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[https://captaind.itch.io/shoaly-you-cant-be-serious-deluxe-version]

I've now made this game free (or PIYW) so if you fancy a nice relaxing (yet possibly stressful) game, especially one your younger relatives might enjoy playing with you, have at it!

https://captaind.itch.io/shoaly-you-cant-be-serious-deluxe-version

I was thinking that "commercial" and "freeware" could be temporary status, because if a commercial game after some years is no longer available on platform such as Steam then the developer could re-release for free!
Yes it's rare but could happens! 

It could happen but probably irrelevant for the rewards themselves, as the game is only eligible for the year it's added to the database. I just checked and on the AGS game database page itself, you can still tick / untick the Commercial box if you do update. So in a sense, it is actually a temporary status, because it can be changed by the developer.

Agree with basically all the above. "Commercial" just means that whoever made it has decided to sell it for a price rather than give it away for free, which massively reduces the user-based (albeit with the limited number of people who nominate and vote, the effect is greatly reduced). It's also a fair point that commercial can mean a team of people with professional artists and voice cast, or... not! But that's also (maybe not to the same scale) true of freeware games. Some people are professional artists / coders / VAs making something in their spare time, so they bring those skills to their free project. (FWIW my co-dev on Stomping Boots had been a professional developer before and without his help I would probably never had been able to complete the game, nor would it have been anywhere near as good. I would like to think that over the years I've acquired these necessary skills.)

I think the only fair way to judge any games is simply against the criteria of the award, whether it be gameplay, graphics or whatever. Which is what I think we all do. I think the "Best Game" and "Best Freeware Game" could easily be combined onto just "Best Game" if people wanted them to be, but I rather like the possibility of the possibility of having two different winners. But does it unconsciously prejudice people to think that "Best Freeware Game" means it's probable that "Best Game" should be a commercial effort? I guess that's possible but I'm not entirely convinced.

Right, thought it was time for a proper update. So here goes...

• Acts I & II are essentially feature-complete (sans voicing and achievements)
• Act III is fully playable in placeholder mode and several assets are already made, including a fantastic sweeping orchestral piece by Eric. Will just need final assets added and than a good polishing session and it should be all shiny.
• Act IV is about 60% coded and the artwork is coming along very nicely.
• Acts V & VI are being conceptualised, they look good already (in my head!)

Here are some (incomplete - in that objects etc may be missing) screens from Act III:













Lorenzo's work is, as always, amazing. He probably rates it as "quite good" because he's a very modest chap.

The demo of Captain Disaster and the Two Worlds of Riskara is available from:

Steam
Itch
FireFlowerGames

Looks and sounds really interesting! 

I like the idea of opening the voting process to non-forum members, as long as there is some anti-cheating measure available (recording IPs or using cookies, or both), BUT the problem with that is that the most popular, commercial, better marketed games would be the ones to always win, whereas if the vote stays within the AGS community, the process is likely to be more neutral. I think the community here cares more about whether games are good than whether games are popular, and that's pretty valuable.

Yeah this would be my concern too, it would be more of a popularity contest than a quality contest. So while I do like the idea in many ways, it's probably too problematic to implement.

I hesitate to mention this because it has inherent issues, but...

What about the idea of opening voting to anyone, not just forum members? (Maybe not the nomination stage, but just the voting.)

I do realise this could be open to abuse, even if something like IP address logging could be used. But I'm curious as to what others would think of the idea, and I don't think I've seen it mooted before (apologies if it has).


In terms of assets, in line with LimpingFish's suggestion about just using a screenshot, I had also been thinking of suggesting the same thing, not least because it could be obtained from the game page without having to wait for a dev to respond.

I also agree with the reduction in number of categories, and broadly-speaking agree with what Cat's posted above (although, not sure if "Best Puzzle" is a typo? As "Best Puzzle" and "Best Puzzles" would be very different categories.)

Finally I would like to say that it's apparent that a huge amount of work goes into the awards each year and, while this is very much appreciated, a reduction of the burden seems appropriate.

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.

Hmm... I tried this one but it wouldn't launch. Did you play it from the Itch App or just download it independently?

Most excellent!

Hey! Welcome back stranger 

["It's an older coupon, but it checks out."]

Not had much time to play this yet but enormously enjoyed the little I have played. My favourite bit so far...

"It's an older coupon, but it checks out."

EDIT - completed now. Short but very sweet, well done mate!

The powerup giving words for mouse clicks isn't all that helpful, as the player will score 3 or 4 times as much by bashing the keyboard before filling the page.

Yeah, this is true. Although once you reach a high enough multiplier it's still kinda faster only having to use the mouse and not combination of mouse/keyboard. Or at least more convenient.

If you make an updated version, just call it Super Author Simulator 2024 and pretend that it's a new game.
Everyone does that. Every sport game series does that. 

Absolutely! 

Also one question @RootBound - just out of curiosity.

Spoiler

Does the "power-up" for making your agent only say nice things to you actually do anything, or is it purely aesthetic?

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I kind of like the idea of a power up where you get a monkey to type for you. Each monkey you get would add a small number of words per turn. Not sure if you could ever reach "infinite monkeys" but...

Fun game, really liked the twist once you solved the main puzzle. Didn't realise that

Spoiler

the blue kobold had better eyesight

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which had me stuck a bit at first! Swapping between the three characters to solve puzzles was a very nice touch.

As far as keyboard bashing, I was hoping the randomly-combined chapter openings would be interesting or absurd enough that people might actually have fun using them as writing prompts (hence the export button if the player writes something worth keeping).

I did do that for the first 3 or 4 chapters, but quickly realised that the game would take me about as long to complete as writing a real novel - and that's still something I've never managed to do! 

Really good game mate, very atmospheric and generally well-written. Almost like a Kurt Vonnergut Jr short story in game format. Took me a little under an hour to complete both endings (I assume there were only two)?

The little visual aspects like the cop turning to you when he spoke to you made the game feel quite alive. I was a little disappointed not to be able to annoy receptionist more though!   

I'm impressed you reached an ending with only 11 chapters. Did you

Spoiler

find the cheat code?

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Spoiler

I'm not entirely sure? Probably not. I did find that a word only needed to be a letter so that let me rack up the words quickly initially. I built up enough words to quickly double-ghost write to get >10,000 words as soon as possible. Then I accidentally hadn't left myself enough to play with so I sold my soul to the devil just to see what happened! 

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Well...

@dactylopus - thanks! 

Just a little incomplete part of a location from Act III to let you know we're still alive...

What a great idea! Definitely want to give this one a try.