$107 Adventure Game Challenge

hightreason · Wed 12/07/2023 11:22:40

This year's Adventure Game Challenge page is up! It's still 2 months away, but getting it up early this year hopefully to attract as much attention as possible.

https://itch.io/jam/107-adventure-game-challenge

CaptainD · Wed 12/07/2023 17:39:47

Vance, genuine question - if you turned into a zombie and were therefore undead, how many years could you keep adding a dollar before it became untenable?

Thanks for giving us advance notice, hopefully a few AGS devs will be able to join. There's always an interesting mix of games resulting from this jam.

hightreason · Wed 12/07/2023 20:32:30

Well, if I were a zombie, I would probably not be spending money. I would just kill people and eat their brains and wouldn't need a place to live or a car or insurance or anything. So probably could keep it going for a very long time.

I assume the zombie question is in reference to my Adventurejam game? :-)

CaptainD · Wed 12/07/2023 23:07:34

Quote from: hightreason on Wed 12/07/2023 20:32:30I assume the zombie question is in reference to my Adventurejam game? :-)

Maybe subconsciously!

hightreason · Fri 21/07/2023 17:14:20

I am very happy to announce that one of the best voice actors I have ever worked with, David Ault, will be a judge for this year's jam! His bio is now on the page!

KyriakosCH · Sat 22/07/2023 00:43:49

Took part once. Pass

Stupot · Sat 22/07/2023 01:22:15

Quote from: KyriakosCH on Sat 22/07/2023 00:43:49Took part once. Pass

What was wrong with it?

KyriakosCH · Sat 22/07/2023 01:30:12

If you have to know, rather vile attitude. Granted, it was many many years ago, but I personally wouldn't care to look again.

hightreason · Sat 22/07/2023 17:03:43

I'm sorry to hear that. You can private message me any time on Discord or Twitter and let me know what the problem was.

Or air it here if you prefer. I honestly don't know what you are talking about.

hightreason · Sat 05/08/2023 03:24:31

I am excited to announce that the prolific purveyor of long games, Marco Giorgini, will be a judge for this year's Adventure game Challenge! His bio is now on the page!

hightreason · Sun 10/09/2023 22:06:25

The Adventure Game Challenge has begun and the theme is Going Undercover!

heltenjon · Sat 30/09/2023 14:45:57

The games are in, as we all understand!

Originally, 25 were entered, but four of those are already taken out of the competition, so we are down to 21.

Spoiler

Bad Blood is obviously an action game.
20 000 Leagues: An Epilogue is taken out for not following the theme. (It also looks like a platform game.)
Robo Ruse is a sort of sneaking/puzzle game where you need to fool robots and steal stuff.
Frosty Agent is perhaps taken out because it is unfinished? I''m not sure.

[close]

Let's start with the AGS entries!

The Books of Knowledge has you playing an alien, seeking knowledge about earth. This is good fun, and much of the humour is in the banter from our hero's portable AI, and the fact that everyday items seem totally alien to our visiting alien(!). (Polished version also available!)

Stranger in Utopia is a science fiction investigation story, where the player is a visiting cop investigating a murder in a supposedly utopian society. Amazing art and great story. Puzzles based on using machines for investigation.

D-List Diva Another very good-looking game, yet in a different style. This is a very funny game! The player character is a grumpy manager who has to find items for a has-been's rider before she will perform. Easy to moderate puzzles, yet very satisfying because they are done in multiple steps.

Why the Wrong Face is a heist story, neatly incorporating the ability to change disguises. Good game! Worth playing for the disguise functionality alone.

Yip Quest is a game made in the Gobliiins style, where the player can switch between three kobolds with different characteristics, in their quest to steal a princess' treasure. Good puzzles and lots of humour made this a good gaming experience, too. I hope RamoRama has plans to make more stories about this trio!

Kini Games · Sat 30/09/2023 15:51:37

Thanks for the kind words about D-List Diva, @heltenjon. I enjoyed all the other AGS entries, too.

Durinde · Sat 30/09/2023 19:24:37

Thanks for the acknowledgement @heltenjon.

Aside from my own title, all the AGS entries seem to be top notch. Worth checking out if you have the time.

heltenjon · Thu 05/10/2023 10:40:29

I played Tony's Spaghetti, which is also an AGS title. While not quite in the class of the games I wrote about in the post above, this is still an enjoyable shortie. The player is an undercover cop, trying to eavesdrop on the mafia in a restaurant. You just have to get rid of the waiter, the goons and the health inspector first.

There are at least one game-breaking bug, so save using F5 every now and then.

heltenjon · Fri 13/10/2023 09:56:54

I played Beyond the Wall. Or tried to. This is a unity piece with huge rooms with nothing in them, text that disappears before I can read it, and it's incredibly awkward to move around, open doors, walk down stairs etc. I ended up falling off the edge of the screen before progressing to the end, unfortunately. The music and some of the backgrounds are nice, though. Otherwise, this needs some work.

I also played Catfishing. This is a unity game. There are quite a few bugs, but the game is fun and playable online. The idea is that the cats of a lady wants to impersonate their owner in order to set up a date with someone who will bring them sushi(!).

I also played The Memory Obfuscation of Patrick Sei. It's another AGS game! This game has the player in a strait jacket. Can you escape the asylum you're stuck in? This is a quite fun game with a mystery to unravel, as the protagonist doesn't remember anything from before.

I also played Mervin Pissarro and the Martian Menticide. This is a game made with unity, that plays like a mix of Zak McKracken and Maniac Mansion. The player character is an alien who uses mind control to hijack other characters' bodies. Hilarity ensues when he tries to impersonate and interact with these people. Well worth playing, although it looks like the author ran out of time and had to shorten the game, dropping puzzles and interactions and some polish. The mind control stuff is gold.

hightreason · Sun 15/10/2023 21:32:27

And the winner is... Shrouded Space!

See the full results here: https://itch.io/jam/107-adventure-game-challenge/results

heltenjon · Sat 21/10/2023 17:47:35

Even though the jam has ended, I will still play those games.

I played The Shadow over Peenemunde. This is a unity piece set in WWII, and the player goes undercover to get some photos of the V2 Rocket plans. You know, standard spy stuff. The game has fun puzzles and humorous dialogues, but unfortunately suffers from being made like an open world. Most of the open world is pretty, but empty, and there is some trekking back and forth before you find what you need or the place you need to be. The game would have worked better if it were smaller.

I also played Scam I am. The idea is good - the player has to infiltrate a phone scamming company, build up trust by doing scam calls, and then expose them. It looks good, but the controls are terribly unintuitive, so the game sadly is no fun to play. I solved it by clicking around a bit, but I doubt it's intended to play like it does now. It has nice visuals, so I guess the creator started in the wrong end.

heltenjon · Mon 23/10/2023 03:04:47

I played Oddjobs 3: Cult of the Almond. I have played a game from this author before, and he didn't disappoint this time, either. You play a kind of private detective who has to infiltrate a cult, and they don't come much crazier than this one. Excellent and funny story, and puzzles that are a lot of fun to do. There is a language puzzle in there that I particularly liked. Challenging, yet solvable.

heltenjon · Tue 07/11/2023 08:40:27

I played Shrouded Space. This was the overall winner of the game jam, and it's a very good game. First and foremost, it's humourous and very fun to play, as the protagonist more or less by accident makes his moves from prisoner and against an evil intergalactic empire. Graphics and sound are also impeccable, so the one gripe one could make, is that the puzzles are a bit on the easy side. This is a unity game.