Summerbatch - sale has ended

[m0ds]

THE 2012 PAY WHAT YOU WANT SALE HAS ENDED. FOR A LIMITED TIME BUY VOLUME 1 FOR £4.99 HERE

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GIVEAWAYS AHOY

4 days left of the sale. I invite you to watch the AdventureX webcast between 15:00 and 15:30 GMT on Friday, Saturday and Sunday where I will be giving away codes to get a free copy before the end of the sale*! That's the webcast at http://www.screen7.co.uk/adventurex

Thank you to everyone who's bought, played, enjoyed and reported back - we've recently crossed the 1000 purchases mark, woohoo!

* It's also a test to see if the webcast works okay, as it's the system we'll be using at AdventureX

They're ready! 5 new games from AGS developers are available from Screen 7. It's our first product, our first commercial venture - and the aim is to help the developers earn from their work, not us. Show your support for their creative skills and buy the batch. We'll also make sure a worthy charity gets a donation if we reach certain targets.

Please remember you'll need DirectX 9 to play, Windows XP, Vista or 7, and a stable internet connection to get the download that's roughly 280mb. It requires about 1.8gb HD space to install the games.

Volume 1 has five games inside:

BARELY FLOATING
A traditional point & click adventure by Stemshock Interactive (led by AJA). Playing time is about 2 to 3 hours.

Somewhere along the east coast of Africa, pirates have attacked a luxury yacht! They have taken a few seemingly wealthy passengers as their hostages, a family and an old man, hoping to collect a hefty ransom for each of them. When the hostage negotiations go awry, the rescue duties land on the weak shoulders of an unlikely hero. Little does he know that the ship's crew, that stands in his way, is composed of some very weird and silly individuals.

Production thread: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=46264.0



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JAILBREAK
A top down stealthy action 'escape the prison' game by Virtual Illusion (led by Rocco). Playing time is about 1 hour.

Jailbreak is an action game - an intrigue has brought you to prison, so your goal is to escape and find the evil who brought you in this mess.

Production thread: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=46136.0




NANCY THE HAPPY WHORE
A low-res traditional point & click by Technocrat Games (led by Technocrat). Playing time is about 1 to 2 hours.

Nancy, the titular sex-worker with an unshakeably optimistic attitude, runs out of fuel on her way to the Big City. With the help of her best friend & crack-fiend Susie, she must not only procure the petroleum for her car, but help defeat an armed robbery, a disillusioned amateur hippy and THE PROPHETS themselves to help uncover the evil lurking within - the PERFIDIOUS PETROL STATION!

Production thread: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=45593.0




PATCHWORK
A traditional point & click adventure with high-res hand-drawn art by Ivan Ulyanov (Ilyich). Playing time is about 1 to 2 hours.

After a teleportation experiment goes wrong, a young scientist finds himself, and a good part of his laboratory, in someone else's house. In a parallel universe.

Production thread: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=46250.0




PISS
Another low res traditional point & click game by Ben Chandler (Ben304). Playing time is about 2-3 hours.

Moira may have forgotten everything else, but she's not about to forget this. The debt will be collected, even if it kills her... There are, however, those who remember that which she does not, and they're about to remind her.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=45940.0



More info on all the games can be found on the website. Do you write for a publication? You might want to read our press release!

You can get all these games right now from the Summerbatch website (URL below). Add it to your cart, and then adjust the price you wish to pay by changing the editable field next to the product name*. We use PayPal, you don't need to sign up if you have a debit or credit card.

From everyone on the team, we hope you enjoy the games, thanks for your support along the way!

http://www.summerbatch.co.uk

NOTE: "Buy as gift" option, trailer and press reviews are coming very soon. Please remember this is also a trial run for everyone involved!

* There's a minimum price of 50p (10p per game)

[Technocrat]

Don't forget, for all you allophones and ancient Romans, Nancy the Happy Whore also comes in German and Latin! Come on up, and pay for some fun with Nancy!

[imgzoom]http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o33/Nedraed/Nancy4.png[/imgzoom]

[MadReizka]

I love the Summerbatch!

[Andail]

Awesome
I will download and make a donation when I get my next salary in a couple of weeks...

Especially PISS is intriguing, if I'm allowed to pick favourites like that.

[AJA]

Piss is always intriguing.

Great to see this finally released! Maybe there should be links to the games' GiP threads for additional information? And maybe the BF trailer right here?

[Stupot]

Bought.  Looking forward to these beauties

[MadReizka]

To celebrate the release of this great bundle, we released a new trailer for our game:

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[Fitz]

Congrats on your first release Got it right away, of course. It's the best thing that happened since Humble Amanita Bundle!

[ThreeOhFour]

Doing a game for this was crazy, sleep depriving, fun and frustrating and I don't regret it. It's an honour to be a part of this and I hope everyone who picks up the bundle enjoys what they find within!

[Nikolas]

Bought it!

I just wish I could offer more... 15 quid for 5 games is a steal... However with our current situation that's all I can give. I just hope that more people will start buying!

More to come when I've played the games! ^_^

[Fitz]

Doing a game for this was crazy, sleep depriving, fun and frustrating and I don't regret it. It's an honour to be a part of this and I hope everyone who picks up the bundle enjoys what they find within!

Obviously, yours is the first game I pounced on when I got my hands on the bundle Played it for some two hours now, and I'll say this: it's not just my favorite of your games, but one among the most captivating games ever, high up there with The Longest Journey. It's just so much fun, with its own little mythologies, culture, magic, technology (the bugs!) and philosophy (the Mortician's ideas about the three centres of thought were great, especially). And of course, the characters! Banse is probably my favorite, the design itself -- and the backstory that goes with it - is brilliant. Speaking of which, I'm having the best time just going around and talking to everyone, asking about everything. I also love how you leave choice what to say, and how that affects how the conversation progresses -- and how things can't be unsaid. Can you actually get stuck after saying something you shouldn't have? Because I'm stuck right now, and I'm not sure if that's the reason.

Aaanyway, love it! It's beautiful, as always -- and very innovative, too. Non-linearity and the freedom of choice you give the player in a bunch of situations plays out in very interesting ways. I'd go as far as saying they're moral choices, dynamically changing the character (for better or for worse). Same with the way you spend your money in the game. I remember you talking about implementing actual currency in the game on your blog a while ago -- and that's a fun mechanic. Reminds me of Little Big Adventure.

I will try to post a review of every game in the bundle when I get the chance to play/finish each of them. I lurk way too much -- and play far too few games these days.

[SarahLiz]

Buying now!  Excited to see this come out & always happy to support this community.  Congrats on the final release of all you guys' hard work!!  I know I sincerely appreciate you all.



Sarah

[ThreeOhFour]

Can you actually get stuck after saying something you shouldn't have? Because I'm stuck right now, and I'm not sure if that's the reason.

Your words are very kind!

No dead ends exist in the design. If you've found one (none of my testers found any) then it's my error, but hopefully you're just stuck the normal way!

[Wonkyth]

So bought, definitely going to enjoy these ones.
Also cheers, Nemo, for letting me buy your stuff in album form! :3

[m0ds]

For those who are interested, the stats are in for day 1! And many muchos massivo grazias thanks again for a brilliant first day of Summerbitch!

http://www.screen7.co.uk/games/summerbatch/#!/pageStats

[AJA]

Nice! Good to see a fellow Finn leading the contributor list.

I've added Barely Floating to the games database: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/Games.aspx/Detail/1597

Hopefully, our website will be up and running later today, or tomorrow at the latest.

-edit-
And it's up: www.stemshock.com!

[CosmoQueen]

Just bought mine! Whooo can't wait to play em!

[Eric]

According to an email receipt, I was the first person to buy the Summerbatch. I seriously doubt that's true, but in my heart, I will be proud of this regardless.

Found some spare time over the past two days to play Patchwork, which I've been looking forward to playing for awhile, since seeing the preview art in the WiP thread. What a lovely little game with an interesting premise! The art has to be among my favorite I've ever seen in an adventure game -- the characters, the portraits, the backgrounds, everything. Gameplay was excellent too, for the most part. If there's any tweaking in the future, the only suggestions I'd make would be to provide a few more clues about the order of certain things in the end:

Spoiler

I got hung up not realizing I had to play the harmony first before using the rainstick. I was walking all over the place trying to do something with the rainstick. I also kept trying to give the phone to Lin because I thought she'd need to do everything -- perhaps some sort of gentle nudge there ("I wouldn't know what to do with that; you can play it when the time comes during the spell process.")

[close]

...And to make the top GUI harder to trigger (its trigger point is awfully close to

Spoiler

the pixie

[close]

).

Here were some seriously spoiler-ridden stand-out things for me:

Spoiler

I loved the bloksmith. Though he wasn't really animated, his portrait evinced such an amazing amount of character, ESPECIALLY with his spectacles on.

Brilliant effect when I took my glasses off to offer them to him too. It was pretty much like me taking my glasses off in real life.

The transition between Lin and Daniel's viewpoints in regards to the Dryad was also a brilliant effect. Also, the "patchwork" nature of the two worlds put together.

Speaking of which: the reveal of the Volkswagen in the cave. I laughed out loud.

My favorite part of the game though, for whatever reason, had to be the rainstorm, as brief as it was. I wish there was a loop of that which I could watch. How was this effect achieved? Hand-drawn? I was captivated watching the drops colliding with multiple surfaces on the screen, and then, with a flash of lightning it was over.

[close]

Will there be a sequel?

[m0ds]

According to an email receipt, I was the first person to buy the Summerbatch. I seriously doubt that's true, but in my heart, I will be proud of this regardless.

Hehe, oh, I just looked into that, I had got it wrong. I thought it would display quantity sold but it's actually displaying quantity purchased (by you). So, you bought 1 copy, therefore you were the 1 (st) person I've taken that out now though. What a douche! Glad you like Patchwork, enjoy the rest of the games!

[Wonkyth]

And the award for best surprise lesbian sex goes to....


EDIT: Also it would appear that more than a few people are worried by the download limitations and lack of proper a distribution system. :/