Messages

Aw, super cute! Rif is so expressive for low-res animations, very well done!  I got so excited at the end, then remembered the title and wished there was more!

Thanks, PlayPretend! Well, there'll be a little bit more content soon, I'm still on schedule to release the planned update in a couple of weeks. I am however doubtful that I'll have the time or ideas to expand it into something bigger than a prelude in the foreseeable future, but I might return to this project in a year or two, so we'll see.

The voting for the August MAGS has also ended, huge thanks to everyone who played the games and voted for their favourites, hopefully all of you find the time to support and enjoy the upcoming MAGS competitions as well.

Thanks to everyone who participated, played and/or voted and thanks to Stupot for hosting. I've taken part in bunch of MAGS over the years and it's always been fun and enjoyable. Also, it's a good place to get feedback for quick bite sized projects and gauge interest for potential bigger games. Glad to see that it's still alive and kicking after all this time and still relevant and engaging to both first-timers and experienced AGSers alike.

Hopefully I can come up with a simple but effective theme that'll draw in the crowds and allow their creativity to flourish.

Congrats Hobo! You really should flesh that out into a full game.

Thanks! Full game is such a big commitment for a hobbyist like me, but we'll see, maybe I'll return to this in a year or two, when I've finished up some of my other lingering projects.

Looks good, pencil sketch styles and filters almost always do, at least for me. Should fit well with horror themes as well, especially if it obscures some details and plays with your imagination. Doesn't youtube usually compress and disort the art a bit? So it might be hard to judge how it looks in the actual game?

Great gfx and animation. Very aesthetically pleasing game!!!

Thanks, KyriakosCH!

Meanwhile, I've been working on the extra fishing stuff:

Spoiler

[imgzoom]http://tulevik.eu/ags/mags/Prelude/FishopediaZoom2x.png[/imgzoom]

[close]

I'll probably release the update some time after the MAGS voting, so late September or early October.

Thanks for the quick link fix! I actually like the variety and different transitions, didn't feel confusing at  all. Overall, sounds great to me, the main melody is memorable, loved the drum section, would use something with this quality in one of my own games in a heartbeat. Hopefully more musically-literate people can chime in with some actual advice and feedback.

That link gives me "This track was not found. Maybe it has been removed" message.

Holy smokes, those animations look really good.  And so many!

Thanks, newwaveburritos! Animating pixel art is totally my zen activity, always so enjoyable and fun to do, so I tend to go overboard with them 

Stuck on You by Slasher

Spoiler

Another solid MAGS entry as it is every month. Loved the pipe building puzzle, although going in and out of the inventory for each piece felt a bit cumbersome. Also, personally I would have preferred a slightly faster walking speed, it took quite long to get across the rooms with those tiny steps. Liked the ending as well - after all that fruitless effort, what a way to get rid of the wig...

[close]

The White Elephant by milkanannan

Spoiler

Not a lot here, the game can be completed with a few clicks. I accidentally skipped the old dude completely on my first play and ended up somewhere way outside the walkable area But the overall abstract feel has potential and those character expressions were priceless. And I do like the concept that only way to win is to not play.

[close]

oh, nice, there is even a new version. Is this the final version or are there more updates to expect?

I do want to add a fishing mini-game for sure, mainly to see if it's something that I can even script and design in AGS. The current idea is to have fishopedia page in the diary that fills up when you catch different fish and I'll probably add some weird easter eggs as well that you can pull out. But other than that, I think it's pretty much done.

of course a longplay of this great game exists! Really well done Hobo!

Hey! Thanks for the play, selmiak, watched it already when you posted it after the Lowrezjam. There seems to be very few youtube channels that play free AGS games, so I do try keep my eye on yours to get my dose of future vintage AGS playthroughs.

However, for everyone watching this, I would like to point out that this video features the older version of the game, the current MAGS version has some updates and a whole new resolution.

Awesome work, Hobo! I really loved this little game. The whole thought bubble approach was very creative.

Thanks! I had very little space to work with, so the bubbles were pretty much the only way to depict conversations, but it seemed to work well enough.

The video graphics looks a lot better than when I played the game on my pc using various settings...

That's a bummer to hear. Could you specify? Was the scaling blurry or the screen stretched?

What part is the 'White elephant' even though it may be only a short game.

To be honest, the idiom "white elephant" is something I had not heard of prior to this competition and it didn't really feel inspiring because of that, so I instead decided to put literal white elephants in the game. The whole game is about preparing to go on an adventure to the Land of the White Elephants and there are a couple featured in the credits scenes depicting said adventure.

Spoiler pics of those below:

Spoiler

[imgzoom]http://tulevik.eu/ags/mags/Prelude/WhiteElephants.png[/imgzoom]

[close]

Also, I thought that this would tie in well with couple of my other games featuring pink elephants. If you or any other voters feel that the game does not fit the MAGS theme, then I urge you to vote for other entires.

It is hard indeed! But let me remind you of the comment you left on my own game

Ah, an insightful lesson from past Hobo, love it 
But yes, this is probably a direction that I'll explore in the future as it allows me to focus on the things I enjoy most about game development: drawing, writing and world creation.

Awesome! I'll try the other games out later today.

Haven't some of the discussions moved over to Discord? Either to the AGS one or developers own channels, also I think there are several other smaller Discord channels that have a bunch of AGS people. And I guess social media has taken over some of the traffic over the years. Smaller forums seem to be more like notice boards these days rather than places for socialising or big discussions.

But I wouldn't really draw a direct line between the forum activity and AGS engine usage/quality. I feel like thsese last few years have been one of the best in terms of great AGS games, both commercial and free.

Thank you, Pogwizd, Laura Hunt and Matti!

@Laura Hunt:
I can totally understand about the size and scaling, zooming anything more that 4-5 times often makes it extremely pixelated and hard to read and getting a more or less readable font working was pretty challenging, especially in it's original 64x64 size.

And yeah, I would really like to get a longer AGS game done at some point, but it still feels like such an intimidating task. I have a couple of projects that have been dragging on for years and I think I can finally keep the artstyle consistent enough for the whole duration, but designing a good variety of solid puzzles that combine well with the narrative and world, that's just so hard to do.

@Matti:
Always glad to hear, that people are having a good time when playing my games. It's been two years since the last one, so I'm pretty happy to get another game released again. Hopefully it won't that long for the next one.

[A Prelude to an Adventure]

Hey! If you got about 5-10 minutes, then come and help an adventurer to prepare for a mysterious trip to the Land of the White Elephants.
A Prelude to an Adventure is a little interactive experience with light puzzle elements, tons of animations and catchy music.

You can jump in and out of the hammock!



Catch some fish!



And of course pet the fox!



The original version of A Prelude to an Adventure was made during the first two weeks of August for the Lowrezjam 2020, where it got the first place in the graphics category and finished 13th overall. It can still be downloaded from here.

Then it got updated and fitted to the August 2020 MAGS theme. Updates included a bigger native resolution, some additional animations and interactions and a new credits scene. This can be downloaded from here.

And finally, version 1.0 adds more interactions and animations, few additional puzzle elements and a fleshed out fishing mini-game.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hey! Come and jump in and out of the hammock with me!

[imgzoom]http://tulevik.eu/ags/mags/Prelude/HammockJump.gif[/imgzoom]
A Prelude to an Adventure is a little interactive experience with light puzzle elements, tons of animations and catchy music.
So, if you got about 5-10 minutes, then come and help an adventurer to prepare for a mysterious trip to the Land of the White Elephants. Have fun!

AGS Game Page HERE!

What a sweet game...

Thanks for the play and kind comments, Shadow1000. I do agree with you about the readability, but the jam restriction of 64x64 pixels was pretty limiting and in hindsight I made some poor coloring choices. I did make the hotspots slightly larger for most things, so hopefully that helps a bit. And I think it's fine to comment in this thread, since it's basically a MAGS game in production and I didn't want to post it in the database before I it's MAGS ready.

But otherwise, the game is pretty much done, so I'll post it tomorrow for sure. Didn't have time to add a proper fishing mini-game, but managed to polish it up and add some white elephants.

[imgzoom]http://tulevik.eu/ags/mags/Prelude/Fishing.gif[/imgzoom]

I did actually complete a game this month for the Lowrezjam 2020. If I have enough time next week, I might spruce it up a bit and adjust it to fit the MAGS theme.

I mean, I've done two games with pink elephants, a white one sounds very enticing...

That main menu looks very smooth and impressive even in the .gif format. I'm really loving the overall polish and attention to detail that oozes from everything you've posted in this thread. It's also interesting to finally see an outside shot, I think I've only seen indoors scenes so far.