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I'll start one for this year.

The Best Puzzles award may be water under the bridge, but that doesn't mean we can't have a thread to discuss it. The question is simply: What puzzles in AGS games released in 2024 did you like? Why did you like them?

Please make the thread user-friendly with well marked spoilers, for instance like this:
Steeplejack:

Spoiler

And something about it in here.

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Hopefully, this may give devs some feedback on what type of puzzles work well, and the players a chance to discuss and (dis)agree.

(In addition, I could imagine similar threads for the current year could be useful if we started them now and run them all year. It may be helpful when the year is over and we try to remember what games we liked months back and a help for nominating to the AGS awards. If the interest for such threads is there, of course.)

Though it's sad that Slasher is no longer among us, he's left a legacy of games behind. And I for one, have not played them all. But I intend to. Perhaps some of you other fine people also intend to?

Well, I'll try to play one Slasher game each month and post some thoughts here. If someone else wants to play along, that's dandy. You may play any game of his and post any thought you may have; you don't have to follow my schedule at all. Some months I may not play and post, because life is like that. But I don't intend for this to be a chore or a duty, just something fun to do, while honouring our late game machine.

This month I played Sonic and friends in: Club House. This is a MAG(S) game (Slasher always called it MAG) for October 2016, with the theme Genre Shift.

Slasher's take on the theme was to make a point and click starring Sonic and other platform heroes. The plot goes: Sonic have inherited an old house and decides to make it a club house. The house has not been maintained, and he and his friends (Luigi, Tails and Alex Kidd) have to fix it up before their grand club house opening. It turns out that they also need to raise cash to pay the lease.

The game is not polished, but it is fun to play. The two characters I knew, Luigi and Sonic, were easily recognizable. All four have different abilities, and the player can switch between them at will. They move from room to room as a team, so there's little splitting up (except for sending one of them to the roof to fix the tv antenna). They also have their own inventories, as they see different things as useful. The puzzles largely consist of finding some fault in the house, finding the correct tools and/or spare parts, and assigning the correct character for the job. Unsurprisingly, Luigi turns out to be the most versatile as a craftsman and plumber, but all have their jobs if success is to be had. The characters also are portrayed as friends, helping each other and cheering each other on. It's a feel-good game that can be solved by trial and error.

Nice one, and I'm glad to have played it. Perhaps you want to play it now? 

In MAGS October 2016, Cat and Raeff's entry is not in the database, but on the archive: CheKKen. This is a short prototype/demo of a mix of chess and Tekken. (The theme was "Genre Shift".) It's a 2-player game, so hit those keys and beat your friend into the ground.

MAGS September 2007 had the theme "Innovation", and saw seven entries, three of which are not in the database:

OneDollar's Recollection, which is already featured in an earlier post in this thread. I still can't say too much about it without spoiling it.

Jojoboy's Serum. In this game you have to try to contain a zombie plague. There are random infected, so the game is not the same each play, and it's pretty hard.

Radiant's Pixel Hunt. (Note that there are several games with this or very similar titles.) This is a shooting game, where you hunt...pixels. While they yell insults at you.  Good for a laugh.

Space Misadventures
it's a short game

Here's another NSFW game. This one with a bit more graphic nudity. No cheesecake, Ponch. Other than that, it's set in space, and the horny space captain has to fix her faulty spaceship. It's well made, but won't be to everyone's taste.
EDIT: This game turned out to be extremely explicit, with tentacles and whatnot. Far out of my comfort zone. Just warning you about what this is.

Endacopia
the animations of this game are spectacular: a very nice little gem

This one was incredible! It's like playing a cartoon. Highly recommended! (Though one of the sequences was so hard, I had to use dirty tricks to complete the demo.)

Oh my! You are on a roll! Congratulations on the release - it looks great!

Come to think of it, is there a way to get back to the title screen at all? It looks like there is an unlockable mode, perhaps after rescuing Robin, but if we never get back there, we won't see it.

Made it back to the title screen! Yay! And even got something there,1/10 unlocked.

Later on in the game, I spawned as an enemy soldier. At first I thought maybe I had donned a disguise without noticing, but I suspect it is a bug, because...I later spawned as a treasure chest. Could still move about and everything. The game ended when the chest spawned in a non-walkable area and I had to alt-x out. (Which works for me now, thanks to the tip from CW.

[Steeplejack]

Here are my thoughts this month.

Steeplejack:

Spoiler

This author is very good at finding original material to make games out of. My brother worked on some brickwork for a high chimney many years back, so I kind of knew about this type of scenario at the very back of my head, but still...it's not what I'd expect someone to make a game about. The two characters are very nicely portrayed, with flaws or mindsets that actually make the plot work. The giant pigeon is a funny opponent, and the puzzles are nice, but become easy because there aren't many items available. I liked the idea for sending up the rope, but I'd done most of it before I understood what my character was planning to do. Good game!

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Sherwood:

Spoiler

I'm not really familiar with the rogue or roguelike games. This one is technically very impressive. I ran around, not bothering too much about stealth, but trying to run into hiding instead. When spotted, I hit the action keys in a panic, often hitting the wrong one, like bribing a soldier, then chucking a rock at him, trying to rob the gold back. I managed to rescue Robin Hood and Little John. I thought it was a nice touch to be able to continue the game as Little John after Much was defeated. I didn't really use the diversion tactics Radiant has made possible. Bottom line is that the programming is very good, while the game suffers from being from a genre I don't play much.

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Barn Runner: Fashionably Late:

Spoiler

It's a kind of adult soft porn dress-up game. BUT it still manages to tell a story and gives insight into the player character. Granted, much of the insight is still NSFW, but I have to give credit to the funny and resourceful writing. The game has lots more content than its genre normally allows. Still, it is a dress-up game.

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In Our Midst:

Spoiler

Great done parody (or perhaps homage is a better word) of Among Us. I knew right away what I was supposed to do, but unlike the original game, I had time to think about how to do it. Good puzzles, "free" characterization from the original, and a logical and still large enough map to keep the game challenging.

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I voted for:

Spoiler

In Our Midst. Even the title is excellent.

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Are you running fullscreen Direct3D mode? Please try with "Fullscreen as borderless window" in the setup.

That made the alt-x quitting work as usual. Thank you!

There still seems to be a dead end after losing all the lives on the first screen, though. Come to think of it, is there a way to get back to the title screen at all? It looks like there is an unlockable mode, perhaps after rescuing Robin, but if we never get back there, we won't see it.

Played it to the end and liked it very much. My kids have been very into Among Us, but it's been too fast for me the times I've tried. But at least I'm familiar enough with the concept to get most of the jokes.

I love the textless approach - makes it more cartoony. I also enjoyed the manipulation of the machinery, which made for a very nice puzzle.

Please ignore the earlier, broken build. 

Too late, already completed it. 
Was the bug that pressing the right mouse button broke the game?

I hear the quitting sound, but the game screen fails to go away. When alt-tabbing, the thumbnail screen  shows the quit message, and I have to close that window to make the game screen go away. Windows 10.

Okay, here's a bug report.

When I lose all my lives on the first screen, there's no way to restart (unless there's a key I haven't pressed).

ALT-X quits the game, but it freezes and I have to alt-tab to get out.

When I got to Wryesdale, only the square I entered on was visible, and there was nowhere to go and no way to exit.

Not a bug, I suppose: After rescuing Robin, the game continues. I've found him and Little John. Is there a way to know when I've rescued all? I guess there's no congratulatory messages  and end sequence in this type of game?

Congratulations goes to RootBound! Even as a winner by default, this is a very good solution to the obviously not-too-good setup of mine.

I liked

Spoiler

that you linked your most prized possession to the person you didn't want to meet.The minigame ideas also sound very fun, and I can visualize the old man with the strong grip (I see him with Popeye arms), ready to tell stories about anything.

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I haven't made a non-entry for the scenario, but I thought it would be interesting to

Spoiler

perhaps solve the design by making the player character something unexpected. Perhaps the player is a bigger bully and may greet the local bully as a friend, or accomplice? Or perhaps the old men is actually trying to reveal something of great importance, but has to speak in code, because someone is watching him.

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Other praise or comments for RootBound's solution is welcome before we lock the thread. RootBound, you may start the next one at your leisure.

Please specify how and when the new version bugged out on you, so that I can fix it. Thanks!

The game froze, and I had to alt-tab to get out of it. It did this a couple of times in mid-play, with no pattern I could see so far. It could be a memory problem at my end, perhaps? I was running multiple other apps in the background. I may try later today without the "noise" to see if the same thing happens.

Good to see another game from you! As usual, high quality. And the story is hilarious! I love how you find inspiration for stories like these, opening up unknown areas of life (unknown to me, at least) and  making tall tales of them. The limited setting make the puzzles easier than they would have been as part of a larger game, but it doesn't matter. They are well thought out and fun to solve.

The bickering between the characters brought them to life, too. Their flaws define them and give them character. I also like how their character traits bring them into trouble, but also offers solutions. I liked that.

Playing this. I gave the old version a run, too, for comparison. Even though the game bugged out on me on both versions, I'm really impressed how smooth you've got it all working. I'm definitely not good at these games, so I'm struggling to make progress. 

I suppose there are no win conditions in the old version, while the mags game can be won if I manage to find Robin (and perhaps his merry men)?

Back in August 2016, the MAGS theme was "Distance no object", and the games needed to include monkeys and a giant banana, among other things. Rango is a nice game with fiendish minigames that was never added to the database, but is on the archive.

Beyond Dream and Time
for cat lovers

This is now added to the database.

G. Ramirez - The Missing Hat
A Room Escape disguised as P&C
may be finished in <2min

I played this, and found it charming. Nice, feel-good story with a cool bass jazz track.

EDIT 09/12/2023
DeckHex
Not an adventure, not a puzzle game
Just a story

I think it qualifies as a game, though the two puzzles are rather easy. So it's short, but as everything from Digital Mosaic, it's high quality. The voice acting is great! I liked this a lot.

EDIT 10/12/2023
Ten Weeks

Ten Weeks is an experimental point & click game about memories

This was quite an emotional experience, and a glimpse into what it could be like to not remember or being able to trust your memories. The game is worth playing a couple of times to uncover more details. Definitely worth a look if you like experimental games or stories exploring the psyche.

No, that wasn't finished at all. Count me out of this one, I did find time to yank a new module and a little ags, but unfortunately couldn't fit a game, too many things happened outside of ags this month.

Spoiler

setting up a nursery here.

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Spoiler

Sounds like you are the winner, anyway! Huge congratulations!

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The title is filled with intrigue, and some of those mug shots look downright scary, which is appropriate for a horror game. Sounds interesting. Best of luck developing!

[Historical Fiction.]

I thought I'd necropost here, to have a place to write about the entries in this jam, back from 2017. (As you probably know, the second year was called $102 Adventure Game Challenge and so on.) The theme of this first jam in the series was Historical Fiction. There were 13 games submitted.

There seems to be two entries made with AGS:
On Leaving The Building, which is in our database here. Made by Brane/xBranex.

This game lets the player relive the last night on earth of Elvis Presley. There's some nice graphics, particularly in the closeups when looking in the mirror. Puzzles are straightforward and not too difficult. Gameplay was about ten minutes. The game got 2nd place in the jam.

The other AGS game, 12 Years a Slave, won the jam. In this game, you control a slave escaping from his south state owners. There's plenty of humour in the descriptions, and a couple of decent puzzles (with a bit too many hints for my taste). Very nice music and sound FX.

(It seems like the game in 9th place, GoodWitch is no longer available. Ho hum.)

Bump!

Deadline today, although extensions will be given if needed. @RootBound - are you still in?