Messages

Now you can judge me.

Done.

MAGS has gotten me "back into AGS" two times now, I tend to delay/abandon projects where I am on my own shedule much more often than those where you constantly work on the seat of your pants. That, and getting a couple of testers that just toss feedback of off you is nice- if they are good you'll find yourself in a state of "I can't fail them / I will SHOW them!"

I also like to put a couple of rewarding animations into my games and make then early. That's just some little reward for yourself: "Darn this is a wreck right now but once they see my little zombie-girl crack a smile they'll all be like, yay, and I WANT that to happen. Where's the caffeine?"

Some games just don't get made though, and that's okay too. No use fretting over that abandoned project, there was a reason for it to fail, and you can always return to it.

...but in 15 days... ?  Unless you have a team of talented, focused, and unemployed (!) people working together on a game, it's hard to see how anyone could create more than an extremely short / basic game in that time-frame.

Nah. A moderately insane guy with a coffee maker and a family pack of Twinkies can make roughly 24 1/3 OSD games in that timeframe.

Sweet. Almost... like... y'know, HALF of a MAGS

What about having one more die for the intial stats roll? Then you could skip the worst die.

I LIKE that; probably the simplest solution so far! Thanks I'll try that out first thing tomorrow.

I would prefer unlimited rerolls.

This is pretty much the only thing I disagree with. Endless rerolls means you get the result you want, and if we go that route we might as well remove any roll, and always let the player chose the outcome, leading to a "do you want to win y/n" situation.
I'd rather assign fixed bonuses depending on a difficculty setting- that way a player can opt for an easy game or chose a challenge. A game with a random element as a core design feature (or fla ) needs to stay true to at least some randomness.
Alternatively, a "point pool" would sound interesting- after the inital rolls you get a couple of points to purchase either attribute bonuses OR equipment. That's a strong RPG mechanic and I think it could work out nicely.

Apart from that, I'm glad to hear you like the game despite its flaws, and I really like your idea to beef up the scraps mechanic. It makes perfect sense to add a bonus based on a tested attribute! If you're okay with it I'll gladly "steal" your input

As mentioned, the "cow abduction" will get a revamp. My current approach is like this: A cow card can be skipped for a slight time penalty, but abducting grants you an additional resource called "Favour". Since your superiors really want cows, each successful abduction grants you Favour points that can be traded for "small cheats" (skill reroll, or even skipping a card completely). You won't be able to get much Favour on a single run but about enough for two, three "tight escapes" from a bad situation.

@Jim: Thanks for the feedback, sir, and nice to see someone playing Mechanic! I'll do my best to make the build/item interface more user-friendly. Note to self: Never, ever, make a card game for MAGS.

Granted, in the original this was all kinda figure-it-out-for-yourself stuff. [...]Hopefully the deluxe version gives Ghost the chance to add a tutorial for each character perhaps?

There was a frikking MANUAL! I wrote that thing at 2 in the morning! I downloaded EXTRA SOFTWARE just to make a PDF! Why does no-one EVER READ THE MANUAL???
Ahem.
A tutorial is a fun idea and shouldn't be too hard. Not necessarily for each character, but for a basic run it would make perfect sense.

Might need a beeeeeeeeeeeeeeet moar time to polish this all up

I am sorry, i mean, i will be the one wo create the game, it will be my game and i am planning to release it on both Mac & PC

My bad; sorry if my post sounded agressive. Best of luck then

Just from the "game side": You would sell a game that has not been made by you, and that was (most likely) released free of charge. You would be selling something that isn't yours to sell, so it would not be legal. And not cool either.

Your best bet is to ASK the original author who made the game and offer him a share of the earnings- that's a solid business model then.

I have no idea how Wineskin is made available, but if you rely on the software to make the game run on a Mac they may want to see a license fee too. There's usually some info about licensing on the publisher's homepage.

Happies, Mr. Radiant!

Quite a few people have played Alien Cow Rampage by now, and were kind enough to give some feedback- I am glad that the original release is almost bug-free and can be considered a stable base. But in terms of balance it is clearly not even close to "perfect". What's more, some of the stuff I put into the game makes relatively little sense when I look at it now. So a rather large update is in order and I am working my way towards it. Here's a few of the things that will be adressed.

Better Combat
Combat makes a large portion of the game, yet it is rather simplistic. Also, while there are four classes, none of them feel really different in combat- they all need to rely on the same tricks and can hardly develop a unique strategy. I feel that much of this comes from the fact that any fight is nothing but D6 rolls. My plan is to replace this with custom combat dice: D6 with different symbols for attacking, blocking and a class-specific special move. This should make combat more interesting, give the classes some more justification, and it also opens up the game for those who like to tweak rules and develop finer strategies.

Interface Polish
Hotkeys, soft screen transitions, and an options panel have been requested.  ACRONYM was made or a monthly competition and I left these "small touches" for later intentionally, but they'll all be included in the next update.

Difficulty Settings
I made the game rather "hard to beat" and this did not sit well with everyone. While I think that a solo game needs to be hard in order to provide a challenge that makes a win "feel earned", who am I to deny a more casual player their fun? Easier (and harder) difficulty settings are currently being tested, and I wish to implement a table of "custom challenges" too (like beating the game in a certain time or without ever building any equipment)... there may be in-game achievements

Better Betterness
As a turn based game ACRONM doesn't always do the best job at telling you how turns work. At least one player never figured out how to build stuff but kept playing because he thought ACRONYM sounded cool and should be played regardless. And a very funny email suggests that the Scout colour scheme makes her look like a Teletubby. All in all there's clearly room for more and better betterness.
I rewrote quite a bit of the core mechanics to make things easier for players who struggle with making it "in time". Indicators (as mentioned by Radiant) to make bonuses more obvious, and a general overhaul of the combat data display should make everything be a bit more "transparent".

Cow Tools
The "abduction" part seemed unfair to some, and in hindsight it *is* nothing but a time-stealer (and the best way to justify the COW that I needed to complete "Acronym" as the... acronym). It has been suggested to make the cows a "score" element. Or to tie a minumum amount of cows to abduct to a difficulty setting, with any extra cows just adding score or providing a small bonus. I'm looking into that, or at least to find a way to make the cow thing more fun.
Everyone loved Ponch, though. You hear that, Texan luxury bovine?

Halloween Hijinx- AddOn
Since ACRYNOM is made to resemble a physical boardgame, an "add on" has been on my personal wishlist from the very start. Or... several of those. You know, a couple of extra "game things" to add to the base game. A first test with a "Halloween theme" looks really promising, adding a couple of new cards, two new enemies (Cosplayer* and Nosy Kid), two new Invaders  (The Riftjumper Twins)- and JasonB once more provided a fresh music track. I am really very exited about it.

If nothing goes wrong, the game will update middle/end of next month. Let me know if you got some additional feedback or suggestions- and and once again thanks to everyone who commented, rated, played and gave those Invaders a little love

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* He cosplays as random characters, even as Batman**.

** Yes, the Cadet CAN put the man-charms on BATMAN, and BE SUCCESSFUL. Let that sink in.

A most bemythicallous, superlativery enjoyabundance of happies, Tabata!
(Also happy birthday )

Karbon! Now that's clever!

I also found the perfect song to while away the codin' hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pG0QTzO-K0

The first original movie scared the shit out of me as a kid. I recently watched it again with mild amusement, but the core idea still is strong.
I sorta liked the Burton remake but it made me very insecure. I mean, is it wrong to say that Helena Bonham Carter is *always* hot, even when covered in monkey fur? Get my point?

Happy birthday, Jason!

Black in Russian is 'Cerny', for instance...

"Schwarz" in Germany. Now mix that up and make him... Schwerny! Or, I dunno, SCHWARZenegger.

...a girl with the power to turn everything she touches pink[/color]

Way to go, looks cool as hell! And EGA can only add to the fun 

I haven't tested this one. Are the reflected sprites flipped as in reality?

Nope- not flipped, but the distortion effects are pretty good, so it's worth a shot, I'd say.

I was talking about the movie 'Unbreakable'. Obviously the superpower would be weaker. And from your first response it sounds like I can have it start with the character not knowing he has a superpower?

Ah, okay, I misread you then. That's absolutely okay then, looking forward to it

Does this mean you have to make the player character know they have a superpower? I can't do an Unbreakable type story of Superman not knowing he's Superman?

No, sorry. There's nothing stopping you from creating an "origin story" with a hero that discovers his powers at some point. But if I read you correctly you want the main character never realizing that he is super. Also, being unbreakable or being super-everything is not exactly a weak power- the point is to make a story about a character with a really bad "superpower" still finding some use for it.

All good points, m0ds- I admit I'm a bit dated on that respect. The "Studio vs One Guy" thing is probably the strongest argument. I did not know about the "3 reasons" thing, that sure is interesting!

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Most importantly, IS it M.A.S.K.???