Messages

This was a fun game! I liked the light-hearted twist on cyberpunk. The graphics are really nice, especially the different palettes that gave each location its distinctive feeling.

Spoiler

I liked the stealth section with the giant cat robot: it looked really cool.
The final cutscene, too, was just lovely!

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Wow! As always, I'm impressed by what you manage to create with AGS.

Player's movement seems quite smooth to me. I don't know how it feels when playing, but from the video, it seems fine!

It's hard to understand how challenging the AI is, as you play too well in the video and never get shot Are their attacks hitscan, or projectile-based?
Maybe you could increase their alertness and make them shoot quicker, if you allow the player to dodge their bullet. Or they could be special enemies. I don't know, random idea

In general, I think the game would benefit from having different textures for walls. Otherwise, I feel the player would get lost quickly.

Another quality of life feature would be to make doors more recognisable. Right now, they all look the same. The only way to know you're interacting with door 3 and not door 1 is to read its description. Maybe you could have different colours (like in Doom) or the door number written on the texture itself?

Is it me or does the game have almost have a fisheye effect to the way the walls seem to curve? It's really cool.

Gameplay-wise, it seems like you're going for a more tactical, survival gameplay, rather than a fast-paced shooter. Ambushing the enemy, finding cover to avoid being shot at, having to ration the few bullets you have. It should lead to tense moments where you only have one bullet remaining, so you can't miss.
The radar mechanic is pretty cool and reminds me of Alien. It should also make the game feel fair (i.e. you don't get enemies appear out of nowhere).

Anyway, some rambling feedback here I think it's a really impressive project and it could be fun to play!

Postmodern Adventures is an unstoppable game-making machine!
The backgrounds are very atmospheric, with a lot of cool details in them -- I love the water reflections and the lights in some of the scenes. The talking close-up is really cool.

- Test your knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft and horror cinema of the 30s on Maxwell Fontaine's radio show

The quizzes in previous games were a lot of fun and one of the highlights for me, glad they made a comeback!

[heltenjon:]

heltenjon: hahaha, thanks!
I've been waiting and waiting for Godot to code himself, but the silly program refuses to do it. Such a slacker. Thankfully, Brane is a Godot master, so I can annoy him with requests instead. He's done a wonderful job creating a framework for the game that even dumb people like me can use.

Pogwizd: thanks!
What are the benefits of using Godot? I can't go into the details regarding code, because I don't know much about it, and Brane has done all the programming; he has done amazing things with the engine over the years, including a chess simulation game! So, he's quite the advanced user. But I can give you my opinion on the rest, then if he wants, he can chime in with his thoughts.

So, before starting Confidential Killings, we did this game for a jam, to see if we had the chops to tackle such a project: https://branegames.itch.io/we-suspect-foul-play
While it's less polished, it has similar mechanics to Confidential Killings (missing some), and you can check it out to see how it plays.
The game has similarities to adventure games, like clicking on hotspots, reading documents, etc., but also cuts some mechanics: no walking around, no inventory, etc. So, path-finding, inventory handling, and so on (which are strong points of AGS), are not needed.

The other main reasons why we went with Godot:

- It's made for collaborations: it's really tricky to collaborate on a project in AGS. The sprite file, acsprset.spr, which becomes huge with time and needs constant importing of sprites; the room files, which can't be modified without the editor (although I've seen that steps have been made to change this in AGS 4), and so on. Meanwhile, Godot keeps things open and in regular formats. Sprites, backgrounds, etc. are png files in a folder. If I need to update a sprite, I just overwrite a png image and push the update on Git. It saves us a lot of time.

- Ease of use: I wrote above, Brane has created a framework for this type of game, with custom nodes and all that. This means that I can create levels without having to touch a single line of code (which is a good thing, because of my incredibly limited knowledge of Godot ). This makes prototyping and tweaking levels really easy and fast, which is very important.

- Performance: while the game is mostly made of static screens, performance is a concern. It runs at 1440p, and in the past I had a lot of trouble with AGS and fullscreen animations. Here, I can throw 1440p fullscreen pngs without having to worry about fps getting killed.

- Shaders and other modern commodities: Godot is a modern engine and has a lot of fancy things that AGS lacks. A particle system like the dustmotes you can (barely see) at 0:11 in the trailer, or the water shaders in the pool at 0:14, and the underwater close-ups. They're quick to set up, if you know what you're doing (i.e., not me), but they add a lot of polish to the game.

I may have got some things wrong, as I'm very new to Godot, but for me those are the main reasons.
But if I were alone working on it, I would go with AGS because I'm not experienced with Godot and I couldn't do a single thing 

[Trailer:]

Hey folks! I've been working for quite some time on a game with my friend BRANE, who also started with AGS (you may remember The RoboLovers).

It's a detective game in which you inspect crime scenes, find clues, connect them, and reconstruct what happened.

Trailer:

Some screenshots!

A regular car crash, or something worse...?


Was the car sabotaged? Perhaps the garage will hold some clues.


It's not a detective game without a depressing office!

---

The game is made in Godot (boo!), which is a lovely engine I can barely use, but luckily I'm not doing any coding. 

We're working hard on polishing the demo at the moment! In the meantime, here's the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2797960/Confidential_Killings/

If you like the look of the game, wishlist it there! If you don't like it, feel free to wishlist it nonetheless

I've yet to play the demo, but I love how unique the game looks!

I really enjoyed reading the detailed description of your process for these recordings!

Lovely recording of the waves, feel free to share more! I love putting sounds of nature in the background, they create a relaxing ambiance and help filter out the noises from outside.

By the way, after reading about you having to wake up early to record some of the sounds, I couldn't help but make this

Congrats Sinitrena!

[Sinitrena]

I enjoyed reading all the stories. My feedback:

Sinitrena

Spoiler

An enjoyable story that fits well with the current Christmas atmosphere: shops filled with customers and overworked staff. I like the idea behind the story and I found the protagonist's character to be well-defined through her actions and interactions with people.

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Mandle

Spoiler

Santa and time travel, what a combination! A funny short story.

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Stupot

Spoiler

This one made me laugh, very funny!

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Baron

Spoiler

The main character was described well and you can understand his frustrations at being constantly interrupted when working. The ending is a bit of a let-down: the guy who looks, acts, and has a hobby like a serial killer... is really a serial killer.
Despite this, I enjoyed reading the story!

[close]

My vote goes to...

Spoiler

Sinitrena.

[close]

[Interplanetary Relocations Co.]

Interplanetary Relocations Co.

Spoiler

Matteo and Antonio had been working for the Interplanetary Relocations Co. for ten years. Remodelling and terraforming small planets for future tenants had never been a dream for either of them, but the pay was good and the market booming. Plus Gianfranco, the old man, as they used to call him, was a good employer, affable and generous. The kind of person with whom it is impossible not to get along.
The routine was always the same. They worked for three to four weeks, levelling mountains that were too high to be accessible, digging picturesque lakes and filling them with fish, planting a few groves here and there that always looked good in the brochures. Once they had finished their preparations, they organised a guided tour of the planet for its future inhabitants, taking care to hide from them the desert areas where they had thrown the remains of the mountains and the cheap seas with which they had filled half the planet. I mean, what did they expect from a few weeks' work? "Even God took seven days to create the world," the old man used to say. "And he certainly had better tools than we do."
It was hard, back-breaking work, yes, but it paid well, the boss was a good man, and Matteo and Antonio had become good friends over time. Of course, the two could not have been more different from each other. Antonio was a mule, whose main goal in life was to make ends meet. Matteo, on the other hand, was more ambitious. "If you follow me, you'll go places", he used to tell Antonio, a prophecy that never seemed to come true. Still, they could not complain, especially considering the job crisis that plagued society at that time.

Of course, it wasn't all roses.
In recent years, the old man had begun to lose his marbles, it was clear. Like that time he had sent them to Sciatto VI, to clean up an oil spill. Two horrendous weeks slogging through sludge, trying to suck out an 8-kilometre-deep oil stratum. Only to realise, when the job was done, that they had misread the Roman number and discovered that the clean-up had to be done at Sciatto IV instead. Not to mention dozens of complaints from the oil-drinking population of Sciatto VI, pissed off at the loss of their primary source of food.
In short, the situation had deteriorated to the extent that the old man had to take early retirement, much to the sadness of his two employees who were genuinely fond of him.
So now they were sitting in the office, a lump in their stomachs, waiting for something to happen. Antonio was chewing the caps of all the pens he could find, reducing them to shapeless lumps, while Matteo was biting his nails. The anxiety in the air was palpable.
"He's already late," Antonio said, nibbling on a Bic, eyes fixed on the wall clock. "Do you know him, this guy Gregorio?"
"Pah, I saw him once," Matteo replied, gnawing his thumb. "But he was just a kid."
"The old man never talked about his nephew," muttered Antonio. "There must be a reason."
"And to think the company is in his hands," Matteo said, switching to his index finger. "Let's hope for the best. I don't feel like looking for another job."

Gregorio, the new owner, came in slamming the door, three and a half hours late. Small, plump, with bad teeth and already bald despite his young age, he looked nothing like his uncle. Antonio, who had dozed off at his desk, jolted awake believing he was in a nightmare.
"Wake up!" croaked the newcomer. "We have a job to do, we are already late."
"I assume you are Gregorio, the nephew of the old m... of Gianfranco?" asked Matteo.
"Yes. And don't think you can walk over me just because I'm young, understand?"
Antonio held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, my name is..."
"I know who you are. I read my uncle's files," Gregorio said with plain disdain, his face a purple balloon. "And I also know he overpaid you, the old man. But things are going to change here, you can bet on that. Now get your tools ready, we've got a Class D Planet to sort out."
"But... what about the day's notice?" asked Matteo. The old man always gave them advance notice before starting a job.
"No more notices, overtime payments, scrounging holidays. The fun is over!" squealed Gregorio, picking up a Bic to mark the day's agenda. "The hell is wrong with these pens?"

The next month was a nightmare. Wages halved, work doubled, holidays cancelled. What it took them a fortnight to do with the old man, under the new management was done in a week.
Interplanetary Relocations Co. had never been the most honest of companies, it has to be said. The old man was no saint, and in his career he had ripped-off a few customers here and there, skimped on extras, and embellished the accounts a bit. But his nephew was a real bastard. Under his direction they had found themselves hiding deserts under a carpet of cheap grass a few centimetres thick, recycling polluted water bought at half price to fill lakes and rivers, passing off dangerous active volcanoes as pleasant hiking spots. True scams.

After the first week, Antonio was exhausted. By the second, he was ready for a nervous breakdown. Matteo, on the other hand, had withdrawn into himself and did not seem the same person.
"Gregorio... was he already such an asshole even as a kid?" asked Antonio to Matteo. They were sitting in the usual beat-up spaceship they had been using for ten years, in one of the rare breaks Gregorio gave them. "Not only does he rips off customers, but he treats us like crap with exploitative hours and wages!"
Matteo nodded. Lately, he spoke little and was always absorbed in who knows what thoughts. Antonio was beginning to worry.
"You always told me we would go places... but the only places we've ever been were deserted planets covered in garbage!"
Currently, they were working on a Trash Rock, one of the many asteroids used as a dumping ground by neighbouring planets. The situation, however, had become untenable: the piles of rubbish had reached such levels that someone had to be called in to clean up the muck, to pick up and throw the rubbish into the closest black hole. And who had been foolish enough to accept that job of dubious legality if not Gregorio, the new owner of Interplanetary Relocations Co.?
So Antonio and Matteo had been there for seven days moving mountains of garbage, just to uncover more endless piles of junk, while being entertained by Gregorio's shrill shouts over the communicator: "Come on, you loafers! Get a move on, you lazy bums, there's low gravity and no one believes you're struggling! Will you get a move on or do I have to do everything?!"
Gregorio had assumed the role of supervisor: he sat precariously on a pile of rubbish shouting orders, not helping one bit his two employees.
The idea of spending another week in the middle of nowhere, with no communication with the outside world, with the sole company of a shrieking lunatic and a man who seemed to have taken a vow of silence, up to his neck in rubbish, cleaning up who knows how many more tonnes of rubbish, gave Antonio the creeps. When he thought about it, he felt like he had a fever.
"Moreover, everyone knows that asteroids don't pay a damn thing! We're breaking our backs for nothing, eh Matteo? Matteo? Are you even listening to me?"
Matteo as usual said nothing, but as in response on the ship's communicator Gregorio's croaking voice rang out: "Are you done with your break, lazybones?"

They resumed their work. Antonio on the ground, Matteo operating the huge robotic crane they used to move loads. Gregorio, as always, sat on a pile of rubbish shouting ("he's in his natural environment", said Antonio to himself).
They were currently dismantling a sort of enormous slum made up of rusty metal sheet hovels, precariously held together by worn planks: you could get tetanus just looking at that stuff. How did all that junk even end there?
Antonio loaded a pile of metal sheets at the foot of the crane. It was exhausting, slow work, as each sheet had to be manually separated from the wood, according to Interplanetary Directive 396B on Material Recycling. Bloody tree-huggers, thought Antonio.
Matteo, from his glass cage at the top of the crane, operated the magnet of the mechanical arm, which sucked the metal mass as if it had no weight.

Antonio was stacking the next load of sheets when the communicator rang. "If it's that idiot Gregorio, I'm not answering." But one glance was enough to see that the boss had dozed off in his chair; Antonio pressed the answer button.
"Matteo? Look, if there are pieces of wood between the sheets, who cares, they'll separate them themselv..."
"Get back in the spaceship and wait for me there," Matteo's voice was imperative.
"Huh?"
"Do as I said, there's no time."

Antonio hurried back into the spaceship. There was something strange in Matteo's tone of voice. Perhaps he wanted to take advantage of Gregorio being asleep to take another break...? That was perfectly fine by him!
He had just sat on a bench to wait when he heard a hellish ruckus from outside. Antonio looked out of the main window in an attempt to understand what was going on, but it was impossible to see anything with all those piles of rubbish piled on the asteroid.
A few minutes later, Matteo arrived like a rocket and without a word started fiddling with the spaceship controls.
"Matteo, what the hell is going on? Why you are preparing the ship for take-off?"
"I'm sick and tired of it, I've decided to leave the asteroid."
"What about Gregorio?!"
"What about him?" said Matteo, as the ship was taking off vertically into space. "I have decided to leave him on the asteroid to... meditate on his actions."
"You didn't kill him, did you?!" Antonio was dumbfounded.
"No way. I only slowed him down by leaving a pile of metal sheets on the path to the ship. Once he clears the passage, he'll find enough food and water to survive a couple of months. Besides, he's got plenty of company, he's surrounded by his own kind: trash."
"You must be crazy... what if he calls for help? That would get us both arrested!"
"Call who? No one knows we're here. That's one of the cons of taking shady jobs." Matteo laughed, setting the course. "But don't worry, we'll come back here in a month, when he's mellowed out."
"What if he doesn't mellow out?!"
Matteo grinned like a shark. "Then, meet the new owner of Interplanetary Relocations Co. and his associate. I told you we would go places!"

[close]

These entries came so quickly, the competition will have to be renamed Flash Writing Contest.

I'm working on an entry, hopefully I can finish writing it today and review it in the next few days.

This is outrageous! Can we ban this Mango guy from the FWC? Or even better, from the AGS forums?!? It's the only way that justice can be served!!!

I don't think anyone will have any issue with what you did. It's perfectly fine to post the same entry both here and to lesser writing contests as well
I've always seen these competitions as friendly ways to have fun and get better, where it doesn't much matter who wins as long as we have someone to host the next one.

This is now my favorite writing-situation experience of my life.

I'm glad to have made your life better by providing it (ignore the fact that I had nothing to do with it and that you were writing for another contest; just send me your eternal gratitude).

Anyway, enough excuses from you, and start thinking of the next theme!!!

[Results]

Results

The results are quite close:

1st place with 6 votes... Mandle!
2nd place with 5 votes... Sinitrena!
Last but not least, on 3d place with 4 votes... Baron!

Thank you everyone for submitting your stories and votes! Three quite different takes on the same theme, all three very interesting.

I enjoyed each story, here's my feedback.

Mandle:

Spoiler

Fascinating story, full of cool ideas! I wanted to know more about its world and characters, great work. Maybe it's a bit loose on the theme, but I don't mind since the story is good

[close]

Sinitrena:

Spoiler

The bench statue is such a great idea and a really interesting starting point for the story. I liked how it unfolded, slowly getting to understand the full picture. The dialogues are well-written and really define the personalities of the characters. A very enjoyable, if sad, story.

[close]

Baron:

Spoiler

This story felt like a punch in the gut sometimes - but in a good way that fits the theme. Your representation of hell is quite good and horrifying in several different ways. Another very good read!

[close]

Congratulations Mandle, it's your turn to host now!

Hey, people! Can we get a few more votes?
Voting is open to everyone, even if you haven't posted an entry.

[Voting time!]

Voting time!

Vote 2 points for your favourite story, and 1 point for your runner-up.

We have three stories:

• OUTSIDE EVERYTHING - Mandle
• On the Corner of Devil's Street and Churchstreet - Sinitrena
• The Road to Hell - Baron

Deadline: November 30.

Remember!
Voting is open to everyone! Feel free to read these devilish short stories and vote. Feedback is also appreciated.

[Baron:]

Baron: great to hear that! But writing can be a devil of a job, so let me know if you need more time.

Mandle: that's understandable, sometimes with these topics there's the devil to pay!

8 days left! How are your devilish entries coming up?

What the hell, that was quick, Mandle! Did you sell your soul to the devil to be this fast?
(I'm trying to keep my comments theme-related here  )

Oh, wow! This is fantastic, so cool to see it in AGS!
I wonder how performance is at high res, but the demo is really impressive. Awesome stuff as usual!

[The Devil]

The Devil

A devil is the mythical personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. [...] the different conceptions of the devil can be summed up as 1) a principle of evil independent from God, 2) an aspect of God, 3) a created being turning evil (a fallen angel) or 4) a symbol of human evil.

Each tradition, culture, and religion with a devil in its mythos offers a different lens on manifestations of evil. [...] It occurs historically in many contexts and cultures, and is given many different names—Satan (Judaism), Lucifer (Christianity), Beelzebub (Judeo-Christian), Mephistopheles (German), Iblis (Islam)—and attributes: it is portrayed as blue, black, or red; it is portrayed as having horns on its head, and without horns, and so on.

(shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia)

Theme:
Your task is to make a story about the devil.
Does it have to be literally about the devil? Or does it have to be spooky?
Of course not!

Here are some ideas, to show how freely you can interpret the theme:

- A comedy about the devil having to find another job;
- A joke about the devil being tricked by a customer to send him to paradise;
- An interpretation of the saying "the devil is in the detail"...
- ...or "the Devil's advocate";
- The devil as a representation of an evil person;
- A story about a Tasmanian devil...? Eh, that's a bit of a stretch.

Be creative! ...or not. Literal interpretations are also fine.

Rules:
- No word limit, just don't make it a 500-page epic.
- Have fun (that's a rule    )!

Deadline: Monday 25th November.