Messages

I've sketched out a few ideas for this one, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make anything in time. I'm visiting my family for the Easter break, and have a couple of big work commitments throughout the rest of April. Might try to condense the ideas down to a one-room game to make them more viable though.

[Death on Stage]

For your consideration: Death on Stage

Winner of MAGS January 2011
My first game, created in just under a month.
Download here (5.5mb)

Plot: A young magician 'dies' on stage and must re-invent himself in order to save his dreams of stardom, with the help of some bizarre characters.

Featuring:
6 Rooms
5 Characters (and a rat)
Fully animated intro/outro
320x200 16-bit colour hand-scrawled artwork




Thank you for your consideration. Cheers!

Lovely little game ya got there!!! Everything was wonderful especially the puzzles that made sense and were easy to figure out!!! And the design of the rooms/graphics were gorgeous!! If you hadn't said this was your first game I would never have guessed. Well done

Thank you very much, CosmoQueen. I'm glad that you enjoyed it.

Hello there!

Got stuck in this game, how i can get a bunny costume?
My last inv items are the ears and the keys and have finished with the other two tasks
Thank you in advance!

Hi discompalas,

Thanks for playing my game. Not sure what you mean exactly by the bunny costume, I assume you mean how to "make" the rest of the white rabbit. If so...

Spoiler

Take the biscuits from the dressing room table, and feed them to the rat in the alley. Pick up the rat and dip him in the white paint up in the store room. Use the white rat with the bunny ears and take him to the janitor.

[close]

Hope that helps.

I *may* attempt something for this (third time lucky) but how loosely can the time limit be interpreted?

I was hoping to keep the theme fairly open to interpretation. I didn't picture that there had to be an actual time limit or timed section necessarily when I wrote the rules, but there needs to be a sense of urgency or time "running out" to at least part of the plot/theme. Of course, a time limit or timed section would also be acceptable.

Anyway, good luck to everyone who decides to give this one a go. Unfortunately, I won't be able to see what you lot are doing for a couple of weeks, as I'm moving cross country for a new job tomorrow and am going to potentially be off the net for a while.

I've been playing around with the idea of making an Austin Powers-esque game for a little while, so this seemed like the ideal opportunity to sprite up the man himself. Will try to mock-up a background for him sometime next week if I can find the time.

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.

By the way, does anyone else think it might be time to try out a new world?

I wouldn't mind a reset of the main world soon. There's some amazing stuff on there, but the landscape needs a refresh.

One you'll always find at every good murder mystery:

                   

Professor Plum!

Looks like a "where are they now?" version of the California Raisins... Really creative though.

I thought there was something a little odd about the visiting African dignitary.

Nice one OneDollar, very creative. I like the details like the earring and the spotted skin.

Here's my effort. Started as an old Nazi general type. No idea where it ended up... 

Oh man, I wish I'd done this. My 'submerged' idea was rad.
Whoever wins please make the next theme "Science" so i can still use my idea

DuncanFX is setting the theme for March, so I'm sure he'd be more than willing to give you his paypal details I would also require a substantial amount. Looks like this game of yours might have to go commercial Calin

I am rather broke right now, so the cash would do me nicely. Although the idea I'm thinking of so far is quite open to genre, so hopefully it'll still be good for you Calin.

Great little game (and I usually don't like puzzle intensive find-three-objects games)!

Just one thing: I am playing v4 and there's no readme! That's the place where I usually go to check the author's site (and rss it). Add one!

Thanks for the comments bicilotti, much appreciated. If I update this game again, I'll be sure to add a readme and will make sure that all of my future games have one. Thanks for the advice.

I strongly suspect DuncanFx to be using the zoom function.

bicilotti: It's http://duncanfx.blogspot.com in case you missed it.

Khris is right on both counts.

The zoom function is essential, but since I work in a very "messy" style initially, before cleaning up my sprites, any lack of finesse in the drawing isn't really an issue for me. Plus that is indeed my little blog's address.

I'm out of this one. I got something started, but I'm just too busy for the next two weeks to devote the time I'd want to it.

Good luck everyone else, I look forward to seeing what is produced.

Dude great game, especially for a first try. I love your background art, they are just so simple and cool. I think if you had added some stains and stuff around the area it would have really made it feel like a run down theater for upstart performers.

What did you use to draw the backgrounds?

I also agree that there wasn't much interactivity that could have been pretty simple to add.

Thank you for your comments Armageddon, much appreciated. Hopefully the levels of interaction have been addressed enough in the latest version.

I'm glad that you like the background art. I was really proud of how they turned out, especially look back at some of my early WIP sketches. As you said, they could've done with a few more touches here and there to add character, but I'd rather under-do it than add too much. If my next game doesn't have the deadline that MAGS does, I shall spend more time playing with the smaller details.

As for what I use for the backgrounds, I used Graphics Gale for this game, although it has some quirks I'm not too fond of, so might look for an alternative at some point.

[Edit: VERSION 0.5 uploaded.]

This game had a great feel to it even though I played the silent version a couple weeks ago.  Helluva first game. I look forward to the next one.

Thank you very much Stumblebum, I'm glad that you enjoyed it.

Your recent publicity boost will generate downloads (congrats on the coverage btw). These downloads will propagate. You will find your game copied to many sites. The version people stumble on is going to be the version that propagates onto the nets, so the faster you can get a polished version on-line the better.

Calin: I'm not saying "make a deluxe version". I'm saying add basic simple feedback for some of the core "could be" puzzle solutions.

It's a game, it's all about feedback.

Again I want to stress that I think this was a great little game and it had me impressed in many ways, I don't want to come off as not liking it. I just believe a few extra lines of dialog in this case will make a big difference to the overall reception of the game. It's the only thing missing.

Thanks again theo, I really appreciate all the advice. I have the rest of the day free today (plus a couple of Hitchcock films on the TV to keep me company), so am going to do another pass over the game and add the extra interactions and responses. I figure that I want to do it at some point, and if I am ever going to do it, it'll be of most benefit right now - you're right. Plus I don't want to get involved with another game/idea only to have to come back to this one and not be in the right head-space for it.

Edit: VERSION 0.5 uploaded. Available through the game page.

Hopefully this'll be the final version. I've added extra responses to all the characters and inventory items, and all of the likely hotspot-interaction combinations. (If you try something that you think is a sensible action, but get no response, please let me know through a PM and I might add it later on). I could add some more nonsensical interaction to things like posters and so on, but I think I'd lose my mind doing so.

It has become my 6th episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KICJ4O5bOI

Yay!

Haha! Great little review Domithan, had me grinning like an idiot throughout. Thank you for taking the time to make that.

Wow, hit the 200-download mark on the game page! And won the January MAGS! Thank you everyone, really encouraging for me moving onto another game.

As someone who has personal experience with making bad decisions on their first game I suggest that you *dont* make a 'deluxe' version.

I suggest that you press forward with new ideas instead of repairing old ones. It just seems more constructive.

Thank you for the advice Calin. I think that both your and theo's suggestions are useful. I can see how much more the extra interaction would add to the game experience, but as you say, it's probably more constructive to push on with another game, and in turn, get more experience with AGS. We'll see though... If I get inspired on a free day, I might go back and blitz some extra responses in.

Really fun, professionally made little game with some stand-out character design!

Thank you Ascovel, I'm glad that you enjoyed it.

[11 votes]

Right ho, all votes tallied, with one creeping under!

    "Death on Stage" by DuncanFx
    11 votes

    "Death as it Is" by Zetsaika
    3 votes

Congratulations Duncan on your win!

Yay! Thank you to everyone who voted. Congrats to Zetsaika for getting his game finished and submitted too.

Very well done, DuncanFx. The game doesn't feel at all like a first attempt, nor does it feel rushed like most MAGS projects. You obviously put a lot of work into it, and it's well-worth the time spent playing it.

As you have mentioned, it could use a little more variety in the interactions - because of a lack of response to clicks not related to the final game solution, I was able to complete all of the puzzles in only about 30 minutes. Adding superfluous text is very time-consuming, though, and I think that the polish that you have put into the game shows. If you really wish to add to the game as it is, feel free, but I think it's solid as-is, and I'd like to see what else you can come up with as you go forward. Keep that momentum going!

Thank you for the feedback, SpacePirateCaine, I really appreciate your thoughts. Thank you too for adding a comment to the gamepage.

Oh, and waking up to find THIS was a nice surprise...

Very impressive! The scrolling background ended up looking really nice, as well as the rest of the graphics.

Thank you very much, Cuiki.

Glad to be of help, Duncan. I left my praise on the game's page.

Thanks again, Cianty!

You created the first ags-game, that I played completely through since years. Very nice done, well chosen colors, cute story, cool charakterdesign, I really enjoyed it.

Thank you very much PeterFonda, I'm glad that you enjoyed it, and enough to finish it too!

Great little game!

I liked the song though I think maybe it could have been broken off in a room or two with some different tune. It got slightly repetitive after a while.

Another thing that felt unfinished was the fact that there were loads and loads of places where interactions yielded no feedback, no matter how much sense they made. Some short response would have been nice in these cases.

Good job all in all though! I truly enjoyed it.

Thank you for the feedback and positive comments, theo. The biggest regret I have for the game at this point is the lack of interactions, especially when using inv objects in the wrong places. I might go back and rectify this if I have the time. If not, then I will definitely keep it in mind for my next effort. Same with the music. Thanks again for the feedback.

I subscribe to the view of the previous posts: nice little game!
I like the characters and the room design.

Thank you too Knoodn, I'm glad that you liked it.

Think I can honestly say that I'm "chuffed to bits" with the response this is getting so far. Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to play it!