Messages

Kastchey, that is a pretty amazing image!  Love your use of colour, I wish I had a tenth of your artistic ability.

Hey, good to hear - I thought I'd jinxed you by doing that interview before the game's release!

I always thought that things filled with milk would have little staying power unless you keep them refrigerated.

Ponch injects himself with 100ml of liquid nitrogen every 2 months, that keeps him cool enough to not go off.  He forgot once and his stomach turned to cheese, and he had to run away from Indiana Rodent.  All of this is perfectly true.

[Ulysses 2013]

An adventure game based on Ulysses 2013 would be exceptionally cool!







Pixel Hunt could sing the theme song!  Nothing would stop the incredible wave of sheer awesomeness!

Well that's the final straw... American spelling... no way I'm going to play this game now! 

Looks fun.  I predict the beginner quest will be either clearing a basement of (surprisingly powerful) rats or entering a cave and defeating whatever lurks within. 

[WALK]

Jack & Jill 2.0:

[imgzoom]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-akYZ1jhWrRo/UTnsyy9OLBI/AAAAAAAASLA/Qs-xt5jdbK8/s710/Jack+and+Jill+v2.png[/imgzoom]

(In case anyone can't read it... Jack is saying "Transportation complete.  Still looks like it did when we were kids" - Jill says "Hey, do you remember those days?  We actually had to WALK up the hill back then!")

Next: Indiana Rodent trapped in a steampunk nightmare

Okay, here's my effort:

[imgzoom]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-vAbv47hsIBI/UTihQ2jEROI/AAAAAAAASIk/9gLgz9PzZbM/s320/March+2013.png[/imgzoom]

[Indiana Rodent and the Soundtrack of Doom]

Okay, while I should have been sleeping, I came up with this...

Indiana Rodent and the Soundtrack of Doom

Indiana Rodent's sensitive nose alerted him to a disturbing change in the atmosphere.  It didn't take him long to work out what it was â€" the faint background smell of Mascarpone was gone.  In fact so was the distant aroma of camembert, the whiff of cheddar, the delicate fragrance of Edam, the pungent smell of Emmental â€" they were all shockingly absent.  Appalled by the prospect of all the cheese disappearing, Indy scrabbled around frantically, trying to find some sign, some reason for this abomination.  A world without cheese?  How could this possibly have happened?  What if the cheese never came back?!  He shuddered… this could just not happen, rodentia everywhere would panic and become anarchic, the whole world would become a fearsome place… the coming of the Blacker Death, prophesied by the great Guru Gerbil, would be upon them â€" it meant death and destruction to all, none would survive. 

Indy walked through the streets of Venice where his  most recent adventures, hunting for clues to the location of the fabled Holy Gorgonzola, had taken him.  He still hadn't found a secret entrance in that dratted library, even though apparently X marked the spot.  The eerie sounds of night-time gondoliers reached his ears, but didn't get through to his brain â€" he was too preoccupied.  He starred up at the sky.  He kept starring.  Of course!  The reason for the sudden disappearance of all the world's cheese… it was so obvious.  The moon had disappeared!  But… it was there yesterday, it was nearly Full Moon, and there was no eclipse planned…

There was no choice but to go and investigate, and to do that he had to team up with the three most irritating mice in the world â€" the Three Mousekateers; Amorous, Pathos and Arthur. 

“Well hello, rat boy!  How's the weather?” asked Amorous.
“I think, therefore I am, therefore I am hungry and there is no cheese which makes me very sad and when I am sad my brain does not function as well as usual and when this happens I have a complete breakdown in my ability to use any punctuation in my sentences because I do not need to pause for breath and in fact I can hold my breath for a very long time two minutes in fact which has served me well when I have needed to solve puzzles underwater and well that's it I'm going to finally shut up now” exclaimed Pathos, who then inhaled deeply.

“I sometimes think I'm invisible” said Arthur.  “Do you think I'm invisible?”

The rodent took a deep breath before saying:

“Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up!!”


Of course, the three annoying mousekateers didn't shut up.  But they did, for reasons which never were quite clear but seem to have something to do with their friendship with a woman called Elena who was in love with a dead (but walking) wizard of some kind (well it takes all sorts I guess), they had a small space rocket.  Well, small by human standards, but pretty darn big for mice, and not too small by rodent standards either.  So off they went, on a Journey to the Moon…

When they got there, they found that Pink Floyd was being played not just on the Dark Side of the Moon, but also the Light Side, which was now, of course, dark as well. 

“Fiendish!” cried Indiana.

“But of course, my dear Indiana…” purred a voice, “what else would you expect but feline cunning?”

“The Cat Lady!” exclaimed Indy, “I should have known!  Who else but you would do something this despicable?”

“I knew you'd come, Indiana.  That was the whole idea.   You are the only one that can stop me â€" now, I will eat you and the whole of planet earth's confused and panic-stricken, lactose-deprived rodent population will be mine for the taking.”

Without further ado TCL pounced â€" Indy, his instincts honed by years of dodging poison-tipped arrows, Nazis and killer ants, flung himself to one side just in time.  But the big cat would get him in the end, if it were just down to stamina â€" he couldn't outrun her, and in fact he had nowhere to run â€" the space rocket had been taken away by The Cat Lady's furry minions.  Frantically he evaded another attack, while out of the corner of his eye he saw the mousekateers practicing with their swords and yelling “One for all, and all for one, and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, and erm that's now a bit contradictory and we're confused as well as annoying”.  He ran towards them, rolling away from the cat's paw as it drew near, stopping to pick up his hat and wishing he had his trusty beetlewhip.  The mice drew their swords and he vaulted over them just as the cat's mouth was so close that he could smell the food that eight out of ten cats apparently preferred, although he knew for a fact that getting felines to actually complete consumer surveys was next to impossible.  The mice squealed in fright at being eaten; TCL screeched in pain at the three small swords that we now embedded into her palette.

Indy didn't look back, which was just as well because a kitten had just lobbed a huge pillar of salt at him.  This worked out in his favour however as all the surrounding felines went and started licking it instead of focusing their attention on him.  Suddenly he saw it â€" a CD player linked up to speakers all over the moon.  He raced towards it and unplugged it just in time, before Atomic Kitten could reach him.  The spell was broken, the moon started to reappear â€" but the Atomic Kitten threw an Eternal Flame at him.  Fortunately at the temporary sea that TCL had installed on the moon, The Tide Was High and Indy escaped by Walking On Water, saying “See Ya” to the kitty.  Kitty spontaneously combusted but then reappeared, and was Whole Again.  The atomic one flew after Indy.

It was a huge risk, but he had to take it; Indy doubled back towards the hub controlling the vast network of moonside speakers.  While that was still intact, it wouldn't take much for TCL to put everything back in place.     He stood right on top of it, and yelled to the approaching kitten “I Want Your Love!”.  Confused, AK said “No One Loves You Like I Do!” and readied to pounce.  “Wait!” said Indy, “Love Doesn't Have To Hurt!”.  Kitty shrugged â€" “Flame On!” she said and rocketed towards him.  Indy backed away just in time as the flaming kitten smashed into the hub and destroyed it, along with most of the surrounding area.  “So Hot…” admitted Indy. 

He found the rocket ship before the salt lick was finished, spraying some of his emergency supply of catnip at an approaching feline just in case.  The rocket sped away only seconds before The Cat Lady, injured but still dangerous, had recovered herself enough to sniff his whereabouts.

She gazed up at the departing rocket.  “You win, rodent… THIS TIME… but you haven't seen the last of me.”  With a slight smile, she gathered together her hoard of (now slightly more hypertensive and hypernatraemic) kittens. 

Indiana Rodent arrived to a hero's welcome, and a complimentary supply of Drunken Goat and Extra-Aged Appenzeller.  Live just didn't get much better than this…

[EDIT - this now seems to be working fine... for everyone but me! Stupid laptop...]

When you go to the website, it's REALLY slow at first - is that because the game is pre-loading into the frame?  (Ah, frames... haven't seen those for a while!) - but when I click on Asteroids!, there's nothing in the frame.   

(Ah... until I clicked into the frame, then it came up.  But it was very slow and then froze.  Not sure how much having the music playing is affecting things?)

Tried it a few times and it wouldn't work I'm afraid... might be because this laptop isn't much cop, if anyone else finds it works fine please PM M0DS or myself.  (Mark we'll take this to PM now ourselves until we can actually confirm it as working.)

EDIT - this now seems to be working fine... for everyone but me!  Stupid laptop...

Horses can't draw anything, I mean how would they hold a pencil?!?

The weird thing is, there are a couple of commenters over on Adventure Gamers who are actually encouraging me to think of charging for this even though I've always said it will be freeware.  Perhaps they think we will make a better game if we ask for money for it?

This looks very, very, very good!  I remember playing the original game several years ago.

I'm really looking forward to seeing these locations in action!

Are you planning on having it voiced?

Hey, thanks for the update - I'd been wondering what had happened to this one!

I particularly liked #4 in the Bill of Draco 

It's a little difficult to read here and there, any plans to pen over your artwork before scanning for future ones?  (On a copy not your original, obviously...  )

I think it would always be a struggle for an adventure game to have as immediate impact as something like Angry Birds.  The genre just doesn't lend itself to the immediate gameplay. replay value (trying to get better scores for each level, etc), the "pick up and play for a couple of minutes" element, and the (as KBlaney mentioned) easy addition of new content.  So whilst I would love to think an AGS game (or adventure game of any type) could be the next big thing... I honestly don't think it could.

So, my votes...

Idea: Creamy
Atmosphere: Waheela
Design: Selmiak
Composition: Snarky
Functionality: Anian
Technique: Waheela

Seriously, every category took a lot of thought to reach a winner in my mind.  Breathtakingly good entries, I really hope we see them in games this year or next!

Hope no-one minds, just thought it would be helpful to be able to see all of the entries together (this is for me as much as anyone else!).


Selmiak:

[imgzoom]http://selmiak.bplaced.net/stuff/beachscene.png[/imgzoom]

Creamy:

[imgzoom]http://creamy.unblog.fr/files/2012/04/bad-moon-on-the-rise2.bmp[/imgzoom]

Sane Co.
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/MQupdeJ.jpg?1[/imgzoom]

Snarky:

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/3bTlkyb.png[/imgzoom]

Anaian:

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/rYOBLua.png[/imgzoom]

Waheela:

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/tmafeey.png[/imgzoom]

Wow... I was going to vote, but there are such good entries here that I genuinely can't decide between them at the moment.