MAGS December "Pickpocketing" (RESULTS)

Started by Stupot, Wed 30/11/2016 23:59:55

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Mandle

#60
PICKPOCKET   RPG

[IMGZOOM]http://i68.tinypic.com/jshgk3.png[/imgzoom]

[IMGZOOM]https://s29.postimg.org/h1sqfn4qf/Caught_By_Police01.png[/IMGZOOM]

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GAME

Well here we go with my entry into the December 2016 MAGS contest:

The game features full-motion video backgrounds (filmed wonkily by myself) and five levels of stat-based RPG-style pickpocketty goodness (or you could build a character that just beats people up and nabs their cash.)

The game features planned are not 100% implemented yet, but the game is playable from start to finish and, as I found myself, is quite challenging and may require quite a bit of strategy to win. I have won the game once myself and it took me about an hour to do so.

A Short Game Guide

The goal of the game is, through your criminal activities, to move up from level to level. There are five levels so if you can complete level 5 you will win the game.

The main stats (also explained ingame) :

Perception: This mostly helps you spot where a potential target is carrying the goodies, but also might give you some information about their stats etc. A more vigilant NPC is harder to perceive.

Pickpocket: The name says it all really. How good you are at your craft. Sensible choosing of both target and pick-location will aid in success (for example: the front pockets of a target walking towards you are an easier target than the back pockets, and vice versa.)

Vigilance: Before pickpocketing (or attacking) a target you can look around to try to get an idea of the local police pressence. Vigilance helps with this, and also helps you to run away from the cops in the event you are caught (or run from a mugging target if the fight isn't going well for you.)

Violence: This stat helps you to hit your target in a fight, whether it be against the cops, or against a target you are trying to beat up and mug. The countering stat is your target's own Violence stat so choose targets carefully. There is no way to see what the cops' Violence stat is, so be extra careful in fights with them.

Oh, and you can ignore the Charisma and Creeping stats for now. These stats are not yet implemented.

A few other useful hints:

* "Move Up A Level" button. Once you have enough money to move up to the next level this button will appear. Plan carefully before pushing this button! Make sure you have enough stats and money to survive in a harder level. The difficulty of NPC targets and police increases with each higher level as does the cost of living (food and rent). Don't be shy to click on the:

* "Retreat A Level" button. If a new level is too hard for your character it is probably best to retreat to the previous level and regroup your resources. You will lose the money you paid to move up to the current level though. An extra advantage of moving is that police pressence will have reset to the default level when you move between levels. Which brings us to the:

* "Lay Low" button. This button causes your character to end the current day and halt their criminal activities to give the local police pressence a chance to cool down a bit. You will have to pay for rent and food for this day starting from level 2. In level 1 you are homeless and scavenge through garbage for your food so there is no cost for laying low on level 1 (so you can SPAM IT! hint-hint)...

WARNING: The game is a "roguelike", by which I mean: If you die you will not be able to restore. You must start again. The autosave is only for if you have to stop playing the game partway through and wish to continue later. Click the ingame "Quit" button to autosave your game and return to the title menu. Be very careful to click on "Continue" on the title screen to continue playing next time or your autosave may be overwritten. If you DO mess up here, and hit "Play" by mistake, then use Alt-X to force the game to shutdown.
DO NOT use the ingame "Quit" button or your saved game will be overwritten!

Cheers and enjoy (fingers and toes crossed)!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GAME

Please also remember to vote for your favorite MAGS entry in the MAGS thread in Competitions And Activities forum if you play all the entries. Cheers!

Cassiebsg

Wow  :) Nice Mandle! Congrats on the release. :)
Will wait and try it tomorrow though.
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Funkpanzer

Due to a poor understanding of time, here is nearly a game.



WASD for movement, mouse for inventory management. It has been added to my nice little collection of unfinished MAGS games. 8-)

Very clear warning that I haven't worked on this at all since the 22nd...

Shadow1000

Quote from: Mandle on Wed 04/01/2017 18:35:41

Well here we go at the 11th hour for my entry into this MAGS:

If you do happen to play it mostly ignore the ingame hints as to what stats do as most of them are not currently doing their jobs.

You can ignore Charisma and Creeping. These stats are not yet useful at all.


Loving it so far! I got to level 3 then got caught by a cop and died. How do you save so next time I play I don't need to start over when dying?

SHADOW

Stupot

Thanks Mandle and Funk. Can't wait to play these entries.

Any more for any mote? I'm aboutsta shut this down. Any stragglers are welcome in the time it takes me to warm the laptop up and have breakfast.

Stupot

The competition has now ended and voting is underway.

Whose pocket will you pick?





Pickpocket RPG by Mandle
Night Work by Funkpanzer

Click on the game title to download.

Voting

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR VOTE
Send the title of your favourite game under the subject MAGS DECEMBER

Remember:
* try all the games before you vote
* vote only once
* vote for your favourite
* don't forget to leave a comment and rating on the AGS games database

Voting Ends: Jan 18th

Mandle

Quote from: Shadow1000 on Wed 04/01/2017 23:49:41
Loving it so far! I got to level 3 then got caught by a cop and died. How do you save so next time I play I don't need to start over when dying?

SHADOW

Thanks for the kind words, mate, on what is a very unfinished game.

And yeah, about that whole save/continue issue:

Erm....it's a roguelike..:-D

Well, it actually is intended as a roguelike (by which I mean that once you die it's over and you have to start again) but also I couldn't get the autosave function working for some damn reason. I had it working once and then it broke out of the blue. The good news is that the autosave was only meant to be for if you quit the game while playing a character and wanted to come back later and continue. As the game is pretty short at the moment I hope that's not a huge problem.

Mandle

Urgh! I was just playtesting my game and I found a nasty bug that pretty much means the game cannot be won:

If you start starving and being homeless the game forgets to remove this status even when you have enough money to afford food and rent. It's an easy fix and I believe bug fixes are allowed after deadline as long as no new content is added to the game.

Am I good to go with a bug fix?

Stupot

Yeah yeah. Any gane-breaking fixes aren't a problem. Go ahead. (nod)

Shadow1000

Quote from: Mandle on Thu 05/01/2017 02:43:43
Quote from: Shadow1000 on Wed 04/01/2017 23:49:41
Loving it so far! I got to level 3 then got caught by a cop and died. How do you save so next time I play I don't need to start over when dying?

SHADOW

Thanks for the kind words, mate, on what is a very unfinished game.

And yeah, about that whole save/continue issue:

Erm....it's a roguelike..:-D

Well, it actually is intended as a roguelike (by which I mean that once you die it's over and you have to start again) but also I couldn't get the autosave function working for some damn reason. I had it working once and then it broke out of the blue. The good news is that the autosave was only meant to be for if you quit the game while playing a character and wanted to come back later and continue. As the game is pretty short at the moment I hope that's not a huge problem.

I spent a lot of time playing and I don't think that in its current state that I'll try again.

Essentially, what happens is that I will keep progressing nicely, adding money and stats and occasionally running from cops and then I'll hit ONE cop that I just can't get away from and it's basically all over. I've played again and again and every time I get somewhere I end up getting stuck on ONE nasty cop.

If I'd be able to save after levels or knew how to get out of cops you can't defeat then I'll try again...

SHADOW

Mandle

@Stupot: Cheers! I'll try to get a bug fixed version up ASAP.

@Shadow: Yeah, the cops are a pain in the butt. Some tips I can give are:
Spoiler
The police pressence in an area fluctuates up or down every 5 seconds or so. If you have some vigilance stat you can "Be Vigilant" before picking pockets. If you are lucky you will get some information. Vigilance should also increase with use.
Getting caught by police and beating them up or running away increases police pressence (the former more than the latter). These means more cops and a greater risk. Laying low will decrease police pressence a bit. Leaving an area and coming back resets police pressence to the default (but can be expensive).
Fighting police can train up your violence stat if you don't get hit too often. Police get increasingly tougher the higher the level you are in, so training a lot on the countryside cops before moving up to higher levels is a good idea.
Running from the cops depends on your creeping and vigilance stats, but as creeping has no other use in this version yet, it's better to put those points into vigilance instead.
[close]
But yeah, I'd advise waiting for the bug fixed version if you care to try again.

Slasher

Hi Mandle,

Spoiler

Sometimes i would need to punch like 30 times or so which i felt was far too many times..
[close]

Shadow1000

Quote from: Mandle on Thu 05/01/2017 09:51:15
@Stupot: Cheers! I'll try to get a bug fixed version up ASAP.

@Shadow: Yeah, the cops are a pain in the butt. Some tips I can give are:
Spoiler
The police pressence in an area fluctuates up or down every 5 seconds or so. If you have some vigilance stat you can "Be Vigilant" before picking pockets. If you are lucky you will get some information. Vigilance should also increase with use.
Getting caught by police and beating them up or running away increases police pressence (the former more than the latter). These means more cops and a greater risk. Laying low will decrease police pressence a bit. Leaving an area and coming back resets police pressence to the default (but can be expensive).
Fighting police can train up your violence stat if you don't get hit too often. Police get increasingly tougher the higher the level you are in, so training a lot on the countryside cops before moving up to higher levels is a good idea.
Running from the cops depends on your creeping and vigilance stats, but as creeping has no other use in this version yet, it's better to put those points into vigilance instead.
[close]
But yeah, I'd advise waiting for the bug fixed version if you care to try again.


Cool! I didn't realize that the vigilance button helps detect cops. I have clicked it a few times and it said "no Idea" and I didn't know what that meant. Using it to increase its stats sounds like a great idea to get me out of the cop rut I was in. Is there a stat that makes it easier to run from cops?

Honestly, this game is so awesome in its originality, the game play is seriously addictive, I really like the way the player moves on "rails" like the older Resident Evil games. There's a lot of strategy in assigning your skill points and moving levels, as well as careful timing so it has a lot of replay value. The fact that it was done under time constraints for a MAGS entry just makes it all that much more impressive. I've always been addicted to games where your stats increase because you want to keep playing to see the numbers rack up.

I think that for now, I've played it enough (over an hour and a half) and although I did not complete it, I have enough of an educated opinion to vote once I play the other entry and then make a decision. Once it's been touched up, I'll definitely give it another spin! And likely another and another :D

Cheers

SHADOW

Stupot

Man. I absolutely love both of these games. Both of them are pretty difficult and quite rough around the edges, but they are both addictive as hell and super fun. I will have to play them both again before deciding which to vote for. Well done, guys.

Mandle

Sorry all but the download link to my game is broken at the moment.

I'm uploading the bug-fixed version but it is taking forever so I will have to probably sleep on it and relink it when I wake up.

The new version fixes several bugs I found while playtesting, but I haven't added any new content as per the rules of MAGS. I have only fixed bugs.

I hope this is okay, and hope I can beg for patience during this downtime for the link.

Mandle

#75
Okay the bug-fixed (fingers crossed) game is relinked from the AGS database page so clicking all the old links will lead to it.

I have (once again fingers crossed) fixed all the major bugs that pretty much made the game impossible to finish. I played it through myself and managed to get to the end. It still was not easy and took about an hour.

Oh, which reminds me, I also seem to have fixed the autosave feature. If you die however you will not be able to restore. You must start again. The autosave is only for if you have to stop playing the game partway through and wish to continue later.

Be very careful to click on "Continue" on the title screen to do so or your autosave may be overwritten. (If you do make a mistake here then use Alt-X to force the game to shutdown. Do not use the ingame "Quit" button!)

Cheers and enjoy (fingers and toes crossed)!

EDIT: I also updated the game release post above to include a short guide to playing the game, explaining a bit deeper what the stats and a few other game mechanics do. You can find the same guide in the Completed Games post also.

MiteWiseacreLives!

I am going to give these babies a play this weekend. These look like fun ;-D
Then maybe begin finishing mine, so much to do...

Riaise

I agree with Stupot, I'm having a really tough time deciding which game to vote for. I think I'll have to play them both a bit more before I can decide.

Shadow1000

#78
I commented on Mandle's game, now time for the other entry.

AWESOME pixel art, sound and effects! GREAT gameplay system. It took me a while to figure out what was going on and what the different icons indicated but I think that was part of the fun: discovering and progressing to beat the successive challenges.

In many ways it's quite similar to Mandle's game but that's expected considering that they are following the same theme.

So as far as my vote:

Spoiler
I voted for Mandle. As others have said, it was not easy because they are both great games. However, I went by which game kept me playing longer, so this is kind of intuitive.

I think my one problem that I had with Night Work was that once you are caught by the cop, you don't just lose the money on hand. You lose WAY more than you've made in the game so there's a feel that it would be easier to just restart the game than to try to progress. I kept experimenting between continuing and restarting and when I saw I  was down $2000 after I had only made about $400 in the game I felt that I understood the game well enough to vote but just didn't feel compelled to keep at it.

One small tweak that would improve the game would be to lessen the penalty of getting caught. Maybe if you lost half your money or at LEAST the loss would be limited to all the money you have then it would be more compelling.

I realize that it was a MAGS entry and the art is impressive considering that, but if there's time to add to the game, maybe progressing levels can unlock new areas or neighbourhoods, new NPCs to  rob or challenges. As I said, once I was down $2000 and running around the same few blocks robbing the same people of the same items I felt "ok this is just deja vu, rinse and repeat with no progress" and stopped playing.

Overall a REALLY good entry with great potential.
[close]

SHADOW

selmiak

@ shadow: I managed to not get caught by the cop at all after some playing. You can hide in the dark by pressing up. But in level 4 or 5 suddenly noone had any more of these funny stuff items anymore so it was gameover for me there :P

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