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I played Shrouded Space. This was the overall winner of the game jam, and it's a very good game. First and foremost, it's humourous and very fun to play, as the protagonist more or less by accident makes his moves from prisoner and against an evil intergalactic empire. Graphics and sound are also impeccable, so the one gripe one could make, is that the puzzles are a bit on the easy side. This is a unity game.

Hmm... I tried this one but it wouldn't launch. Did you play it from the Itch App or just download it independently?

Downloaded. I used Windows 10, 2.40 GHz, 8 Gb RAM.

I played Shrouded Space. This was the overall winner of the game jam, and it's a very good game. First and foremost, it's humourous and very fun to play, as the protagonist more or less by accident makes his moves from prisoner and against an evil intergalactic empire. Graphics and sound are also impeccable, so the one gripe one could make, is that the puzzles are a bit on the easy side. This is a unity game.

If the goal is to get more nominations, one solution would be to grant some people the power to nominate a game on their own, without getting the 5 (?) votes necessary behind it. This could be the moderators, the organizers, some anonymous committee appointed by the organizers, or a combination.

I'm not sure if it's a good solution, though, and I would vastly prefer if our members do the nominating of their own accord. It's not strictly democratic, and we already have committees deciding certain awards.

This suggestion is made out of the assumption that the nominations is the bottleneck, but if votes are as low in numbers as the nominations, then that may be based on a false premise.

[More forgiveness]

I enjoy the ceremonies, but I realize they take a lot of work for the organizers. However, going back from that ceremony with all its bells and whistles to irc or discord only is bound to be a major downer. Probably not very twitch-worthy either.

I'm not sure I want the awards to be that much later in the year. Every year see a lot of games coming out near the end of the year, if I'm not mistaken. There's got to be enough time to actually play the games before nominating and voting. I always end up with some full length commercial game or other that I never found the time for.

More forgiveness
I think there is sometimes a pressure to have played every game in a category before voting in it. I can't be the only one who has decided against voting in a category because I wasn't able to play all the games in it. While this should definitely be encouraged, I think we should be more forgiving in this regard.

I think this especially applies to nominations. Some people don't nominate because they have only played few games, but nomination isn't a "this is better than the others" thing. It's more like "this game has great graphics!", and it doesn't matter if others, that I haven't played might have great graphics as well.

For MAGGIES in the last couple of years I have tried to include links to video play through for anyone too busy to download and play all the games. I'm trying to get this sorted even earlier for next year, so that every entry will have a video to watch. Maybe something similar could be done with all the AGS Award nominees.

Another great idea!

These are very good points. I think especially for graphics, animation and sound, one could easily nominate games after just watching videos. There's been some oversights over the years, unfortunately. I think also that for categories with only a handful of games, like non-adventure games or voice work, we shouldn't be afraid to nominate those few games that fit in the category.

It's very hard to get people to vote/rate and leave comments on the ordinary database pages, and unfortunately, I think the nominations and award votes have the same pattern.

[Super Author Simulator 2023]

Here are my thoughts:

Super Author Simulator 2023 by Rootbound

Spoiler

I like the idea a lot, and I find the implementation is very well done. However, the gameplay features a lot of keyboard bashing, which I'm not particularly fond of. The chapter openings and the agent's feedback are funny and well-written, but I have to say that the Powerups were the most of fun here, and probably what I'll remember abour the game. Longer feedback in the game's release thread.

[close]

The Weird Thing Under The Bed by Mandle

Spoiler

I spent some time chasing dust bunnies under the bed, believing that was what I was supposed to do. (Yes, I found the place for starting the game immediately.) I liked the choose-your-own-path gameplay afterwards, even though all possible endings were somewhat bleak (but fit the tune playing 100%). Indeed, I think the best ending is to choose "Sleep and exit". 

[close]

Conclusion and who I voted for:

Spoiler

It dawned on me that both the games this month have had me reach ultimately bad endings. The CYOP parts of Mandle's game was easily my favourite game mechanic, but there was more gameplay and polish in Rootbound's entry. I gave my vote for Super Author Simulator 2023

[close]

At first I thought "Is it Frank and Joe?" but then I went "No, could it be...?"

It was.

Melon Head looks like he might have relatives in Shape Village. 

This looks suitably strange and cool. Looking forward to seeing how this shapes up!

In retrospect, I should not have posted here.

This kind of thinking makes me sad. We had an interesting discussion, didn't we?

I 100% agree with Snarky. Your contribution means something, Crimson Wizard, and it is nice to see you posting outside the tech threads once in a while. Besides, something you wrote gave me an idea for a puzzle I think would be rather good.  (Which I currently don't have the chops to implement, but perhaps some time when I cooperate with someone.)

So Wagyū Oganbō (和牛御願望) could be taken to mean 'desire for Japanese beef'.

Have there ever been a better hero name?   

Wagu or Wagyu is a Japanese cattle and its reportedly fantastic tasting meat.

Ogombo means "who is not" in Zulu, according to Google Translate. So, unless your main character actually is a Japanese bull/cow, I think you are in the clear! 

Congratulations on the release! I was impressed by the demo, looking forward to playing the full game. 

Suppose in point-n-click game there's scene A in which you have to get an item stuck high above you. You should use something throwable to knock it over. Then later in the game there's scene B in which you have to get another item stuck high above. Given the similar conditions I'd expect same trick to work, because it worked another time, but game does not let me, and gives some random "won't work" reply. In standard "adventure games" this seems to be considered a valid thing. In my opinion, that's not a fair thing.

Agreed, the "won't work" reply needs to be integrated into the game and give a plausible explanation why this won't work. To use your example, a good adventure would introduce new difficulties for each high-hanging item. Perhaps the second one is too high for you to throw your rock -> get a catapult. The third one has a flying creature guarding it -> distract creature. The fourth has a force field -> find a way to turn it off. In this way, the player can build on the original solution to the problem, finding a way to make it work in each instance.

Note that this way of constructing puzzles relies on doing them in a certain order. The player needs to solve the easy one first, then meet the harder variants in sequence, or it will be unsatisfactory. (Another way of doing such a puzzle, would be to integrate it all in one puzzle, like the famous Babel Fish puzzle from Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But that's beside the point in this case.)

The MAGS contest back in September 2008 had the theme "Broken Game". Reading the thread is a tad confusing. Radiant first entered Awesmoe Quest, which is on the archive. This I believe to be just a joke, as ProgZmax replied about the game crashing instantly (which the version on the archive also does), and the game is the "game within a game" found in META (which is in the database). However, when Radiant entered his real entry, KATA, this was set up to be that he competed against himself. KATA is not in the database, but can be found on Radiant's home page. It's a parody of Windows, of sorts, and basically has the player battling error messages trying to install a game. I can see this being fun for some, and mildly annoying for others.

Chmelnica is a short adventure made by Czech one-person team Marion Software (not to be confused with our own Marion). There are translations to German and English. (The author had a game in the db called Bill DeBill, but it's gone now.) The moon logic level borders on asteroid, but I found the setting interesting, as I didn't know anything about the type of farm workers shown in the game.

Yeah it looks like a mistake. The rules state that you have to post about your entry in this thread anyway, so I'm willing to wait until the deadline, on the off chance he does actually post it here. And then uncheck the 'mags' box if he doesn't.

10 minigames seems quite an accomplishment for a MAGS entry, but it would fit this month's theme.

I have been in contact with the author, and it was indeed a mistake. The game has been in development longer than a month anyway.

First of all, it's a MAGS game, so don't worry if it's not perfect in all regards.

I think I would have liked the monkeys to do the typing, too. For instance, 3 monkeys could manage to produce the same amount of words the player did, either in his last turn or his all time high. (They can ape the writing.) 

The powerup giving words for mouse clicks isn't all that helpful, as the player will score 3 or 4 times as much by bashing the keyboard before filling the page.

When I played, I saved before the final powerup, just to be able to see all the effects. Once I got the one giving points every second, I went and did something else, and came back to see the ending.

[Apple]

Five hourgames are here.
Apple Theme - unexpected character death.
Kikme Theme - unexpected character death.
Bahx3 (May have another name) Theme - Must feature Al Lowe.
Ohno I don't know the theme. Escaping the room is the goal.
Woof Theme - animals.

Found this game in Global Game Jam, haven't played: https://globalgamejam.org/2023/games/whose-turn-it-anyway-8

This is a funny little game where the turnip leads the other vegetables to escape the goat eating them. Funny jokes, very easy.

Spia

I think this game isn't finished. I could move around, but I couldn't find anything else to do.

Smasher

This one is highly recommended! Digital Mosaic has made a shortie for a game jam, but there's great voice acting, graphics, music and writing. True, there is little room for puzzles, but there is a memory puzzle, so I'll check that box too.

I don't remember seeing this game in the DB, it was made for ludumdare: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/homunculus

Another good short game from the same people. This one is a sort of Frankenstein story.

Memochi

This one took a while until I realized that there was a game element to it.

Spoiler

Code

[close]

Quite a different experience from a standard adventure.

 I think it's best to open up a question thread for this one right away.

@Manc - Feel free to answer, but if not, we players may compare notes here.

Theory - This game has no ending, but is a collection of minigames. (Manc?)

Has anyone figured out how the skating works? Most of the time, the dog is on the skateboard, and I can't seem to get the player character to use it.

What language is this when it's not English? What clues or instructions do we miss when we don't understand it? Are all parts of the game playable for us who don't understand the language?

Is there something to do in the cafe?

Fish game: Does the fish grow eventually, or is the aim of the mini-game simply to get as many points as possible?

The Pac-Man hotspot is marked "Don't work". But it is playable...so, is it broken somehow?

I have more questions, but let's start there.

   I have been waiting for this a long time! Great news! Congratulations on the release! 

Remember to also add it to the database: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/add/

I found the same two good (?) endings the Captain did, plus the losing ending. Please tell me there isn't one for typing it all in without the dangerous powerup.

It's a great idea, and the humorous powerups are worth seeing, but frankly the keyboard bashing I could have done without. I would rather have the first powerup make the monkey do all the typing for me.   

It's a common mistake by someone new to the site - they click all boxes that sound good. And we could have had a Game of the Month picked out of the last month's releases. Anyway, I'll give the game a go and (probably) uncheck the box on the game page afterwards.