Messages

Ooh good one. I thought lee as in "lee |liː| noun the sheltered side of something" hence moss on a tree. Instead of the name Lee, duh.

Is it moss?

It's not making headlines just because of the number of casualties, rather it's the significance of the event. A bomb attack on the US mainland will always be big news.

I literally couldn't have less of a clue what is happening in this thread.

2. (White) hair?

1. Something that displaces a few pounds of the rainwater? Urm, a beach-ball just heavy enough to sink?

2. My first thought was that it couldn't be an object because it's talking about any foe which is too general for that. So it has to be a concept. It makes sense if the defeat references itself. Is it 'winning', 'success' etc?

Thanks guys!

[KTX-1 by DoorKnobHandle]

Voting is over:

The Case of the Festival Filcher by Perspicacity1
1 vote(s)
KTX-1 by DoorKnobHandle
16 vote(s)


Congrats dkh, a very impressive win! Thank you both for the good entries

[Topic: 'Spring Cleaning']

Topic: 'Spring Cleaning'

This month's guidelines were set by Perspicacity1:

With Winter ending it's finally time to emerge from under blankets and actually get things in order. The game doesn't necessarily need to be about cleaning, but the more general idea of getting things together.

Ideas
-Actual spring cleaning
-Someone looking for something in a mess of their own creation or someone elses
-Someone getting their life together

Ending 30th April



__________________________________________________________________________________________

What is MAGS?

MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner. It aims to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, or provide a kick-start into making adventure games. Regardless of skill, MAGS is for everyone. Voting is based on "favorite" games, and not the most artistic, or the best coded. If you have bad art skills, use it as a chance to do some graphic work. If you're sub-standard at coding, use it as a chance to give scripting a go. Ultimately, people will vote for the most enjoyable entry.

You may get help for the competition, although you must end up doing something yourself. You should however be warned that it proves difficult to organize a big team within thirty days. You are not allowed to use material already created before this competition. Your game must be completely new! Music and sound is an exception; you can use free material that is available to the public, if you wish. Modules and templates are also allowed. Please do not enter the competition with a rushed entry (a game created last minute). Sure, you can make a game and rush it - but don't do this just to win by default.

Entering MAGS is simple. First, conceptualise your game following the month's criteria (see top). Second, create your game fueled only by coffee. Third, finally, and most importantly, post your game here, including:

âÅ"“ A working download link.
âÅ"“ The title of your game.
âÅ"“ A suitable screenshot.

At the end of the month, the all-important voting will begin! This period usually lasts fifteen days. Should you win, along with announcing the next month's rules, your name and game will be immortalised in the MAGS Archive. Yet hopefully, at the end of the month, the accomplishment of finishing a game will be your greatest prize. For more information please visit the Official MAGS website.

[VOTE]

Now let's get the voting started!

(Or is somebody still working on their entry maybe?)

I think that's it, so indeed, voting time!

__________________________________________________________________________________________

VOTE

The competition has now ended and voting is underway. Please visit the MAGS site or make your choice right here:

The Case of the Festival Filcher by Perspicacity1	VOTE
KTX-1 by DoorKnobHandle	VOTE

Click on the game title to download.

Be sure to play all the entries before sending your voice! Good luck to all participants.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

I love the clipped blast at the end, it hits you in the gonads just when you thought it was all over. Tbh you can only surpass this by directing a flash mob at your local shopping centre.

This is what I see.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75746167@N06/6972861754/

According to the wiki it's caused by an outdated Java on Mac OSX.

Sort of nearly half-way through! What have we got so far guys?

Yeah that change was super annoying, but it was even worse because it made sense!

Ponch has a website? Is that even legal?

I think if someone just swapped out the graphics, dialog and music of an OSD game, they'd have to come up with something quite amazing in order to win.

True The only OSD game I've played is The Wet Spot - and I don't know what shape the sources are in - but I guess it's just the principle of starting the month with a game already set up by somebody else, rather than creating the files yourself. Well personally, I wouldn't want to use sources for my entries because it would never feel like 'my' game. Granted others would though, particularly people who've just found AGS, and they are the ones we could do with joining MAGS. If people had to credit the resources they used anyway (not hiding the fact they've used source code), yeah it might not be a problem.

Hm, in my mind it's a tough one to balance, because I can see how it may seem unfair, and defeat the purpose of making a brand new game.

But if everybody has an equal opportunity to access the same freely available stuff, whatever it is, surely it's at the author's discretion not to take advantage of that, and therefore it cannot be called an unfair comparison?

Also, as it stands, we have a rather prescriptive list of what can and cannot be used. Music, templates, and modules are fine; but certainly not art. It probably is harder to make music and to code, but not for everybody, and not every member is able to get help making graphics. So how can you justify making an exception just for graphics, without being subjective?

The main reason people drop out of MAGS is obviously because it's too much work to do in a month, so if we made the rules more open to allow pre-made material I really think we'd get more people finishing, and more people starting to begin with. The premise of this thread was about RoN/OSD, but I think Snarky made some interesting points towards making it more open than that.

I mean, is the purpose of MAGS to make an entirely new game, or simply to make a game? Officially, it's both, but to most people, the latter is why they enter. When people make games outside of the competition, they have access to all public domain, open license, etc stuff anyway.

And seeing as there is no prize available for MAGS, I think we can afford to be less restrictive with the "pre-existing" rule if it means more people get involved.

BUT

I don't think we should allow use of entire game sources (i.e. OSD). You are essentially beginning the month with 27 games ready-made. There's a clear difference between making or pulling together the components of a game yourself, and reverse engineering a game that's already been made, to make it your own.

I'm also just supposing that more people, especially newcomers, would join if the rules were less 'stifling'. I have no idea if that would really be the case but it would be interesting to see.

Another concern I would have is that the quality of MAGS games would decrease if people weren't relying on material made by themselves. For me, I most enjoy seeing what people have come up with at the end of each month on their own initiative. Taking away some of the challenge behind creating everything from the ground up might make it seem less 'special' when you're playing the end result. At what prevalence of people using pre-made material would that be ruined?

I didn't realise the source code for each OSD game was available, otherwise I wouldn't even have included it in this thread's title!

If the games were using RoN graphics I think people would take that into account when voting. It was just an idea to get more people involved because we can't all get help with artwork, and I have been asked several times about this now. However I considered it properly and am tending to agree now- my problem is that I rush things too much. But it's still open for discussion I guess!

Cool idea dkh!!