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What about having runners up?  The voting system wouldn't need to be changed, we'd just know who came second in all the categories.  This is a lot more varied in this year's awards, as I would expect it was in previous years where one game won many of the awards.

Good idea.  Might be the best middle ground solution?

[Resonance]

I would just like to point out that my post was not a knee-jerk reaction to Resonance!  I loved Resonance and, whilst it was a shame for other games that they didn't get a look-in, I wouldn't say that Resonance won any categories that it did not deserve to win.

My idea was more a combination of two things...

- whilst I have been playing AGS games for probably more than a decade now, it's only the last 3 years that I've nominated and voted, and this year's was the first time I've actually attended the awards ceremony.  I wouldn't have thought of this or put forward the idea before simply because I was (shamefully) pretty much unaware of the whole AGS awards thing.
- mainly it was a reflection of the fact that the number of AGS-made games that people are selling has increased considerably; the indie adventure game market (inside and outside the AGS community) has reached a maturity it could not have dreamt of a few years ago.

But anyway, just an idea! 

@bicilotti - thanks for the thanks!  Again this is more a reflection of me being aware of and interested in the awards now (at long last...  )

[Best Commercial AGS Game]

Not wishing to make the jobs of those organising this even more arduous than it already must be, but...

What if we had separate awards for Best Commercial AGS Game and Best Freeware AGS Game?

With an increasing number of games going commercial, it seems fitting that we would consider splitting the prestigious Best Game award into two.  (Yeah I know The Journey Down won it as a freeware game... but still!)

Interesting stats.  Thanks bicilotti and AGA!

I'd been thinking along the same lines as Ghost myself, adventure games are probably more difficult to do a demo for because of plot involvement.  With CD I suppose I was a bit lucky in that regard because we started off with the idea of doing a very small game, it got bigger and became a concept demo, but was something that would fit in with the overall plot without revealing many real details of that plot at all.  I'm not sure that I'd consider a disconnected plot with the same characters as being a demo, just a separate and smaller game.

I'm just trying to remember how many adventure game demos I've played... can't remember many at all, I do remember playing Lost Horizon (which was essentially the relatively small first part of the game), and that definitely did persuade me to buy it.  I'm not really representative of the average buyer though - from running gaming blogs I get sent a lot of games for review, so I'm rarely actually looking for a new game to buy.

Eric - the influx of episodic games may be related to this, but my gut feeling is that it's more to do with workflow/cashflow.  I considered doing this for CD but I really want it to be a traditional game experience including being a "big" game that people will hopefully remember for years.  The Book of Lost Tales really reawakened my love of proper EPIC adventure games, much as I enjoyed TellTales's Tales of Monkey Island and Sam & Max, there's nothing quite like getting really involved with the plot and characters of a game that takes you 15-20 hours to complete.  (Daedalic's "A New Beginning" game close to capturing the same feeling, but unfortunately it was too buggy and that spoiled the atmosphere a bit.)

Ducktales?  It would be pretty fun to see an adventure game based around Scrooge McDuck.

Loads of potential for a great adventure game with DuckTales... unfortunately I think the potential for legal action against such a game is a lot higher than any of the other ones already mentioned!

Also the search option seems to be deselected by default - that's not a plea to change that - just saying it might perhaps influence people's perception of the demo category?

I'd noticed this a while ago as well... I don't know how much people use the search feature (can't say that I did very often, a bit more in the last year or so), but this would reduce the number of people who stumble across the game by chance.  Of course I've also noticed that most commercial games list the game, with the download being the demo, which might also cause people to not specifically differentiate between demo and full releases?

On a related note, I did a poll on one of my blogs a couple of years ago asking people how often they played the demo before deciding whether to buy the full game (not specifically adventure games, just indie games in general).  Here are the results:

Always - 111 (38%)
Mostly - 74 (26%)
Sometimes -  68 (23%)
Never - 37 (13%)

Even though it was an act during the award announcement itself (honestly! )

Heh, don't worry, I'm sure we all realised you were going Dean Martin on us.  (Well, maybe not quite sure...)

@ Tramponline - From your words both to Ponch and myself, I assume you've been doing nothing but drink beer since the Awards Ceremony?!?!?! 

Andail - I know what you mean, I think there ended up being only two nominable demos this year (both got nominated, which I guess means at least 5 people nominated each of them).  I'm sure you're right though - there were probably several candidates that could have been put forward for Best Demo that weren't.

Oh well... at least it meant there was another award that Resonance didn't win this year! 

I've often thought that the number of games put into production (/posted in the GiP thread) that end up having the game actually released was probably about 10-20% (based purely on my own observations = maybe as low as 5%, possibly even as high as 30% - I've not been keeping an accurate record or anything!).  I was interested in whether having a demo released and receiving some sort of recognition boosted that percentage - not very much, it would seem!  A shame that some really promising games will never actually be made.

I did a little research and as far as I can tell, only 2 of the previous 10 winners of the Best Demo award actually went on to have the full game released (Tale of Two Kingdoms and The Marionette - both excellent games).  The only one I know for sure is still in production is Alan_Drake's Wretcher.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knew if the other games are actually still in development - Larry Vales 3, Revenants, Byzantine, Valis, Dust to Water, Frantic Franko, Matt to the Future?


(I also did a quick post about this here.)

I'll have to get round to trying this, but I've NEVER managed to make out a magic-eye picture in my life, so I'm guessing I will struggle!!!

I sure hope there'll be a reference to Captain Disaster in there somewhere too... 

I like the font you're using, very appropriately Hill-Billy, although the "e" is a little difficult to make out.

I'm envisaging a complex puzzle involving coat hangers...

Thanks guys!

I wish I could give you more of a proper update, but all I can really say right now is that we're continuing to work on the game and slowly but surely making progress.  Pity we all have real jobs and stuff eating up our time! 

@CaptainD: Props for the mood. You could add a few glints of light to the surface of the nearest stone to help link the campfire with the rest of the background. But even without it this looks ok to be used in a game:)

I had tried to add some glints of light, but I don't think they looked too realistic - people probably didn't even realise they were there / that's what they were meant to be!!

Ah, 't'was a very good game indeed.  I wanted to see more of that world... I hope you find time to make something and let us explore it more sometime!  (Unless it's actually the same world that TechnoBabylon is set on and no-one knew?!)

Ponch - Tuxedos and Cow Pats are a very toxic combination, escape while you still can!!

[Best Demo winner at the AGS Awards 2013]

Many thanks to everyone who voted for us - Best Demo winner at the AGS Awards 2013!! 

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes?

Ah man, I didn't realise it was going to be THAT easy!

You're up...

Ah cool I only had a vague idea it looked right for that film! 

Okay, here's one... late 60s cheesy sci-fi starring a young man who would become very famous, though not really for the sort of role he had here.  (The guy in the picture isn't him.)

[imgzoom]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W2aGKHhmiec/UU34EUHUWaI/AAAAAAAASbE/yhA-JqM88oE/w549-h557-p-o-k/screencap.jpg[/imgzoom]