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Finally got around to playing this as I catch up on games I missed. The puzzles are great! I feel like I got stuck in almost every room but all the solutions made sense.

Spoiler

When I resorted to the walkthrough and realized I needed to go back to the roof for the grating and cement, I had one of those "No! Of course! How could I forget!" moments that make the game design really shine.

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The animations were also great and the dialogue was very funny. I enjoyed the music too.

Great work! 

[ELEVATION]

And finally, I released this tiny little MAGS game that manages to have a complete story, as well as some visuals and original music I'm proud of. Not very noticeable in the grand scheme of games released this year, but it was my first completed game and remains close to my heart. 

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

ELEVATION

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2671-elevation/




PLEASE CONSIDER FOR:
-Best Short Game
-Best Audio (original music)
-Best Visuals
-Best Character (Broken Bot)
-Best Character (Captain Phoebe)
-Best Writing

Thanks very much

I also released 2 Non-adventure MAGS entries this year.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: BEST NON-ADVENTURE GAME
MAD JACK: BREAKDOWN SHAKEDOWN
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2676-mad-jack-breakdown-shakedown/





FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: BEST NON-ADVENTURE GAME
SUPER AUTHOR SIMULATOR 2023
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2702-super-author-simulator-2023/

[TUNNEL VISION]

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

TUNNEL VISION

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2685-tunnel-vision/



PLAYTHROUGH AND WALKTROUGH HERE:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/hints-tips/tunnel-vision-walkthrough/

Please consider for:
-Best Game
-Best Freeware Game
-Best Writing
-Best Visuals
-Best Audio (original music)
-Best Gameplay
-Best Programming

Thanks so much to everyone who has played, reviewed, and commented on this game already!

@Mandle

Spoiler

Very good writing! I wish I had known about this tradition as you explained it  in your comment, as it would have cleared up the confusion I had about the family's motivations. I kept asking myself what their reasons were for doing this, and I would have been a lot more affected by the story if I'd known. Now that I know, the story seems stronger, which would certainly have influenced my vote had I known before.

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@Baron

Spoiler

This got my vote because I connected with the characters. Unfortunately, the ending to me felt like more of a simple "gotcha" moment than a purposeful twist. That said, I think the piece could work well as the beginning of a longer story, where the twist serves to establish a certain tone in the writing and set up an ongoing dynamic between the characters. For me personally, I like when twiss support something larger rather than existing for their own sake. I know lots of others feel differently though.

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Hey mods,

I was looking at the list of dead competitions and wondering if we could bring back a refined version of  Puzzle Time (last active 2005). Looking at the old threads, I think the rules were a bit too vague, the themes prposed were prehaps too broad, and the entries by the few consistent participants tended to be extremely long, all of which may have discouraged wider participation.

I think a narrower and clearer set of rules could make for a more accessible and productive competition.

Rules could be the following:

The host provides a fairly constrained rather than broad scenario (for example, you are in x type of room, trying to accomplish y, and have only specific  items to work with or specific npcs and environmental elements to interact with). Think of the scene from Apollo 13 where the engineers literally have to fit a square peg into a round hole using whatever random spare junk is available on the spacecraft.

Participants write entries that must include the following:
1. Use at least 3 elements from the provided list/scenario (inventory, npcs, a piece of the room like a cabinet or faucet, climb a tree, etc.).
2. Give a step-by-step walktrough of the puzzle solution.
3. Don't add illogical elements to the room. For example, if the room is a forest, collecting some leaves from the ground is an acceptable addition even if the leaves weren'tspecificallymentionedby the host--their presence is implied by the presence of trees--but adding a cave is too much. Adding a fallen tree log would be borderline.
4. Keep any dialog elements summarized rather than typing out the whole conversation (for example, "threaten the mailman", "ask the child for advice", and so on).

Voters would use the criteria of a) how logical does the puzzle seem; b) how creative or unexpected is the use of elements; c) how satisfying is the solution.

Here's is a possible example:

Scenario: you are locked in a bank vault. There are shelves with stacks of cash, a fire extinguisher on the wall, lights on the ceiling, and an electronic lock on the inside of the vault door with a keypad and an emergency speaker button that starts a video call.

Inventory: you have a fake ID badge, a garbage bag, a wrench, a pair of rubber-soled boots, a banana, a pencil, a pair of night-vision goggles, a map of the bank (contains no info about the inside of the vault, only the outside layout), a metal bucket, a bungee cord, a robber's hood mask, a bottle of very expensive brandy, and a hard hat. (List of inventory should be long long but not obviously convenient so as to allow room for creative solutions).

NPCs: if you use the emergency speaker, a security guard will answer. You have not met the security guard.

Goal: escape the vault with a large amount of cash.

Possible solutions could involve finding a way to electrocute the keypad, convincing the guard of your legitimacy using your fake badge and knowledge from the map, bribing the guard with brandy and cash, and so on.

What do you think? Should be bring back a puzzle party? 

@Sinitrena I'll leave both of mine in. Wasn't planning to submit twice but I'm pretty happy with both of them. 

Wrote another just to keep things interesting. 

Between breaths

Breathe out. Hold.
Breathe in.

A turn of an axis away from the light,
A day without air, before turning back.

Each nearing of one pole retreating the other,
Each year one elongated breath.

Breathe out. Hold.
Breathe in.

Only recurrance makes long night
A solstice;
Only in repeat do breaths become breathing.

To live on, the night takes its inbreaths according to physics:
To fill, lungs must first empty out.

Managed to pull something together. 

The Clearing of Light

The stars held the kind of clarity only a freezing night imparts, the air dry enough to crack the skin of our hands. All of us huddled at a fire too small to blunt the cold, useless as the pine trees that towered around like ice sculptures. We sat on logs that felt like frozen rocks and ate canned baked beans we'd halfway heated with a busted old pot in the fire. We scarfed down big spoonfuls before they could get cold again.

Rachel had insisted that beans were rustic camping food. The longest night of the year, she said, was best warmed not by fire or feast but by stirring the heart with spirits and camaraderie. It'll be fun, she'd said, when she called us up one by one, trying to gather as many friends together as she could, maybe to make the whole thing feel less insane. And she had convinced each of us, even though this far north, the solstice night lasts 19 hours.

We all made a point of not naming the temperature aloud. Even Rachel shivered, despite her thick hat with ear flaps, her knitted fingerless gloves, wool scarf, parka, and fur-lined boots. She stared at the flames as if keeping her eyes there might fan the fire. The beer bottle in her hand long empty.

She was into Paganism or astrology or something, thought the solstice was an auspicious, even powerful night. "When that sun comes up," she said, "it'll be like the first dawn you've ever seen. You won't look at sunlight the way you used to. You'll understand why ancient people worshipped it."

"I sure hope so," one of us said. We were all thinking it. We'd helped lug a big pile of wood to the pit when we'd arrived, but Rachel made us ration it. We'd at least gotten her to agree we could go home if the fire went out before sunup. All night she'd urged us to wait whenever one of us tried to add a log, but this time, when someone jumped up shivering and grabbed a big limb, she made no objection. The log made a satisfying crunch as it landed, and sparks flew up. We all watched them fan out and vanish.

Rachel pulled her scarf over her face so all we could see were her glimmering eyes and sharp eyebrows. Her gaze shifted around to each one of us. "I know this isn't fun. But it keeps you in the moment. Clears your head for new ideas. People say light is good and dark is bad, but... I think it's the opposite, you know?"

Maybe talking was the only way she could take her mind off the cold.

"A so-called dark night of the soul is supposed to cleanse, like you learn something from it. Even if it's just discovering how small you are. And like, in a way, darkness itself is kind of like cleanliness. Being clean is being free of impurities. When light is there, it reflects and bounces and gets in everything, like dirt. But a shadow can't bounce or reflect or get in anywhere, because it isn't actually anything. It's the clearing away of light. So darkness is more pure. More whole. Same with cold. Heat is just an additive."

If we hadn't all been tipsy, someone would have disagreed, but nodding as if this was the most profound thing took less energy than laughing or debating.

At that point Rachel paused, and silence spread out from us, the night now emptied of sound. The dark of the sky and the stillness of the air made the fire seem indeed like an intruder, but we needed it. Without the sun, we had to make all our own light, and no amount of it could match what the sun gave every second. All the human light in the world couldn't.

We waited for Rachel to speak again, but she only tilted her head back, pulled down her scarf, and tried to glean any straggling drops from the beer bottle. Then she covered her face again, threw the bottle into the bucket with the other empties, and leaned forward, reaching her hands closer to the fire.

We all did the same. Words couldn't make the cold stop, and words couldn't bring up the sun. For a while, no one else took up the torch of speaking.

But the one thing words could help with was time, and we still had hours to go. No one but Rachel was much for philosophy, so one of us started a long, meandering story. The rest of us clung to the sound and the flames. Around us, beyond reach of the fire, the purity left by the absence of light and heat was more than we could bear.

I've released 4 games this year, so I feel justified hopping in here. 

For me, I try to stick to the following:

1. If it doesn't REALLY interest me, I don't make it. Making games is too much work to put into something I'm not excited about. That pretty much guarantees I will lose motivation before finishing. Don't underestimate the importance of this. Wait until you have an idea that fires you up! You'll need it. 

2. No matter how much I want to start  programming the game, don't start until the puzzles or gameplay are at least mostly worked out. Things will go more smoothly (and importantly more quickly) if you to know what puzzles to put in the rooms before making the rooms. Be patient with the planning. That's when you can revise instantly because you aren't locked into anything yet. It's MUCH harder to change course later. Enjoy playing at this stage. BUT...

3. Keep the game as small as it can possibly be. Then make it smaller. All 3 of my MAGS games have had only 1 room of gameplay. Not every game can be like this of course, but if you allow the game to sprawl, then "finishing" keeps getting farther away. Combine rooms if you can. Stay focused on the core of the game, and if you have time later, add extra stuff after the game is fully playable with just the central elements. Or release later versions once version 1 is out.

4. Accept that at some point it will stop being all about fun and will become work. The goal is to have enough of the game finished by that point that the prospect of being done is enough to help you power through the work part. This is more likely to happen if you follow points 1 through 3. Put in the time even when you're not in the mood. That's the most difficult stage of the whole process, but for me, it makes or breaks whether games get finished.

5. There will be snags. Expect it to take 3 times as long as your first reasonable estimate. No matter how many games you've made, something that seems simple will end up very complicated to implement. Be ready.

Not sure if all that is motivating or discouraging, but I hope it helps! Other people will definitely have different approaches that work better for them.

For reference, this is my reddit profile where you can see a lot of what I've done.

Wow, some of that is incredible! The icy Dracula tomb just blew me away. If I'd seen that in 1996, it would have been my favorite game art ever--how do you mix so many colors without it just looking like noise? I also love the autumnal sunset and the jabby sword animation. The juxtaposition of sword with office secretary outfit is (chef's kiss).

@Snarky awesome! This looks like just what I need. 

Many thanks! I will read them.

EDIT: @Kastchey These are amazing! Thanks so much!

Hey all,

For those of you who do your own art (and especially those who use realistic or semi-realistic styles), I'm wondering what processes you all use to draw backgrounds. Do you start with a sketch, etc., what order do you draw things in, how do you decide on palettes, color, lighting and shadows... and so on.

I find as an artist without professional training (though I have read books on it lately), that it takes me a long time to finish a background, and I'm hoping some of the more seasoned artists here might have advice for speeding up the process.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Perfect!

Congratulations @Sinitrena ! Fantastic job. The next round is yours!

Thanks to everyone for putting in so many quality entries this time!

Voting is over and wow is it spread out far too evenly! A four-way tie seems like a bit much to me, so I think I should go ahead and cast a tiebreaker vote (I did not vote in the poll) unless that's against the rules. If that's not the way things work, then the four of you will have to sort the next theme out together!

As stated in my comment from a few days ago, my favorite story was "After the Fever" by Sinitrena. So if my vote counts, I therefore declare this the winning entry unless someone wishes to object. @Stupot care to weigh in?

Congratulations on a great contest, everyone!

Just a couple more days to vote! Anyone else want to weigh in? 

Nice! 4 MAGS entries is more than we've had at once all year, I think! I look forward to trying them all out! 

Just finished reading the last few entries, so here are my thoughts. I didn't vote because I wasn't sure if I'm supposed to, but I do have some favorites.

Spoilers below.

@Mandle Clever and fun. Very short, but it works and I enjoyed it. Probably it wouldn't work as a longer piece, so I think you ended it at the right time. Simple and effective.

@Wiggy This was in my top two entries. Really concise and also moving, conveying things well without big exposition. You accomplished a lot in a very short space. Nicely done.

@Sinitrena First of all, great job getting two complete short stories done within the two weeks. That takes some dedication!  I'm impressed. Your first entry was good but a little grim for my tastes. Nothing wrong with it, just not my cup of tea. Still well written.

Your second entry, however, was actually my favorite of the contest. It's bleak, but I felt a lot of heart while reading it. It's absolutely gutting. The prose was also very well done--so much emotion is conveyed not through explanation but through action and through the juxtaposition of past and present. I also really like the metaphor of fever as fire--definitely counts toward the theme in my opinion.    Really great work. If I get a vote, it goes here.

@Baron I enjoyed this one too. I might have to read it again to piece the whole past-story together, but the gist was clear and effective for me, and the ending works. Nicely done.

@Stupot I found the overall characterization of the boys effective (though only one or two them were given enough detail to be fully distinct from the others, but as a group it still works well). I also enjoyed the twists and turns throughout, and found the decision at the end believable. Really solid entry!

Thanks for all the participation! It was great to see so many entries and so much work put into them. A very successful contest in my opinion. Glad you all liked the theme!

DisplayAt allows you to put the text wherever you want:

https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/Globalfunctions_Message.html#displayat

You can also change the default text window by creating your own GUI and then in the General Settings list selecting "Text Windows use GUI"

https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/EditorGUI.html#customized-text-windows

Honestly, just browsing the manual's index and clicking on whatever looks useful has yielded a lot of insight for me since I started.