Messages

Looking good!

Well done, to all the bakers!

Good work! Nice site!

Already changed my link

The only thing I am missing is a little description of each game or a link to the the games' thread for those, who are not from the AGS-forum and like to know a bit about what (kind of) games they will get.

That's a good point. Even listing the genres would help (you get, I think, 10 adventure games, a platformer, a shoot-em-up, and a house sim?)

I just realized that neither the original Arcomage nor the free remake runs on my computer, so please finish this

While I have no objection to making AGS more optimized for commercial products, it strikes me as a conflict of interest to have somebody who creates commercial games be the manager of AGS. Certainly they should have a say in it, but I do not think they should be in charge.

So I would prefer Calin for this position. This is nothing personal against Dave, I just feel that since majority of the community do this as a hobby rather than for a living, the "management" should remain with somebody who does it as a hobby, just like what CJ did.

Out of curiosity: what is your reason for doing this? Is there something in particular that doesn't work in the older version of AGS?

Atelier should post the revised rules on the MAGS main page, or in each post, so new people won't go against them without knowing.

I thought we were merely discussing the first draft so far, with several people opining  that formalized rules aren't necessary in the first place?

Thanks

This plays damn smooth!
Will you ever release an open source version of this? For people interested in making platform games?

If the game proves popular I'll certainly consider it.

Still find it kinda awkward that some of the jumps are further away, so you have to take a running jump.

I understand, but having inertia is a deliberate design choice (and one shared by e.g. Mario, Sonic, and Cave Story). I find it plays more fluid like that, but of course it's tricky to get the air control right. If you compare this to the first MAGS release, you'll find it's much better now. Also, it may help to watch the jump-o-meter in the lower left corner.

Still can't get past the giant duck though.  I didn't know what to do with it at first.  But now I've been told what to do, I still can't defeat it.   

Practice makes perfect. It gets much harder on Hard difficulty, of course.

Also, who is Julie?

The girl whose speech portrait reads "Julie"

So the question is not if the engine can handle it, but if YOU can handle it.

This. Scope creep is the biggest killer of indie adventure games.

That's a very interesting usage of AGS. Thumbs up!

I think it's a good idea to evaluate this or any ruleset every now and then, but to be honest I don't think making more formal rules is necessary here. Indeed, more formalities may turn new people away from MAGS because it looks less friendly. The current informal rules have worked well for years, I don't think it's necessary to change them over one or two incidents.

I think the Bogdan case was handled well by all involved, including him: he asked a question (can I enter with a game started earlier) and he got an answer (no), and then he withdrew from that MAGS. I don't see a problem here, and this is nothing the current rules couldn't handle.

In the case of Icey, well, if the issue is people not following the rules, then by definition adding more rules isn't going to help. The existing rules of "no rushed entries" and "no prior art" would have disqualified his entry anyway. This is a rather unusual situation, and if it ever happens again I'm sure Atelier or the community will point out an invalid entry.

So let's not go all formal here, this is not moot court

And for the record, the November win was only due to a voting fuck-up.

Please explain what you mean?

To express oneself
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffic-

(an internet classic)

No luck yet

(but then I'd expect most people to just ignore the verbcoin and use the shortcuts).

I doubt even 2% of people do that. Adventure games are rarely repetitive grind-fests or real-time based, so what's the point of an ultra-quick interface?

Immersion.

Yikes, all the verbcoin hate! Is it the time they take to pop up that people have a problem with?

Primarily because they are created to look cool (to the designer) rather than to be convenient to the user.

The main problem is that they require extra clicks (or, in some cases, a click-hold-drag-release motion), and that once you've finished the operation, your mouse cursor is no longer over the hotspot and the verb you chose is no longer selected either. If they take time to pop up, that would be even worse.

A verbcoin would be doable if it had sufficient keyboard shortcuts (but then I'd expect most people to just ignore the verbcoin and use the shortcuts); remember that LucasArts always had shortcuts for everything - interfaces are supposed to respond quickly.

Well, it would be a lot easier to win in 'Best Social Realist Adventure' than 'Best Comedy Adventure' or 'Best Sci-fi Adventure'.

Didn't you recommend yourself for "Best Non-Kingdom-Related Adventure" a couple years back? 

The simple solution strikes me to edit the nomination script to remove the check so that you can enter any game you like for Best Short Game (after all, you can already enter whatever you like for Best Graphics and so forth).

And then in the unlikely chance that somebody nominates a long game for best short game, have the organizer remove it. After all, it's already possible (but equally unlikely) for someone to nominate a game for Best Music that has no music. I seriously doubt that any entry that really doesn't fit would get enough nominations anyway, so I don't see this as a big issue.

[yes]

so yes, icey is the winner.

I object to that.

I opened Icey's game in a hex editor to see if I could find those alleged explosions and other content he mentioned. You know what I found? The game he submitted is actually The Last Boss, by Mr.Mog. It has the exact same rooms, text, and music; just a few lines of dialogue tacked on and two or three extra sprites.

You don't need a "MAGS constitution" to see what's wrong with that. The rules in the top post have always been perfectly clear.

[Quasar]

Quasar

A short adventure game on a spaceship, loosely inspired by the TV series Firefly, it focuses on mupltiple playable characters, how they interact, and how they each react differently to hotspots - from snarky medic Julie to stoic mercenary Karst, and from loyal technician Florent to sesquipedalian researcher Callisto.

It has excellent high-resolution artwork, detailed portraits, and a separate soundtrack for each character.

Suggested for

• Best Short Game
  
• Best Dialogue
  
• Best Background Art
  
• Best Character Art
  
• Best Player Character (four of them, take your pick )
  

Details and download here.

I'm afraid I agree that this doesn't count.

First, the top post states "You are not allowed to use material already created before this competition. Your game must be completely new!" and yet both the background and the OSD sprite in the screenshot are older material. The recent OSD MAGS was an explicit exception to this rule, but in general the point of MAGS is to create new games with new art.

And second, the top post also states "Please do not enter the competition with a rushed entry (a game created last minute)." And that is clearly what you did. Like you said, you can create an OSD game in one day, but we have Hour Games and OROW for games made that quickly. For MAGS, you have one month; so if you did it all in the last day, that is precisely what the first post says not to do. That you didn't have time to test whether your game was working properly (and instead ends after 25 seconds of non-interactive dialogue) only underlines that it was rushed.

So I think you should withdraw this. You've won MAGS before with a quality entry; we know you can do better, and an entry like this just looks badly for both you and MAGS in general. Please try again next month with another quality entry that we'd love to play.