Messages

Hi, @heltenjon thanks so much for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it and liked the sense of humor. 

I think 42/55 is a very respectful score, as some achievements are indeed pretty obscure and take a lot of patience. Thanks for putting in enough time to get most of them! 

If you're interested enough to give the names of the achievements you unlocked (perhaps in a hints & tips thread), I can give you the names of the missing ones as a hint.

Either way, thanks for the comments! It's great to know someone played it diligently! 

Congratulations, @Creamy ! It was a really cool and evocative entry. Great work!

You folks are getting really detailed! It's great to get so much engagement with the picture and to get such a positive response mixed in with the suggested improvements. It's a lot to think about but it's all very helpful! 

I'll make sure to post the finished version here when it's complete. 

My main suggestion would be to not have paths too close to the room edges, and have some space between them

Okay, I can do that!

Roger mage to begin with? We can always recolor him or change his appearance.

The full sprite sheet for the mage is available here: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/adventure-related-talk-chat/some-free-sprites-to-play-with/

Hey, thanks for the suggestions both of you! I never thought of animals or a farm, so that's a great idea.

Making the water look less stirred is a useful way of looking at it too. I very much appreciate the feedback!

I had a lot of free time today so I finished the next set of mockups. Used the Apollo palette to at least approximate a color scheme closer to what the final version may have.

As always, I'm happy to keep refining the designs if there are any aspects that don't work.

EXTERIOR SKETCH (below):
1 = a single continuously scaling walkable area. Skirts the edges to imply a larger space but doesn't make the player walk off the edge of the screen (maybe that can happen in the bridge room)
2 = door that needs key to open - leads to "inside" room
3 = door to emerge from "inside" room onto balcony where gem is
4 = garden bench (place to look for key)
5 = frog / mushrooms (place to look for key)
6 = shrine (place to look for key)
7 = exit (to map or to bridge room)




INTERIOR SKETCH (below):
1 = Exit to exterior room (door where key was used)
2 = A single non-scaling walkable area (overlaid here in translucent sky blue to show area boundaries)
3 = Exit to exterior room (balcony with gem)

Hey everyone,

I'm been coming back to this piece on and off for a few months, and I really like some aspects of it but not others.

Two questions:

1. I know I need to put SOMETHING on the left edge so that the landscape doesn't look like a flat pool table, but I also don't want the composition to feel too crowded there, so I don't really know what to do with it.

2. Stylistically, it feels inconsistent - The train and tracks and sky feel very clean (and I like them that way), but the water and marshlands look more impressionistic and brush-stroke-y. I'm not sure how to reconcile the two (or maybe just not sure how to draw marshlands using clean lines?).

Any advice would be appreciated.

Interesting topic! I'll be sitting this one out because I have bigger projects I need to be working on, but I look forward to playing and voting on the entries!

@4KbShort Just played The Roadtrip. Fun and a little creepy! I also like the art. It feels simplistic but effective, and embraces the low resolution instead of trying to fit in too much detail. A quick, enjoyable game.

Spoiler

And that ending! Made me both laugh and shudder a little.

[close]

One bug - on the credits screen the cursor disappears, even after pressing esc to open the GUI and quit dialog, so the program is difficult to close. Seems like it switched to a cursor mode with no supplied graphic.

Nice work!

Finished my MAGS entry for this month. Hope you enjoy! 

DOWNLOAD HERE: https://rootbound.itch.io/mad-jack-breakdown

AGS DATABASE ENTRY: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2676-mad-jack-breakdown-shakedown

MAD JACK: BREAKDOWN SHAKEDOWN is an action comedy achievement-based puzzle game.

In a post-apocalyptic free-for-all desert wasteland where everyone still somehow has gasoline (a world not remotely like that of a beloved film franchise) Mad Jack's muscle car breaks down. Using only items from a junkyard, Jack must find a way to escape being stranded and continue his thrilling, heartwarming journey to his destiny (presumably somewhere else in the desert).

Features:
*Zany vehicles
*Fire
*Car wrecks
*Perfectly believable and irreproachably realistic inventory combinations
*Rollicking rock music by @Eric Matyas
*Multiple ways to "win" or "lose" (but is this really the point?)
*Tons of achievements and inventory to unlock (this could certainly never be the real point, definitely not)
*One (1) playable room
*Breathtaking ultra-HD 480x270 resolution
*Endless hours of gameplay (if you decide to never stop playing)

Finished my MAGS entry for this month. (Thanks very to @Stupot for the deadline extension - it's definitely a better game when there are sound effects!) Hope you enjoy! 

DOWNLOAD HERE: https://rootbound.itch.io/mad-jack-breakdown

AGS DATABASE ENTRY: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2676-mad-jack-breakdown-shakedown

MAD JACK: BREAKDOWN SHAKEDOWN is an action comedy achievement-based puzzle game.

In a post-apocalyptic free-for-all desert wasteland where everyone still somehow has gasoline (a world not remotely like that of a beloved film franchise) Mad Jack's muscle car breaks down. Using only items from a junkyard, Jack must find a way to escape being stranded and continue his thrilling, heartwarming journey to his destiny (presumably somewhere else in the desert).

Features:
*Zany vehicles
*Fire
*Car wrecks
*Perfectly believable and irreproachably realistic inventory combinations
*Rollicking rock music by @Eric Matyas
*Multiple ways to "win" or "lose" (but is this really the point?)
*Tons of achievements and inventory to unlock (this could certainly never be the real point, definitely not)
*One (1) playable room
*Breathtaking ultra-HD 480x270 resolution
*Endless hours of gameplay (if you decide to never stop playing)

Welp, the sound effects are taking longer than I want. I could probably finish them in one more day. If I can have an extension, I'll gladly take it.   

Otherwise I can post a sound-free version, since everything else is finished.

Looks good to me, @Danvzare !

I'm trying to finish my MAGS entry today but hopefully after that I can keep working on the first room background.

Will post one more mock-up here for design feedback before drawing it in earnest. This is exciting!

[You can't really protect or copyright the usage of a combination of colors in new works. Ie, if you take a color palette and then draw an illustration using those colors.]

Seems like we're fine and that sets of colors can't really be licensed. The image itself depicting the palette maybe could be, but not the actual color scheme.

So if we want to use the Apollo palette and be nice and courteous, we could just add a line to the credits: "Game art uses Apollo palette by Adam C. Younis, available at Lospec.com."

EDIT: did some more digging, just to be safe:

This is from ColourLovers.com, not Lospec, but the priciple probably applies (emphasis mine):

How can you copyright a color palette?
FAQ Home | How can you copyright a color palette?
We recently added a Rights Management System that allows members to select several different licenses for the content they share on COLOURlovers, including color palettes. There is often confusion about how somebody can copyright or protect the rights to a combination of colors. You can't really protect or copyright the usage of a combination of colors in new works. Ie, if you take a color palette and then draw an illustration using those colors. But, what is protected is the arrangement of those colors into the rectangular shape that they are on COLOURlovers displayed along with their names. This is treated like a picture or work of art and can be protected... ie, you can't just scrape a bunch of palettes and put them as they are displayed here in a book you sell.

Do you know anything about license? Can we just use it?

That's a good question. Couldn't find anything on the website, so I joined the Lospec Discord and asked the question there. Will let you know what I find out.

Animations are finished! I'm still fixing a few bugs coming up during my playtesting. I may bail on the sound effects if it takes too long. Getting close!

[29 colors]

I'm not great at making palettes either, but I went looking through a bunch of them on Lospec and found a few I think might work:

CC-29 by Alpha6 (29 colors)
Nanner Pancakes by Afterimage (32 colors)
Apollo by AdamCYounis (46 colors)
comfy52 by bess (52 colors)

I like the middle two best myself, but I can see the benefits of any of them.

I can post this in the Critics' Lounge if that's a better place.

@Danvzare I think the discussion here has settled on 640x360 as the game resolution, but I'm not really sure if the GUI discussion is still ongoing, so I don't know if the resolution for inventory item images is clear at the moment.

I doubt anyone in this thread is turning away volunteers, though! Right now the only inventory item I am aware of would be a key for the first room. But a gem image for the score counter would be welcome as well, I think (I'm certainly not in charge here!)

As far as pallette limitations go, I think the game has a generic fantasy theme. I'm working on designing forest and treehouse backgrounds but final colors are undecided, and I believe one goal is to show a variety of styles.

@cat any thoughts?

I vote for

Spoiler

Creamy.    A much more finished product than mine!

[close]

@Stupot almost finished! I still have a couple of animations and sound effects to implement, and I need to do more play testing, but I expect to have a complete entry by the deadline.