MAGS October “Unexpected Guest” (RESULT)

[Stupot]

Topic: Halloween with an unexpected guest
Set by:remz

The winner of this month’s MAGS contest was Heltonjon.

Halloween is coming up, but an unexpected guest shows up.
Would that be The Grim Reaper, coming for you?
Would it be your forgotten but inappropriate uncle, wanting to crash at your place?
Or perhaps a talking fly, hiding in your candy jar?



Use your creativity and originality! And most importantly, have fun participating (or playing)!


What is MAGS?
Started in 2001, MAGS is a competition for amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to create a game in under a month, following the guidelines set by the previous winner. It aims to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, and provide a kick-start into making adventure games. Regardless of skill, MAGS is for everyone. Voting is based on "favourite" games, and not the most artistic, or the best coded. If you have bad art skills, use it as a chance to do some graphic work. If you're sub-standard at coding, use it as a chance to give scripting a go. Ultimately, people will vote for the most enjoyable entry.

Rules
Entering MAGS is simple. First, conceptualize your game following the month's criteria (see above). Second, create your game fuelled only by coffee. Finally, post your game in this thread, including:

* A working download link
* The title of your game
* A suitable in-game screenshot

At the end of the month, voting will begin, usually lasting for fourteen days, and the winner chooses the next month's theme.

Remember that this is a challenge to see what you can do in a month, so any tinkering you do after that, including fixing minor glitches, is against the spirit of the competition. The exception to this is that you may go in and fix major, game-breaking bugs only during voting. We want you to have a game that voters can actually play and that runs on their machines.

So to reiterate, during the voting period fixing major, game-breaking bugs is okay, fixing minor glitches or making cosmetic changes is cheating.

Tips
Here are some ways to make sure you have a game to submit at the end of the month:
* Make a tiny game. Plan small, then cut it in half. Find shortcuts (e.g. if making walkcycles is time-consuming, make the characters static or have it in the first person).
* Plan to have your game playable and submittable with a week to spare. This way you have a week to fix bugs, add some flourishes and maybe even get someone to test it.
* Plan to submit it a day or so early. This way, if there are any technical issues with uploading, they can be sorted out in time.

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Need a little help with graphics? Perhaps The AGS Trove has something you can use.
Don't want to go it alone? Try the Recruitment board.
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[pell]

Thanks. I was hoping this would go up early. I'm definitely in, even though it may be something really small.

[Stupot]

Is anyone working on anything?

[heltenjon]

Well, maybe...expect all stills, no animation or sound, but perhaps some jokes. Don't know if I'll have the time, but I've got an idea.

[heltenjon]

Is the deadline very strict on this one?

[pell]

OK. So I said it might be something really small. This isn't even actually a game. But hey, I said I was in, so I wanted to do something.

https://gamesbypell.itch.io/unexpected-guest

I actually thought there would be at least a bit of narrative, but I couldn't remember AGS functionality quickly enough at the last minute. So only the final part went in.

[heltenjon]

Pell, the zip file is empty. Could you please re-upload to itch.io?

Stupot, I have an unfinished game and could use an extension if possible. If not, I'll release it anyway after the deadline. 

[pell]

Pell, the zip file is empty. Could you please re-upload to itch.io?

Stupot, I have an unfinished game and could use an extension if possible. If not, I'll release it anyway after the deadline. 

Thanks. I fixed it. I don't create zip files very often on Linux, so I didn't pass the right options to the archiver.

[Stupot]

Sorry for the tardiness, guys
IRL + crazy forums = late, sad Stupot.

OK. So I said it might be something really small. This isn't even actually a game. But hey, I said I was in, so I wanted to do something.

https://gamesbypell.itch.io/unexpected-guest

Thanks for your entry, Pell. I'm glad you entered something.

Stupot, I have an unfinished game and could use an extension if possible. If not, I'll release it anyway after the deadline. 

Sorry Helton. I thought I had replied to this. Do you still need a bit of time?

[heltenjon]

Stupot, I have an unfinished game and could use an extension if possible. If not, I'll release it anyway after the deadline. 

Sorry Helton. I thought I had replied to this. Do you still need a bit of time?

Yes, but not much. I have a finishable game which needs a bit of debugging.

[Stupot]

Stupot, I have an unfinished game and could use an extension if possible. If not, I'll release it anyway after the deadline. 

Sorry Helton. I thought I had replied to this. Do you still need a bit of time?

Yes, but not much. I have a finishable game which needs a bit of debugging.

All right. Just post it when it’s ready and we’ll start the voting :-)

[heltenjon]

Okay, then here's my game:

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2575-halloween-with-an-unexpected-guest

Graphics made with the help of my kids' toys, and many, many bad jokes, including some you'll probably never even find. So many that statistics say that a few of them will turn out to be funny.

[Stupot]

I’m so sorry everyone. I was sure I’d set up the voting for this. I think in all the confusion with the outages and downtime at the beginning of the month, it somehow escaped me.
No excuses, though. I should have been on top of it.

Hopefully some of you will have already played the games and are ready to vote. For anyone else, I’ll open the voting for 7 days as of now. Please vote it you can, using the poll above.

Unexpected Guest by Pell
Halloween with an Unexpected Guest by Heltonjon

[Stupot]

Couple of days left to vote if you haven’t already.

[heltenjon]

The amount of feedback hasn't exactly been staggering, which I guess means that my game is crap. 

Anyway:

Unexpected Guest by Pell:

Spoiler

It's just a picture, turned in to fulfill the obligation of saying he was in. Not a game, so far as I have found. The picture is nice and far outweighs my own abilities in that regard. But I don't really know if Pell meant this as a real entry - it looks more like showing what he did.

[close]

Halloween with an Unexpected Guest by Heltenjon:

Spoiler

So, I made this. It's not a great game - you could say I was aiming for two cups, but would be okay with getting one. (So please rate it on the games page!) It's made for fun with still pictures using my kids' toys and no music and no animation, so that's definitely an area of possible improvement. The story wasn't written out before I started coding, so it's a case of writing a story to fit the pictures, more or less. But there are lots and lots of jokes/puns/allusions, which people may or may not like, interaction feedback for almost anything (except using one item on another, which I forgot), often different when you do it later in the game and a couple of easy puzzles. I love dialogue trees, so there may be a bit too much of those. I was actually curious about one of the dialogue puzzles (prior to Jack's date's arrival), as I thought it was a bit clever when I wrote it, but later thought that it may have been unfair to the player and just an annoyance.

[close]

Who should win?

Spoiler

I actually thought I'd win this one be default, too, which is a lousy way of winning anything. But unless there's something I haven't discovered, mine is the only game entered, bad as it may be.

[close]

[Shadow1000]

I agree with Heltonjon for the most part:

Unexpected Guest by Pell:

Spoiler

I don't think this is a game? Unless there's an action to be taken that I couldn't figure out, it's just a picture. I don't know if there are minimum qualifications for entries such as the player at least DOING something but I'll let the votes speak for themselves

[close]

Halloween with an Unexpected Guest by Heltenjon:

Spoiler

Cute Idea and the pictures/puns made me smile. Definitely rates as a game in the sense that there are things to do but I found myself losing interest probably halfway through the game.

[close]

[Stupot]

The winner is Heltonjon. Well done. Thank you to our entrants and and everyone who voted.

Be sure to check in December for the new topic set by Heltonjon.