Messages

Heads up. I'm likely to be quite busy on the 1st and 2nd of February, so I guess you can consider this a two-day extension (whether you need it or not).

Unfortunately I haven't been able to make enough time to play enough games to nominate. Sorry for being rubbish.
I'm hoping I'll be able to tick off most of the games on the shortlist and vote properly.

Wow. That’s a nice puzzle. Simple but tricky. And hard to get ‘Morse’ out of your mind. It’s super amazing that Morse was possible in that way seeing as it’s the name of another type of code.

very nice stuff.

[Don't forget to vote. There isn't much time left!]

And that concludes this little series of interviews, unless Nuggetseb and Reiter come out of hiding. Thanks to all those who answered the questions. And to everyone who has read the Q&As. I hope you've enjoyed them. Feel free to discuss the interviews.

Don't forget to vote. There isn't much time left! Best to do it now before the AGS Award voting officially starts.
And please do the devs a favour and rate/comment on each game's page, if you are able.

[Alan v. Drake]

In likely our last interview, we have Alan v. Drake for his debut MAGS entry, A Christmas Nightmare

What was your role in the development of the game?
Pretty much everything, except music and the arcade sequence that will come out when the last part is released.

Can you tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea?
It was December, I had nothing to do and I thought it was past due time I attempted a MAGS, since I never had. So I spent two and a half days thinking about the story which pretty much wrote itself. I liked the idea, so I started working on it.

What are you most proud of about the game?
I'm glad I managed to stay close to what I had imagined, even though I had to cut several corners here and there.

What challenges did you face during the development?
Animating, my greatest weakness. And time constraints. It usually takes me forever to do anything, it must have been the magic of Christmas that gave me a boost. I also underestimated how long it would take to get all the puzzle rooms working properly.

If you'd had more time, what else would you have liked to have included in the game?
The final part, which is the best part, and some mechanics and polishing I had to postpone to make it in time.

Any final words?
I'm working on the last animations and dialogues, so I can show you what Crimson and my musician friend had prepared for this little game. I got slowed down by work stuff but it won't be much longer.


Thanks, Alan. We look forward to the final version of this game. I hope you decide to enter more often.

Click here to vote

[Fernewelten]

Up next, another one from Fernewelten for his game Jake's very last Journey.

What was your role in the development of the game?
All of them this was a one person project.

Can you tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea?
The theme of that month was "Cloud", and one of the first associations I came up with was a famous chorus by the German singer Reinhard Mey: "When you're on top of the clouds, your freedom must probably be without bounds. They say that the clouds will keep all your anxieties, all your troubles covered up, and all the issues that you had thought to be so big and important will become void and petty ..." So I imagined someone to literally stand on top of clouds, in a sort of dream world. To justify them standing there, I got the idea of them having died and making their way to the pearly gates of heaven.

What are you most proud of about the game?
The background music does part of the work of voice acting (which my game lacks): Each NPC has a leitmotiv, and when the protagonist talks to them, the music changes to that. So the music characterizes the moods of the protagonist and the nature of the NPCs they interact with, it doesn't primarily characterize the room.

What challenges did you face during the development?
The examiner ghost turned out to be much harder than it looked. The frontal scene of Jake driving turned out to be a big hassle; I had to prepare and export three sprites for each house whizzing by. Simply zooming didn't cut it, so I ended up rearranging the houses and realigning the perspective distortion for each shot.

If you'd had more time, what else would you have liked to have included in the game?
More puzzles, more rooms. At the moment, there is just one room between the place where Jake's journey starts and the place with the pearly gates.

I'm indeed considering to extend this game significantly, sending Jake through several wild and wonderful locations that are populated by strange, cloudy beasts. Stay tuned for updates!

Any final words?
A big thanks to you for having kept MAGS running for such a long time, month by month by month! The AGS ecosystem would be a far cry from what it is now if there weren't so many dedicated volunteers, quietly working behind the scenes to keep everything up. Also, a big shoutout to the administrators of the AGS GIT project.


Thanks for your kind words, Fernewelten. And Keep the games coming :-)

Click here to vote

[Slasher]

Next up. A short one with MAGS regular and saviour, Slasher for his work on Desmond: The 'Thing' from Another World.

What was your role in the development of the game?
I did every role in the game development.

Can you tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea?
Well, I thought about doing a parody of a horror film, then I thought I would make it with kids..

What are you most proud of about the game?
My proudest moment would be winning that month's MAGS.

What challenges did you face during the development?
The main challenges were incorporating the singing and the dance moves.

If you'd had more time, what else would you have liked to have included in the game?
Given more time I could have added an extra puzzle.

Any final words?
I specifically wanted to make this a kids horror game.

Thanks for your answers, Slasher. And thanks for all your many entries over the past couple of years, even while working on a bigger project.

Click here to vote

Looking great. I love those mission menu screens.

It works. Thanks, AGA :-)

I've set birthdays to only be listed on the forums index.

Ahh cool, thanks.

Now we have to fill all that blank space with juicy content.

[edit] I tried posting a couple of events but I got the following messsge: “ Database Error. Please try again. If you come back to this error screen, report the error to an administrator.“

The movie "Crawl" REALLY ground my gears.

Especially because it has an 83% critics rating and 75% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes...

Here is what I wrote on their audience critic section (SPOILERS)
It

Spoiler

Now, I realize movies aren't supposed to be 100% realistic, but when I see someone chomped on by gators, on arms and legs, shoulder and torso, like 5 times but they can still swim and move at full speed, without any broken bones, nerve damage, torn muscles, or just body parts freezing up from the shock of the injuries, I just have to assume that their skeleton is made of adamantium and their wounds heal about as fast as Wolverine's do too.
At this point I know they are going to be just fine no matter what happens to them and all suspense is lost.
Which is a shame, because I really cared about the two characters at first, but once I realized they were indestructible, that all went out the window.
Movie, less is more.

[close]

Spoiler

Holy crap! Was that guy Jason Voorhees?
I don't expect a movie to be realistic, but there are limits, especially when it comes down to what the main characters can survive. 
(Unless it's done for comical effect of course.)

[close]

Yeah. Sometimes they really test the limits of suspension of disbelief.

I mean I love The X-Files more than anyone I know... but one thing ground my gears...

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/DuLVzKSxj_Q
https://youtu.be/cfapO4nluNw

[close]

Suggestion:

I was thinking we should try to make more use of the calendar for things like competition deadlines as well as other important AGS and wider adventure-related dates (Mittens, AdvX and other conferences and meetups, upcoming game release dates, etc.).

That said, there are a lot of birthday names on the calendar which would probably make it difficult to see anything else on there anyway. With that in mind, would it be possible to add a button to the calendar page to toggle the birthdays on and off (to make anything else people might add to it more visible)?

Piggybacking off of Tzachs.

Spoiler

Not sure about TA but I found the existence of a JOlt Cola

Could the answer simply be "colas"?

[close]

So, Trump has officially been impeached

Gotta learn how stuff works if you don't want to keep losing elections. I hear Iowa is nice this time of year. 

In case anyone checks the MAGS threads but doesn't check the Adventure Related Talk and Chat, you may not know that we're in the middle of voting for MAGGIES (The best MAGS game of last year).

If you have no idea what I'm going on about, check this thread for details:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=57718.0

[cat, Marcin K and CaptainD]

Our next interview is with cat, Marcin K and CaptainD for their educational game, Mr Bear Teaches English.

What was your role in the development of the game?
cat: I came up with the idea and coded it.
Marcin K: My role was mainly providing and artwork yet during my discussions with cat I had some small input like creating lead character (Bear the Magician).
Captain D: I voiced "Mr Bear".

Can you tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea?
C: I wanted to make a simple English learning app for my daughter. The MAGS topic "Hats" then set the theme. In the forum introduction thread I found a post by Marcin who offered help with graphics and I asked him if he wanted to join. He also came up with the mascot and the title.
M: The theme was "hat" so the "magician" was the first thing that come to my mind as the most versatile solution for a game of that type.
CD: I can't - it wasn't my idea!!

What are you most proud of about the game?
C: That my kid loves to play it and she already knows all the words.
M: I'm proud of the bear character. His articulation is very limited in this game but I think he's nice.
CD: Though it's not my game in any way, having only voiced the character, I've long been an advocate of how well computer games can be used in education, so it was a real pleasure to work on this.

What challenges did you face during the development?
C: It was hard to find a voice actor, but luckily CaptainD kindly offered his help.
M: The challenge was deadline (even shorter then official) so I could only "recycle" artworks from my archive.
CD: While I clearly sound nothing like a bear (!), it also didn't help that we had a break-in which, while not resulting in much material loss, did include the theft of my Snowball mic!  So I had to record on my phone which wasn't great quality.

If you'd had more time, what else would you have liked to have included in the game?
C: Maybe one more category? The quiz was also not part of the original MAGS entry and only added later on.
M: If I or rather we all had more time, we would include more words, some quiz and, in my case, more animations and "bells and whistles". Yet still I think we did a decent job.
CD: Cat has already released an updated version which is great.  For myself I would have liked to have access to a decent mic and possibly spent extra time getting the voicing itself and sound quality much better since I was really pushed for time when the game was being made.

Any final words?
C: It was a pleasure to work with Marcin and Dave. And I'd love to hear if other kids like the game as well.
M: As someone who works with kids and for kids I'm happy I was invited to this project at my very first days on this forum. I'm very busy and learning AGS is going slowly so before I'll manage to make my own game it was great experience.
CD: In terms of gamedev 2019 was a really tough year for me, for various reasons I struggled for time and even when I did have time my motivation or inspiration was sorely lacking.  Being able to lend a hand on a MAGS games has helped me not feel completely out of the loop.

Thanks, team, for taking the time to answer the questions. Let's hope to see more educational MAGS games in 2020.

Click here to vote

I don't listen to a lot of Japanese stuff. Just a few bands or artists that I trust. One such group is Ogre You Asshole. I fell in love with them when I saw them support Polysics in 2007.

Here's something of theirs I listened to recently:

Not a guess but a theory about how to approach it.

Spoiler

I’m not sure if it’s possible (in English at least) to have a word that starts with ‘RC’. So with that in mind, plus the fact they’re presented in upper case, I’m guessing we’re talking about incomplete acronyms.

[close]

I was rather hoping these interviews would get people talking about the games and eventually lead to people voting. Neither of those is really happening.

Remember that just because there isn’t an official deadline yet doesn’t mean that time isn’t running out. So please vote sooner rather than later.