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Okay. So time is over now for discussions about dragons and also the voting doors are closed by now.

Four nice entries, almost unique and - also with taking accidental votes into consideration - there's one clear winner in this month's competition.

It is ... oh stop!
We have the old, new, revamped, ... we have the Winner Announcement Movie.
You may want to download it here (1MB). Sorry for the filesize.

If you better do not want to get the file you can also check out the winner by visiting the MAGS site.
Congratulations to the winner... Please check you PM, thanks.

72 hours are gone and meanwhile two new entries rushed in. So let's start the voting for this month's competition with four interesting animal games...

For voting please visit the MAGS site or make your choice right here:

Cougars Quest for Freedom by Leonard Carter
Confession of a Cat Burglar by Neil Mapletoft
A Very Special Dog by Sinitrena
1 day a mosquito by deepgames

Please vote only once and be sure to have played all games before sending your voice! Good luck to all participants.

Two early entries so far... All the rest of you still have the weekend to work on your games.
So the voting will start on Monday, in three days from now, at about this time (see timestamp of this posting).
Now use your final 72 hours cu

[What is MAGS?]

What is MAGS?
MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to use AGS to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner.

For more information please visit the Official MAGS Website

Why should I enter MAGS?
We're not here to tell you that you should enter MAGS, but merely allow it as a creative opportunity to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, and generally as a good kick-start for the new comers (a.k.a n00bies).

MAGS is the perfect opportuninty to make a game, and the wonderful prize is to announce the net month's rules, and all competitiors get the game placed on the MAGS website.

MAGS is meant to be fun and is aimed at everyone, despite their skill. If you have poor art skills work on graphics, and vice-versa, as the voting is based on "favourite" games, and not the most artistic, you may get help for the competiton, but must not get anyone else to do any part of the game for you.

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Jaz and Foz decided not to submit their ideas for this new competition. On the other hand I think the source code of "Apocalype Vel" also is not yet available... Is it? So it's Minimi on his own who set this month's guidelines:

Theme - Animals

- As for most of the time humans are the character you play in a game for this time the main character must be an animal! Big, small - whatever you want it to be. It can also be an insect or a fish if that's what you want to ask...Ã,  All kind of ... animal.

- There's yet another guideline that perhaps is even more difficult to set up:
You must also make your own GUI system. So no standard graphics are allowed for this. You might want to stick to the standard GUIs that can easily be implemented using AGS but better try to invent and set up something new.

- No other restrictions
There's no list of items that need to appear in your game. But if you want to include some special things how about using elements that use an animal in their name like the famous "monkey wrench" or a "hot dog"...

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All entries need to be in on July 26th.

Please post a download link of your game entry to this thread, best with a screenshot. Thanks and good luck.

Time is over now and we remember the words of the wise man:

Hehe, I don't think anyone else has entered. RTF, you might win!!!

As we know the world (or at least a part of it) was afraid:

Wait a second... those things are going to host the MAGS awards?

And both were right... So as there's only one entry we have the winner without voting:
Congratulations to releasethefrogs and the Chronicles of Max and Maggie.

For the two guys that didn't yet reply the PM:
Answer quickly - July is very close and the "third man" already submitted his ideas a while ago...

Okay. Time has come for the final info message: The doors for submissions will close on Monday -Ã,  in about 66 hours from now (see timestamp of this posting). So you still have the weekend to work on your entries. Good luck.

... The thread contains the zipped walkcycle images, and some screenshots.

Thanks for your entry. But as said: The characters don't need to be open source, so you don't need to publish the walkcycles right now. The winner will be asked then to send them by e-mail.

Hi everyone. You all seem to be very creative: Starting long discussions about things that have newer been said or even thought about.Ã,  So please try to read (again) what is written! Thanks.

[you]

[li] The entry should be sent to you open source, but not open source for everyone else?[/li]

The characters won't be used for any game or something else - just for these special movies. Also you don't need to send the whole entry code, just the character sets of Max and Maggy will do it. Or - if you agree to always create the movies yourself and in time - you won't have to give away anything at all.

I'm sad to say I've never come across any of these 'winner announcement movies'. Any links? Are they made using AGS?

Yes they use AGS. Here are two of the old ceremonies:
September 2001
July 2001
But it's not wanted that you already create such an announcement movie! Just develop your game sticking to the rules as usual and perhaps keep in mind that Max and Maggy might change their location later

So the two main characters both need to have full walk animations, even if one is only gonna stand in the one spot?

Yes, that's right as in the announcement movies both characters should be able to walk around.

I think you should leave the MAGS comp as it was with the months winner providing the rules for the following month...
Maybe our(jaz and me`s) decision not to provide source code .....also minimi`s too has made Klaus re-think the comp........for the worse IMO.

Don't get me wrong - it's just for this month! I only want to revamp the ceremonies and thought it to be a good idea to let AGS users create the characters in a MAGS competition. That's all. The rule setting system won't really change.
By the way: You know that it wasn't always "the months winner providing the rules for the following month..."!?

[we have two winners this time!]

Uh, May is over tomorrow so when will we get the winner announced?

How about nowÃ, 

We had two nice entries this month and a big discussion about open source. In the end after a lot of votes the results were very close. Very, very close - just one voice in difference and I'm sure that on every two new votes now the winner would change from one entry to the other. According to this and having the aspects in mind that made this contest a little more difficult than earlier ones I say we have two winners this time!

So congratulations to both participants and thank you for the entertaining games and of course for the very helpful source codes of "Ralph the Raven" and (in advance) "Apocalypse Vel".

On June now there will be a special competition and for July there's also something "unusual" up to come. So Minimi, foz and jaz please wait for some rule settingÃ,  instructions that will soon reach you by PM. Thanks.

[What is MAGS?]

What is MAGS?
MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to use AGS to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner.

For more information please visit the Official MAGS Website

Why should I enter MAGS?
We're not here to tell you that you should enter MAGS, but merely allow it as a creative opportunity to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, and generally as a good kick-start for the new comers (a.k.a n00bies).

MAGS is the perfect opportuninty to make a game, and the wonderful prize is to announce the net month's rules, and all competitiors get the game placed on the MAGS website.

MAGS is meant to be fun and is aimed at everyone, despite their skill. If you have poor art skills work on graphics, and vice-versa, as the voting is based on "favourite" games, and not the most artistic, you may get help for the competiton, but must not get anyone else to do any part of the game for you.

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As already announced this month there is a special competition. The very first MAGS competition started on June 2001, exactly three years ago. So with the change of the MAGS host, you remember Magintz left this position one month ago, I now want to bring back something that was tradition that long time ago when DGMacphee still hosted the contest: The winner announcement movie.

Therefore two characters should be created:
Max and Maggy
And that's the topic of this month's competition.

The winner this time won't set the new rules then, butÃ,  his/her characters will be used in every month's winner announcement movie then: They will talk about the entries and finally announce the results of the voting. So the characters need to be given away but not as open soure for everyone only for these MAGS movies!

Now these are the guidelines for MAGS competition 2004-06:
- Create two characters (Max and Maggy) with full walking animation (at least 4 directions)
- The game player must either control Max or Maggy all through the game and meet the other character during the game or act as both of them (think of two timelines or a switching interface like once in "A Better Mouse Trap")

- The game must be about MAGS - you decide on how... For example:
> Max wants to win MAGS and Maggy tries to stop him
> Max and Maggy want to find out about what's "behind" MAGS
> or whatever may come to your mind...

- You may want to include some MAGS stuff like the former entries, participants or even hosts (but it's not a must)

These rules give you a lot of freedom to think about a nice game and individual characters. So good luck for everyone.

All entries need to be in on June 28th.

Okay now. We all see it's a difficult situation. But it was clear from the first posting in this thread, that the game being open source is a part of the rules. Seeing Minimi offering his code now after this discussion is nice and it will surely be a great help for newbies to create their games. Thanks for that.

Now for the voting I'll allow both entries to be voted for. Why? Next month there will be a contest out of the standard settings. This gives me time to think about how to handle the problems and results of this month's competition... and as you all know it's about having fun and enjoying the games that are created and not about being forced to do things that you don't want to do...

So for voting please visit the MAGS site or make your choice right here:

Ralph the Raven by Minimi
Coup de Cup by jaz

Please vote only once and be sure to have played all games before sending your voice! Good luck to the both participants.

Is the source included in the Coup de Cup? Don't see it...Ã, 

Right, this entry also doesn't seem to be "complete" by now. 

[open source]

Uhm, but I think "open source" meant making the game open source so it could be loaded into ags as a reference for new users, not just posting the global script.

That's it. And so it reads in the intro:

- To show new AGSers how to solve problems with the system this time your AGS code must be open source. So you have to upload both: Your game and the source code.

To uploading the source code was just a reminder.Ã,  The global script alone won't do it as this is only a part of the source code. The game won't work at all if a new user just enters your code as there's no definition of rooms, dialogs, ... available. How should it be possible to learn handling AGS from this game then?

ok so competition ends tommorow.

Yes, that's right - all entries should be in within 24 hours from now so that the voting can start then...

Hey, uh, any status on my question?

does ransom count as robbery, since there is money being taken illegaly?

Well, if Rocco accepts "cyber-robberies" then "ransom" is also allowed - of course only as a game topic.
Go for it.

Would it be ok if a friend of mine drew out a sketch of the main character on paper that I would interpret in paint?

In history of MAGS there already have been entries written by several people that created different parts of the game: One took the scripting section while the other was doing artwork or music. So for your request that's absolutely okay.

[What is MAGS?]

What is MAGS?
MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to use AGS to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner.

For more information please visit the Official MAGS Website

Why should I enter MAGS?
We're not here to tell you that you should enter MAGS, but merely allow it as a creative opportunity to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, and generally as a good kick-start for the new comers (a.k.a n00bies).

MAGS is the perfect opportuninty to make a game, and the wonderful prize is to announce the net month's rules, and all competitiors get the game placed on the MAGS website.

MAGS is meant to be fun and is aimed at everyone, despite their skill. If you have poor art skills work on graphics, and vice-versa, as the voting is based on "favourite" games, and not the most artistic, you may get help for the competiton, but must not get anyone else to do any part of the game for you.

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Theme - Open Source Robbery

This theme may sound strange but it combines two main rules for this month's competition:

- To show new AGSers how to solve problems with the system this time your AGS code must be open source. So you have to upload both: Your game and the source code.

- The game must be about robbery. So it could be all you can imagine from insurance fraud to a planned bank robbery or a burglary.

- Also pick at least two items from the list below and include them somehow in your game:
lockpick
blueprint
night vision device
safe
alarm device
mask
black cape
headset
cutting torch
welding torch
gloves
watchman

no other restrictions

For the voting in the end only the game play is important as your code won't be checked for good or bad style. Anyway the source must be available.

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All games in by May 27th.

Please post a download link of your game entry and its source code to this thread, best with a screenshot. Thanks and good luck.

Klaus: Don't be rude with releasethefrogs: his game "5 O'clock Lock" was finally done...Moreover, the entries are due by 27th...you have to wait til midinight

I see - that game is done in time but it's not a MAGS entry: It's not posted to this thread and there's no info about a participation on MAGS in his completed game announcement. So no...

For the deadline: The stated day is to be seen just an approximate time. Therefore always an info is posted some hours before the voting starts. This time 24 hours, with extension even 30 hours before. And if you actually need some more "minutes" to finish your entry you usually get these after a short message

Okay. Time is more than up now. I wanted to wait for ElaineMc but nothing's in so far.
Also this time I'd like to especially remember these famous words:

I'm going to definatly enter.

Anyway - let's start. For voting please visit the MAGS site or make your choice right here:

van K. Airbreak by Rocco
Once upon a time in the 70s by Petteri
Masters of Sound by Van Wolter
Biwa of Blood by spb

Please vote only once and be sure to have played all games before sending your voice! Good luck to all participants.

[April 27th]

So you all remember the deadline for this competition: April 27th.

You have one day left to go until the voting will start in 24 hours from now (check timestamp of this posting). Good luck everyone.