MAGS June "Ice" (RESULTS)

[Hobo]

Groundhog

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I love time loop stories, they offer so many different opportunities for twists and surprises. This was a pretty simple and small-scale implementation of that plot device, but still enjoyable and the ending was rewarding enough. Most answers seemed to be related to the MAGS theme, so that was a nice touch.

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To the Mountains of Madness

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Well, not much to say about it, this is indeed only an intro. The character sheets look decent, but the selection arrows blend a bit too well into the interface and it took me a moment to notice them. The board-game-like feel and set up seems interesting and I'd like to see what sort of gameplay you'll implement for this. Good luck with finishing the full version. Oh, what's the connection to the "Ice" theme?

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Ice in the Air

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A neat little game. It was interesting to see a simple pixel background mixed with a more detailed character model, usually it's the other way around. Story worked nicely with the theme and you can't really go wrong with music by Eric Matyas. Very light on puzzles, I personally don't mind that, but I guess it would add a bit more challenge if some of the items had more steps to obtaining them than simply picking them up. Well done, it was an enjoyable five minutes.

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Comet Collision

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I like the concept, I've always enjoyed the choose-your-own-adventure type games. I agree with Mandle that this sort of format probably benefits from longer stories and having a path end only after one or two clicks felt a bit underwhelming. The restart button is a welcome addition, but it now appears on top of the text on couple of occasions. The default AGS restart button F9 also seems to be working, so I guess there was always a restart button. Music and sound effects would have also been nice too, would have helped to create a better atmosphere. It's great that you got it released (your first AGS game?) and hopefully you'll find some time to develop it further.

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[VampireWombat]

Comet Collision

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I like the concept, I've always enjoyed the choose-your-own-adventure type games. I agree with Mandle that this sort of format probably benefits from longer stories and having a path end only after one or two clicks felt a bit underwhelming. The restart button is a welcome addition, but it now appears on top of the text on couple of occasions. The default AGS restart button F9 also seems to be working, so I guess there was always a restart button. Music and sound effects would have also been nice too, would have helped to create a better atmosphere. It's great that you got it released (your first AGS game?) and hopefully you'll find some time to develop it further.

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Spoiler

I'm glad you enjoyed the concept. Of course it wasn't supposed to be a choose your own adventure game. It became that since it was the only way I could get it finished by the deadline. I have notes and ideas for what I wanted to do and hope to do. And shame about the restart appearing on top of the text on some. I didn't have time to test more than a few rooms/options. I'll look into a fix for it when I have time.
I agree that music, sound effects, and actual graphics would have been nice. They are all things I plan to include if/when I make a full version.
Thanks, but this is actually the second game I've completed for MAGs.
Thanks for the comments and playing.

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A 3rd version has been added to the page which should fix the issue with the restart gui.

[Mandle]

To the Mountains of Madness

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Oh, what's the connection to the "Ice" theme?

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The Mountains Of Madness are in Antarctica (according to Lovecraft), "at the frozen bottom of the world" as the intro says.

[Mandle]

Spent a very pleasant few hours gathering pictures of cities worldwide from 1920 to use in my game.

Amazing to see people just wandering around unaware that about 100 years later someone would be able to instantly find a photo they were in and then plug it into a game a few minutes later...

Crazy!

[Mandle]

I've updated my comments on the previous page now that I have been able to play Cassie's entry.

[Cassiebsg]

Also, thanks for the bug report Mandle!
I've updated the game to v1.1 now.

Spoiler

You now need all the objects to finish the game.

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[VampireWombat]

I was finally able to download and play some of the games today.
In order as I played them:

To the Mountains of Madness

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Not sure what to say about this one. I mostly knew what to expect from screenshots and all. And I knew to expect something. I raised my eyebrow a little when hearing the theme music and then chuckled a bit when it distorted.

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Don't Ice Your Cool

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Short, but effective. The animations were nice and I never got stuck on a puzzle.

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Ice In The Air

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I was a bit confused what to do with the items for a bit until I took a break. Apparently I forgot to actually read the list.
Cute game, but some of the stuff referenced is more interesting to me. Like I want to see a game about the clown...

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Groundhog

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I was able to guess most of them pretty easy, but I think I had to go through all of the food options to get it right. I kind of would like to see more done with the premise, but it worked well enough as it was.

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My vote:

Spoiler

Don't Ice Your Cool. It was the most fun for me and had the most variation with the puzzles.

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[Cassiebsg]

Time to give some feedback, before I get too tired again.

Groundhog by Slasher

Spoiler

Not my kind of game and it's basically pick the right dialog branch. The plot of redoing the day until you get it right has been done to death too. Basically I just clicked all "the repeating" dialog as fast as possible... Cause I thought: Got it wrong, so the game just restarted... took me 2 or 3 restarts before I noticed the text was slightly different.
spoiler:

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Also took me a while to realize the connection of the theme with the answers.

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To the Mountains of Madness by Mandle

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Loved the intro! Then I got stuck in the choose the characters screen... was about to quit when I accidentally hit the arrow and wondered "what happened?" Then I finally saw the arrows. Picked the team and took the next screen to figure out what to do... eventually I found the hidden quit button.
Looking forward to see how the game actually turns out.

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Comet Collision by VampireWombat

Spoiler

Read. Click. Game over.
Think your ambitions for the game you want to make are bigger than your current capacity. Where was that Penguin? You took so long to make it, and it never got into the game?
I think you should focus on a small one room game and not get sidetracked by all the extras you want to add. Some times "less is more" (Mies van der Rohe).

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Don't Ice your Cool by Hobo

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Loved this little gem, great graphics and lovely animations. And the puzzles were also very good thought out. Plus I love a huge amount of options... probably a little too many for such a short game though. The only critic is the audio is all set to 100... I would rather they were set much lower. like 50, so it doesn't burst my hears when it starts.
Spoilers:

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Well, I'm probably not going to figure out why I can get the stick by throwing a piece of ice on the stick, but the sardines didn't work...

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I voted for:

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Drums roll

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So you really want to know?

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Drums roll

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honestly?

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Ice in th.... errm   just kidding

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Don't Ice your Cool by Hobo

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[VampireWombat]

Comet Collision by VampireWombat

Spoiler

Read. Click. Game over.
Think your ambitions for the game you want to make are bigger than your current capacity. Where was that Penguin? You took so long to make it, and it never got into the game?
I think you should focus on a small one room game and not get sidetracked by all the extras you want to add. Some times "less is more" (Mies van der Rohe).

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Spoiler

You must have chosen one of the simpler ones. Several of the scenarios go much farther than others. I think it ended up with 31 or 32 rooms.
And I didn't spend that long actually making the penguin. Maybe 2-3 hours total. Sadly, I was sleep deprived the final weekend and was unable to implement it as virtual pet.
One day I probably will end up doing a one room game. The idea hadn't occurred to me until I played the games today.
I could probably finish up the virtual pet penguin in a couple of hours if you want to see the penguin...

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[Cassiebsg]

Yes I do want to see him
Well, the first try was eaxctly that, I managed to beat the game the second try and that was it. But also the 2nd time is didn't took that long to reach the end.
Also, why do you need 31-32 rooms? You could have settled with one room, one GUI and then just change the picture and text on the labels/buttons...

[VampireWombat]

Alright, I'll see what I can do. I have the code mostly figured out, I just need to do some fine tuning and testing to make sure it works real time as planned.

And yeah, I know I could have done it that way. But the sleep deprivation made me unable to think how to code. The method that ended up in the game was literally just rooms with backgrounds and hotspots to handle the choices.

But I have learned from the experience. Any new code not finished by the 2nd or 3rd week gets scrapped or simplified.

[Blondbraid]

I've played all the games, and here are my thoughts:
Groundhog by Slasher:

Spoiler

At first I just picked answers at random, but once I saw the connection between the right answers I finished the game quickly. It's not a bad game, but there's nothing particularly fun and interesting about it compared to most other games by Slasher.

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To the Mountains of Madness by Mandle

Spoiler

I have to agree with Cassiebsg that the GUI was a bit tricky with the arrow the same color as the surrounding frame, but otherwise it was an interesting intro and premise, I'm curios to what the actual gameplay would be like.

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Ice in the Air by Cassiebsg

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Unfortunately I think I encountered some sort of bug, I putt all items on the list into the bonfire but I can't light it, so I haven't finished the game.

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Comet Collision by VampireWombat

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It was fun seeing all the weird results coming from the choices you could make, but I wish I didn't have to restart the game every time I hit an ending.

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Don't Ice your Cool by Hobo

Spoiler

It's a cute, bite-sized game with nice graphics and animations in addition to a neat puzzle, and I ended up voting for it.

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[Cassiebsg]

@Blondbraind

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Seems like you are now playing the game as intended.
It's not a bug.

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You need to start a fire... what would you do if you wanted to start a fire?

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Also the character gives you a hint about what the "last" item is.

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And if you haven't figured it out by now, just throw the paper in the bonfire, then light it.

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[Blondbraid]

@Blondbraind

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Seems like you are now playing the game as intended.
It's not a bug.

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You need to start a fire... what would you do if you wanted to start a fire?

Spoiler

Also the character gives you a hint about what the "last" item is.

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The problem is that I tried,

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but I couldn't light the fire even after putting the paper in the bonfire.

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And if you haven't figured it out by now, just throw the paper in the bonfire, then light it.

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[Stupot]

Last call for votes!

Also. At the risk of sounding like a broken record: Rate and comment. Rate and comment.

[VampireWombat]

Comet Collision by VampireWombat

Spoiler

It was fun seeing all the weird results coming from the choices you could make, but I wish I didn't have to restart the game every time I hit an ending.

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Spoiler

I'm not sure how else to have done it. Unless you played the first version, without the restart gui.
But glad you enjoyed the weirdness. My mind went weird places that day.
Thanks for playing.

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[Stupot]

The voting is over and the results have been carefully counted and the winner is (by quite a margin):

Don't Ice Your Cool by Hobo. You will be contacted soon about choosing a topic for August.

Thanks to everyone who entered.

[Shadow1000]

Well deserved win. Congrats.

[Hobo]

A big thanks to all who played and commented, it was a fun little project to work on and I'll try to come up with something inspiring for August MAGS. I'm also planning a small update for the game later this week, so all the feedback has been very helpful to improve and maybe even lenghten the experience.

Also, my game is still the only one with enough votes to form a rating on the AGS games page, so go there right now and play and rate and comment the other ones.

[DBoyWheeler]

Congrats to you, Hobo!  Looking forward to what you have planned for August!