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They also have proper Latin names. The Snake Flower is actually called designus crappius, and the Flower Snake - outlinis fixae.

I would suggest two more things:
1. Desaturate non-interactive parts of the background, otherwise they might distract the player. It might also be worth trying to use a similar brush type for all background elements.
2. Perhaps use images of more common sweets as objects? I used a couple of random royalty-free images to show what I mean:

Saturation, the color scheme is eye-hurting. GUI color scheme should match the main graphics, otherwise it will stand out too much.

Something like Zool backgrounds, perhaps? The old Amiga platformer.

   

The rare Snake Flower. The flower is called that because of the rare Flower Snake that lurks beneath it. The snake lurks there because the roundish part of the outline just wouldn't look like a petal or a leaf no matter how hard I tried.

I second that, I too like the direction in which your spriting style is evolving. Higher res, more detailed sprites, pure pixels - great! If you have worked on your style in the past months, then it really shows.

I managed to solve the game in the first go, so I guess the hints and clues given are clear enough. I can't say I understood all of them (eg. what was up with the

Spoiler

non-human hair inside the power box

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?), but since you can't expect the player to precisely follow your way of thinking, a variety of clues to choose from is a good thing. The story wasn't very original and full of cliches, even the identity of the criminal was a cliche on its own (which could have been why it wasn't a difficult guess). That's what usually comes with the 'whodunit' sub-genre, though.
Overall it was a fairly enjoyable game (even if very short) and a step forward from your previous productions, in terms of both visuals and quality of gameplay. Your writing has considerably improved, too.

Have you ever considered getting a team for your projects? If you, for example, had someone to do the art for you, your game would be much more appealing and you would have more time to work on the actual gameplay.

I don't think it's just you, david, I actually believe that the unresponsiveness of the parser might be what discouraged most people from playing the game. Lack of synonyms and relevant hints in room descriptions makes the game quite frustrating and extremely hard to finish. For example:

Spoiler

I (and probably many other people) had to look for hints to get through the very first puzzle. I'm pretty sure I tried to 'move under water', 'place chains under water', 'move chains under water' or even 'soak chains' and 'get chains wet', while 'put chains under water' eluded me somehow.
Another example: If I can 'slash painting', why can't I 'cut painting', 'use knife on painting' or 'cut painting with knife'? If I can 'take down painting', why 'remove painting' doesn't work? Though the biggest overkill so far was 'hit blinds'. I really like the Living Nightmares series so I even took time to replay the first two games before starting the final part, and I was sure I knew what I should do in the office, but I couldn't phrase it correctly.
And as for the non-sufficient room decriptions, the most notable example of a key hotspot omitted in the room description was the bird bath. You can't progress through the game if you don't look into the bird bath, and to be honest at first I had no idea just what the heck this thing is supposed to be. I guess there's just not enough bird baths where I live for me to instantly realize what I am looking at =) I wouldn't have had any problems though if the bird bath had been mentioned in the description. Another example - the flowers near the end of the game. It's quite obvious that James should touch the flowers if the actions direct the player towards good ending as the most simple 'look' command provides the hint. There is no hint at all in the evil version of the garden though, all James says is that he wants to save the polluted garden somehow, and I still fail to see how touching the flowers would help him do that and how should I have been able to figure it out on my own
Overall I could say that the puzzles were very easy to figure out, but solutions incredibly hard to execute because of the parser.

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Leaving the text parses issues aside, here's a summary of what I liked and what I didn't about the game.
Strong points:
*Descriptions. You have strong narrative skills and your descriptions make a fascinating read. I spent quite some time in the first room looking at everything before I even attempted to solve the first puzzle.
*Overall creepiness. I imagine it's not an easy task to make a scary game after the vast amount of horror titles that have been released already, and I must say that certain parts of the game were really creepy (especially the paintings).
*Music. m0ds did a great job here, the music adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game.

Weak points:
*Lack of descriptions for many key elements of the surroundings, like rain. I was kind of disappointed when 'look rain' triggered a generic response from the parser even though the game had suggested that the weather was important in a way. Same goes for many other things like books, chests, walls, windows, tables etc. A good text parser game should, in my opinion, maintain strong narrative values throughout the game, and in this case good narrative got replaced by generic parser responses as soon as I got out of the first room.
*Plot holes. I know you are aware of them, you mentioned it in the ending. But that does not justify them being there, sir! The list of unexplained (or poorly explained) parts includes, but is not limited to:

Spoiler

the painting in the dining hall, the ghost and her background story, the oversized furniture, James' grandfather and the hereditary illness, the demon itself, the void around the house, time flow inside the mansion, plus some elements from the previous parts of the game that feel kind of left out of the storyline, like the doctor and the librarian looking alike or paying the debt to the demon.

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*Not enough gameplay comparing to the two previous parts. I felt as if I was jumping between the locations, except for the mansion part there was nothing to explore.

I really like the style of your games and I was really looking forward to this one. As you can see, I got mixed feelings about the final part of Living Nightmare, but I got the impression that most, if not all of the weak points of the game could be fixed in a remake or a deluxe version (hint! hint!), which could turn into a really good game and a real crowning part of the Living Nightmare series. But no matter if you're interested in making an improved version or not, thanks for the release! I'm definitely looking forward to your next games.

Grats Misj!

And thanks nihilyst for the awesome theme.

[Idea]

Idea - oraxon
Atmosphere - Misj
Design - Misj
Composition - Puzzler
Functionality - Puzzler
Technique - gameboy

Eric, here you go

A map of an area within Catskill Mountains with the dreadful House Martense in the center.

Composition partially based on an incredibly charming picture of a real area (or so I read) within the mountain range.

Yes. I have the impression that the average blue card adds more to your tower than the average green card reduces it, so if this impression is correct then assault is statistically not a very good strategy (although it depends on the exact goal values). I find that I usually win by maxing out a resource.

Hm, that's interesting. While Radiant is 100% right, most of my victories are warmonger victories and I sometimes manage to reduce the enemy tower from nearly 100 after a series of blue cards on their side down to 0, using the various -resources cards available (if I'm lucky enough to have them). Perhaps the deck could use more (or more powerful) -vault/-quarry/-resources cards? It's quite fun to see the AI build up a huuuuge tower, then waste several turns doing nothing because they have no vaults or quarries left after you've spend your turns to severely reduce their resources.

I had very little time during the past two weeks, loads of unexpected work and in effect, I'm only halfway there and I think I won't be able to pull it off. I did what I could during the past three days to limit the game to three rooms and create something playable, but it didn't work out. Just too many other stuff to do, sigh.

By the way, Ghost, this is a really cool game. I don't know if you plan to expand it or not, but if you do:

Spoiler

The AI might need some improvements. It seems that if the AI player has any card to play, they will play it no matter if it benefits them or not. I once had the AI play the "all players -5 wall" card when my wall was 0, and my enemy's wall was >0. Also sometimes games would end in a suicide move from AI player who would use a "all players -x tower" card when my tower was >x and their <x.
Also, I would love to see a version that would include obtainable non-default cards and different AI levels, that would be awesome

Edit: I forgot to add that the first "AGSer" I got to play against just HAD to be Icey. Duh.

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[Zombie Hunter Gi]

If there is an extension, then I might have something too! I should be able to finish it on time if I don't get too busy during the week.

Zombie Hunter Gi
(placeholder title, since nothing better comes to my mind)

Gi, a wandering jack-of-all-trades was (un)lucky enough to get a hold of a set of shipment documents that might just be the key to solve the case of mysterious abductions in a desolate mountain area. With nothing but a handful of coins, a bottle of wine, her trusty chainsaw and and a vision of a huge pile of money offered by the federal government, Gi sets out to find the shipment location, The Smelly Lavender pub situated in an underpopulated mountain village.

The idea is loosely based on a rather little known comic book of a similar theme.

Get out.

Wouldn't that make you the bad guy in this story?

Yes, that would make ddq the bad guy and that would make you the oppressed baby lion. Now go play your role and be off to that other jungle where you will meet new friends, find the love of your life and acquire the means to realize your goal. After 10 years (or 20 years in iceydecimal) have passed, you will return here to show ddq, Khris and other villains what you're made of. Sounds cool? Then run, little cub, run!

Internet and gaming slang. "Full of win" means victorious, high quality or successful. A rather poor choice of words, it makes the title sound as if the text was directed to teenage internauts, hence the comments under the article.

Let me see...

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=44670.msg597214#msg597214

If the 18+ rule is still intact, Icey might want to wait until Bake Sale 3 anyway

I personally would appreciate if he channeled his enthusiasm elsewhere, but if he stays then let's at least make sure rules don't allow him to mess up the competition like that, and that the entries are being verified. Atelier's rule 2b sounds like a good start. I was also thinking about some kind of pre-deadline after which new entries are no longer accepted, eg. 7 days prior to the effective deadline. In other words, people interested in participating would have to announce their entries earlier than 7 days before the final deadline. This would give serious participants a full month to finish their games, but prevent any last minute entries.

And as for why people cheat in general even if there's nothing to gain other than winning, well..
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=e-peen

Like Ponch pointed out already, there's nothing surprising in what Icey did. Even though the kid does irk me with his arrogance, I said that I didn't intend to write yet another Icey-bashing post and I meant it.

What really surprised me here, and what was the reason why I made my post, is that Atelier let this one through even though it was clearly breaking the basic MAGS rules and wasn't even downloadable from the main thread. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the host should be responsible for checking if the provided links are valid and for qualifying the submitted entries. If an entry goes by the rules, the host confirms it for voting or lets it win by default. If it doesn't, they deem it not qualified for the competition.
Any thoughts on this?