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I gave it a go, too. Very good! The game doesn't hide its Indiana Jones references one bit.  It's fun to play - the characters bicker and have fun personalities (although you're playing on stereotypes, which I don't mind in this genre at all). The voice acting is quite good, I think. I couldn't tell it was the same person voicing different characters. Good job!

The puzzles in this demo are of the rewarding multi-step kind, which require some work and searching, but I felt progress and was very pleased when I solved it. The game looks and sounds like an adventure movie. Big kudos for the theme music and the close-up animations!

I also noticed the Spanish dialogue Rik mentioned. In addition, when playing with Spanish speech (I had to have a go just to hear it - did it with German subtitles just for the heck of it), the captain speaks English in his answer to Doc when he returns to the first chamber. It's such a short phrase, it could be intentional and no error, but I thought I'd mention it.

In conclusion, the demo is very promising and definitely makes the player yearn for the full game. 

I only played Pax Amino's game (I think it was finished first) which I highly enjoyed and didn't have time to try the other games. That's why I didn't vote.
The problem with a Christmas-themed contest in December is, that the games will be finished when Christmas is actually over. Playing Christmas games in January isn't that much fun.

I'm to blame for that, as I set the theme.  I actually discussed this a bit with Stupot before announcing the theme, and your objections here was indeed one of the arguments against. I tried to tweak it for allowing non-festive interpretations, which one of the games have done. I guess the optimal timing for getting a lot of plays would be to have a Christmas theme in November, releasing them and having the voting period in early December. That would require the winner for September to choose such a theme, though, and one doesn't always think of Christmas that far ahead. 

Perhaps when my daughters and I are finished with our game (with this pace, maybe in the Summer), I ought to wait until next December to release it... 

I also think it's nice with feedback for all the games in the manner Shadow1000 and myself have done above. That way, I'm allowed to say something positive about a game I liked even if I didn't vote for it. Plus, I find it interesting what other people have to say. They may have noticed something I've missed.  For the devs, any construcitve feedback is probably welcome.

Big congrats to OneDollar! Don't let 14 years pass before you make another festive game, now.  I'll sign the petition for the sequel:

Spoiler

The Goose on the North Pole and the quest to get home.

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Also big thanks to the other game makers. Awesome round with great games.

Retro Wolf, looking forward to see your project when you release it.

I didn't give a sample? Oh wait a second I guess I did but that was before I improved it greatly.it was just a test then.No the player doesn't have to restart every time they fail I have three buttons.If they win(Quit game/retry level/next level).If they lose(Quit game/retry).And yes I will have level saved as a checkpoint and the ability to save the game.

You know, we can gleam a lot from the tech treads.    It's a simple, yet cool idea. It seems like you have a good plan for a coffee break game of the "Dammit! One more go then!" kind.

Its coming along very slowly.My game has 20 levels yet 1 room.

I tried the sample you posted in a technical thread, and it was hard! I hope the player don't have to start over every time there's a miss. Are you planning to make the harder levels available from the start of the game when you have cleared the lower levels? (Alternatively, optional savegames, passwords, check points...) I doubt I can take 20 perfect pictures in a row unless it's a lot easier than the sample I tried.  Keep up the good work!

but tell me, is there any clue to the safe combination? I tried real hard and bruteforced it

You need to

Spoiler

Look at all the lamps on the wall and what colours the lampshades are. (I haven't tried the colour blind accomodated settings.)

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Is there a picture??   

I can see it just fine.(But don't know the game.) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJUgU-xX0AU9ssa?format=png&name=small is the pic link.

Just a quick question to make sure: I noticed that Pedro's Adventures in Spanish now also is available in English on Steam (target group people learning English, obviously) under the title Peter's Adventures in English. The AGS database only links to the Spanish version. Am I correct to assume that it's only the Spanish voice work that's eligible for the 2021 Awards? And that, if the developers create a new entry in the database, the English voices are eligible for 2022? The rest of the game is the same, so I would guess it could only compete in the Best Voice Work category. Or am I mistaken?

Looking good, Racoon! Seems like a good game to play with my kids, from the looks of it.

The Brothers Three and the Quest for the Lampshade Hats?

People are going to vote for what they enjoyed (although that term perhaps doesn't fit games with tragic stories). Someone who hates contraption or slider puzzles probably are going to vote something more inventory based as their favourite. That's okay with me. We're here because of an interest in the adventure genre, so I think a lot of AGS-ers would recognize a well designed puzzle when they see one, too. For me personally, it's other categories that give me pain. Like Best Programming...I'm clueless enough about the subject that a lot of stuff people pull off, leaves me baffled. Then the authors themselves claim to have made it with spaghetti code. This is one award I feel should be there, but which is very difficult to judge. I believe a lot of us feel that way about music, too, as the majority probably are writers and/or artists, not musicians.

Another democratic problem, sort of, is that almost noone will have played all the games released last year.  Especially the longer, commercial releases may have fewer players, I fear, although I have no numbers to back that up with.

Cue Evil Laugh (TM) BWAHAHA! It worked! 

I see the comic strip as a storyboard for a skit. If you're just doing it digitally, you can easily do your own format. The strip format made for newspapers is its own thing - but you could easily compress this joke by starting when the woman is hanging from the branch and the man reaches out for her. What comes before that serves the purpose of establishing the nagging character and would be fine in a short film or a skit. (The only reason to avoid it here is if you're trying to condense the story-telling into a traditional short strip format.)

Your friend had a good idea...the last shot of the man's reaction COULD be incorporated in the image where the woman talks if you change the view point to include him in the shot. (This is what Popeye would look like, with a thought bubble over the guy's head...) OR the last image could be replaced with a COVID ad ("Remember to always wash your hands!"). Mind you, if you were to transform the joke, you could also lose the dishes part of the last speech bubble, as the joke would work just as good with a stranger trying to rescue the now not-nagging-but-worried-about-covid-woman.

The blind date joke is a good idea. I think in a stand-up setting, the man wouldn't say the punchline to the woman, but to the audience: "I didn't know it at the time, but she would repeat those very words to me later that night, with a lot more disappointment in her voice." That would make the joke more of a self-ironical joke at the man's own expense than it already is.

Oh, it just occurred to me that we're not in the critics' lounge. Sorry if you weren't looking for detailed response.

I liked the comic strip gag and the blind date joke. 

It might help if we could agree on what a "best" character even is.

If it concerns good characterization, then wouldn't that be covered by the writing award? If it's a character we find endearing or cleverly-...well, actually that would probably fall under writing as well.

Perhaps "Best Character" could be altered to "Favorite Character", which could cover a number of aspects, without commenting specifically on "quality"? Of course, this doesn't address the debate on character originality...

Perhaps "Favorite New Character"?

I think Best Character is still the best choice, because it covers several of those bases. If we take Lady Winterbourne from If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers as an example, then yes, she's a well written character, but much of the characterization is in the graphics, the animation or the sound design. In our own Trade it Forward, I think Cassiebsg added a lot to the Pizza clerk's personality simply by making an animation that makes him rest his head in his hand whenever he thinks no customer can see him. Even the walk cycle may add to a character's style...or lack of it.

Of course, we will end up comparing apples and oranges. One thing is the player character vs the npc, which were two awards some years ago, and I assume it was changed for a reason. Another thing is the comparizon of tragic, hard-boiled or humorous characters - but that's the case in most other categories as well. I think ideally, the nominations should reflect such a diversity, but my prediction would be the opposite, with horror fans voting for horror content (no pun intended), and comedy fans for clowning around. That's okay, too. It wouldn't be a vote  if we weren't allowed to have opinions.

The category Best Puzzles would ideally (in my mind only, mind you) hold excellent puzzles of many kinds: pure logic, inventory based, world understanding or investigative/dialogue based. And probebly something else I can't think of at the moment.

Ben Jordan won in 2012. Roger Wilco was nominated, but didn't win. But the game was praised for good characterization.

My point was more in the vein that Best character should win because of what she/he/it does in the game nominated. Perhaps best characterization? I think it would be unfair if Guybrush was nominated for one of Daniele Spadoni's fan games, but win the votes because of what we remember him being like in the originals. It would have to be based on that game alone.

An Alfred game could actually be a great idea... I have Batman in one of my small games (well, Lego Batman), but I didn't want to make the Best character...because he's Batman! joke in the FYC thread, just in case enough people should find it funny to receive a nomination for laughs.

I agree that Best Original Character seems to rule out sequels, and that would be unfortunate. And I realize I'm cutting myself in the elbow here, because of course you have the long games released in chapters, which kind of contradicts my point above. 

The MASH FYC post has now been edited in order to remove the suggestion for Best character. The other suggestions stand, as the game has an original story, not based on a story from the TV series.

There are many good points in the thread already. It's important not to be too strict in the definitions. Most would agree that Robin Hood could win for best character if done right, whereas, say, Batman or Guybrush shouldn't. (But Fatman or G. Thriftweed could.) Even more important is to not exclude games for not having a full original soundtrack. Like Laura Hunt said, in their game, there are both her compositions and classical music.

Hmmm...I see now that Cat answered me on a similar question in last year's thread, that the music ought to have been made specifically for that game. And we are several who have suggested music picked from Eric Matyas' site for the best music award. I guess that's a no no, then? I'm somewhat divided, as he creates so much and posts about it on this site. But it's usually just used with attribution, not made after request. Should we treat the music source differently when it has been made available through posting in the AGS forum than when it's found on other sites?

I guess the same could be said about characters - Viktor's MASH game uses characters from the tv series, for instance. I'd say one could argue that it's the use of these characters in this specific game that's up for evaluation here. Otherwise, the award should probably be called Best original character...which would rule out fair use of folklore characters like Robin Hood, Cinderella, The tree little pigs etc.