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Just a heads up. I updated the not-working link for The Marionette and replaced it with a link to the AGS depository on archive.org. So far, so good.

However, saving a new link does not resolve the reported error. I went in to edit the game again, and was now told that the new link (that I had just entered) was the one being reported. I could checkmark it and mark it as resolved. This behaviour is somewhat misleading.

TL;DR
If you fix a download error, you have to edit again to remove the error report afterwards.

Hello! i'm new in this group...Apologize me for my poor english ....I'm using for the first time Ags...on my windows pc .It's very great amiga emulator...but i have a problem..i don't know how create savestates of the vary games...and how restore them....Can you help me?

This is the AGS site for Adventure Game Studio. Are you possibly looking for the Amiga Game Selector, which also is called AGS? Then try https://www.amigagameselector.co.uk/ or their Facebook page.

Short wish/question: Do the authors of games marked in the Game Entry Reports thread get an alert?

[Store]

The new Game Entry Reports thread will be useful. But...

I checked one of these games randomly (with database admin rights): Reality-on-the-Norm: Davy Jones C'est Mort. As suspected, the report about the download not working was false. (The case of having to override Windows Security by choosing "Download anyway".) I was able to checkmark away the reported error, and I think that went away. However, when trying to save this, the page jumps to the download link and wants me to change it from http to https. I can sort of understand this automated behaviour, and it is probably some of the cause for the game being flagged anyway, but in a database such as ours, that's not going to fly. Many older games still have working http links.

In this case, I believe I have managed to make the checkmarks go away, but I could not remove the two erroneously listed downloads marked Store and Demo (which probably are there due to a bug on the old website).

Well, there's music included in the Maniac Mansion Mania starter pack. I don't know if that's the one you want, though.

Searching the database with tags doesn't work properly. It looks like it returns only games tagged "Fantasy", for instance, for the current year.

That's because tags are a brand new feature, and user generated.  So only games where someone's added a tag will have them...

@cat
I guess that means that we also should encourage creators to add these tags when they update their games. This will likely be confusing, as many games are already marked as "fantasy" or "horror" or something from earlier. (It confused me, at least.)

Searching the database with tags doesn't work properly. It looks like it returns only games tagged "Fantasy", for instance, for the current year.

Hello, I was looking for the game Vengeance of the Chicken, but I only found one version, impossible to play, because it appears in a very small window. I don't know how to put it in a full window, let's see. If anyone can help, thank you.

I downloaded the game from here: Vengeance of the Chicken

Does ALT+ENTER work? This toggles full screen and window, although I'm not certain it works on the older versions of AGS. @gabriel19681_1

Regarding the sentinel puzzle that you struggled with,

Spoiler

Spoiler

I must say that the game gives some clues. Bard tells you repeatedly in a conversation that he is afraid that a guard will come into his tent and catch him with the mushrooms.

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Thanks for your post and I'm glad you liked it.

Oh, I liked it. Regard this as (hopefully) constructive feedback. The sentinel puzzle:

Spoiler

I did pick up on the clues - I did try to alert the sentinels. What I didn't do, was to connect the helmet shape with the sentinels - I was sure I was going to need full armor against the witch, so I put it aside as something I didn't need yet. I'm much better with textual clues than visual ones.

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One thing that I was sure was going to happen, but didn't:

Spoiler

There was no puzzle where I had to find replacements for missing bits of all the garden gnomes.

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It is also true that it lacks more specific answers to the actions that Skye does with inventory objects, instead of generic ones appearing. The game really has many specific answers, but being so big, with so many inventory objects and so many possible combinations, many of them were not taken into account.

What happens, is that when a game is inspired by a well known game (MI in this case), the player will draw comparisons, and it's hard for an indie dev to live up to the legacy of a whole team making a smash hit. It's not exactly fair, but there it is.

I'm on board for the next game.

I've now finished the game. I spent far more time on the city part than the later parts. While there were times I walked around and didn't know what I was supposed to do next, later on I felt this was more streamlined.

My end verdict is still that I liked the game, and I also like the character Skye better now. I liked that in act two,

Spoiler

the characters and locations changed a bit, like the naked druid started selling energy drinks, and people appearing on top of the summit.

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And I liked that some areas were closed off as finished/unavailable, as it saved me from needless walking (and the dev from needless coding).

A bit about signposting, in spoiler tags:

Spoiler

I read the other spoilers in this thread now, and I see that you only recently added the description in the enchanted forest. For me, I think this would have been almost impossible without that comment. With it, it wasn't hard. But the moss is so hard to spot in some of the pics that I doubt I would have picked up on it without the description hint.

The longest I walked around cluelessly, was when I needed to dress up like a sentinel. I thought I would need the bucket as a helmet to battle the witch, and so I tried a lot of other actions to get the witchslayer sword, including trying to alert the sentinels, trying to switch it when the shopkeeper was in the safe, pushing him into the safe, sabotaging his comic book and so on. At this time I also tried to solve the puzzles I couldn't do yet, like getting the card from the baker and more. While the city offers a pretty open world, the story needs to be quite linear.

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In the later acts, I thought the signposting worked pretty well, and I always knew what my end goals were.

I often found myself solving a puzzle before I was supposed to, though. Like with the witch,

Spoiler

I had found her grimoire long before she had told me to look for it,

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or with the gnome

Spoiler

who wanted a gem or crystals, when I already had tried to use that crystal everywhere else in the game. That one was due to a pixel hunt - I missed a hidden hotspot on the mountainside.

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This also made a small continuity error,

Spoiler

because Skye knew that the beast only ate toads while in the front end of the cave (trying to feed him meat), before she learned it from the gnome on the top of the mountain.

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Such details pop up from time to time, and of course it's not gamebreaking in any way, but it is noticable. If I give a bogus name, I will assume that the character will address me like that for the rest of the game, unless I tell him my true name. (The druid with the hat does this exactly right!)

One possible improvement would be to try to give responses to more solutions that players are likely to try. Why does one item work and another not? When trying to get the chocolate bun,

Spoiler

I actually went straight for the fishing rod, but in real life, if that didn't work, I'd build something that would block and stop the bun from sailing on. If I was worried about sharp rocks, I'd try to move them.

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I know this is hard to do, but as a player, it is very rewarding when I'm told why my idea didn't work.

While I enjoyed the game, I think the criticism about signposting is fair. I would rather be stuck on a hard puzzle than walking around a large map and not being sure what to do next. And I am a puzzle lover, so I had no problem with the odd logic in some puzzles. I mean, I wrote about a magnetic rat in a puzzle creation contest, so I feel at home with some of the gag puzzles in a way that perhaps not all do. Monkey Island had a couple of signpost misses, too, so don't feel bad about it.

Anyone else have thoughts about hints or hint systems and how to nudge struggling players without making it too easy for the pros? Do you have a favorite game that did this well?

I liked the phone ringing with various hints in Strangeland. You could just not pick it up, but on the other hand, it was just as logical or illogical as the other things in the dream logic of the game.

In M*A*S*H: The Adventure Game I suggested for Viktor that he made Hawkeye a sort of hint central in the game, someone you could ask for help with all your other problems. I think he did a marvellous, in-character job of it that fit the game very well.

In BYO-Hero, there is a hint system that runs on time - if you have been stuck for a while, more and more light bulbs light up, allowing you a hint after trying for yourself for a time first.

Challenge of the Tentacle has a hint system, but will withdraw points from your score if you use it. This is also a nice balance between providing the help if necessary, but urging the player on to try alone first.

All of these work fine. I think my favourite way is to have an in-game character (or more of them) provide clues, as that doesn't break immersion.

There's an All Alerts button in the alerts popout that links to https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=profile;area=showalerts.

Damn! It's one of those buttons that are invisible until someone points it out to you!

[Go backwards!]

I have designed far more puzzles than I've been making actual games, I'm afraid... Very often, I would think like Danvzare describes and pretty much follow the same method. But not always.

Go backwards!
Sometimes I know where I am supposed to end up. Then I can make the story about which hurdles the player needed to pass before getting there. Trade it Forward was written pretty much this way. If successful, this may make a natural "flow" of doing something to get something that is needed in the next puzzle and so on.

This is what you have to work with!
Some action movies have been scripted like this...we have this location and these vehicles - what can we do with these toys? MAGS invites this way of thinking, and the Puzzle-Making Practice Competition, as well. Then it's about how to include everything in the description and try to see a jigsaw of a story that includes all those pieces. Use it All (Or Forget Your Ball) is a result of such an exercise. This method is fun, but the puzzles may end up being difficult or far-fetched. Like Danvzare said, signposting will be needed. (Or, like in the case of Halloween with an Unexpected Guest, I didn't think of puzzles when I posed my kids' toys in Halloween positions, and as a result, the game has next to none of them.)

What can go wrong?
This method is fairly common when writing stories. Let's say our character, Petunia, is going to take the bus to town. Now, what can go wrong? She could miss the bus. She could get on the wrong bus. She could have mixed up the time table and the bus doesn't come. She could get on the bus, but have no money, or have forgotten her bus card. And so on. All these situations come with their own set of problems, and in turn, solutions. Pick the one that sounds most fun, and off you go.

I have played this game before.
Remember when you had that great idea in a game, but it wasn't the correct solution? You weren't supposed to redirect the river to get water for the town's fountain, but had to perform the traditional rain dance instead? Well, how about when you write your game, you can redirect the river?

Yap it up.
Oh, the best way. Chat with your friends and put obstacles in the way for each other, and try to come up with solutions to the obstacles your friend proposed. If you have a half-assed puzzle that doesn't quite work, your friend may have just the right idea to make it tick.

Voted!

I haven't finished all the games, but if I change my mind after doing so, luckily, I can change my votes.

It was a lot easier to decide here, when some of my odd favourites weren't elegible. The nominations do give an impression about which type of games have the best chances of reaching an audience.

When editing in the Game Database (I was removing misplaced MAGS tags), it seems like every game is missing info in some fields. Has the data not been carried over to the new pages, or are these perhaps new tags? I feel like I've been asked to fill the box named "role" (Creator, Programming, Graphics, etc.) and/or the boxes for language for every game.

Voted! From my end, it worked like a charm. Hard decision, though.

Spoiler

(Pancakes or stew?)

[close]

Please don't post the entire question hidden in spoiler tags. There is no way for others playing the game to know if you are asking the same question they have.

Congratulations to the nominees! I see that five or six games are dominant through multiple categories. It will be interesting to see if the awards will be shared among these or if one runs off with a cartload. 

While I've nominated most of the ones that made it through to the final voting round, I've also given votes to some others. So to honour some more creators and games, here's a list of games I voted for (in one or more categories) that didn't make it to the finals.

Spoiler

Brownie's Adventure
Day of the Hamster
In Our Midst
Use it All (Which may not be a counting vote)
Brian Eggs is Lost in the Woods
Dread McFarlane v2
Kidname: ICEBOY
The Last One
Melon Head
The Stew of Las Moras
A Doll in a Dream
Stormwater - the Complete Edition
The Green & Red
Breakfast Requiem
My Siblings, The Stones
2080 Wall City Lockdown

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So...  We're a bit vote-poor at the moment. 

Ok, I vote for Sinitrena.

My idea: have a classic Sierra menu bar, but you cannot use the walk / hand / eye icons because you're missing those body parts. You need to find them before the interface fully works.

But I don't have time this month so if anyone wants to take my idea, they're welcome to.

Recollection is Onedollar's unfinished game about someone waking up from a coma. It plays along with a similar idea.

...but I think it would be easier to implement if the player character is a robot.