Messages

[Do you have what it takes to save the Gnrblexian mind-maggot from total extinction?]

Do you have what it takes to save the Gnrblexian mind-maggot from total extinction?

Game is now released! Check out the new forum thread at: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=57359.0

TRAILER IS NOW UP, CHECK THE STORE PAGE! GRNBLEX is finally up on steam, with a release date planned for 26th of July 2019! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1060560/GNRBLEX/

This is the question you will be tasked with answering in GNRBLEX!

The game was originally developed and released for the MAGS competition back in July, and due to it getting such a warm welcome I have decided to retool the game to give it some new bells and whistles.

New features being developed:

> Improved visual quality: enhanced backgrounds, new animations, improved GUI elements [COMPLETED]
> An actual options menu: sound sliders, improved save/load functionality [COMPLETED]
> A full new soundtrack [90%]
> New sound effects and general sound quality improvement [COMPLETED]
> New puzzles: some puzzles had to be cut out due to the MAGS time constraint, but these are being re-added to the game [COMPLETED]
> Improved intro visuals [COMPLETED]
> New outro cinematics [COMPLETED]
> Full voice acting [COMPLETED]


(Below: comparisons between the old and new background visuals)

[unpaid]

Greetings!

In July I released GNRBLEX for the monthly AGS competition. The game was well received and I felt it deserved a bit of polish to improve its quality. Now I am looking for some assistance with the project.

All work is unpaid as the game will remain freeware even after its re-release.

As the game is undergoing some changes, voice acting and translation work cannot begin as of yet. I would expect these to be ready to begin work some time in October.
I am hoping to finish the re-release by end of 2016.

Below are the tasks I will need assistance with:

Text translations(unpaid)
- If you are interested in providing a translation from english to some other language, please let me know.

Testing(unpaid)
- If you are interested in testing the game, and especially if you have a good eye for grammar and typos, please let me know.


Contact me via PM or via e-mail (tomitkahkonen@gmail.com) if you are interested.

- Tomi "WHAM" Kähkönen

Shameless self-bump to note that GNRBLEX has won the MAGS competition for July 2016!

The Gnrblexian mind maggot says "Thank you".
(Or it might just be looking at your brain and thinking "that looks delicious", it's hard to tell...)



Now for some new information.

I am planning to improve Gnrblex and will seek to release a 2.0 update for it some time this year. The plan is to add a couple of puzzles I had to drop, add some additional animations and sound effects, improve other visual aspects (new intro/outro, add clutter to rooms, add lighting effects etc), add full voice acting and some text translations to different languages.

So basically I just want to make the game a little bit prettier and more polished so it'll be more palatable and accessible to a wider audience. I'll be posting a "help wanted" thread in the correct area of the forums once I have a clearer plan and a timetable laid out. Currently I'm recovering from my summer vacation and preparing to head back to work.

Yaaaay! Thank you to all who voted, and good show from all participants.
I am actually quite surprised that Awakening didn't get more votes... I was expecting this to be a lot closer, especially with Awakening being worked on by an actual team.



Anyways: I am planning to improve Gnrblex and will seek to release a 2.0 update for it some time this year. The plan is to add a couple of puzzles I had to drop, add some additional animations and sound effects, improve other visual aspects (new intro/outro, add clutter to rooms, add lighting effects etc), add full voice acting and some text translations to different languages.

So basically I just want to make the game a little bit prettier and more polished.

Still a few days left, folks! Play and vote while there is still time!

Lovely looking game, but I'm a bit stuck.

Spoiler

I've managed to remove the broken rail in the 2nd room but I can't find anything to replace it with...

[close]

What am I missing?

First hint:

Spoiler

Where would a maintenance crew keep spare parts?

[close]

Second hint:

Spoiler

In the tool cabinet are more than just tools

[close]

Third hint just in case:

Spoiler

Notice that there are differently coloured boxes in the cabinet that have different contents

[close]

I'm just special!!

I was special too. For me the game started working after I moved it from my desktop to C:\Predators Prey For Plants\
Might be something to do with the paths to the files getting too long for AGS to handle or something ever more cryptic than that? Not sure, really, but got it running now! ^^

[Awakening]

Thanks for the glowing words, Mandle! I didn't dare to look at who you voted for, but I'll keep my fingers crossed and wait for the deadline.

I'll play all the entries as well, and offer my two cents on them here. Most likely over the course of today.

EDIT: I did play 'em all, here's what I thought:


Awakening

Spoiler

Apart from some hotspot and exit indicators missing or being slightly unclear, this game was quite impressive! It could do with a bit more polish, but that can be said for pretty much all MAGS games, so I can't hold that against it.

The feeling of wandering about the ruins of a dead civilization is one of my favourite sci-fi tropes and Awakening does a damn fine job of capturing that sense of dread, the unknowable threat and the curiosity that drives one on to discover more.

Very well done, and my favourite game of this month's entrants.

[close]

Predators Prey For Plants

Spoiler

A cool little concept and technically impressive, though seeing the game sweep and re-draw the map is a bit jarring in my opinion. My guess is that the engine just can't quite handle re-drawing the screen so fast?

Sadly it's not much of a game in it's current state, so while impressive as a technical feat, it's not very engaging over longer periods of time. What I feel it lacking is the ability to create something unexpected and unique like in the "game of life", something that behaves unexpectedly and suddenly transforms the map in some way.

[close]

Vallhalla Extinction

Spoiler

BZZZZT!!!

BZZZZT!!!

BZZZZT!!!

That sound will now haunt me to my grave. As Mandle already pointed out, spamming points when you have just one or two candles left is too easy and the game seems to lack a win state (or did I just grow bored too quickly?)

The game runs smooth and the dual game modes give it some added value, but it does seem rather hastily put together and the visual styles of the characters, the candles and the background seem mismatched and clashing.

BZZZZT!!!

[close]

ANOTHER EDIT: Thought I'd write a few words of my own game as well to give some insight into it's creation:

GNRBLEX

Spoiler

A total of 13 days of development time, from start to finish. I have to say I surprised myself with how many corners I could cut and still make a fun little game. One of the biggest saves in time was cutting out the walking animations from the game by having Terry and the parasite float above the floor, having Host 217 strapped to his chair and having the rest of the characters as mostly static images that appear in and out of the game as needed. It usually takes me a whole day or two just to draw one set of walkcycles!

I do have to give a big thank you to my testers, too. With two endings and a bunch of moving parts the game got really work-intensive to test really quickly, but thanks to the help I was able to squash most of the game's bugs early on, though I found at least one obscure little bug on the night of the deadline, that made the elevator puzzle a bit too easy to solve.

The greatest praise I've gotten came from Mandle: "This game feels more like it was developed over a year instead of a month!"
Cheers! ^^

[close]

Admire the feral, menacing beauty of my new wallpaper.

Spoiler

[close]

Spoiler

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

[close]

EDIT: Released yet another patch, see readme.txt for details

Yaay! Someone remembered! Thanks Cat! ^^

Huh, interesting to see an adult-oriented AGS game. I toyed around with an idea for one such game before and still consider going back to it periodically, though my project stalls in the fact that I'd need to hire an actual artist for it, driving up development costs and complicating things.

The art style is not quite up my alley, but I'll drop six bucks on it just to support the concept alone.

As for the other conversation: while I agree that the AGS forums aren't a place to showcase adult material outright (as I see it, the game page in it's current iteration is fine), there is no doubt that demand for this stuff exists. Hell, even Steam has begun publishing porn games as "all ages" versions, most of which can be easily switched back to their full versions with minor changes to an .ini -file. And as others mentioned, the issue seems to be that the Japanese offering dominates the market, so western -developed content gets easily overshadowed and ignored despite the clear demand (case and point, a guy making flash-based pornographic text-adventures is making 23,249 US dollars a month on Patreon!).

Congratulations on your first release and I hope you do well!

(Heck! This reminded me of Kinky Island. Wonder how that thing is doing...)

TROPHIES!

1st place


2nd place


3rd place


And the "nice try" award for all who participated, better luck to you all next time!

Released a small patch to fix audio issues today.
Also wanted to declare that the game has now reached 100 downloads!

Feels good, man!

A small bug :

Spoiler

Sometimes, the music doesn't play when I push the button. It soothe the Gnrblex nonetheless.

[close]

> Noted. I already know a fix to this and will likely release a fix on the 31st just to polish the game a little bit more before final deadline.

Sidenote :

Spoiler

Contrary to what is written in the info, Mary seems to be the only one to react negatively to an extended exposure to Polka

[close]

I am impressed you actually TRIED this!

Thanks for the ideas! Tomorrow I head out to museum island.

There are currently just 2 different endings, though you have given inspiration for a potential third one.

Please someone else declare the winner. I cant post properly on mu phone. Ill add trophies here when i get back home again.

Sorry, kumpel, but you can only transport one specimen from storage to breeding. At least in this version of the game.

Great to hear you liked the game! And I believe that bug is fixed now, though I didnt have time to go through all the code.

My summer vacation has arrived and I am traveling to BERLIN on thursday and will be spending more than a week there!

I'm sure there has to be an AGSer or two from Berlin or at least Germany, so people: recommend stuff for me to see! Where should I go? What should I do? Where are the best schnitzels? Are there any good war museums in Berlin? Is the Zoo worth a visit? Tell me!

I'll be staying near the main railway station for the first couple of nights and might move around Berlin after that.

Heck, if you ARE in Berlin and want to meet up a fellow AGSer at some point, send a message my way!

-WHAM