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Something about the interface reminds me of Dragonsphere so I'm wondering if Microprose made any more graphic adventures, but I still have no idea what game this is, sorry can't even guess! 

[DO NOT]

I released two games in 2022, both of them non-adventure games expanded from earlier MAGS entries:


The Rat Pack (Full Version)

In this turn-based strategy game you take control of a rat colony and try to survive, thrive, and gain the favour of King Rat himself. The game is played across 3 chapters each containing 5 missions, with 3 difficulty levels and 100 achievements to obtain.











Please consider for:

• Best Non-Adventure Game Made With AGS
  
• Best Gameplay
• Best Programming
• Best Background Art (for Kastchey's mission intro / event graphics)

Please DO NOT nominate for Best Music - the music in this game is all procedurally-generated and I would hate this to take anything away from a real composer.



Shoaly You Can't Be Serious! (Deluxe Version)

A one or two-player arcade game in which the goal is to grow your shoal as much as possible, which evading dangers such as sharks / nets, and hinderances like electric eels and jellyfish.

• Best Non-Adventure Game Made With AGS
  
• Best Gameplay
• Best Programming

[The Ancient Art of Staying Alive]

Apologies for the necropost but I'll be releasing The Ancient Art of Staying Alive on Steam next month, made a new trailer for it complete with SAM synthesised singing! (I bet you'll be singing along with it...) 

I still don't know what it is but I would be very surprised if it wasn't available from Big Fish Games.

Hahaha... the purveyors of stimulating hidden-object "adventure" games?!

They also have time management games which are often good (on the casual side, but still good) - this reminded me of one of those games I played a while back, I used to get sent loads for review when I ran a gaming blog. I stopped reviewing for one publisher who had games there when they suggested I could copy-paste text they sent me if I didn't have time to do my own review... 

Thanks for the heads-up!

@CW - many thanks, I'll take on board what you've said and rework my code, your comments are very helpful.

I still don't know what it is but I would be very surprised if it wasn't available from Big Fish Games.

Hi CaptainD, I'm glad that you solved your problem. Do you have any questions about leaderboards? At first, I thought that it was an exciting feature and put it in my game, then I realized players actually don't care about leaderboards. Only 5% of players have registered themselves into leaderboards in my previous game. I still think it's a cool feature though

I haven't released the game on Steam yet (and am likely to only get a handful of players anyway), so I have no idea how much interest there will be, but the particular game I'm working on lends itself to the leaderboard idea - arcade, short gameplay rounds, high customisability so you can make the game easy or much harder (the tougher the setting, the higher the score multipliers etc).  So will have to wait and see...  I'm not aware if the player has to do anything besides have a Steam account for the scores to upload, but will cross that bridge when I come to it!

I did alter the code based on recommendations by Denis (AGS user "Problem") to repeatedly attempt connection to the leaderboard in case it didn't sync properly the first time, I will post the code later in case anyone finds it useful.

Hope your games using the Leaderboard code eventually have more players register to use it!

I did 3 seconds loops of uploads on repeatedly_execute_always while CurrentLeaderboard isn't null. When the game calls UploadScore, it has always uploaded the score for the first time but there is no harm using repeatedly_execute to make sure. The plugin is well optimized and never slows down the engine even if you call it every loop. The only thing bothers me is when Steam Overlay is active, the mouse still controls the game cursor so I can't move the windows cursor over Steam UI.

Going back to this, I don't seem to have solved the problem now that I have a live build up for testing. The solution I had in mind was to upload to leaderboards in a function that's only called when you quit the game. The issue is that I have 3 different leaderboards and what I wanted was for it to check one, wait, connect, upload the score (or retry connecting if failed, up to 5 retries) and then check to the next, and the next. However I tried this and the game crashes because of a Null pointer. This may be partially resolved by increasing the Wait time each loop (it was only set to 6 when I first checked it and got the error) but I'm not confident that will prevent the game from crashing still if the user's connection is bad or the Steam servers are busy.

In line with what you said I could maybe go with this but have a null pointer check before trying to update (the current code only checks if the LeaderBoard Name value matches the leaderboard I'm attempting to access at the time). Or potentially I could have it repeatedly execute and have it swap between which leaderboard name it's looking for every n loops.

The (very simple) code I have so far, which is repeated for each different leaderboard (I know, I know...) is this:

Code: ags

function UpdateHighScoreTables()
{
  connectedtocorrectleaderboard=false;
  connectloop=0;
  
  while ((connectedtocorrectleaderboard == false) && (connectloop < 6)) 
    {
      AGS2Client.RequestLeaderboard("Individual_Level_Top_Scores", eAGS2ClientScoresRequestGlobal);  
      Wait(20);
      if (AGS2Client.CurrentLeaderboardName=="Individual_Level_Top_Scores") connectedtocorrectleaderboard=true;     
      connectloop++;
    }
  if (connectedtocorrectleaderboard==true) 
    {         
      AGS2Client.UploadScore(HighScore1);
      Wait(5);
    }           

Maybe this would work?

Code: ags

if ((AGS2Client.CurrentLeaderboardName != null) && (AGS2Client.CurrentLeaderboardName=="Individual_Level_Top_Scores")) connectedtocorrectleaderboard=true;   

Or am I simply creating problems for myself by running it as a one-off function rather than having it check repeatedly?

Currently I have no client-side code that checks if the high score has been uploaded already, but I feel that shouldn't be necessary as Steam automatically handles that.

One of the Tropico games?

Today is "International Kindness Day" and I've made this game (and everything else I have selling at Itch.io) free today.

https://itch.io/s/59366/international-kindness-day-giveaway

This looks really nice! Congrats on the release. 

Your graphics definitely add hugely to the game Kastchey! 


In other news, the Linux version of this game is now available.

To celebrate the release I have made it 20% off this weekend:
https://captaind.itch.io/the-rat-pack-full-version

Thanks Cassie 

Thanks Mandle! Hope you enjoy it. 

[The Rat Pack]

The Rat Pack started life as a MAGS game which didn't win that edition of MAGS, but much to my surprise did win "Best Non Adventure Game Created with AGS" in the 2018 edition of the AGS Awards. Even when I started making the MAGS version I had the intention of expanding it into a bigger game, which led me to seeing whether I could create a deep and satisfying turn-based strategy game in which all the commands are available on a single screen. I hope players will conclude that I have succeeded.

Although the game is text-based, Kastchey encouraged me to add some nice shiny artwork to it in terms of the menu screens and events, and I'm very glad he did because they add a lot to the game (and perhaps needless to say, he himself provided the excellent artwork for the game). Real life commitments did slow down the development quite a bit but anyway it's finished now!

Thanks to Durq and Lorenzo for their valuable help with testing.

Onto the game itself...



The Rat Pack is a text-based, turn-based strategy game. As a young rat trying to make your way in the world, you start off with a small commission from King Rat.  By setting up colonies in different locations, completing mission objectives and rising up the ratty echelons  you can eventually hit the big time - but it won't be easy!

Do you have what it takes to be a true leader among rats?

The story is split into 3 Chapters:

Humble Beginnings (well a rat's gotta start somewhere, you know?!)
Moving on Up (Still in the country, but living life lush!)
The Modern Urban Rat (this is it boy, we're moving into the city!  YAY... but beware all the extra humans of course...)



Each Chapter contains 5 Missions with its own specific objectives, as you slowly start from the yuckiest places to grander surroundings.





As you progress through the missions, more options will open up so that eventually you will be juggling many options such as foraging for food, digging to expand your next and food storage area, scavenging for treasure which can then be spent on upgrading your Rat Lab and skills such as Trap Evasion, raiding rival rat colonies, improving your rank by sending to tribute to King Rat, who you can then ask for help. 






The Rat Pack (Full Version) is available now on Itch!





(For comparison, this is the main screen for the MAGS game):

[The Rat Pack]

I'll do a proper post in the Completed Games section later, add it to the AGS games page and all, but in the meantime...

The rats are here!

The Rat Pack is now available on Itch:
https://captaind.itch.io/the-rat-pack-full-version

Releasing this Friday (15th October) on Itch only.
Patron copies going out tomorrow evening.

The rats are coming!

Apologies for the necropost but I am, finally, back working on this and close to announcing a release date.

[imgzoom]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FAPJVJGXsAAjOTx?format=jpg&name=large[/imgzoom]

[Steam Trading Cards/Items]

If you played Zniw Adventure for more than 30 minutes on Steam, you might want to check your inventory, as the Steam Trading Cards/Items update went live this weekend! Fancy some dinosaurs on your Steam profile background?

Ah, I did wonder how those had appeared!! 

Congrats on the release! I love the look of the game. My Spanish used to be reasonable, not so much now, but I think I'll have enough knowledge still to make me part of the target audience.