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And you tease this as the beginning of a series...cool indeed!

In a testament to our backwards marketing skills, we've already made a sequel, Breakfast Requiem in a Cornbankle game...  and this is set sometime way before that... The timeline of events is very fuzzy, that might be many years in the future

That's even better! I'm not good at remembering names, unfortunately. 

Another AGS game, Cicero Demo, is an unifinshed, but promising work. The player is a boy who doesn't speak, out with his over-protective mother in the park. The gameplay is finding the correct triggers to make the story progress. Cicero uses body language to tell you if the action chosen is not correct, a bit like in the old Gobliins games. I would have liked to see how the story goes further, so I hope the author finishes this post-jam.

I also played Custodian: A Janitor's Quest. This is not an adventure game, but an action puzzle game. There's a long intro that plays like an adventure, which is very annoying due to a constantly repeating sound when someone speaks. Then the game proper consists of moving your vehicle while avoiding enemies and making them hit traps. I don't know if this game will be removed by the judges or not. I'm not a big fan of this gameplay, but the levels are decently designed and solvable, although some of them took me a lot of attempts to pass. Luckily, you have unlimited lives.

EDIT: Janitor's Quest was removed from the jam for not being an adventure game. 21 entries now.

So, on to play the games! AGS first, of course.

I played Abducted Intelligence (by Babar and Jfrisby) and liked it. Commented in the MAGS thread.

I also played Central Standard by SpringStreetOnline/NewWaveBurritos. As usual, the game is full of eye candy. The lighting in the opening scene, and also the view through a mirror in the first playable scene, those are show stealers. I also appreciated seeing scenes using graphics from Background Blitz. Gameplay was tampered a bit by a bug, luckily described in the game comments. There are really only two puzzles in the game, followed by a choice which determines the ending. (And the second puzzle kind of completes itself.) So it's a short game. I liked the graphics, naturally, but also the sequence with the girls talking among themselves, which really builds characterization. The programming for the cooking is also neat.

And I played Ramorama's Yip Quest: Gurk in Trouble In the former Yip Quest game, we controlled three kobolds. In this game, this is changed to only one. The graphics have got an upgrade, though, and now resembles more of an Day of the Tentacle style. It's implied that a version with more animations will be released after the game jam. This is a short dash around the castle, gathering ingredients for a potion that will destroy all bananas. I shudder about this evil plan!  The puzzles and writing are straightforward, but funny.

After playing those three AGS games, I wanted to see what AGS legend Edmundito had to offer and played With Our Eyes Wide Open. Grahf and Ben304 are also in on this game. Dream team! This is made with an adventure plugin to Godot, and it looks very impressive. The story is futuristic and retro at the same time, and the puzzles hit quite close to home for this old fart, at least. I liked the story and the characterization very much. The jam version lacks some polish - some descriptions and dialogues aren't updated when you do stuff in the game, which may at times make it difficult to know for certain if you have accomplished a task or not. Some dialogues are not implemented, instead the game tells you what the dialogue would have informed you of. Minor quibbles aside, this was a very nice game that delivered exactly what the theme for the jam asked for.

There are as I write this, 22 entries in the jam. There were more, but some non-adventures have been weeded out.

I played it and liked it. Commented in the MAGS thread.

[Abducted Intelligence]

I played Abducted Intelligence. Actually, I played both the $108 and the MAGS versions of it, and I'm happy to say that the first version is a good game on its own. While the MAGS game is more polished and improves in the details, it's still basically the same game, and I hope it does well in the dollar jam, too.
Spoiler time!

Spoiler

The joint themes of aliens and the impostor syndrome ($108) lends itself to a game where the player is abducted and experimented on, or the player infiltrating an advanced alien culture. My idea for this MAGS was the latter, so I was pleased to see you went in the opposite direction. And you tease this as the beginning of a series...cool indeed! The art and humour is in place like usual. I immediately had a smile on my face when I saw the player character in a typical pet cage with dispensers for food and "water". I don't think it was explained why the aliens used English, but it got a reaction from the protagonist. Puzzles were logical and not too difficult, given the few items available in a single location. Or perhaps I should say semi-logical or intuitive? There is a sense of not fully understanding what's going on that I shared with the character. The music was a little different from your earlier outings, and while still good, I kind of missed the silent movie piano emphasizing the moods in the game. The experience is short and in the escape the room genre, which I chalk up to the short time limit of the dollar jam.

All in all, the game was fun. Playtime 10-15 minutes, perhaps. The humour is mostly present in the absurdity of the situation, while the player plays it deadpan until his final lines in the game. I hope you really make a sequel, as I'd like to see what happens next. Also, I'm curious about the English-speaking aliens and their bio-ship. Thanks for the game!

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Congratulations on the release! I'll check it out, be certain! 

I just have to ask: Did you plan to release this in the Monthly AGS competition we just had with the theme "Alien"? If you've worked on it for longer, the question is moot. Just curious.

I think a general hint would be to revisit earlier places after new information is given. @lapsking spells it out in his hints above. The game is designed to gradually give the player new options when he acquires new knowledge. This may mean that he now may perform an action previously not available, something may become visible now that he knows what to look for, or the choice of dialogue choices may increase. Be patient, and you will prevail. (I needed hints when betatesting, too.)

Well, the point of the theme is to make the community members finish their games, so it shouldn't be too strict. I agree wholeheartedly with Stupot's comment.

Anyway, using pre-existing assets are generally allowed now, I believe, so using sprites drawn earlier would be a bit like using stuff from the trove, RoN or Background Blitz, which I don't think is a problem for participation. But maybe original art made in the same month would impress more and gather more votes.

I'm sorry about this, maybe it's because I modified many times the game page on itch.io.

Please tell me if you still have problems for download.

Still quarantined, but no problem with downloading when I chose the equivalent of "download anyway". I added a message to the itch community board linking to your threads on this forum, just to let people know it's a safe file.

I don't remember if we already discussed this, but I think this might work as a puzzle for an adventure game:

That's a good idea. Given how people's heads work, this person may use his password for something as his first Wordle guess. I don't think that would be too far fetched.

Alright, let's do this. I'll open a new Background Blitz on October fest first with the same theme as the next MAGS competition.

I'm fairly certain that the next MAGS will be a "finish your MAGS game" month because we had a month without participation.

This ended up not working because it exceeded the game's limit of 40 items per room. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am very much a novice so some code would definitely help.

Ah, also the room object limit should actually be 256 objects unless you are not using the latest stable release

If you are working using an older AGS version and what you need is to increase the number of objects, then a workaround is to use characters instead of objects. (I think the suggestions already made are better, though.)

Has it been four years already? I remember playing the demo back then and having a good time with it. Congratulations on the release! I hope for success for you. I'll add the game to my long queue of games to play. 

Okay, sorry for the in-joke. Khris made Floaty Rog', which is a Flappy Bird kind of game, so it is possible. Check it out in the link above. The in-joke was that in a small, silly Batman game I made, Batman tries to hide from Alfred that he's playing it.

Floaty Rog'

The game that is so difficult, even Batman plays it.

Congratulations on the release, and thanks for giving me the chance to betatest this.

The game is funny, yet serious, historical, yet of myth, hand-painted and beautiful. I hope it is played by many, as it deserves. 

Hmmmm... Mad Max Jack, Tunnel Vision and now this. I sense a pattern. 

Trackin' A! 

Possibly half-relevant to the question: Elen Heart @elentgirl made a mathematical crossword puzzle in The Garden of Hades She used playing cards that the player had to give the correct value in order to make the correct answers downwards and across. I guess it would be possible to use the same approach to the alphabet instead of numbers. There are probably let's play videos of the game online, if you are interested.

This little gem finally made it to the top of my to-play-list, and I played it tonight.

It's a different style than your usual games, but you've got storytelling chops, too! It's a beautiful story about growth and how to help yourself by helping others. The calm music was a great fit for the beautiful scenery. And I'm sure I've heard the Ivy forest music in another game, but am not sure which.

I liked that

Spoiler

there were extra topics of conversation after learning about new stuff. Cool with a protagonist who asks for help, like normal people would.

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. Backtracking did not feel like a chore, but somehow enhanced the slow nature of the story and game. I'll second Rik's comment about Loom, and his plea for a series. I'd definetely play a sequel starring this travelling mage.