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Why don't you personally rate your own game by the amount of cups of coffee you drank while making it and add that to the games description.

If you lot saw how many cans of soda I drink while making each game you'd stage an intervention.

Coca cola: It may shave 3 weeks off my life with each can I drink, but it is delicious, refreshing, and bypasses the need for that stupid sleep thing.

It's got a 5 colour palette, so you know I basically made it just for you, Ghost (and Bici as well because I love him too)

That fiendish Count Can't has gone and taken the town's monument for his evil purposes! The town's mayor has assigned !, Robot to the case - lend him your mind and your heart as you use your left mouse button to solve riddles and get the bad guy!

This short and silly game was made possible with the help of the following people:

Sebastian Pfaller, musician, advisor, tester and all around source of additional creativity.

Chris Jones, creator of the AGS engine - the solid and wonderful foundation that we've desecrated with this nonsense

Sylvr, who was there when I originally came up with this concept more than half a year ago, and demanded I make a game from it.

Monkey_05_06 who taught me some cool scripting without too much nagging on my behalf.

Peder Johnsen, whose webspace I soil with the presence of my games without even giving him any money.

David Pfaller, who programmed !,Robot's voice during the rap battle.

Get the game here!

There is a song on the Deftones album Saturday Night Wrist called U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,SELECT,START.

Which makes me chuckle.

*chuckles*

I think the point Ben was making was not that nice graphics make a game better, but they are likely to persuade people to download it, more than a game with lesser graphics.

You made that point so much more elegantly there than I managed to with my post 

If someone has beautiful artwork in their game, people are going to want to download it, because the effort put into the game is in plain sight and it looks more professional as a whole.

To add to your point. Having beautiful artwork doesn't necessarily mean that the game is going to be good. I mean if you could make a game with Mozart's greatest hits playing in the background, but that doesn't always mean you will have everything else in the game of that standard. Although a game with Salvador Dalí's artwork, Mike Otfield's music and an Egar Allan Poe story then you have a game on your hands.
It's all down to judgement and personal opinion at the end of the day. If you are willing to play to find hidden gems(which are subjective to the player's needs) then it's your win, if you don't and only play games that have been given a Pimp overdose then, fair choice. Although personally I like to play with coal to find a diamond. Even if that diamond isn't perfect I still have fun at the end of the day.

Which is why I mentioned it would be a controversial point 

I just want to understand what makes games interesting to download, but I'm stumped.

Really? In my opinion, it is a mix of having good comments, a summary that draws the player in and of course a screenshot that shows a game that makes you say "I want to play that" (I know it's probably controversial to suggest that graphics are such an important factor, but having a good screenshot is very important when I look for games to play, I am sure I'm not in the minority here).

Probably the biggest factor, though, is where your game gets mentioned. Games that get attention outside of the AGS community generally get way more downloads than those that don't get mentioned outside of this circle.

One problem for me is, that its some kind of distortion of competition. Some games get a quick good panel rating and that boosts the download a lot. But other games have to wait several months. The panel review is a sole opinion that influences the advertence for a game a lot.

I thought that the user ratings and good comments are the main influence for high downloads. But since I have released a game with a really high user rating (86%) and nice comments there must be something wrong with my theory. Even games with a one-cup-rating and comments that basicly say "this game is

I honestly don't think the panel's rating doesn't affect the download count/game's "success" by as much as you are suggesting (Not to say it doesn't, and not to undermine the significance of having such a thing). Take for example A Second Face - The Eye of Geltz is Watching Us; despite it having a middling rating of 3 cups, it consistently outperforms games with higher panel ratings in terms of download count, and as you mentioned, often low rated games will get similar downloads to middling rated ones.

Again, not to suggest it isn't a factor, but I believe it's one of the smaller factors regarding download count (if we're using this as a measure of "success").

I actually was fairly impressed with the fact that I found all of the first season solvable without needing hints or such rubbish. And usually I hate adventure game puzzles.

The car painting one was pretty good 

I thought this was a rather clever episode - the dual worlds idea worked pretty well as a gameplay device and yeah, I thought the text adventure part was pretty cool and fitting. It was a nice bit of variety in the midst of the first season.

Jump into the sea, if you drown it's natural selection.

I tried your theory and all I got were these gills.

Stupid gills

I want fins.

Where do I start? 

I remember at least two scenes quite clearly, there was a bedroom with two little girls playing some game, don't know an english word for that, its when children slap their palms in some rythm;

Patty cake

Can't help with the game though 

...So, I present the five ideas I have...

... but these are five things I would like to see finish...

#5  8)

In seriousness though, #1, providing you do it well. Seeing a cool set up like that ruined by a less cool explanation would suck.

Sylvr.

Alright!

You had to pick the hardest of my games (I think) to start out with 

And the comma-count has been cut in half Thanks for the proof-reading, Ben!

Dozens of innocent commas were mercilessly slain in what is being referred to by historians as "The Proof Read". 

My pleasure, Dirk

I stuck with 2.71 for a fair while, and then for some strange reason decided to try 3.xx.

And I realized how insanely good 3.xx is compared to that old thing.

[Chicky]

Chicky: Heh, it'd be a pretty twisted scenario 

Abstauber: Haha thanks man . I do try to sharpen them up - but I guess it'll be a while before I get it right. Thanks for testing!

Revan: Thank you, and thanks for playing![/b]

Mazzymay: Thanks! Despite popular opinion, the answer to that is neither ghosts nor monkeys

The Brummie accent does get a lot of stick, but unfortunately it's not without reason... it is pretty unpleasant to the ears...

As for Geordies, I quite like the Newcastle accent in general, but why to Geordie women have to SQWARRRK like that when they talk?  It hurts!

Haha I used to work with a guy from there, and we used to mock him by calling him "MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK" all the time - imitating his horrid ex-girlfriend (naturally).

It was the most amusing thing ever. Except I think we may have destroyed his will to live after about 2 weeks of it non stop. 

Incidentally, I love the range of British accents, and do so enjoy walking around saying "off to pub with lads" and "watchin roogby leeaague, shoutin' at telly" in my terrible attempt at an impersonation.