MAGS November "Cloud" (RESULT)

[Slasher]

Night Witch: I'm so glad that Crimson managed to complete his module for this game in time and I think Blondbraid did a great job with the graphics..

Well done guys 

[Blondbraid]

Night Witch: I'm so glad that Crimson managed to complete his module for this game in time and I think Blondbraid did a great job with the graphics..

Well done guys 

Thanks!

Having played all entries now, here are my thoughts:
Brothers & Wreckers by Flugeldufel & Creamy

Spoiler

This game had an interesting setup, and lovely graphics, but the puzzles were random and it was just too short for me to form any real opinion on the characters.

[close]

Jake's Very Last Journey by fernewelten

Spoiler

I'm sorry to say that I didn't like this game, but I didn't like the look of the graphics and they were an active hindrance in many of the puzzles where you had to look for hotspots that were exactly the same color as the rest of the background, and I found the puzzles random and unintuitive.

[close]

Night Witches: Women of the clouds by Slasher
I want to give some background; at first Slasher, Crimson Wizard and I worked on the same entry, but since Slasher and Crimson Wizard had too different ideas on gameplay to integrate the two Slasher wound up splitting up and making his own game instead, hence why this month has two entries with the same theme. At any rate, here are my thoughts:

Spoiler

I still think the controls are a bit odd, but in the end they worked fine. The gameplay itself is good but it's bogged down by the npc's interrupting to shout the same lines over and over again, which just disrupts the flow of the game without adding anything to it after you've already heard it the first time.

[close]

Anyway, I wound up voting for

Spoiler

Slasher, since I felt it was the game that best integrated clouds into the gameplay.

[close]

[lanchong]

I was going to write my own reviews but I found that Shadow1000 wrote exactly what I had in mind. Since I'm a bit lazy, I'll just second his reviews 

The only difference is that I voted for:

Spoiler

Jake's very last journey because it's complete short adventure game and it suits the cloud theme very well.

[close]

[Shadow1000]

I was going to write my own reviews but I found that Shadow1000 wrote exactly what I had in mind. Since I'm a bit lazy, I'll just second his reviews 

The only difference is that I voted for:

Spoiler

Jake's very last journey because it's complete short adventure game and it suits the cloud theme very well.

[close]

Haha...thanks, lanchong

[Creamy]

Blondbraid, do you mean that you would have prefered our game to be more believable historically, less tongue in cheek?
The puzzles themselves have a logic IMO.

[Blondbraid]

Blondbraid, do you mean that you would have prefered our game to be more believable historically, less tongue in cheek?
The puzzles themselves have a logic IMO.

Our main difference was in which controls we wanted to use and how the game would feel to play, I wanted to make a flowing arcade-like game and Slasher was working on a mouse-controlled game with more puzzle elements,
but yeah, I also cared more for historical consistency in planes and locations than Slasher.

[Creamy]

Sorry, I think you misread my question. I was reacting to this comment you made about Brothers & Wreckers:

the puzzles were random

I know for a fact that you like history 

[Blondbraid]

Sorry, I think you misread my question. I was reacting to this comment you made about Brothers & Wreckers:

the puzzles were random

I know for a fact that you like history 

Ah, sorry about that! 

Anyway, what I meant about the random puzzle was that for me,

Spoiler

I didn't know how to proceed with the rotating sign after the parrot had told the place name to the brothers but they didn't know the direction, so I just tried randomly rotating it and suddenly the characters announced that I'd solved the puzzle

[close]

I just didn't see the logic in that puzzle, and if it was meant as a joke I didn't quite get it either.

[Cassiebsg]

About the sign puzzle (attention puzzle solving ahead):

Spoiler

You were suppose to listen to the music, and figure out by the name of the music tracks to which directions they pointed to. Then rotate the sign to match.
I solved it another way, since even though I knew all 3 songs, I couldn't name a single one...  So I just pointed the "good" names to match with the paths that had a music track. 

[close]

EDIT:
Oh, i have a little bit of time, so might as well give some feedback. 

Night Witches: Women of the clouds by Slasher

Spoiler

I enjoyed the plane size, but would have liked a bit more contrast on the graphics. The game in general felt dark. Also the mouse cursor being the same as the plane I was controlling was just confusing. Consider changing it to a crosshair.
I did not like the fact that I needed to click the mouse button up/down to make the plane move. Would have probably be more intuitive  to make the mouse movement correspond to the plane. As in move the mouse up/down to go up or down, left-rigth to move forward backwards. And then use the 2 mouse buttons to shoot and drop bombs, and with a full keyboard alternative (using the cursor keys to move the plane). As others have mentions the constant interruption of flight by character speaking was annoying. Consider changing it to BG speech. Also, why did we need the other cursor modes?

I liked the way the the clouds were part of the game and not just BG noise. 

[close]

Night Witch by Blondbraid and Crimson Wizard

Spoiler

Didn't took me long to get a feel for the game, and love the graphics as usual. The only minus I would point out, would be that there's little place to maneuver...more play space by making the planes smaller would have been nice.
Wish the clouds had been integrated into the game.

[close]

Jake's Very Last Journey

Spoiler

Graphics aren't the most perfect but they do the job for the most part. I enjoyed the story, even if the puzzles were a bit shoehorned. At least there was a good amount and variety of them. Though the pixel hunt could have been avoided by making all nuts clickable, but making the character to only interact with one (and refuse to take down more).
Of all the entries this one is the most complete, even if it had a few bugs, the story has a beginning, a end, a new beginning, a middle and an end...  Also this entry is the only one where the clouds are key for the game. There's no doubt whatsoever what theme this game was build for.
For this reason and because it's a P&C adventure game, this is the one I ended up voting for.

[close]

Brothers & Wreckers by Flugeldufel & Creamy

Spoiler

Really lovely art and when I started playing I got this MI "vibe" right away. And the game felt so big and detailed! That I thought this would be a sure winner. I loved solving the sign post puzzle.  Just the kind of puzzling that makes me smile when I figure the solution.
The only downside, was the clouds theme seemed to jammed into there and were not much more than a mentioning. This is the only reason why this entry did not get my vote.

[close]

[Creamy]

Thanks Cassie.

Spoiler

You were suppose to listen to the music, and figure out by the name of the music tracks to which directions they pointed to. Then rotate the sign to match.

We've tried to use popular songs. You only need to recognize one place to be able to solve the puzzle. Yet, making puzzles that require outside knowledge from the player is always risky.

Another way to decipher the signpost is to know Antillean Creole   

[close]

[Blondbraid]

Thanks Cassie.

Spoiler

You were suppose to listen to the music, and figure out by the name of the music tracks to which directions they pointed to. Then rotate the sign to match.

We've tried to use popular songs. You only need to recognize one place to be able to solve the puzzle. Yet, making puzzles that require outside knowledge from the player is always risky.

Another way to decipher the signpost is to know Antillean Creole   

[close]

Aha, I never made that connection, though that explains the puzzle.

[Crimson Wizard]

Finally finished all the other games.
Few comments below...


"Night Witches" by Slasher

Spoiler

After getting used to controls I realized this game plays more like a real-time strategy than an usual arcade. Game's concept might have a potential, though I'd wish there was either more accurate historical background, or perhaps a work of fiction, because the intro and story texts in game are quite random, mashing together few references from real events.
And yes, clouds are actually part of gameplay, which is good.

Unfortunately, there are several design choices that made it unnecessarily harder to play and enjoy.

Most frustrating thing was that when you get hit you loose control over the plane and it goes to some predefined location automatically. This was seriously freaking me out. While I would not mind taking out few remaining AA-Guns even at the cost of a few health points, but the game was overriding my actions, which actually caused me to loose couple of times.
Another annoying thing was NPC speech during the mission. It was blocking, and displayed in the corner of the screen without a warning. When it happened I did not realize when it start, could not understand why my plane stopped and could not read text in time (but frankly the text was not very important). Major issue is that this speech blocks the game, interrupting player's actions and causing distraction.

[close]

"Jake's Very Last Journey" by fernewelten

Spoiler

This one is actually a nice and funny game . It has puzzles that make sense and well written characters (albeit annoying at times).

The thing that really took me aback was the beginning though. Gosh, idk maybe I became old, but it took me almost 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do there.
It's not "pixel hunt" in a classic sense, but still, many objects would benefit from being more visible to player. I did not pay attention to proper "nut" because others were not marked in any way, so I thought there's nothing to check there.
"Cloud pots" are just some curves on background, and I completely missed the "window" at the left at first because it looked like a part of the cloud, only little lighter in color.
After sitting in confusion for a while I decided to give it last try and literally scanned whole room with mouse, until noticing this "opening", which let me finally progress.

Please, add more visual distinction to these objects, some kind of animation just to bring player's attention perhaps? Otherwise, a good short game .

[close]

"Brothers & Wreckers" (Flugeldufel & Creamy)

Spoiler

This game had a great start, and I was extremely sad when it turned out to be an unfinished demo. Because of that I could not tell whether the cloud is actually meaningful in this game or added for eligibility. But even if that was the case, singer character concept is cool.
I liked the roadsign puzzle even though I could not solve it properly. I knew it was related to music somehow, and tried to find references in surroundings, and background music in some locations, but failed. Maybe I was missing some reference.
Anyway, I would love to see a full game!

[close]

[Shadow1000]

The people have spoken! Jake's Very Last Journey got more votes than all the rest combined. A huge congratulations!

[Slasher]

Great win fernewelten...

Congratulations   

[Cassiebsg]

congratulations fernewelten! 

[Blondbraid]

Congratulations to fernwelten!

I'm curious as to what theme you'll choose for next MAGS!

[fernewelten]

My internet connection has acted up today, so I've found the result only now.

Why, thanks a lot, voters! I'm honoured!  😍

I think I've become a little attached to Jake. I might extend the adventure somewhat - give it more rooms, more riddles, etc.

• Jake would probably profit from a higher resolution (the game is 600 px high, but Jake's height is only 200 px). He might learn to stoop so that he can pick up dropped things … get less finicky standing sprites  …


• There's that teacher ghost bug ... IMO it can't be a coincidence that the troubles happen when the test GUI is shown: That's where I use dynamic sprites and DrawingSurface routines, so the rogue code will probably hide there  …


• The puzzles have rough corners …


• I've had feedback from several sides that my art style is ugly. Well, I've certainly tried to improve here, for instance by now consciously choosing colour schemes that I hope are tasteful. I agree that the “cloud floor” doesn't look like much; I'll try and come up with a less ugly “cloud floor”.
  But I can only do so much in the short run and with the time I have. I'd love to be able to paint such fantastic, atmospheric, detailed pictures as in @Flugeldufel's and @Creamy's game. But in this game, the pictures will probably continue to be based on line art and colour transitions, in a sort of “hand-drawn” vector art style. I'll have to rely on the gamers' imagination to supplement what isn't drawn.

What do you think? Would it be worth it?

[Stupot]

It's not your internet Fernewelten. It's this gadfirsaken website 

I've been trying to post but everyone's beaten me to it. Anyway. Congratulations and keep an eye on your inbox for details about choosing a topic for January :-)

[fernewelten]

Brothers & Wreckers might be “more of a demo” right now (as has been said) but I think that the game has a lot of flair. The protagonists are likeable, and it doesn't take much exposition to draw me as a player into the story. So I think that the game would be a solid basis to build on. The art is really beautiful and must have taken a lot of time to prepare. In the light of that, I found it a bit of a shame that, e.g., it was so quick for me as a player to walk off the left side of the first room and never need to come back to it. Perhaps you can come up with lots of creative ways to tie the protagonists with puzzles and tasks so that all that hard painting work at least pays off.

By the way, I don't think that adventures absolutely “need” to have an inventory in order to be proper and complete. If I remember correctly, Samorost 2 is also very a poetical game that doesn't have an inventory but that I liked a lot.

[Crimson Wizard]

• I've had feedback from several sides that my art style is ugly. Well, I've certainly tried to improve here, for instance by now consciously choosing colour schemes that I hope are tasteful. I agree that the “cloud floor” doesn't look like much; I'll try and come up with a less ugly “cloud floor”.
  

Hmmm, I did not find the art ugly, simple maybe, the only thing that stood out for me were character's arms, which were unproportionally long.

By the way, I don't think that adventures absolutely “need” to have an inventory in order to be proper and complete. If I remember correctly, Samorost 2 is also very a poetical game that doesn't have an inventory but that I liked a lot.

In regards to "Brothers & Wretcher's", I'd wish the game at least had a visual reference to what I picked up (like banana in this game).[/list]