Messages

1st: Tabata (For such an original take on using the obvious arch shape for something different)
2nd: Monkey (Because it's just a sandcastle, and expertly drawn)
3rd: Hobo (I like the idea of a sandcastle being built by tiny workers as a huge project)

Something about autumn puts me in the mood to work on games.

I totally agree! I think it's because the weather is still nice and sunny but the wind has that slight chill creeping in. A nice juxtaposition which awakens the artistic spirit, the very essence of which is the linking of seemingly unconnected or completely opposite concepts...

Or maybe it's just because all the hot summer fun is over...

Not sure...

This looks awesome...I'll grab it now and play it next month around Halloween!

HAHAHA!!! That was great! Thanks for the laugh!

the hitchhiking route. A simple plot/game about getting from A to Z. woohoo!

Try telling that to Arthur Dent...

All joking aside: Can't wait to see what you come up with. I can't remember ever playing a game where the central theme/mode of getting around, was hitchhiking (well except for HHGTTG, but then again they didn't actually hitchhike that much)

I'm not a big fan of overt hint systems.  I try to avoid walkthroughs whenever possible, but at least walkthroughs are more effort to access than built in hint systems.  As you said, in-game hints systems are just too tempting to click on.  I'd much rather that the designer predict potential sticking points and put the necessary clues in the actual game world accordingly. Nothing should be unsolvable without looking carefully at your surroundings or asking NPCs.

If I'm stuck I'd much rather be able to find the appropriate clue by exploring the scene a bit more. Isn't that the whole point of a game based on investigation and exploration? Make your hint "system" part of the exploration process.

I don't like the 3 hint only rule either, if only because it's a lot of work on your part that any given player is only going to see a fraction of.

I never feel more depressed playing a game than when I click a hint button only to be given a clue that I should have fucking worked out myself.

ALL of this!

One really well-done example I can think of off the top of my head is:

(I'm sure most people here have played Day Of The Tentacle but I'll hide it anyway:)

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Washing the horse-buggy (in the past timeline) to make it rain would have been ridiculously obscure if not for the fact that when Bernard looks at the dirty car (in the present timeline) he says something like: "Some people believe that washing one's vehicle will cause it to rain."

The "hint" is disguised well enough in that it's given in a seperate timeline from the buggy puzzle by a different character and it doesn't stick out as an obvious hint...It could just be one of Bernard's nerdy comments.

But it is enough of a "hint" in that it is given to you in the same location (in a seperate timeline) as the buggy puzzle and the dirty car/horse-buggy and kind of across-time counterparts, so it should eventually stick in the player's mind enough to provide that "AH-HA!" moment we all love when we have solved a puzzle on our own, without the "AWWW MAN" moment when we feel the solution was fed to us.

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After a weekend marathon on AGS I have the first three rooms almost finished. I'm telling myself at the moment that some of the crappier looking objects are just "place-holders" but I know in reality that I probably won't get the time to pretty them up before the deadline. I'm just happy for the moment to have a few working puzzles done. I guess my next step is to get to work on clarifying the plot, which is not really understandable yet.

Absolutely loved Mudlarks, so can't wait for this one! I really enjoy the way your use of real location photos brings a feel of "the extrodinary happening right under everyones' noses" to your pieces!

["I'm sorry Marty, I'm afraid I can't do that..."]

Sounds awesome! I think time-travel counts as travel, and I'm sure nobody would mind you entering.

he finds him self trapped in the past with a machine that has a mind of it's own. He now has to find a way to return home.

I can just picture it now:

"I'm sorry Marty, I'm afraid I can't do that..."

  Noir construction, cool!  So PhilStrahl not only burst onto the writing comp scene with a great story, but he unselfishly pushed Baron ahead for the victory.  Kudos to him and Dadalus for injecting fresh writing blood into the competition (not sure if Mandle had competed before), and great turnout and stories overall really.


  Baron - 1st 

  PhilStrahl - 2nd

  Eric - 3rd


  This feels like deja vu, but over to Baron!

Congratulations to the winners! Sorry for not voting but I had no time this week to read through the pieces and give them the attention they deserve. I'm saving them for when the bar's red neon sign across from my fire-escape starts buzzing and flickering through the window blinds again (damn, that should've been in my story...just pretend that it was).

And yes, this was my first outing in this contest. I did enter the 55 words writing contest before.

Apart from playing the paper and dice RPG "Pulp Fiction" back in the day, I'm not much of a noir genre guy.

But give me a horror theme (next month is October...hint...hint) and I'm your guy!

Great little game!

I especially liked:

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The "lay an egg" fart joke payoff at the end...

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Have you tried running the game on a computer with faster performance? I'm just asking because I have had similar audio issues with AGS games on my crappy home computer, but when I ran them on the faster computer at work the audio performed perfectly.

Just a thought though. I'm sure no expert

I have following inventory:

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carpet

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It seems pixel hunting

Some hints then:

Mild Hint:

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Go everywhere you haven't gone yet...Go south young man!

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Prodding Hint:

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You can go south from the starting location...

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Give-away Hint:

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Use the carpet on the door south from the starting room

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I am so in on this one...

I'm so lazy to actually get a game out so I'm just going to do it fast and nasty this time (hopefully)...

Please don't expect a lot of animations and polished game-play but I hope the finished product can reflect a bit of what made the original source awesome:

Okay, I'm not a native english speaker, and I see more american english tv than british/australian. Don't think I ever heard that sentence before, and thus just sounds like a "very bad google translation" in my hears. There were other sentences that I thought sounded odd, but I figured that maybe they were "old english" to be historical correct.

I believe Slasher lives in Kent, and they have daylight saving there, which means when it's 2014 in the rest of the UK, it's 1850 in Kent

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There are a few bugs (did you got some game testers?) I mean, being drawn behind a closed door, walking on walls... and walking from one room to the other, can be a challenge in it's self. I spotted some english phrases that just sound wrong to me (like the "Good job I have this candle!" What? Don't you mean "Good thing I have this candle!"?

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I was a playtester, to answer one of your issues. And yeah, it looks like we didn't catch every issue yet, but we caught over 90% of issues before game release I'd say. Sometimes you need a lot more eyes on the game to find everything and first releases do that job well I'd say.

The term "Good job I have this..." is perfectly acceptable in British English...They say it all the time (as do we Australians as well)

Cheers!

I'm stuck! I feel as if I tried everything, although there is probably something I missed.

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I don't know how to get past the door in the dark room.

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Mild hint:

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You have missed something in the dark cellar.

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Prodding hint:

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Search something near the troublesome door.

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Giveaway hint:

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Get the brandy from the wine rack. Use it on the door

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I am very proud to have been a small cog in the wheel of this game's final release.

I'm sure the community will relish this game and spread word of it far and wide.

Long live our gracious Queen Victoria!

[CHAPTER 4]

 

CHAPTER 4

   I squinted into the gloom of her apartment. Dim light seeped in through the doorframe from the seedy corridor outside. I stood upon the front door, the impact of my shoeprint beneath my feet. I knew she had only just left. The smell of her perfume permiated the room.
   It was only ten days ago that this woman walked back into my life and I started hunting her down again. We travel so far over the course of our lives and yet we barely take a single step...
   I took my first tentative steps into the room, my .38 snub nose held at arm's length. Scanning left and right I saw no signs of movement. I took in the pathetic examples of her life in this place. After all this time it came down to this:
   There were scissors on the coffee table amongst some plastic shards and several cards. There was a cutter knife cast adfrit amid some pads of flesh that looked bloody and fresh.
   She was doing exactly what I had expected: Making fake IDs and erasing fingerprints.
   The rattle on the fire escape outside had me running towards the window. Her perfune was still hanging in the dead night air of the city as I ducked outside.
   Looking down through the grate floor of the fire escape, I saw her climbing down to the floor below me. I called out:
   
   "Patricia!"

   She glanced up and I took in her pathetic visage, when she could have been so much more...

(The story branches here so please open the options you wish to pursue)

OPEN THIS BRANCH IF YOU ARE THE BAD GUY

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OPEN THIS BRANCH IF YOU WANT A SUPERNATURAL ENDING

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   I used my unnatural agility to swing out over the railing and swing back in just in time to land right beside my wayward twin sister on the next level down of the fire escape.
   She never had a chance.
   I shot her in the leg first to cripple her.
   The broken neon light of the hotel across the alley flickered on and off as I bit into her neck and drained her of her blood.
   She pleaded with me. "Why?" she murmered, sinking deeper into oblivion, "Why would you do this to me?"
   I answered, whispering into her ear "We were the same at birth... Now we are the same in death."
   After some time she stood up beside me, truly thirsty for the first time.
   I led her off into the night...

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OPEN THIS BRANCH IF YOU WANT A REAL-WORLD ENDING

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   I plugged a few rounds from the .38 down through the grating of the fire escape. Sparks flew beneath my feet and one round peeled back enough to whiz close by my ear.
   But I nailed her in the right shoulder.
   Patricia fell in shock. The sound of her blood dripping down through the grating to the street below was audible as I climbed down the ladder to confront her.
   She was still able to meet my eyes with a stare of defiance as I stood over her.
   I aimed the revolver at her forehead.
   My twin sister asked "Why?"
   After all these years on the run from me was that was the only thing she could think to ask?
   I pulled the trigger. There was a wet noise.
   I said "Because there can be only one."

   I left before the sirens got any closer.

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OPEN THIS BRANCH IF YOU ARE THE GOOD GUY

Spoiler

OPEN THIS BRANCH IF YOU WANT A SUPERNATURAL ENDING

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   My twin sister hissed up at me through the grate of the fire escape showing her fanged teeth. She had been hunting me for years, trying to make me what she was, but I had found her first!
   I knew the wooden bullets in my .38 would never be able to penetrate the steel grill of the floor beneath my feet so I called out to her:
   "Patricia! Now you can never have me!", and dove over the railing.
   Vampires are such suckers. She dove after me and, in mid-air, we locked in an embrace of teeth and gunshots.
   A few months in hospital in a back-brace are nothing compared to blowing down alleyways as ash for all eternity.

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OPEN THIS BRANCH IF YOU WANT A REAL-WORLD ENDING

Spoiler

   After all these years of searching I had found Patricia! She dove for the next ladder on the fire escape and started climbing down.
   I called out to her again "PATRICIA...STOP...WAIT!"
   She looked up and we locked eyes in each others' identical twin faces for the last time in our lives.
   Her foot slipped on a rung. Her eyes, still locked on mine, grew huge as she plummeted.
   I gazed into her glazed eyes as the body-bag was zipped shut amid the flashing blue lights.
   Now I would never know why she had wanted me dead.

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