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Alternatively, depending on what you wish to achieve, you may make some screen-sized objects that you turn visible or invisible, creating the illusion of changing rooms. (I did that in Prep Time, where the entire game takes place inside a dialog.)

When choosing the AGS awards after the nomination time has expired, we're met by a page that gives the impression that the awards are finished already.

After finishing it, I'd say that the last "unfair" puzzle

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getting below 120 lbs

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is almost fair, given the context.  And the maze got even more evil after reading what you did with it.

I came up with an alternate solution I liked, but which (fortunately) didn't work. I guess it would have been too evil.

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After entering the trap room with the hat only, I threw it away, then went to a corner and left the game on while leaving the computer. After a long time had passed, I thought maybe the motion sensors in the room would determine I was dead and open the gate again.

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Thanks for the detailed hints. I solved it right after I posted my former post, but then I could not connect to the site and edit my message. I'm sure people will need the hints, though! I solved it by luck, trying something I thought I had done already.

More cool characters? More cool characters!

The Phantom Fellows stars Oliver and Englebert. The game author suggests Oliver, and I'd suggest Englebert, but the truth is that the fun is largely made by the contrasts between them. Oh, and Englebert is a ghost.

Professor Patrick Moore, hero of An English Haunting, goes through quite a development as he traverses his quest. Or should I say quests?

Jean Pierre de Saint-Cove is The Black Hawk in the game with the same name. He's a bit full of himself, but he's even more admired by the townfolks. Shenanigans arise.

Another one bearing the name of the game, is Melon Head. He's also a cool character that's given the opportunity to make choices that determines the ending of the game. I'm also fond of Poo Boy and the Station Master from this game. They are exaggerated characters, both stricken by love.

Do you have any favourite characters from 2024? Please post here.

Progressive hints

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Left click on the door to your room. The message you get should give you a bigger hint.

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Erm...

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The door to the right gives no message. Is that the door to my room? The door to the left tells me I won't leave the house without the hat if I can help it.

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The second clue I already knew.

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That's why I am asking about the hat.

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The third clue is helpful, as it rules out trying more in that direction.

Can you answer my questions in the first post, or will that be giving it away?
Is there some tiny hotspot hidden in the maze?

The nominations are closing soon, so the time to give the good music some love is now.

Melon Head has a sort of jazz soundtrack, but also very alien sound effects. A prime example early in the game is the background sound in the throne room. I felt very uneasy, as one should in the same room as His Majesty.

Another game with very nice sound design, this time with realistic ambience, is An English Haunting.

Other games with soundtracks that I liked: Stormwater, The Legend of Skye, The Adventures of the Black Hawk, Falco - Lightning Strike in Town Festival and It Takes Two to Tangle. I'm not of a musician to adequately tell you why, but it has to do with creating or enhancing an atmosphere in the game, drawing me in.

Sorry for anyone I forgot now!

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@Kara Jo Kalinowski @pell

Damn, that was difficult. I guess I need a hint or two.

I'm in the trap room.

This is what I have tried:

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I have used the poker in a hole, read the plaque, dusted the platform with my hand and found out that if I weigh less than 120 lbs, the trap won't spring. I know what I and my items weigh. I haven't found a way to leave the first room without the hat, or to get rid of it before stepping on the platform. I have found a way to get rid of it inside the trap room, though. So in theory, the trap should disappear if I can fool the sensors to think I'm dead. I've tried standing still and not doing anything, which doesn't seem to work.

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Questions. If possible, give hints instead of full solution to the problem.

Is there a way to leave the first room without the hat? (I think not.)

Is there a way to lose the hat before entering the trap room? (I think not.)

Is the solution to

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somehow alert my mother by doing something in the first room, so that she may come to my aid?

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I've tried both the first draft version (which was really just intro and ending) and the finished MAGS entry, which I've not managed to complete yet.

First of all, yes, you have managed to meet the requirements for the MAGS contest this month. That really means we'll have to look at all the entries as sort of tongue-in-cheek in-jokes.

Rules broken:
* giant maze
* puzzle that can't be solved the first time
* only one save game slot
* possible/probable to end up walking dead
*

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ability to interact with exit

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* And probably more, as I haven't figured out the last (?) puzzle.

I enjoyed the intro room, with lots of possible interactions, and it also sets up the stage for later. The maze...I don't like mazes. I've mapped so many of them through the years I can't tell. I think it's boring. This one came with a twist, which you have to understand to map it, and it's well executed, but simply not my thing. Luckily, I didn't have to, because WHAM! made a Youtube video, allowing me to cheat piggyback using his map. @WHAM! @WHAM! - thanks!

The final room have me stuck. I guess I'll open up a help thread about it. It's brilliantly mocking in this setting, where only one save game is allowed, and the player need to restart to try different approaches, trekking through the maze again and again. Annoying? Yes, certainly. But that's kind of the point, too.

So...is this a good game? No. Is it a good entry in this competition? Yes. I guess that someone playing this without knowing the context, will be quite frustrated. Less so for us that are in on the joke.

EDIT: I forgot one thing. The maze in WHAM!'s video and mine is identical, but are shown from different angles. Do we have different editions, or is there some random stuff in the setup stage, just to f with our minds even more? It looks like my game is turned 90 degrees compared to his youtube video.

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I see you're talking about puzzle games from 2024. Let me recommend my game, The Legend of Skye! 

It's a classic point and click adventure focused on puzzles, I think it has some very interesting ones. A few days ago it was nominated for Best Puzzles at the AGOTY Awards!

Actually, you are right. As reported in the game's own thread, The Legend of Skye indeed is puzzle-heavy. Some of the puzzles have lots of steps, just as I like them. So far, I think my favourite is the puzzle about smuggling a chocolate bun out of the bakery.

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Though I would have loved it if one of my failed attempts had worked: drugging the chef and knocking him into the trapdoor with the chandelier.

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Puzzles now go under "best gameplay", btw, in case you wondered where to nominate the best of the year.

Many of you probably like The Crimson Diamond. I will argue that a kind of puzzle in this type of parser game, is noticing which words are possible avenues for interrogation. That's not easy to implement using point and click interfaces, so I like that there is something that makes the typing worthwhile.

Falco - Lightning Strike in Town Festival is an investigation game told solidly tongue-in-cheek. Even so, Falco has to gather info from conversations in order to satisfy the NPCs. I liked those mini-quizzes, and also that the game is built in a manner where you may spot the obvious solution, but that leads to having to do two other things, but in order to do that, you first need to figure out something else...it leads to a sort of cascade of solutions in the end, and I liked that effect.

WHAM's MAGS entry A Place of Significance holds a shrewd puzzle: Is it possible to get the girl? The problem is

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"I have tried everything!"

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Yeah, that really is a spoiler.

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Melon Head by MIGGO also has fun puzzles. The world is so alien that you start asking yourself questions like

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"What can I ppossibly use the Giant Tongue for?"

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I think my favourite puzzle chain is the one involving the letters. Not going to say anything more here. 

The Phantom Fellows also deserves a mention. By and large, the clue to progress in this and similar games, is to revisit the same location and try to do something as both characters. The ghost can do stuff that the living person can't and vice versa. In a way, it's like having a whole new set of verbs, because they may work differently if done right. And it's done right here.

Also, when you click on roger with the look on the BASS interface, he says he's looking good in a box about middle of screen.  I couldn't find a gui for that.  How would I move it?

If you go to the character screen and examine what actions are linked to cRoger, the "look" or right mouse click should jump to the corresponding place in script. It will be a display box, so you can manipulate it with parameters that has to do with the command "Display". (Check the manual for this.)

I'm not sure what you mean here?  A hard refresh should only be required if there are JavaScript changes, which only happens when I fix a bug.  Day to day, it shouldn't ever be necessary.

Thanks, sorry to show my skillessness. 

Okay, I think I've fixed the issue.  Please hard refresh and try again.  Fingers crossed it'll work!

I also had to do the hard refresh to edit a game as database admin (I removed a MAGS tag). If this is the permanent solution, perhaps we need an info box about it close to the save button?

 
By "hard to find" I meant I may not find it in the first shop I look for it. Luckily, I won't have to order it from anywhere.

I just posted some links to games in the AGS database as an answer to Kara Jo on discord. The thumbnail says "Game Not Found", although clicking on those very words brings me to the game page. I also discovered that the other window I had open, despite being on the game page in the database, when hovering, said "Game Not Found and 3 more pages". This seems to be the case no matter which game page I am on, so I guess the database send out the error message despite there being no error. (I am using Windows 11.)

Try looking for the one called "Dental tape" instead of "Dental floss". It's a bit hard to find where I live, but it's the one my teeth don't tear apart.

On the subject of difficulty- I did not make things harder! However with that said, perhaps because the gameplay style is unusual, I actually get quite a bit of varied feedback in testing from testers saying 'way too hard' to 'way too easy', even on the same exact build, so I'm often just trying to find a kind of middle ground! Also, and you may have tried this, but there is an 'Assist Mode' when you start a new game, or in the menu during a game (TAB> Options> Gameplay). That assist option plainly lowers the amount of damage taken, among a few other details.

Ouch! Then I have gotten even older and slower... I think I played "normal mode" with the demo a year back, so this time I clicked the white circle that will "give me a fighting chance". (This is assist mode, right?) Anyway, my problem mainly is running out of ammo. (I believe there may have been a bug back  in the demo where ammo respawned somewhere.

I think the main problem is that I'm not very good at this type of game, not that there's anything wrong with the design on your end. Different difficulty levels probably is the answer to much.

@Falsely - The download on itch gives "invalid game" error message.

[Rebel Planet]

Oh, I couldn't resist it...I've played through the game and found the three endings. I haven't changed my mind about the game since the last post. However, I'll add some praise for the brilliant music and sound design. I think it compliments the weirdness of the graphics. It just fits. Also kudos for including an autocomplete for a code after the player has discovered how to do it. There are loads of such seemingly small design choices that makes the game easier to play. Not in difficulty, but in how user friendly it is.

As almost always, the places I got stuck was in hindsight trivial.

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I missed the exit to the alley for a while. And I ran around town with the contents of a package instead of mailing it straight away.

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Oddly enough, the game this one reminded me of immediately, was Rebel Planet from Adventuresoft from 1985. It's got to be something about the graphics, as the story and gameplay are vastly different.

With the new site, I uploaded a game yesterday, and I wanted to link to my google drive in the downloads, and it works from my PC where I am logged in, but both from my phone and from the person's computer that was helping me, the download link doesn't work (I think it's expecting a direct link to the zip and thus the redirect isn't working?). I also want to edit my submission, but clicking save isn't saving my edits.

I could download this using your link (the one on the game page), it just took a long while before responding. It looks like it's the same version that Pell uploaded on his itch page (in the MAGS thread)? At least the file sizes are the same.