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Thanks! Matt and Karl did an amazing job.

The original palette came from here: https://twitter.com/RejectedPalette/status/1598270686316765185

I had seen Karl tweet a picture using it (an awesome background he had done for the EGA game Betrayed Alliance, which he had then colour-swapped for fun).

I had Karl and Matt chop the palette down to 16 colours they could agree on, because I love limited palettes. Karl wanted various browns for the backgrounds. Matt needed a red for the diva, etc. I did allow Karl to sneak in an extra colour in one spot (the green mint leaf), and I used a green for the hotspot highlighter, too.

[itch.io download link: https://kini-games.itch.io/d-list-divaAGS game page: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2694-d-list-diva/]

Hi all,

This is a short, free comedy point-and-click adventure game made by me, Matt Frith and Karl Dupéré-Richer for the $107 Adventure Game Challenge. It's about a misanthropic tour manager and a washed-up singer's rider demands. I hope you enjoy it.

(Currently available for Windows only.)

itch.io download link: https://kini-games.itch.io/d-list-diva
AGS game page: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2694-d-list-diva/

Thanks for the reminder. I've just registered to attend online. Looking forward to all three of these talks

Thanks again to everyone who helped make the event happen. It was my first one and I had a blast. Congrats to all the winners!

Woop! Do we know when the ceremony's gonna be?

I'm also delighted to see my demo nominated in a couple of categories    Huge thanks to everyone who voted, and to @cat, and anyone else helping organise all this. And congrats to all the other nominees!

At the 11th hour, I've finally submitted my nominations.

Thanks for the extension.

I'd like to throw Jonathan Creek into the ring.

It's a BBC TV series from the 1990s and 2000s, in which Jonathan (who devises magic tricks for a living) solves a different mystery each episode, enlisted by a tabloid-y true crime writer named Maddy (although she doesn't feature in the later, IMO weaker, series).

The mysteries are usually murders, often of the 'locked-room' variety. The solutions are often clever, if highly elaborate (don't expect to get them before the reveal). The emphasis is always on figuring out how the crime was committed, not whodunnit. There are always a couple of 'mini mysteries' thrown in throughout, so you don't have to wait till the very end to get a taste of that 'aha' feeling.

In many ways, it's similar to Monk (which I've also enjoyed, although I haven't seen that much of it).

The show is old enough that you should be able to find it floating around online somewhere. It used to be on Netflix in the UK, but not anymore. I recommend starting from the beginning. It's not one of those that takes two seasons to find its stride, from what I remember.

[SIGNAL & ECHO: IRIS IS MISSING (DEMO)]

For your consideration:

SIGNAL & ECHO: IRIS IS MISSING (DEMO)
Play it on AGS | Play it on Steam | Play it on itch.io

Help Ollie, a fledgling reporter on his first day at the Signal & Echo newspaper, to solve the mystery behind a schoolgirl's recent disappearance.
This one-hour-plus demo, developed by a former journalist, uses a mix of traditional point-and-click mechanics and a unique text parser system to really test your deduction skills.
Ask characters about any hotspot or proper noun, and use the same system to find new locations on your map and past news articles on your computer.

By Kini Games, with player character animations by Hobo

Trailer

Screenshots (click to enlarge)

Please consider for:

• Best Demo

Thanks so much for the kind words, @heltenjon. They mean a lot!

I haven't played yet, but I checked out the first couple of minutes of that GSDBoxer video and, well, colour me impressed! Very cool of you to share your code, too.

I'll return here to give feedback, once I've had a chance to play the game myself.

Thanks so much, @lorenzo and @RamoramaInteractive!

@SarahLiz, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for your interest!

Hi all,

I've just launched the demo of my game (made in AGS), Signal & Echo: Iris is Missing, which I'm billing as "a point-and-click adventure with innovative detective mechanics". This is my first 'proper' game, so I'd really love some feedback.

(I hope it's OK to publish this under 'Completed Game Announcements', given that it's a demo. There's at least an hour of game there. Basically, it's 'Day 1', but I didn't want to make it episodic. Still, if this doesn't fly, please let me know and I'll happily remove the post.)

The game's about a young reporter named Ollie (my background is in journalism). On his first day at the local paper, he's been tasked with solving the mystery behind a schoolgirl's recent disappearance.

Alongside inventory puzzles and verb interactions, the game uses a unique text parser system, which I designed so that I could use puzzles like you might find in a detective game in an otherwise traditional P&C adventure.

Here are the links:

AGS page
Steam
itch.io

And here's the trailer:

If you give it a try, please let me know how you got on!

Thanks!

Just dropped the trailer. Not long till the demo comes out, if all goes to plan 

Thanks for your continued interest, Cap'n!

Yup. Your own notes indeed (you're a reporter, after all!). In this GMTK video about detective games, there's an interesting example of a puzzle from Discworld Noir at the 10-minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwV_mA2cv_0 Having the player write their own notes, and then use the parser system, is my way of trying to address the problem Mark highlights in that section. Some of the nouns you'll be noting in my game aren't just handed to you; you have to deduce them.

In case you want more info about the parser, it accepts:

1. Any proper noun found in-game (the examples I use repeatedly, in both marketing copy and the tutorial section, are John Smith, London and The Beatles - the idea being to stress that proper nouns cover much more than just people's names)

2. Any hotspot name, from any location

Steam and itch.io pages are now live! (Trailer will be added soon.)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2128530/Signal__Echo_Iris_is_Missing_demo/

https://kini-games.itch.io/signal-echo-iris-is-missing

Thanks Snarky.

Yeah, I was sorry to have to cut the CCTV part, too. I tried to squeeze it in there, but to no avail!

Unfortunately, I don't have an establishing shot of the office exterior or town, either (I think I may have made one a long time ago, but it's not in the game and probably no longer matches the other background art).

And yeah, I agree about the opening. I may tinker with it some more, as per your suggestion.

Thanks again for all your feedback. Much appreciated!

Snarky, if you're reading this, please know that I didn't ignore your suggestion about the Ken Burns effect; I just couldn't get it to look right.

That second version, first drafts works so much better! It really gives you a feel for the game and actually felt shorter even though it was longer because of the relaxed pacing. Nice job!

Woop! Thanks Cap’n!


Hi Snarky. Thanks so much for taking the time to provide such detailed feedback. It's all extremely useful. And thanks for your interest in the game itself.

Even though it hooked me, it feels like you're more trying to explain your game than to get players interested. It's kind of a bullet-point presentation of the game's USPs

This is my main concern, too. I’m going to draft a third (and, I hope, final!) version today.

I feel my attention torn between the intertitles and the game screens.

Agreed. I’ll try to use far fewer text screens in the new version.

For example, the second line in the trailer is "Why do I wanna read that crap?" about the newspaper you're going to be working at. How is that line meant to hit?

Yeah, this was a bad choice (especially since it's actually a quality paper, but that character happens to hate news media). Tbh, I just wanted to show a ‘use inventory item with…’ action that wasn’t an actual puzzle solution, and I had allocated all the other rooms (that I was willing to show) to other scenes.


Lastly, all your points about production are also very helpful. I’ll try to address them in the new version, too.

Thanks again. Much appreciated!

Thanks CaptainD. Much appreciated. I made my second draft (posted above) before reading your feedback, but will keep it in mind for the third! And yeah, the music is something I'm still umming and ahhing about