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[The Year of MAGS]

Did someone say this was
The Year of MAGS?


The Year of MAGS is a MAGS game about making games for MAGS competitions, which isn't confusing at all.

It's a management simulator where you enter monthly adventure game making competitions over the course of a year, building your skills to create bigger and better projects each month, while trying to balance the needs of your work and personal life against your development time.

Can you create a new game each month and complete an entire year of MAGS?

Play in a web browser or download here!


I'm going to call this one a prototype, as it's definitely not finished. This was one of those projects where everything seemed to take 5 times as long as I thought it would, so there's several planned features that didn't make the cut, and the game is sorely lacking in testing and balancing. Still, hopefully it's interesting (and maybe even fun?!) in its current form. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for playing!

So, a "kill them all" sentence at the beginning would help.

I was trying to keep the game as text-less as possible, so I tried to show the goal with the opening cutscene and crossing out the red crew member's icon at the start, while leaving the other three coloured in. Text-less is hard though, there's definitely some things that aren't as clear as they could have been if I'd just written them out.

It would also helo a fridge door which does not cover the card reader....

It's a puzzle Seriously though, that was a concious decision to simplify things.

Spoiler

If the player can change the temperature while the door's open, that means extra animations are needed for freezing and thawing with the door open as well as closed. I'd also need to figure out what happens if the temperature is changed while the chef is standing in the freezer, but the door isn't closed yet. The number of states that the chef and engineer could be in were already making my head hurt, so it made sense to simplify the player's options.

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Congratulations all of you!

[Carnival of Shadows]

Three games is a good turnout, and they're all really solid entries too!

I was trying to write feedback notes while I played through them all, and they accidentally turned into mini essays. Here's some heavily spoilery feedback (and some bug reports) for each game if you'd like it:

Carnival of Shadows

Spoiler

I liked the idea of multiple characters with different views of the world and different abilities, but I couldn't see any reason not to just have them all follow me constantly. It would have been nice to see this mechanic expanded on, like needing to leave certain characters in certain areas to solve a puzzle, or not being able to complete certain puzzles if a character was with you (like maybe you need to talk to a ghost but they won't appear around Tim the skeptic or something). It might have been interesting to have to ask/use specific characters to solve puzzles so that you have to think about their abilities and personalities, rather than them just helping automatically if they were with you. I liked that conversations happened differently depending whether characters were on screen or not.

The art feels like it's been pulled together from lots of different sources. There's different styles, and most noticeably different resolutions which can leave some of it quite blurry and unclear. It's definitely not the prettiest thing to look at, but I think it does fit well with the game's atmosphere. The music is a bit disjoined with some awkward loops, but again I think it fits the game quite well.

Adding riddles adds an interesting variation to the puzzles, though the game immediately gave me hints that I didn't need because Tim was on screen. I also think I would have preferred it if the game started dropping increasingly helpful hints after I got the answers wrong a few times, or gave me the option of asking Tim for a hint if I decided I needed one.

Most of the inventory-based puzzles in the middle were pretty obvious and didn't provide much of a challenge, either because it's clear from context (put fuses in the fuse box), or because the game outright tells you what to do (collect objects that appeal to children and put them on the bench). Again I think some of this could have worked better if the mechanic with the different characters was a bit more fleshed out. Needing Luna to tell you about the child ghosts wanting toys could be a good part of the puzzle chain, but at that point in the game there's no reason why the player wouldn't have Luna with them so it's effectively automatically solved. One inventory puzzle that I did think worked well was having to use the box on the dumpster, as that wasn't obvious and took me a while to figure out.

I liked the maze puzzle at the end, that was fun and again something a bit different to the standard inventory puzzles.

In summary I really like the setting and the concept. There's a lot of interesting ideas in the game, not all of them work as well as they could, but for me that's better than a boring game that doesn't try anything new. It's quite rough both in terms of graphics and bugs, but I still had a lot of fun playing it. I think I wrote so much about it because there's a lot that really works for me, and the bits that don't are interesting enough that I can see glimpses of how they could work with a bit more time to develop them. A really solid MAGS entry.

Bug reports:
I've got some bug reports for you, mostly because I ended up playing through a couple of times to see what would change if I did or didn't have characters with me at certain points.

Game breaking:
 - You already know about the bug with clicking on the fuse box a second time. I stupidly triggered this on my first play through, despite having seen it being discussed 
 - I got a crash at the end after destroying the watch and freeing the ghosts: "The character 'Luna' could not be displayed because there was no loop 2 of view 33". I'm pretty sure this is triggered by causing Luna to follow you before clicking the watch (either by clicking Luna while she's holding back Mr Grins, or I think if you enter the final room without Luna following you she gets set to follow mode when she appears in the room)?
 - If Luna isn't with you when you place the last offering on the bench the game gets stuck in a loop of Maria saying "That's all of them".

Minor stuff:
 - You can use the fuses on the fuse box and turn on the power without needing Tim to open the door first (Maria will still comment that the door is closed after turning on the power).
 - I think the logic is backwards on the hint for the second riddle as you only get it if Tim isn't on screen.
 - I left my friends in the main carnival area (with the Ferris wheel). Exiting and re-entering the carnival by the main entrance makes them appear in the area with the carousel again. I assume this is a bug, though arguably they could have just wandered back there themselves
 - There's something odd going on with character baselines or z-depths or something as a character standing behind another will often be drawn on top of them instead - I'm not sure if this is an AGS bug or something in the game's code
 - Everyone comments on the newspaper even if they're not on screen.
 - The first time you click on the carousel it will spin and Luna will give you the explanation about offerings, this still happens even if you click on it after you've already placed all the offerings and moved all the ghosts.
 - Using the combined two end pieces of the key on the handle piece doesn't do anything, though it does work the other way around so the game isn't soft-locked.
 - One of the wrong doors in the maze at the end (I think heading south to the bathroom first then taking one of the two exits there?) takes you to the carnival entrance rather than the start of the maze (this might also be intentional?)

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The Zoo

Spoiler

I haven't see The Twilight Zone, though the premise rings a vague bell so I might have heard of the episode before. Either way the game does a good job of quickly setting up the situation the player finds themselves in and the goal of escape.

The presentation is very good. Clear, black and white pixel art and good music. I'm not sure if the main background loop comes from The Twilight Zone or not, but it fits very well with the atmosphere. It's a consistent world and is interesting to explore.

There's some OK inventory-based puzzles. The fire setting puzzle was a little odd - the books are inflammable for some reason, so you soak them with alcohol, but you can't light the alcohol directly on fire or pour it over the couch and set fire to it with a cigarette or something. It seemed a little convoluted to me. I got stuck for a while figuring out what to do with the burning book - I assumed I'd have to put it in the fireplace then block the flue somehow to make smoke in the room - but after taking a break to play one of the other games then coming back I found it almost straight away. Otherwise interactions and puzzles generally made sense to me. I wondered if it would be possible to softlock by not taking the sign, so I tried it on a second play through and the answer was no. Kudos for handling that. I also appreciated there were two different endings to the game.

My main critique of the game would be that there's a lot of objects and hotspots, but many are missing interactivity for some, if not all, of the cursors. Some of these are especially confusing, for example there are four cupboards in the kitchen but you get no response when trying to use any of them. I find the lack of feedback a bit immersion-breaking as it makes me question whether I misclicked the object. There's a hotspot for the kitchen wall, but I couldn't see why this would need to be interactive and couldn't find anything to do with it. Conversely there's other objects in the background that look like they should be intractable but aren't. There's what looks like a doorway on the north wall of the living room, but it doesn't do anything, and there's a door in the hallway next to the kitchen which again can't be clicked on. In my opinion adding some extra interaction text, even if it's along the lines of "It's empty", "It's out of reach", "It's locked", would help a lot with keeping the immersion and justifying why the interactions aren't available.

The other part that feels a little odd is the score. You get points for solving the puzzles, and there's some more for actions that aren't strictly necessary which is a nice way of fleshing out the interactivity of the world. I like this and think it's fun. The main puzzle chain isn't that long, so having extra items and hotspots that aren't just red herrings but give you bonus points is a great idea. In theory it also adds replayability for players who want to try and find all the points. However from what I could see the game doesn't ever tell you the maximum number of points, or give you any kind of score recap at the end, so there's no way of knowing whether anything was missed. For the record I think my highest score was 13.

Overall it's a good little escape room puzzler with a cool setting and atmosphere. It feels a little unfinished in some areas, but otherwise it's a well put together game, and definitely worth playing.

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The Stew of Las Moras

Spoiler

What immediately struck me about this game was the world building. I love the idea of this ancient stew that 14 stew masters have overseen, the collection of bizarre characters lining up to eat, and the villain who's content to just stand there and laugh while you try and clean up his mess. Oh, and Moby is here too.

The artwork really shines too. It uses a stylistically limited pallet with a good colour choice and everything is clear to read. I really like the character designs too (and that whale is incredible) and I appreciate that while there's very limited amounts of actual animation the characters bob about while talking. There's other small touches too, like after the scouts leave the other characters move up a place in line. It's stuff like that show a lot of effort went into the feel of this game. There's also quite a bit of (I assume) custom music in the game. I like that talking to some characters will give you different music tracks.

I like the puzzles. They make sense in the context of the game's world, but they do need a bit of thinking about. I particularly appreciated the desert sequence deaths - failing it gives you a fun narrative about what went wrong and, most importantly, you're given a retry button rather than just ending the game.

It's a fun game with a great sense of world building and is very funny too. It does something interesting and unique with the theme, and kept me engaged and guessing where the story was going.

Bug reports:
 - Unlocking the right case in the gift shop plays the bending down animation, but not the standing back up animation and breaks Moby's walk cycle.
 - Pretty minor, but if Moby has to walk through the gift shop to interact with something (e.g exit the stew scene, then use the water trough) the gift shop wall will start but not finish fading away as he walks through, leaving it in a semi-transparent state.

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When the poll is open I'm going to vote for:

Spoiler

The Stew of Las Moras. I really enjoyed all three entries, but the combination of world building, artwork, puzzles, and humour swayed it for me.

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I'm glad he enjoyed it, thanks for showing it to him and for the feedback

This is an interesting and unique topic for an adventure game. The two characters are enjoyable, and there's some funny dialogue and some good jokes. I particularly enjoyed the line

Spoiler

"It was a big pigeon again, yeah" at the end.

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Graphically it's a little mixed. There's some decent pixel art which is also nicely animated, but it also uses photos for some elements and the two don't always mesh well.

The puzzles are decent and I like

Spoiler

the switch between the two characters midway through which freshens it up.

[close]

Overall it's a short (which is expected for MAGS), fun game and definitely worth giving a try. Rewarding ending too!

Now that MAGS voting is over I've updated the game to version 1.0. This fixes a few bugs (thanks to the people who pointed them out), improves feedback on one of the puzzles, updates the save/load interface to be more graphically consistant, and now it does nice things like asking for confirmation before you overwrite save files or try to quit.

As always if you find any more bugs or have any more feedback let me know!

Oh nice, thanks for the votes and for the competition! It's good to see so many entrants and people voting. I'll have a think about a topic for next month, and I guess I should probably go fix up some of the bugs and release a version 1.1...

I've also voted. I suppose it comes with the theme, but it was fun to see how diverse the different entries were in both gameplay and style and I think they're all really strong entries.

I can give some thoughts/opinions/feedback on the other entries if people want them, I'm not sure whether I should do that as an entrant or while voting is ongoing?

Thanks for the kind works heltenjon and bicilotti!

Sometimes I feel like I use text as a bit of a crutch to explain away why a logical puzzle solution doesn't work, or to try and add flavour to otherwise boring environments. I wanted to challenge myself to make something as text-less as possible to no longer have that excuse and to make the game more easily accessible as a bonus. I'm not sure I'll stick with it for future games, but it was definitely an interesting challenge.

I'm glad the 'game feel' works for you. There's a lot of games out there, so if someone chooses to spend time playing mine I don't want to take that for granted. I think there's still a place for deep, slow-paced adventure games that players can immerse themselves in, but that's not the kind of game I've made (so far anyway ). I try to be conscious of keeping the player engaged and entertained, and I think abrasive or awkward interfaces are a sure fire way to lose people's interest. Nobody likes walking 5 minutes across the game world to try and solve a puzzle just to be told "That doesn't work". I don't always get it right, but I do try.

A bug and a suggestion:

Spoiler

- After you killed yellow, you can summon him again with the bell in the kitchen.
- The ventilation shaft puzzle imho should not be reset after the robot cleans the oil spill.

[close]

Spoiler

Nothing stands between Yellow and a meal, not even death. Yellow's 'resurrection' is the main bug I need to fix in the next release, but as it's not game-breaking (I think?) it can wait until after MAGS.

I did consider whether to reset the vent arrows or not. Honestly, and despite what I've just said about game feel, that's in there to add a bit more of an obstacle to the player. I was worried that players would brute-force the puzzle without understanding it by just toggling random arrows until they get the result they wanted. I was worried the game was going to be too easy and short so I also added hotspots to the vents, posters, steering column etc which do absolutely nothing, and left the ability to use items on other items in, again just to slow the player down.

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Yes, I think that's a good idea. I've got at least one bug to fix, so I am planning to put out an updated version once MAGS is done.

Thanks for playing, glad you liked it!

One question from me:

Spoiler

I got the ID card from the locker and tried to use it on the scanner for the freezer. For the first several times I tried this I just got the error boop and an X on the screen, but after leaving the room and coming back later it suddenly worked. Did I trigger a bug that resolved itself?

[close]

Spoiler

It's a reference to the infamous card swiping task in Among Us where going too fast, too slow, or just being unlucky makes you repeat the task, often several times in a row.


Arguably it's meta knowledge, which I usually try to avoid. Repeatedly trying the card does swipe it at different speeds which is supposed to indicate something different is happening on each click, but it might be too subtle, or four swipes might be too many to ask for. I would have put different "too fast", "too slow", "bad read" messages on the panel for each attempt, but I was trying to keep this game as text-less as possible. Maybe I'll add different error graphics when I do a bug fix release post MAGS.

[close]

In Our Midst



In Our Midst is a short point and click adventure paying homage to a certain popular multiplayer game. You play as an alien who has managed to infiltrate a spaceship and disguise itself as one of the crew, and now you have to eliminate the rest of them...

Download the game!
Play the web browser version here!

This is an entry for April 2024's MAGS competition "Finish Your MAGS Game". Check out the thread here to play the other entries and vote for your favourite.

As always comments, bug reports and games database ratings are very much appreciated!

Stalled out on In Our Midst. Been stalling out a lot in these MAGS games, lately. Little help OneDollar, if you please:

Spoiler

I have scissors, blue cup of goo, card, key, and rope attached to space toilet. I'm also aware of airlock opening and closing. From that point on, I seem to be dead in space. Those pictures in crew's quarters seem clickable, but nothing in inventory seems to do anything to them. Same thing for the various floor grates, except for the one below the engine drain and filling the cup.

[close]

Sherwood is also giving me troubles, but doubt hints would help me for this type of game. Got through the other two games without major problems.

Hint 1:

Spoiler

There are two control panels, have you found them?

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Hint 2a:

Spoiler

One is next to the freezer in the kitchen, but the controls are locked.

[close]

Hint 2b:

Spoiler

The card can be used to unlock the freezer controls.

[close]

Hint 3a:

Spoiler

The other is in the hallway, behind a loose panel (hanging at an angle).

[close]

Hint 3b:

Spoiler

The hallway panel has something to do with the vents and something that can go in them.

[close]

Congratulations, that's a good reason for not finishing a game!

["In Our Midst" is a short point'n'click adventure game paying homage to a certain popular multiplayer game. You play an alien being that has infiltrated a space ship, disguising itself as one of the crew members. Now you have to eliminate the remaining crew so that you can seize control of the ship.]

In Our Midst



"In Our Midst" is a short point'n'click adventure game paying homage to a certain popular multiplayer game. You play an alien being that has infiltrated a space ship, disguising itself as one of the crew members. Now you have to eliminate the remaining crew so that you can seize control of the ship.

Originally intended as an entry for September 2022's Sometimes Evil Wins theme.

Download and web version here


That whole finishing the game two weekends ago plan didn't happen. Still, I've managed to scrape enough time to pull something together just in time for the deadline.

Known issues in this version:
 - Loading from the main menu uses the default dialog.
 - There is no confirmation prompt when overwriting a save game.
 - There is no confirmation prompt when loading a game.
 - Quitting the game uses the default dialog.

Any other bugs or comments, let me know!

Then we're going to need another MAGS theme called "Finish Finishing Your MAGS Game".

The MAGS participation thread talked about doing this regularly. I'm told that in the sewists community they have a 'Finish it February'. If we did a fixed thing like that though we'd have to delay e.g. December's winner to setting the rules for March.

This weekend is my last clear block of time this month so I'm hopefully on the last stretch of my game, otherwise it'll continue to be unfinished. I'm firmly in the "I'm fed up of working on this, why did I design puzzles that are so complicated to script, is this game even any good?" part of the development cycle.

I found some time to play through the game and have a quick look through the project, though I ran out of time to properly read through the room and global scripts. It's good, I like it a lot! You've ticked off a lot of the suggested feature list while keeping the game small enough that it hopefully isn't too daunting for a new player to look through.

I noted down some suggestions while playing. Hopefully they doesn't come across as too harsh as I think the overall demo is really nice. These are also just my two cents and I would like to see more feedback from others too.

Spoiler

Typos:
 - environemnt > environment in the opening Display text.
 - thonk > think when looking at the pond.
 - cam > came when looking at the deep forest.
 - Teakettle > Tea Kettle?.
 - gmae > game in the Characters explanation.
 - dialgoe > dialogue in the Hotspots explanation.
 - Not really a typo, but Red Mage talks about 'Dialogues' a lot. I'm in two minds about this as I think that's the correct spelling (even in American English?) for conversations, but the AGS editor uses "Dialogs".
 - This is really nit-picky, but "Wash Basin" capitalises both words whereas other objects tend to have the second word in lowercase ("Deep forest", "Stone bench", and "Bed nook").

Views:
 - Should characters have a talking animation to demonstrate speech views?
 - "Different views for player character" was suggested as a demo feature, is it worth adding e.g. a simple pick up animation for finding the key or a 'hand out using' type animation for unlocking/opening the door to demonstrate things like Character.LockView and Character.Animate?
 - The MageRed view has (blank) sprite 0 set for loop 1 and 2 (left and right), but no sprites set for loop 3 (up). For consistency I think the sprites should be removed for the other two loops where they're not being used.

Music:
 - Another suggested feature in the original list, and the game feels a bit empty without some kind of music or at least ambient forest sounds.

Possible scripting bug:
 - Looking at the toadstools when standing near the entrance says "I need to get closer" then walks the character there. However looking at other areas (the window, the shrine, the bench, and the bullfrog) only says "I need to get closer".
 - Additionally you can use items on the toadstools from across the screen, unlike the other areas.

Inventory:
 - Combining items is another suggested feature, and at the moment it's not possible. I think this is common enough requirement for games to add it in.
 - I'm not sure if it's worth building a puzzle requiring it, but even allowing the use of cup on key and getting a generic "That doesn't work" would demonstrate how to do it.

Font:
 - I think it would be worth switching this from the current pixely font to something at the native resolution to help readability.

GUIs:
 - Nit-picking once again, but GUI elements are named inconsistently with, for example "btnQuitYes", "ButtonCloseCredits", and "Button1". We should at least rename the ButtonX and LabelX elements to indicate what they do, but I'd prefer a consistent naming convention.

Cursors:
 - Pick up is set to the bullfrog sprite, which I enjoyed, but maybe it should be sprite 0 as the mode isn't used?
 - Delete Usermode1 and Usermode2 as they can be deleted and aren't used in game?

Red Mage dialog(ue):
 - I would like to see some more feedback on this, as to me it feels like it might need some more thought.
 - It dumps a lot of information at the player with not much time to read it (side-note, is it worth implementing a dialog speed slider?) though of course the player can re-select a topic.
 - I think some of these options need to be simplified and/or go into more detail. I think a lot of this is too complicated for someone who hasn't done the tutorial and/or played around in the engine already, and don't really add anything for someone who has.
 - I think we need to decide who this is written for and what knowledge they're supposed to have going in, then re-write for that person. IMO I would assume a player who has a vague understanding of point-and-click games but hasn't read the tutorial, and talk in more general terms about the components that make a game. I would use code comments (suggestions below) to go more in to detail about how things are actually used.
 - It demonstrates dialog trees and scripting which is useful on its own though.

Code commenting:
 - As I said I ran out of time to properly read through the scripts this evening.
 - What I did wonder about is code commenting. I can see you've added a lot of comments to the code, but my suggestion would be to write somewhere between a sentence and a paragraph of comments at the start of every function saying when it's run, what it does, and if necessary how it does that. Maybe also add a topic or list of related topics to look up in the manual for more information?
 - For example, something like:

Code: ags

/* The game_start() function is run at the very start of the game, before any
rooms are loaded or anything is shown on the screen. This makes it useful for
doing any setup we need to at the beginning of the game.
Look up 'game_start' in the manual for more information.*/
function game_start()
{
  /* Here we use the built-in GUI.Gentre function to make sure the below GUIs are
  centred on the screen. We can set the GUI positions manually in the GUI editor,
  but this is a handy shortcut. Note that this works even though the GUIs are
  invisible at the start of the game.*/
  gQuit.Centre();
  gOptions.Centre();
  gCredits.Centre();
  
  // We also set a highlight color which is used when displaying dialog options during conversations.
  game.dialog_options_highlight_color = 54575;
}

- Maybe the manual reference in that example is redundant as it's literally just saying "search the function name", but might be useful to provide related topics to look up or references for custom functions, or even just to remind people to read the manual?

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If others agree with any of my suggestions I'm happy to have a go at some of these, or maybe put together some examples of dialogue re-writes or code commenting to better illustrate what I'm thinking. I'm a little tied up with MAGS at the moment, but if it's helpful I'm happy to contribute once that's out the way?

I managed to find the puzzle chart for "In Our Midst" which was supposed to be an entry for MAGS September 2022 "Sometimes Evil Wins", so I'm working on that this month.

• There were two 'puzzle goes here' holes in the design which I've now filled in. One miiiight be a pain to program, and I don't know how fun or logical it will be for players. We'll see.
• A lot of art was already done - I've got 5 backgrounds and walking animations for the characters - but there's still a lot of random objects and animations to do.
• There's not a lot of code written. A couple of graphic-less objects to pick up and some bits of unfinished unconnected puzzles.
• I wanted it to be wordless but originally I didn't have time to make that work, so there's some sticking plaster text descriptions that pop up for some actions. I'm going to give this another go and see if I can make it work with as little text as possible. That probably means more animation and sound effects though.

I think if it was originally submitted in a state where it was obvious to players that it was very unfinished that's fine. Fixing a couple of bugs or adding a bit of polish to something that was already fully playable would go against the spirit of the theme though.