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Melon Head looks like he might have relatives in Shape Village. 

This looks suitably strange and cool. Looking forward to seeing how this shapes up!

In retrospect, I should not have posted here.

This kind of thinking makes me sad. We had an interesting discussion, didn't we?

I 100% agree with Snarky. Your contribution means something, Crimson Wizard, and it is nice to see you posting outside the tech threads once in a while. Besides, something you wrote gave me an idea for a puzzle I think would be rather good.  (Which I currently don't have the chops to implement, but perhaps some time when I cooperate with someone.)

So Wagyū Oganbō (和牛御願望) could be taken to mean 'desire for Japanese beef'.

Have there ever been a better hero name?   

Wagu or Wagyu is a Japanese cattle and its reportedly fantastic tasting meat.

Ogombo means "who is not" in Zulu, according to Google Translate. So, unless your main character actually is a Japanese bull/cow, I think you are in the clear! 

Congratulations on the release! I was impressed by the demo, looking forward to playing the full game. 

Suppose in point-n-click game there's scene A in which you have to get an item stuck high above you. You should use something throwable to knock it over. Then later in the game there's scene B in which you have to get another item stuck high above. Given the similar conditions I'd expect same trick to work, because it worked another time, but game does not let me, and gives some random "won't work" reply. In standard "adventure games" this seems to be considered a valid thing. In my opinion, that's not a fair thing.

Agreed, the "won't work" reply needs to be integrated into the game and give a plausible explanation why this won't work. To use your example, a good adventure would introduce new difficulties for each high-hanging item. Perhaps the second one is too high for you to throw your rock -> get a catapult. The third one has a flying creature guarding it -> distract creature. The fourth has a force field -> find a way to turn it off. In this way, the player can build on the original solution to the problem, finding a way to make it work in each instance.

Note that this way of constructing puzzles relies on doing them in a certain order. The player needs to solve the easy one first, then meet the harder variants in sequence, or it will be unsatisfactory. (Another way of doing such a puzzle, would be to integrate it all in one puzzle, like the famous Babel Fish puzzle from Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But that's beside the point in this case.)

The MAGS contest back in September 2008 had the theme "Broken Game". Reading the thread is a tad confusing. Radiant first entered Awesmoe Quest, which is on the archive. This I believe to be just a joke, as ProgZmax replied about the game crashing instantly (which the version on the archive also does), and the game is the "game within a game" found in META (which is in the database). However, when Radiant entered his real entry, KATA, this was set up to be that he competed against himself. KATA is not in the database, but can be found on Radiant's home page. It's a parody of Windows, of sorts, and basically has the player battling error messages trying to install a game. I can see this being fun for some, and mildly annoying for others.

Chmelnica is a short adventure made by Czech one-person team Marion Software (not to be confused with our own Marion). There are translations to German and English. (The author had a game in the db called Bill DeBill, but it's gone now.) The moon logic level borders on asteroid, but I found the setting interesting, as I didn't know anything about the type of farm workers shown in the game.

Yeah it looks like a mistake. The rules state that you have to post about your entry in this thread anyway, so I'm willing to wait until the deadline, on the off chance he does actually post it here. And then uncheck the 'mags' box if he doesn't.

10 minigames seems quite an accomplishment for a MAGS entry, but it would fit this month's theme.

I have been in contact with the author, and it was indeed a mistake. The game has been in development longer than a month anyway.

First of all, it's a MAGS game, so don't worry if it's not perfect in all regards.

I think I would have liked the monkeys to do the typing, too. For instance, 3 monkeys could manage to produce the same amount of words the player did, either in his last turn or his all time high. (They can ape the writing.) 

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.

When I played, I saved before the final powerup, just to be able to see all the effects. Once I got the one giving points every second, I went and did something else, and came back to see the ending.

[Apple]

Five hourgames are here.
Apple Theme - unexpected character death.
Kikme Theme - unexpected character death.
Bahx3 (May have another name) Theme - Must feature Al Lowe.
Ohno I don't know the theme. Escaping the room is the goal.
Woof Theme - animals.

Found this game in Global Game Jam, haven't played: https://globalgamejam.org/2023/games/whose-turn-it-anyway-8

This is a funny little game where the turnip leads the other vegetables to escape the goat eating them. Funny jokes, very easy.

Spia

I think this game isn't finished. I could move around, but I couldn't find anything else to do.

Smasher

This one is highly recommended! Digital Mosaic has made a shortie for a game jam, but there's great voice acting, graphics, music and writing. True, there is little room for puzzles, but there is a memory puzzle, so I'll check that box too.

I don't remember seeing this game in the DB, it was made for ludumdare: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/homunculus

Another good short game from the same people. This one is a sort of Frankenstein story.

Memochi

This one took a while until I realized that there was a game element to it.

Spoiler

Code

[close]

Quite a different experience from a standard adventure.

 I think it's best to open up a question thread for this one right away.

@Manc - Feel free to answer, but if not, we players may compare notes here.

Theory - This game has no ending, but is a collection of minigames. (Manc?)

Has anyone figured out how the skating works? Most of the time, the dog is on the skateboard, and I can't seem to get the player character to use it.

What language is this when it's not English? What clues or instructions do we miss when we don't understand it? Are all parts of the game playable for us who don't understand the language?

Is there something to do in the cafe?

Fish game: Does the fish grow eventually, or is the aim of the mini-game simply to get as many points as possible?

The Pac-Man hotspot is marked "Don't work". But it is playable...so, is it broken somehow?

I have more questions, but let's start there.

   I have been waiting for this a long time! Great news! Congratulations on the release! 

Remember to also add it to the database: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/add/

I found the same two good (?) endings the Captain did, plus the losing ending. Please tell me there isn't one for typing it all in without the dangerous powerup.

It's a great idea, and the humorous powerups are worth seeing, but frankly the keyboard bashing I could have done without. I would rather have the first powerup make the monkey do all the typing for me.   

It's a common mistake by someone new to the site - they click all boxes that sound good. And we could have had a Game of the Month picked out of the last month's releases. Anyway, I'll give the game a go and (probably) uncheck the box on the game page afterwards.

So what you're doing is that you have the same AGS room posing as different identical hotel rooms in-game, and keeping the small differences (lamps turned on, objects visible etc.) stored in variables?

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.

This is a really hard question, as I certainly wasn't aware of what AGS was back then. I suspect it may have been Rode Kill: A Day in the life or a Reality-on-the-norm game, like Lunchtime of the Damned. I downloaded games from Home of the Underdogs, and I suspect I found them from there. I also remember MAGS having its own website, ending in .tk if I recall it correctly. I may have played something from there first.

Edit: The (now obsolete) Mags site was indeed http://www.mags-competition.tk/ Probably viewable through the wayback machine, though, if someone wants to take a peek through time and see what it looked like back then.

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.

Congratulations on the release! Please also add it to the database: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/add/

I will give it a go soon!

EDIT: And as it's a commercial game, it's twice as important to add it to the database for increased visibility. No upload here, you add a link to your itch page.