Messages

Thanks for playing and for all your votes, everyone! I'll get thinking about the next theme.

We'll see what happens. I'll have something written either way, and if we get at least 3 other entries, I will post it as a non-entry.

Side note, not a big deal, but I realized I've never been clear about my pronouns on here, so, added them to my signature.

Love this understanding of our hallowed rules.  Cue further debate! 

I mean, if I'm wrong that's totally fine--I would sort of feel weird about entering while hosting anyway.    I'm hoping we get enough participation that I won't need to enter. 

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I actually did just sit down and write something short, though. Because I wanted to.    We'll see whether it's necessary to enter it.

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The background still isn't finished (and I haven't even started the interior) but little by little I am making progress. Here's a detail from it, just because I'm happy about this little 13x9 pixel frog. 

[After the Fire]

Hello all,

@Mandle and I have settled of the following theme:

After the Fire

Something has burned. A meal? A house? A forest? Perhaps simply a piece of pottery in a kiln?
Or has it burned metaphorically - burning your bridges, torching your relationship, or anything else where a "burn it all down" metaphor would be appropriate.

The caveat is this: whatever type of fire event you choose, the story must take place after that event. The focus should be on aftermath, repercussions, fallout... whatever comes "next."

Bonus points if you can avoid a big dump of exposition, but those points will be up to the voters, of course. 

My understanding is that the hosts may also write entries, but we'll see whether I have enough time.

Deadline is November 30.

@Sinitrena much obliged! @Mandle I have an idea. Will DM you and we can confer.

Wow, currently a three-way tie... which seems appropriate to the theme??? 

Thanks for the welcome, Sinitrena! It is indeed my first fwc entry, motivated by the "fwc is dying" thread last time. Just figured I'd throw a little thing in because no one else had entered at that point.

I enjoyed Sinitrena's entry the most but found Baron's the most surprising in terms of connecting to the theme. Mandle's was solid too, although I didn't connect to the characters as much.

A close choice but I voted for Sinitrena in the end. Big Flatland vibes, which I am a sucker for, and fun to read.

Nice work, everyone.

@Rik Vargard sorry to hear about your lost files! That must have been frustrating to say the least. I look forward to the next game. 

Finished!

I have to say, I enjoyed a few aspects very much - I thought the 3d pre-rendered backgrounds and 3d video cutscenes were great, and that they really did a lot of work to make the setting of the game world feel bigger and like there was a city surrounding these events, even though we don't get a lot of locations.

The puzzles were challenging and even at times frustrating but in retrospect the solutions seem straightforward and logical, and so I can't complain. I just wasn't patient enough to figure it out without hints. 

I enjoyed the hacking games, too. They added a nice variety to the gameplay, and figuring out how the games work is a necessary piece of it, which adds complexity.

My one quibble is probably with the battle system, but mostly that's with the graphic design of it, I think. The movements feel jerky, like the game is getting stuck, but I think it's just that each battle "position" is a mostly static image instead of an animation. For some reason it's more difficult to know what to pay attention to. Maybe the interface is more crowded? Even so, I was able to survive the battle scenes without too much difficulty (though I think one bug that gave me an extra medshot may have helped  ).

Overall good game!

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I did want to finish the story, though, so ending on a cliffhanger left me feeling unsatisfied. Perhaps that's to make me play the next episode. 

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Also, I found one more bug:

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After taking the elevator down with Alexander, you can walk behind the elevator buttons as well as disappear behind the elevator doors.

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With regard to not getting enough nominations, would it cause any problems to reduce the number of required votes from 5 down to 4? Or would that result in too many nominations?

Thanks for the hint! I had seen the right detail but had neglected to do the right interaction with the hotspot for some reason.

Two bugs:

First, if you try to save while the inventory window is open, the save window appears behind the inventory window, so you can't choose which save file to use.

Second: In the police station parking garage, the walk-behind does not seem to cover the whole police car, so you can walk in front of it even though you're behind it (see below):

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Started playing it and am enjoying it so far!

One bug:

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After you get the safe open and take out the items, if you leave the room and come back you can get the items a second time. For example, I gave the phone to Inspector Ludd, then went back and opened the safe and got the phone back. I now have two of Alex's keycard and two of the potions as well.

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Also, I might need a hint:

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I opened the safe but can't find a battery or wires for the SecuBot. I found the InstaCharger but nothing else. Am I forgetting to look somewhere? None of the other inventory items seem useful, either...

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Played The Weird Thing Under The Bed.

It's weird!    Managed to get a few different endings. Oddly, my favorite part is

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walking the hand around. I kept wanting to interact with the dust creatures. 

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I gave it my vote. 

Hey all, just wanted to give a quick update to let you know this project is still alive. 

I definitely began it way too early, while other games were still in progress, so it stalled for several months. Then I did another MAGS entry. As one does.

Odds are that I will not finish it until early next year, because there are a lot of animations still to draw, lots of sound effects to mix and implement, GUIs to make, and then the playtesting phase. And with the holidays approaching I probably won't have much time to work on it once we get to the end of this month.

But there is progress!

-Coding: 85%
-Animation: 25%
-Puzzles and story playable: 100%
-Dialogues: 100%
-Music implementation: 90%
-Sound implementation: 10%

Here's a new screenshot:



Thanks for following along.

Looks really weird and interesting. I love the character art!

Someone else had the same issue recently:

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/completed-game-announcements/pirate-theme-park-a-short-adventure/

Maybe the fix will work for you too?

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I've even figured out a way to pull Roger and his room, from the BASS Template, into the full game.

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I made "wizard Roger" and "TRON Roger" sprites a while back.
They are freely usable and on the forums Here if you're interested

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Congratulations on the release! Finishing a game is always a great achievement no matter if it's your first game or if you're a veteran developer. I'll definitely download and try it out sometime soon! Don't forget to add it to the AGS database as well!

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/add/

@CaptainD

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I wanted one of the demon's options to be totally superficial and practically useless,
because it adds the possibility of there being a "wrong answer" in terms of game gain. 

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Everyone else, thanks so much for your comments!    Getting any kind of engagement with the work is so energizing.