MAGS July "Extinction" (RESULTS)

[WHAM]

Thanks for the glowing words, Mandle! I didn't dare to look at who you voted for, but I'll keep my fingers crossed and wait for the deadline.

I'll play all the entries as well, and offer my two cents on them here. Most likely over the course of today.

EDIT: I did play 'em all, here's what I thought:


Awakening

Spoiler

Apart from some hotspot and exit indicators missing or being slightly unclear, this game was quite impressive! It could do with a bit more polish, but that can be said for pretty much all MAGS games, so I can't hold that against it.

The feeling of wandering about the ruins of a dead civilization is one of my favourite sci-fi tropes and Awakening does a damn fine job of capturing that sense of dread, the unknowable threat and the curiosity that drives one on to discover more.

Very well done, and my favourite game of this month's entrants.

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Predators Prey For Plants

Spoiler

A cool little concept and technically impressive, though seeing the game sweep and re-draw the map is a bit jarring in my opinion. My guess is that the engine just can't quite handle re-drawing the screen so fast?

Sadly it's not much of a game in it's current state, so while impressive as a technical feat, it's not very engaging over longer periods of time. What I feel it lacking is the ability to create something unexpected and unique like in the "game of life", something that behaves unexpectedly and suddenly transforms the map in some way.

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Vallhalla Extinction

Spoiler

BZZZZT!!!

BZZZZT!!!

BZZZZT!!!

That sound will now haunt me to my grave. As Mandle already pointed out, spamming points when you have just one or two candles left is too easy and the game seems to lack a win state (or did I just grow bored too quickly?)

The game runs smooth and the dual game modes give it some added value, but it does seem rather hastily put together and the visual styles of the characters, the candles and the background seem mismatched and clashing.

BZZZZT!!!

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ANOTHER EDIT: Thought I'd write a few words of my own game as well to give some insight into it's creation:

GNRBLEX

Spoiler

A total of 13 days of development time, from start to finish. I have to say I surprised myself with how many corners I could cut and still make a fun little game. One of the biggest saves in time was cutting out the walking animations from the game by having Terry and the parasite float above the floor, having Host 217 strapped to his chair and having the rest of the characters as mostly static images that appear in and out of the game as needed. It usually takes me a whole day or two just to draw one set of walkcycles!

I do have to give a big thank you to my testers, too. With two endings and a bunch of moving parts the game got really work-intensive to test really quickly, but thanks to the help I was able to squash most of the game's bugs early on, though I found at least one obscure little bug on the night of the deadline, that made the elevator puzzle a bit too easy to solve.

The greatest praise I've gotten came from Mandle: "This game feels more like it was developed over a year instead of a month!"
Cheers! ^^

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[Slasher]

Hi I've been over all the games and these are my opinions and votes.....

The Awakening

Spoiler

I found the graphic elements were really cool as well as the atmosphere and music. The basic idea was very good. However, there were certain elements that I found annoying such as: pixel hunting, icon bar appearing over top of image when you move cursor to the top of the room (a few pixels above would have been perfect).

I think that if this game was given more time and a full production this could be a really good game but this is a monthly timed game so well done all the same.

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Vallhalla Extinction

Spoiler

A very good concept and artwork. Personally I found the gameplay too fast for me, perhaps add a 'Wimp' mode . Overall a job well done.

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Predators Prey For Plants

Spoiler

I think the concept was very good and 'hats off' too Mandle in its execution. I think it was an experiment that kind of worked although ags was struggling a bit. None-the-less well done mate

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GNRBLEX

Spoiler

A full adventure game that worked well and the graphics were in true style to the theme. I did struggle a little at first but once I got the hang of it there was no stopping .

Well presented, good puzzles and fun.

Well done WHAM

On these merits GNRBLEX gets my vote this month.

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[Mandle]

though seeing the game sweep and re-draw the map is a bit jarring in my opinion. My guess is that the engine just can't quite handle re-drawing the screen so fast?

The sweep comes from the fact that the game only uses the background image pixel colours as its own data storage array. This is how I managed to fit 480,000 (800x600) fields of data into the game without having to use a ridiculously large array. This is also why the sweep does the NSEW thing that it does. It is to average out the unfairness in the system so that it doesn't matter over time. There is a much more complicated way to do this where I was going to assign slightly different colours to the newly spread pixels so that they would not get detected until the next sweep.

But when I tested the game without this feature I liked the way it ran, and began to see the "unfair" sweeps as natural, seasonal migrations...which happen in the real world...That's my excuse anyways...

[Cassiebsg]

In posting/release order

Vallhalla Extinction
Nice little action game, I found it more entertaining to play as the devil and trying to extinguish the candles, than keeping them alive. Maybe I'm evil? For what it is and made in 5 (?) days it's a great effort. Wish though you had used the remaining of the time to get more game play into it and follow the rule turning it into an adventure game with an action "minigame".
I really liked the "twist" about extinguishing a candle! I imagined a lot of scenarios, but that one was not one of them! Point for thinking outside the box.

GNRBLEX
I had the pleasure to test this one, and is all I wish in an adventure game! Good plot, good story with a clear beginning, middle and end (and even an alternate ending, which I still need to figure out). Great art, music and SFX. Only thing missing is voice acting!   Made in 13 days.... but considering the story and game play feel as a whole, I don't see how more time would improve the game. Well done!

Predators Prey For Plants
Mandle you awe me! You always manage to to do something that is completely out of our expectations! It's a nice little simulator and works amazingly realistic! So simple, yet so complex! Good job on the experiment. Fails to follow the rule though (adventure game), but what the heck, rules are there to be broken...right? The important part is: we got a life simulator out of this entry.

The Awakening
Really nice and pleasant entry, with a slightly darker story and outcome, Great graphics and music. Not that many puzzles, but we get the story and a bit of back story. Suffers a bit from lack of time to polish the hotspots and appropriate responses, but above all it feels like the start of something much bigger! (I hope this is just the prologue!)
Good job by the team!

And my vote goes to:

Spoiler

GNRBLEX, for the well and complete experience the player gets.
With a honourable mention for Awakening!

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[xBRANEx]

Valhalla Extinction
It's a fun little game. I played around a bit and the idea was good but needs expanding. Maybe you should have put a story or a rivalry between the players, something to motivate the player a little more.

GNRBLEX
I've also tested this one and all the time I was thinking how did he do it in such a short time!? I hated the dubstep song but that is just my taste! The game is awesome and I am really happy I had a little part in the final product. The story, the puzzles, everything sits just about right.

Predators Prey For Plants
I liked this one. Starred at the screen for minutes trying to find a pattern in the moving of the dots. Always wondered how do you script that? A beautiful idea that just needs polishing!

The Awakening
This one is the best visually but I almost quit trying to solve it at the beginning because I just couldn't get that six fingers hand. Really interesting story but I always thought that somehow you should motivate me more to do the things I did. Maybe emphasize his despair to make the player really want to get to the top of the mountain, the player should always have motivation.


That being said, my vote goes to:

Spoiler

GNRBLX

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[Mandle]

Predators Prey For Plants
Always wondered how do you script that?

Here's how it works for anyone who is interested:

Spoiler

The program scans the screen one pixel at a time and detects its colour. Then, if that colour is red, yellow, or green, it scans the 8 pixels around the current pixel and detects their colours. Then there is a simple percentage chance each of the 8 surrounding pixels will become the same colour as the target pixel. The percentage depends on what kind of interaction it is: Plants spread quite slowly into empty brown areas. Prey spreads quite quickly into plant areas, slowly into empty areas, and cannot spread into predator areas. Predators spread agressively into prey areas, and slowly into empty and plant areas. Nothing can spread into water areas (but can spread across diagonal gaps in one-pixel wide rivers). Finally, Prey and Predator target pixels have a chance to die out: Predators are slightly hardier than prey. Then the program moves on to the next pixel. The game sweeps north to south and then back, and then west to east and then back, and then repeats. This is to average out the flaws of scanning in real-time in a single direction so they don't matter much over time.

And that's it really: The code is very short, and all the game data exists only in the screen image: There is no huge array of number data behind the scenes...It was tweaking all the values so that the game behaved somewhat like a model of the real world that took most of the time: Probably about 10 hours total of just staring at the simulation running and then tweaking something by 1% and then staring at it again, and so on.

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Cheers for the interest.

[Stupot]

Thanks for all the votes so far. Keep them coming.

It's great to see the individual reviews and comments. What would be even nicer would be if you could also leave something (copy/paste will do) in  the comment section of the games' database pages(which Mandle has done. Good stuff) Or even better, give them a rating as well.

I was thinking about doing another ratings drive, but the last one was such a total disaster. The least I can do is encourage you MAGSers to rate and comment as much as possible :-)

[Grok]

Vallhalla Extinction
Wish though you had used the remaining of the time to .....

What remaining time? You think that I did nothing after finishing that game?
I also used about 2 weeks to script Luisdementia's the Awakening and I also made a 5 minute animated movie during July. That is how I preferred to use the time.
The main reason to do the Valhalla game was to see if I could handle a lot of moving stuff in a AGS game. I think that turned out rather well.

[luisdementia]

It's great to see the individual reviews and comments. What would be even nicer would be if you could also leave something (copy/paste will do) in  the comment section of the games' database pages(which Mandle has done. Good stuff) Or even better, give them a rating as well.

That would be really appreciated I'm planning to do it once I get home from vacation.

[Riaise]

Valhalla Extinction by Grok

This is a nice little game. The graphics are a bit mismatched, and I found it quite difficult to play until enough of the candles have disappeared that I could see which ones had gone out, but there is a charm in its simplicity. A good effort!

GNRBLEX by WHAM

Wow, I'm amazed this game was made in only 13 days! The graphics are great, the range of puzzles is fantastic, and the story is brilliantly told. Overall a really fun and entertaining experience!

Predators Prey For Plants by Mandle

This is such an interesting idea. It's intriguing to watch the different colours spreading across the map and see how they interact with the environment. It would be nice to have some kind of timer to see how long the map has been evolving, and other features like that, but it's still a very innovative idea the way it is though!

The Awakening by Luisdementia

The graphics of this game are really well done, and the atmosphere is very unnerving. I liked the beginning, where you choose the actions of the character, but I found the next section a bit frustrating, as I thought that the time limit was a bit too short and it was quite difficult to find the item needed. The story was good, though, and it kept me immersed in the game, so well done!

I vote for

Spoiler

GNRBLEX!

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[Kastchey]

Valhalla Extinction

Spoiler

If it was a speedcoding content, this would have been my favourite. Sound effects are pretty well picked, too. Quite an original interpretation of the theme.

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Predators Pray For Plants

Spoiler

Wow Mandle, just wow. I wish I had 1/10 of your coding skills... As others pointed out it is more of a skeleton for a simulation than an actual game, but an impressive skeleton nonetheless! And it *is* strangely addictive to watch.

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GNRBLRBBLNRLBRBNLRLX

Spoiler

It was a very enjoyable (if a little sadistic *cough*) experience. Rarely you can see a MAGS game that does not cry for a post-MAGS revision, but this is one of the honourable exceptions. Great job WHAM, very impressive how you managed to release not just simply a good game, but a fully finished, polished product all by yourself. The graphics are slightly repetitive perhaps and could possibly use a minor detailing here or there, but very clean and consistent nevertheless, and the animations are smooth and sweet. Also, grue!
My definite favourite this month.

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The Awakening

Spoiler

I have worked on this entry so not much for me to comment on, but I'd like to thank Luis for the opportunity to work on the game with him. Even though I fully agree with the comments that the game still requires a lot of work before it is anything close to a finished product (the half-finished backgrounds and clumsy animations, duh), it has been a good experience and a pleasure to work with you.

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[luisdementia]

The Awakening

Spoiler

I have worked on this entry so not much for me to comment on, but I'd like to thank Luis for the opportunity to work on the game with him. Even though I fully agree with the comments that the game still requires a lot of work before it is anything close to a finished product (the half-finished backgrounds and clumsy animations, duh), it has been a good experience and a pleasure to work with you.

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Thank you! It's been a pleasure to work with you. Hopefully I'll be able to submit more games to this community, our upcoming horror adventure game, for example.

[Mandle]

Wow Mandle, just wow. I wish I had 1/10 of your coding skills...

Psssshhhh...The game has only about 20 lines of real code...and even they aren't very elega...

WAIT...WTF AM I DOING?!

I AM A CODING GOD!!! VOTE MANDLE FOR BEST CODING IN THE NEXT AGS AWARDS!!!

[WHAM]

Still a few days left, folks! Play and vote while there is still time!

[Stupot]

Voting has finished and the results are as follows:

• Valhalla Extinction by grok - 0 votes
• The Awakening by Luisdementia - 1 vote
• Predators Pray for Plants by Mandle - 2 votes
• GNRBLEX by WHAM - 9 votes

Well done WHAM. Victory is yours! You will be contacted soon about choosing a topic for September.

Thanks to all the participants and voters.

[Mandle]

A very well deserved win! That game was rock-solid, and some of the best fun I've had playing an AGS game in recent memory!

[WHAM]

Yaaaay! Thank you to all who voted, and good show from all participants.
I am actually quite surprised that Awakening didn't get more votes... I was expecting this to be a lot closer, especially with Awakening being worked on by an actual team.



Anyways: I am planning to improve Gnrblex and will seek to release a 2.0 update for it some time this year. The plan is to add a couple of puzzles I had to drop, add some additional animations and sound effects, improve other visual aspects (new intro/outro, add clutter to rooms, add lighting effects etc), add full voice acting and some text translations to different languages.

So basically I just want to make the game a little bit prettier and more polished.