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Roger that, FF!

A far cry from your previous choice 
I like both games.

Well now I feel guilty because I did not realize that Heltenjon had suggested one of Lorenzo's games and he's my partner in dev so I feel like I stabbed him in the back  But yeah recently I played a round of old AGS games for inspiration and these two were interesting, each in their different genre.

Thanks for the reception everyone, that is very encourageing! 

We will keep a devlog on itch.io, and update it as least once a week, click here for the first post.

Then I'll suggest "Him": https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2055-him/

A deliciously dark and atmospheric short game, with an original twist, and graphics that look like the kind of horrible picture at the bottom of a chest that you are afraid to look at. Totally worths the trip!

Then I'll suggest Patchwork, I played it recently and I had a good time.

[A sample of the locations that are already completed? Look at this city:]

The team that gave you Breakfast on Trappist-1 is back with a new game:

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/pjyiS8O.png[/imgzoom]

The rain hasn't stopped for over a year. The city is soaked.

Most locals moved away, but those who once were outcasts adapted to the deserted metropolis.

You are tasked with a mission: finding what power causes this endless rain...

Explore a permanently dark city under a constant storm, investigate and crawl back to the source of the mystery.

Walk a thin line between two women who play with your mind.

Will you burn like the rain?

A sample of the locations that are already completed? Look at this city:







The game will feature a story by FormosaFalanster, graphics by Lorenzo, and original music by Lithuanian composer Ingaja (see her work here).

Expected release in March 2022. This is a commercial game!

-A first-person point-and-click graphic adventure with all the pleasure of exploration and problem-solving without the pixel chase and the usual tropes.
-The weird multicultural stories of FormosaFalanster, the immersive hand-drawn artworks of Lorenzo, and the atmospheric sounds of Ingaja.
-A true investigation with clues and characters with their own motivations, personalities, and backstories.
-An emotional backstory for the city and its dwellers, conveyed through gameplay as you make your way through the universe the authors built for you.
-A personal story for the hero as well, and a love triangle that gets intertwined with the investigation.

See more at the game's itch.io page and follow us on twitter for more updates!

Can I hire you for a game?

Before we announce our upcoming AGS game (think Breakfast on Trappist-1 but much longer!) we are happy to share a little side-project we did: an illustrated and interactive short story that you can play here for free and in browser.

https://formosafalanster.itch.io/ldoab

Check this out, Lorenzo is still as good as ever:



Enjoy!

A short, enjoyable game with a well written story, very nice art, and easy puzzles. I recommend playing it.

Glad you like it, thanks
If you want to support us you can consider posting such a comment on the game page, or even the game pages on itch.io and gamejolt, as it brings us more players!

So I'm in the testing phase, and I can probably present a game for you: “Castle Escape”.

It's become a one-roomer, so sadly, no hall yet. (Perhaps in another chapter of that story.)
Stay tuned ...

For a start, here's a screenshot:

I'm happy to see someone did something with that theme

Try the last game we did, it was said to be a hybrid of a graphic novel and an adventure game everything is possible with AGS if you appropriate the system and start using it your way. There has been tons of different kind of games done with it already, there may even be something like what you wanted to do!

Wow, even original music! Great 

There's lots of different styles of comic books though, which style are you going for?

It is an excellent idea if you do a more modern approach in both the way you convey it and promote it.

Write it in a modern kind of blog, even podcasts, whatever. And promote it on twitter etc, something that makes it alive. On Twitter I constantly see people supporting the Unity or Godot community. AGS doesn't seem to have a hashtag of its own.

I am not going to be part of the editorial team though, because I am developping more and more so I do not believe it is ethical: probably the people involved in this media should be those whose activity as an AGS developper is little, or long gone, or even none at all. People who spend more time playing these games than making them. Otherwise you're on both sides and it's not really honest. Fortunately, there seem to be quite a lot of people who are not as involved in game making as they used to but who still hang around to play and take a look at the community.

Can be also someone in a hiatus. If I take a few months break from my schedule of intense game making, or if I use a different engine at some point, I'd be happy to contribute, but that's not now!

omg  Thanks everyone! For a second game that is a very nice feedback!

My soundtrack for tonight:

That's all very enjoyable to read heltejon, thanks for your involvement in the jam!

Wait, do I understand correctly I'll be able to use traditional Chinese characters?

Thanks all for your comments and we are very happy the game is well-received and touching so many people 

I'll answer you but first of all two great news. First, the game is now on itch.io, you can find it here.

Second, I did a video trailer for it. To think I actually did movies at some point and I haven't done that in quite a while so I struggled to do that 

Great game! The art is amazing and the music sells the mood really well. I also liked how you introduce the world bit by bit on each "slide".

As for some light criticism, I felt the beginning was a bit rushed, like it needed a bit more introduction to the characters and their motivations, and sometimes I felt that there was too much text going on on some dialogs, sometimes too many choices (maybe having the same amount available but opening and closing them up as you go?) It felt more visual-novel-ish that adventure game in that regard, but that's probably me because I'm not a big fan of those.

In fact, adding more dialogue made it less graphic-novel-ish as it gave the player the opportunity to converse with the characters on their own terms. But for sure, since we only had two weeks to do the game, there are aspects I did not have time to develop the way I wanted: with a bit more time I would have grouped the dialogues by themes like Vukul said to make them easier to track down. I would also have made the name of characters not revealed until they answer your question, but as the game stands, the player knows their names before the playable character does, in fact!

But you all understood the concept of the game right: lots of interactions give more storytelling! It also was intended to make it replayable: if you decide to replay it and do different actions, you'll get more story elements:

Spoiler

Did you try to give every inventory objects to Zheny? She has an answer for almost all of them. Try using the bag of pebbles on the ocean, or on the planets. Try giving the picture of Evergreen to Jacques. Try also to plug the radio on some items!

[close]

P.S. If the font you are using in the game supports Cyrillic characters, I could do a Russian rendition of it. There's not so much text, and I think I'd be able to find some time to work on it)

We use a font that supports diacritics so we can translate the game in Latin languages. But it doesn't support Cyrillic. However, I'm happy to make a completely different build with a different Cyrillic font, that's the least I can do if someone offers to translate the game!

I really liked the world building in this game, it feels huge!

Thanks! "Breakfast on Trappist-1" was originally a short story I wrote. It included much more elements especially trying to turn Belgian folklore into a science-fiction setting. It also hints at other planets and at Taiwanese cultural elements.

I did not intended to write other stories or games based on this universe but I may consider it later, on other planets. Some people asked for it so maybe I will, I'm not sure yet. I don't like sci-fi for the sake of it, so it needs to have a real-life kinda theme behind it. Maybe at some point I'll have a story to tell in another culture and will find that it suits well in a soft science-fiction context like this one, then it can be another planet of this universe!

The arrows interface reminded me of some really old point and clicks that had an interface similar and it brought me memories. But the art of Breakfast on Trappist-1 is much better than any old game, it felt like those expensive graphic novels! Really good!

The first-person perspective, arrows, etc, the gameplay in general, were inspired to me by playing an old game called KGB. It is generally regarded as way too hard, but as I wrote on my blog once, I am still very fond of this game for various reasons. So it's not the exact same gameplay and interface but I think it is the main inspiration I had for the gameplay aspect of this game.

It's a good experience overall. I think adding voice over would make it even better but it's really good already.

Oh I really don't like voices in games, I always mute them 

Finished! Erg, erg, erg mooi spel!

It felt like some old-school Dynamix adventure (Herat of China / Rise of the Dragon) done the right way - with some lengthy Gabriel Knight'esque dialogues. The minimal colour palette worked very well for this game, particularly for the final ending shots at credit time. Congrats!

Haartelijk dank  I'm glad you liked the final shots, we really worked hard on giving that reward to people for playing, we saw them as very important!

Hope this doesn't sound like the personal blog of Mr. Poststoomuch. 

I'm enjoying your mini-reviews, so keep posting them! They help me decide what to play next.

Me too! Though first on my list is Breakfast on Trappist-1. As a Dutchie I feel I should be playing some Belgium-related game first.

De speel is meer Wallen dan Vlaams, maar ik hoop dat jij vindt het leuk!

Someone posted an interesting graph showing what game engines were used for entries in the jam:

Spoiler

[close]

AGS is the second-most used engine, at almost 20% of all games. Second only to Unity which towers at 25% and if you add the Unity/Powerquest you reach almost 42% of all games made with an Unity engine of sorts.

After AGS the only ones coming close are Godot and Visionaire at 6.5% each.

This kinda shows how AGS is still popular nowadays amongst indie devs.

I think listing things in percentages tends to obscure the scale we're talking about. Presumably the 3.2% entries represent a single game, so in raw numbers we are talking:

• Unity: 8
• AGS: 6
• Unity/PowerQuest: 5
• Visionaire: 2
• Godot: 2
• Others: 8

For 31 in total.

It still means that, besides Unity, then AGS is the only one which was used by more than 2 games. Not trying to trumpet AGS here, just trying to get a picture of the situation. In short, AGS is dwarfed by Unity, but it's the only one else that gathered more than a couple users.