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Congrats to granary - you're the winner of this month!

Also: Congrats on your release, granary. Downloaded and will soon play it

@Granary: Nice to see a new AGSer complete their first game, looks very promising! I hope to get round to checking it out soon.

Thanks, everybody. I would have liked to have seen more entries this month, but I made a game, so I guess I got what I wanted out of this.
Good luck to this month's participants. MAGS is a great thing.

You should add a "are you sure you want to quit?" screen... First thing I did, even before I managed to see the menu, was accidentally click on the Exit option, and thus closing the game.
The second thing is that I went thru a door, and when I wanted to get get back out and exit the room, by what I thought was the door I come in, I found my self in a completely new room! Think that marking the exist/walls on the floor would improve the game. Nothing more annoying to be stuck in a game, cause one can't find a room.
And last, is there a particular reason why the characters flicker? Is that an intentional game feature/design?

Hey, thanks for the feedback. I've addressed the issues you brought up in a new version. You can now press M to show the room's exits, as well as the way to the room you were last in. Also, if we're talking about the same flicker, it's intentional. The characters have idle animations that cause them to become transparent or change color. It's just a stylistic thing.

The New Familiar is a dialogue-heavy adventure game made for the July 2014 MAGS competition (Theme: High School).
It's about exploration and growth, though it can get rather depressing. To get the most out of the game, you should play it more than once.

Download here!
If you do download it, please check the readme. It has some information about the controls, though they're probably obvious. I wouldn't want anybody to miss something important, though.
Thank you for playing my haphazard depression simulator, also.

Extra link: dev blog

Edit:
v1.1: Added a map button and a quit prompt. Also moved the exit for the Act 3 auditorium over a bit for convenience.
Original version

[The New Familiar]

Game is finished! Exciting.
The New Familiar

It's mostly dialogue, but there's so much of it. I recommend playing it a few times.
Download here.
More screenshots:

Spoiler

[close]

Hey, just finished the game. There were some really great moments, and I love the look and everything about the audio. Nice experience overall. The flyers drove me a bit crazy, but that's more my fault than anybody else's. Also, I really appreciated the quality of the voice acting. Decent voice work is so rare in indie games.
I'll definitely be looking forward to future projects of yours.

These are definitely not bad, but they could benefit from a bit more polish. I'm sure that's your intention at this point, though. The look they have now is really solid (colors and shading), which can be great if it's done right. Personally, though, I find that solid art benefits from a large range of values, and not all of these have that. The big head on the right is a great example of solid, high-contrast art, so keep that in mind if you choose to go that route with the rest of the art.
I do see that you have some small details in the creatures, so you could also try for a more intricate look if you bring in more small touches. If you go for more detail, try to make sure everything is legible; all of your hard work won't mean much if nobody can see it. I say this because some of your details now (the fur on the bear-like creature, in particular) are hard to see. Also, even if you go for a solid style, you can still have more detail. You've got both in the floating head, which is nice.
I guess what I really want to see is more of a commitment to something that makes the art stand out. They're currently smooth in a very strange way, and I'm not sure that that's what you want. So, basically, just distribute your darks and lights more evenly and maybe add a bit of a personal touch.
I hope that this all helps you in some way. I'd be interested in seeing more as you continue to work.

I thought you meant "a bit" as in "a while", as I only posted it at midnight Jolly good then, good luck!

Yes, I guess it was a bit unclear. I was very excited to start a new project, so I was waiting to see what the topic would be.
I'll be back once it's finished, then. Or nearly finished, at least. Thanks.

Hi granary, and welcome to the forums! Unfortunately, the rules state that you can't compete with material you have made before the competition. I'm afraid you won't be able to enter with your current project, if you have been working on it before the guidelines were announced.

Having said that, I look forward to seeing it released one day, the art looks very promising!

No, sorry. I think you misunderstood. By "a bit", I mean a few hours. I just started this.

I've been working on an entry for this for a bit now. It's coming along nicely. I've got some art to share:

Spoiler

(The last one is an element of the UI)

[close]

I've got some animations and other stuff going, too. I'm also working on the story, though I think I'll let it be a surprise. I will say that I've decided to title it 'The New Familiar'. Just thought I'd show off some of my progress; that's all for now. I'm looking forward to seeing the other entries. This is definitely a broad topic.