MAGS February: "Submerged" (CLOSED)

Started by Atelier, Wed 02/02/2011 18:49:03

Previous topic - Next topic

Atelier

It's here guys!

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

La Sol by WHAM
Beacon by Pinback


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

Pinback

Quote from: Ascovel on Sat 26/02/2011 17:07:28
Where is the music in Beacon from? The credits disappeared before I could find the responsible.

btw Congrats! Great little game.

Oh, I did the music too:) All but the intro theme were composed specifically for this MAGS.
The only other person directly working on Beacon was WHAM- who did a very good job voicing Valentin btw- thanks WHAM!

Igor Hardy

Quote from: Pinback on Sun 27/02/2011 00:34:53
Quote from: Ascovel on Sat 26/02/2011 17:07:28
Where is the music in Beacon from? The credits disappeared before I could find the responsible.

btw Congrats! Great little game.

Oh, I did the music too:) All but the intro theme were composed specifically for this MAGS.


Wow! Really? You certainly are a man of many talents.

WHAM

Quote from: Pinback on Sun 27/02/2011 00:34:53
The only other person directly working on Beacon was WHAM- who did a very good job voicing Valentin btw- thanks WHAM!

A pleasure to be of service! It was fun working with so many other people on the game.
I have to say your game looks and sounds simply amazing! Great job!
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Dualnames

I like how you guys worked on both games, resulting into two awesome games.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Calin Leafshade

Both games are great this time out! nicely done gents.

Question about la sol though:

Spoiler
is it possible to get better than the glass shard in back ending? I have cracked the glass but i dont see how to improve from there
[close]

Baron

The Beacon download keeps telling me it's expired.
I've tried La Sol 3 times and have died at progressive stages.  It sounds like I'm about as far as Calin, so at least I'm in good company.  It's a very immersive game so far.....  ;)

WHAM

Quote from: Calin Elephantsittingonface on Sun 27/02/2011 02:55:05
Question about la sol though:
Spoiler
is it possible to get better than the glass shard in back ending? I have cracked the glass but i dont see how to improve from there
[close]

Spoiler
If you live long enough to be plucked out of the sea (not seen directly, but flares are involved), you have gotten the best ending to the game. Saving one's skin is sometimes costly...
[close]
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

mode7

Oh my got - this months mags games are both awesome. Finished the Beacon and struggling in La Sol. It's going to be a tough vote for me.

WHAM

I uploaded a new version just now. Only one small fix: the outro cutscene could trigger incorrectly, making for a very confusing watch. If you downloaded LaSol already, but haven't player yet, please download again to avoid the faulty cutscene.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

DuncanFx

Fantastic pair of games. Took me four attempts to get the "good" ending of LaSol, but enjoyed getting there, and Beacon's presentation really appealed to me. I had real trouble choosing which to vote for - I actually made a list of pros and cons. ::)

Congrats (and good luck) to both Pinback and WHAM.


WHAM

Quote from: DuncanFx on Sun 27/02/2011 20:23:58
I actually made a list of pros and cons. ::)

I'd love to see the pro's and cons of my game some time! A list like that, made by someone else who apparently knows quite a bit about how to make a nice game, would be really useful!

Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

david

#72
Alright WHAM, I am going to give my pros and cons to you  ;)

+ voice overs are great, atmosphere is thrilling, story itself is well done told, combination with the TV news, it is just superb
- too long comments about things around, too little time to read them in order to finish the game, I was drowned a couple of times, simply you will not  have much time to explore the place if you want to examine the things because you are dead eventually; but the most frustrating thing was
Spoiler
the black spot where the valve and some sort of platform were; it took me quite a while to figure out what to do next and especially to find them
[close]

but overall it was a very nice game  ;)
Congratulations 8)

WHAM

Thanks for the feedback David!

I wanted to give the game an interesting narrative that would be intriguing itself and make way for a possible sequel in the future. It's good to hear people liked the story aspect of the game. The cutscenes were also a lot of work, so it's great to hear people enjoyed them.

I kind of knew that some people would find the strict time limitations and constant presence of looming death to be frustrating, but I wanted to go for the mentality of games in the "olden days". The games were immensely hard, but when you finalli manage to get through, the feeling of completion is the greatest reward.

In my own testings I found that if you didn't examine every object (for instance, the trash on the floor) or repeat "wrong" actions several times, you could finish the game quite easily. It's all about figuring out your priorities and trying to keep up. I thought of having difficulty levels at one point. Easy mode would have allowed more time to look around and that water would have risen more slowly, but I felt that in such a short game, making the player start from the top once or twice would not be unforgivable.

On you last remark, I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what you mean.
Spoiler
Do you mean the floorplates? I tried using the light effects in the crawlspace, as well as the stack of wood being visible, to indicate their presence. The valve's location could also be tracked quite easily by just watching where the pipe was going from the leak.
[close]
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

david

Thanks WHAM, now I see your point. You see I haven't noticed that before because of that time limit,
Spoiler
I am talking about the floor plates (I named it platform :) ) and valve, specifically the rightmost one
[close]

Now I've remembered that the MENU Save/Load buttons were quite a mess. I didn't know when the game is saved or if it was overwritten by the newer version or not.

but as I said before it was very nicely intensified story  ;)

WHAM

Heh. I had to say something to that: the save/load GUI was a hasty mash-up, to be hones. I even thought of leaving it out altogether, as the game is so short that a save/load feature might not even be necessary, but decided to leave the simple system in place after all.

I guess it could've done with a "Saved game successfully" message when you save...
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

neon

Nice to see that there are two great games this month, that both really deserve to win the competition. While I had the chance to play LaSol before release and there was no clue that there will be another entry, I really thought that the game is a sure winner. Now that I played beacon I have no idea for what game I should vote. While Beacon is state of the art pixel graphic (I love that style), LaSol is a game that has a good replay value, because it's nearly impossible to survive in the first run. Good to know I have a month to decide which one is better.

WHAM

The suspense is already killing me! ARGH!
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens

I thought both of these were good, but in the end I had to go with Pinback and his neat little robo-russian.  :)

OneDollar

Really great entries this month. Spoilerific feedback/reviews below.

La Sol
Spoiler
I loved all the little effects you'd put into the game - the splashes when walking, the changing lighting, the floating trash, the water level on the save slot, the changed walk cycle when the water gets too high... all very impressive and they really added to the atmosphere.

On the whole the voice acting was on the good side of amateur. The main character was probably the best, the Eastern European guy sounded like they were focused on keeping the accent up (both voiced by you?).

I think you were right not to give the option of toning the difficulty down. On a longer game it would be annoying to have to keep restarting, but La Sol was short enough that I didn't mind. I completed the game on my 4th playthrough, though I was about 3 seconds off winning on my 3rd. I liked the way you actually ended up with two simultaneous puzzles - trying to escape while also trying to buy more time. Giving alternative solutions (duct tape works - badly - on the pipe, but you can turn off the valve and save the tape for the door) was great as well.

I didn't pay too much attention to the story, from the way the game started I suspected that I'd only be shown a smaller part of a bigger plot, and that a lot would be left out/to the imagination.

The only other real issue I had with the game was the ending, it wasn't clear (until reading this thread) that I'd got the best one. It doesn't sound a particularly 'good' ending, and you get roughly the same amount of outro as you do for the other endings.
[close]

Beacon
Spoiler
Very, very good looking game. I love your art style and it fits well with the atmosphere of the game. The game was short, but felt quite professional and polished. The puzzles were pretty logical, and aside from a few pixel hunts on the puddle and switch I didn't have much trouble with it. Nice animation on the fish and robot too. I feel bad not being able to write as much about this game as La Sol, though I can't think of much in the way of criticism, so that's a good thing.
[close]

In the end I voted for
Spoiler
La Sol, because I found the gameplay unusual and interesting. Beacon was a nice, polished game with amazing visuals, but more standard adventure game play (which isn't a bad thing, but in this case I liked the risks La Sol took).
[close]
Both really good entries though.

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk