without any form of hint from me or the game.  I figured if a twelve year old could figure it out THAT easily, then it can't be THAT bad.   Since the ring was a LAYDED product, and kind of the center of the game, I hoped to make people care about it a little more.... and you never realize what you had until it's gone. ^_~.  I think the poorest aspect of that puzzle was the GUI... it made it more difficult than it needed to be.  But at least it stopped people from just randomly clicking till they got it, and encouraged people to actually use the GUI feature [though I probably could have done that better.. hmm!..]




On the subject of the Sellout ruleset....I didn't really want to literally throw ads in someone's face.  I took a much more subtle approach, like mention the line of products every now and then and require you to use them in some way continously.  I hope this didn't invalidate them?  I was going more for "you're at the store and you see something with the LAYDED brand.  You reconize it, it looks friendly, you remember it's usefulness, and you buy it".  It's definitely not "Rush out to the store and get it because it rocks!".
Actually, I do have a question about MAGS for future reference since that was brought it up--
Are the rules literally 'rules', or are they more "guidelines", as was mentioned in the first post?  Should I vote based off who follows rules closely, or should that not be a part of my decision?
Also, has there ever been MAGS disqualified because it didn't follow the rules 'completely'? 

~Thanks, and sorry for being a noob and not knowing this already. ^^;

NOTE: And I have a bad habit of writing too much. ;_;

[IndieBoy]

Well I think I might agree with Progz here. It's only fair that if the author wants some feedback, give it, if not don't. And we do have such a forum to do so in. However I think it's only fair that any feedback as such should be posted after the competition finishes.

I'm sure that if someone gives a bad review, from a such respected member of the forums as yourself Leon/Gilbot etc, an another member of the forums won't bother playing that game. Or even worse than that, not play any of the games or vote.

I understand that people want to give their opinions, but also you have to appreciate that feedback doesn't only affect the author of the game. Maybe a tactic is to keep the thread of the competition open a few days after the competition is over, just to allow any such feedback posts to be posted. And if the author of a game wants a more in depth post about their game then they can PM people or make a CL thread.

[Leon]

First of all, I have a huge respect for anyone who makes a game, wether in less than 25 days or not, everyone is a winner in my view. But we're talking about a competition here.

These games are made in 25 days (Or less, I started 7 days into the competition. x_x), and by both experienced game-makers and people completely new to it.   A lot of people have different strengths/weakness, and some people may find critisim a little harsh and not welcome it publically (especially on such tight time constraints, or if the critisim is aimed at their particular weakness.)  Don't want to scare away someone new by saying they suck, publicly, when they aren't asking for it. xD

That wasn't my intention at all. From my posts just after your publications, I already mentioned that the standard was very high (again). Does that scare people away?

I never meant my comments as criticism (maybe you can read it as that between the lines) but merely as a comparison between the games.

A lot of other games are made with 'teams' so people can work together and compensate for each other's weaknesses.  MAGS are suppose to be done more or less alone, so it may really bring out your weaknesses. =)  I'm really bad at both artwork and beta testing, for one thing and have used MAGS to try to improve both. ^_^

To be honest, nothing is more difficult than to compare the games in a MAGS competition. They are always completely different and where one has as a more graphics skill (Souls Quest/graphics) is compensated by the other in scripting (Proposal/menu system). And how can you ever compare that?

Regarding the betatesting I disagree. I do quite a lot of it and can tell you: never test your own game. Why not ask one of the guys/gals over here to do some testing. They're not involved in the creative process, just checking if all is OK. Just PM one or two and tell them there's a game coming up and that you need feedback. Nothing wrong with that. Again, we're talking about a competition here and all contestants have equal oportunities, including testing. So if one of the entries is solid and another crashes every screen, who would win? Of course you have to consider the fact that newbies enter the contest but hey, I've never made a game and when I see the level that's entered this month, believe me, that gives me a reason not to enter. I could never reach such a level. My graphics skills suck even more 

Also .. If you have a reputuation here you could theoritically sway other people from one game to another regardless of which they like more.  Just listing flaws or highlights may influence others.  There's also the matter of what you're critizing...  Like, you're suppose to vote for your -favourite- game, and your favourite may be influenced by music the most, or because it followed the guidelines to a 'T', while other's may be solely based on jokes or gore or some other element.

True, people can be influenced by what others say. And I think that might be the only reason to have a anonymous vote. But I wouldn't want to enter a creative competition, find out I didn't (quite) make it (read 'lost') and not knowing why. I would want to know what the reason behind it was.

I'm sure that if someone gives a bad review, from a such respected member of the forums as yourself Leon/Gilbot etc, an another member of the forums won't bother playing that game. Or even worse than that, not play any of the games or vote.

If people go blind on what I say I think they're foolish. If some critic tells me a game is good, I first want to see it for myself, then agree or disagree. I'm not a judge who has a decisive vote in this.. besides, you don't want to know the times I voted for the game that in the end didn't win. But I never heard the motivations why it was the winner, only the percentage of votes it got.

I really didn't/don't/won't ever mind the critisim publically or not.  [So you don't have to hold back ProgZmax, I betchya had a few choice words for me. ], But I believe those are all reasons for anonymous voting.  I have to take Prog's side and say critisim isn't always welcome publically for this particular thing, though Private Messages should hopefully be O.K for anyone.

Well I think I might agree with Progz here. It's only fair that if the author wants some feedback, give it, if not don't. And we do have such a forum to do so in. However I think it's only fair that any feedback as such should be posted after the competition finishes.

Maybe I should have kept quite until after the voting. But then this thread gets locked... 

On ring-puzzle critisim;
There was a small time near the end I was going to remove that ring puzzle.  I had my little brother play through the game once, and suprisingly as soon as he lost the ring, he went straight to where it was located and grabbed the ring in a few clicks, without any form of hint from me or the game.  I figured if a twelve year old could figure it out THAT easily, then it can't be THAT bad.   Since the ring was a LAYDED product, and kind of the center of the game, I hoped to make people care about it a little more.... and you never realize what you had until it's gone. ^_~.  I think the poorest aspect of that puzzle was the GUI... it made it more difficult than it needed to be.  But at least it stopped people from just randomly clicking till they got it, and encouraged people to actually use the GUI feature [though I probably could have done that better.. hmm!..]

My issue with this was that I lost it just by looking at it in my inventory (a bug?). One moment it's there, look at it and you get the message you've lost it. When you go to the hints, you see that you need to go the the place you last saw it. Well... I didn't move so.. where should it be. Unfortunately (for me) I was standing next to the piano when this happened and since there's a box on the side that said: LAYDED, I was convinced I was in the right place. It never crossed my mind to go where it finally got found. But I have my sneaky, cheating ways of discovering so... I got there in the end. But still it all seemed very odd to me.

On the subject of the Sellout ruleset....I didn't really want to literally throw ads in someone's face.  I took a much more subtle approach, like mention the line of products every now and then and require you to use them in some way continously.  I hope this didn't invalidate them?  I was going more for "you're at the store and you see something with the LAYDED brand.  You reconize it, it looks friendly, you remember it's usefulness, and you buy it".  It's definitely not "Rush out to the store and get it because it rocks!".
Actually, I do have a question about MAGS for future reference since that was brought it up--
Are the rules literally 'rules', or are they more "guidelines", as was mentioned in the first post?  Should I vote based off who follows rules closely, or should that not be a part of my decision?
Also, has there ever been MAGS disqualified because it didn't follow the rules 'completely'? 

If this was your intention, then I missed the whole point. Sorry for that. I never thought of the LAYED brand as the one you were trying to promote. My bad but after all one of the reasons not to vote for it. You see, feedback gives you ways of finding out if your vision is the one of the public as well. Since the games were very close (said before, very high standard) it was one of the reasons to vote as I did.

Then again, the guidelines are there to be able to compare games. With me, crappy games that follow the guidelines are more likely to get my vote than super quality games that don't. After all, it is a competition, not just to see who can deliver the most polished random piece of software.

~Thanks, and sorry for being a noob and not knowing this already. ^^;

Aparantly I'm a noob as well seeing the reactions I get form the community 

NOTE: And I have a bad habit of writing too much. ;_;

NOTE: I have one of writing even more 

I understand that people want to give their opinions, but also you have to appreciate that feedback doesn't only affect the author of the game. Maybe a tactic is to keep the thread of the competition open a few days after the competition is over, just to allow any such feedback posts to be posted. And if the author of a game wants a more in depth post about their game then they can PM people or make a CL thread.

Dual, maybe something as new rule? No opinions until after voting? Maybe an extra box during voting for comments that can be read afterwards? At least it's one of the things I miss in this competition: the motivation behind the voting. But I guess that was clear already...