Snakes of Avalon (Now with more POLISH!)

[Igor Hardy]

The last interview of the late Dualnames is US!

http://ags-ssh.blogspot.com/2010/12/dualnames-last-post.html

I remember a lot thought went into it, so it might be worth reading despite the lack of graphix!

Also, here 2 other interviews I'd like to remind of:

http://www.culturalzest.com/2010/09/21/snakes-of-avalon-interview/

http://captaind-pc-gaming.blogspot.com/2010/09/captaind-interviews-esteemed-agsers.html

Each one has completely unique content and info, so you should read them all if you want to win one of those Snakes of Avalon and Mad Hatter's Guild Productions quizes.

[Anian]

I'm kind of ashamed that I played the game just now. Sorry.
Wasn't what I expected, it was strange and it was intriguing. I liked the soundtrack as well. At first I thought the style was kind wierd but it grew on me. 
My only remark might be that a bit too many ideas were crammed into the game of that lenght, but that can hardly be a big problem.

[Igor Hardy]

Thanks, anian! (+ Special Thanks in the game's credits )

My only remark might be that a bit too many ideas were crammed into the game of that lenght, but that can hardly be a big problem.

I guess the player might miss some of that stuff if he hurries through the whole game. Still, making huge (or even medium) games is a lot of work, so I definitely prefer making shorter games, but full to the brim with ideas.

[Ali]

This is definitely one of my favourite AGS adventures, good work guys! I'm sure Snakes of Avalon will crop up in future "games as art" debates on the forums. The transition from one part of the room to the other is one of my favourite aspects of any game.

Because I like it so much I want to offer a bit of constructive criticism. I think the weakest aspect of the game was visual. Although the animations and particularly the cutscenes were quite dynamic, the overall look wasn't as coherent or bold as other aspects of the design. I could see the game really benefiting from a cut-out style like the land of the living in Grim Fandango, or some of thecatamites games.

I look forward to more like this!

[Igor Hardy]

This is definitely one of my favourite AGS adventures, good work guys! I'm sure Snakes of Avalon will crop up in future "games as art" debates on the forums. The transition from one part of the room to the other is one of my favourite aspects of any game.

Wow! Great compliments! Very much appreciated, Ali!

And it's quite funny how things can get interconnected around here... because without Nelly Cootalot there probably wouldn't be any Snakes of Avalon (my interest in AGS was very limited before I played Nelly) nor even hardydev.com (I had a NC review written and didn't know where to publish it), so in a sense you provoked it all yourself!

Because I like it so much I want to offer a bit of constructive criticism. I think the weakest aspect of the game was visual. Although the animations and particularly the cutscenes were quite dynamic, the overall look wasn't as coherent or bold as other aspects of the design. I could see the game really benefiting from a cut-out style like the land of the living in Grim Fandango, or some of thecatamites games.

I think Baron's sprites have a rather striking, powerful look and allowed us to have great animations, however, I wish my backdrops were bolder and had more sense of style. Unfortunately, I'm not much of an artist. I didn't even have a tablet to do the art, so it was a bit of a murder in 640x480.

Well, for the first version of the game I tried doing something more stylized and extreme (as seen in the trailer), but I didn't know that well what I wanted to achieve and it ended up looking mostly just primitive and sloppy (which was part of the idea, but it has gone too far). So after MAGS ended I gave up stylization and kept adding and adding detail... Trying to make the bar look dirtier and more atmospheric at least.

Oh, and as you mentioned Grim Fandango's cut-outs... one of the concepts we were throwing around early on was to have the "unimportant" patrons that sit and stand around the bar to look like the humans from GF's land of the living - like they belonged to another reality beyond the parameters of Jack's drunken perception. Jack would even comment that they are strange, unreachable and like frozen in time. But there wasn't enough time or gameplay related reasons to go into that direction.

[Igor Hardy]

Hey guys,

Please vote on Snakes of Avalon (or The Journey Down, or Puzzle Bots) in the annual Jay is Games Best of The Year compo:

http://jayisgames.com/best-of/2010/indie/adventure-or-role-playing/

And if possible, vote every single day for the duration of the compo - that's one of the crazy rules they have there.

[Igor Hardy]

A cool metaphor-packed review appeared on qeek.ru. Big thanks to Anatoly Shashkin of www.dosnostalgia.com for translating it to English:

Snakes of Avalon â€" A drunken bum adventure

What is it? “Snakes of Avalon” is a daring independent short adventure game made with the freeware “fits-all-adventures” AGS engine.

Who made it? For the most part Igor Hardy (a colorful representative of the indie-adventure scene from Poland, and a creator of a gaming blog “A Hardy Developer’s Journal”) and Alex van der Wijst (a jack of all trades, a man of many interests and professions, who currently lives in Canada)

The creative span of the project is truly impressive â€" it’s a ballad of a spiritual battle between a hardened drunk and the rest of the world, a small detective mystery that takes place in the static setting with its own (and a very personal) skeleton in the closet, a hallucinogenic trip diluted in situational comedy, a bloody thriller about relationships between fathers and sons, a parable about the inner demons that have read plenty of science fiction in their spare time and have gone nuts for time travel… And if Futurama’s Bender made stealing the coolest of all crimes in his time, then “Snakes of Avalon” can be recognized as an almanac of one’s soul redemption though a prism of intoxication, and one more way to do a reality check using just a glass of stale beer… The mechanics and the execution of the idea are quite simple â€" an adventure with a sloppy graphic style and no inventory overload + humor that’s not crude + memorable characters + non-stop jazz & soul.

[Baron]

That's disappointingly clear to read and understand.  I prefer the Original Google Translation for its poetic weirdness.

[Snarky]

So as usual I only get around to playing most AGS games when the AGS awards come around.

I'm glad I did, because this was pretty great. With the naivistic graphics and nonsensical puzzles and weird lurches in tone it shouldn't work, but somehow it does. I think that's mainly because the game knows so well what it wants to be, and is exactly that thing (whatever it is) - so you just kind of go with it. This is probably the most distinctive AGS game I've played since my favorite, Linus Bruckman (which it reminds me of in a couple of ways).

Compared to Frantic Franko, I felt like here I understood why things were so surreal, so it was easier to grasp the rules that apply. (Like in Franko, some of the dialog was a little clunky; with a bit of editing of the English translation it would read more naturally.)

It still took me a little while to get on the game's wavelength (about up to the start of the first act), but after that I really enjoyed it. I did get stuck on a few puzzles, but as strange as the actions involved were I always felt like the solutions made sense. Biggest problem for me was that I wasn't always clear on Jack's motivation or what I should be trying to achieve. That always frustrates me, but the game was small enough and the number of possible interactions limited enough that I was OK with just experimenting until something happened.

The storytelling with the unreliable narrator and hallucinatory conflation of past and present was one of the most compelling aspects for me. Childhood dream-flashbacks are always very interesting (though I think the nightmare style in this section was one of the less original parts of the game). Psychonauts absolutely came to mind. And, for me, a less positive association: Shutter Island.

I also like that you didn't clear everything up at the end of the game. The ambiguity and multiple possible interpretations makes it stay longer in our minds. Here are my thoughts:

Spoiler

I was thinking many of the same things Alun wrote, so I'll just add some alternative explanations to that.

When you're told there was only a single survivor of whatever you were responsible of, doesn't that mean you were the only survivor? If so, that would indicate that both your parents are dead. Of course, if Jack was anywhere near as young as he's shown in the dream when it happened, he can't really have been responsible in any meaningful sense. I guess the burnt paper might hint at Little Jack starting a fire, but I think it's more likely one of his parents killed the other and then themselves. Jack's conversation with his dad in the present must then be a hallucination.

My other thought is that Jack is truly crazy, and was not just imagining the murder plot, but subconsciously arranging the murders himself. That would be what the moose is talking about when it warns him he's starting to hurt people again. He placed the poison in the salt shaker, and he was probably involved somehow in his parent's or parents' death(s).

[close]

Anyway, I'm not too worried about piecing it all together. Holding the various interpretations in my mind is more fun. (I think a film like Mulholland Dr. suffers from losing most of its intrigue once you know how the pieces fit together.)

Oh, and finally: I love the integration of the main menu as an object in the game world. Very creative and cool!

[Igor Hardy]

Thanks very much, Snarky. For compliments and for detailed feedback.

I'll better not comment on the story any more than I already did in the past posts, but I have to say it's very interesting and rewarding to read players' interpretations.

[Igor Hardy]

I'm currently applying the last bits of polish to the Polish translation of the game and I need volunteers to have a look at it before it goes public. Anyone interested? PM me.

[Baron]

Well someone has to dredge this thread up, and it might as well be me.  If you don't spend a lot of time on the Competition & Activity board you might have missed that Snakes of Avalon has won MAGGIES 2010!  Many thanks to everyone who voted for our game.  For those of you who have sat on the sidelines waiting for this game to win some sort of official recognition before playing, this is your cue to download!

[Igor Hardy]

So all of a sudden, 6 months after its release, Snakes is the 3rd best rated game on Gamejolt : http://gamejolt.com/games/best/

Is this a good occasion to ask for more player votes both on Gamejolt and - more importantly - in the AGS database (13 votes vs. 5300 downloads)? Of course only if you didn't forget how amazing Snakes really is already , but if you're going to be harsh, then so be it.

Anyway, next update should be finally about the release of the first translation.

[Takyon]

Man I wish I could get this game to work.

[Igor Hardy]

Sadly I have no idea what stops Snakes from working on Win7. I'd love to hear some ideas about that.

Anyway, in the newest boring news, I'm migrating the Snakes FB page to a new one, because the old one turned dysfunctional. Please like us here, if you can/want:

http://www.facebook.com/Snakes.of.Avalon

In much more exciting news, if you visit that FB page linked above, there's actually a rather cool announcement/teaser of something earth-shattering coming in the near future.

[Sslaxx]

Sadly I have no idea what stops Snakes from working on Win7. I'd love to hear some ideas about that.

Anyway, in the newest boring news, I'm migrating the Snakes FB page to a new one, because the old one turned dysfunctional. Please like us here, if you can/want: http://www.facebook.com/Snakes.of.Avalon

In much more exciting news, if you visit that FB page linked above, there's actually a rather cool announcement/teaser of something earth-shattering coming in the near future.

Ooh, nice! Be looking forward to this version. Anything else being changed?

[Igor Hardy]

Ooh, nice! Be looking forward to this version. Anything else being changed?

Besides the various fixes I added since the initial release, nothing in particular. However, if everything goes right, the talkiness should enhance the experience quite a bit on its own.

When it goes for completely new stuff, Baron is working on Curses & Castles and Draculator II and I'm currently preparing  for announcement a new and unrelated project of mine (should happen even before the talkie's release).

[Igor Hardy]

The talkie is a bit late, but I finished my own Polish translation (finally!). Here it is -  a separate release, set to Polish by default:

http://www.przygodoskop.pl/snakes_of_avalon_pl.htm