AGS

MAGS April: Part II

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

This is part II of our coverage of the April MAGS competition hosted at the Adventure Game Studio forums. Voting continues until the 17th of May, so you still have some time to check out the entries. The previous part of the article discussed the first four entries to the competition (AGS Footballer Tech Demo, Alphabeta, Dead Hand and Dead Pixels), and the third portion, on Hard Space, Snakes of Avalon and Space Pool Alpha, will be released shortly afterwards, so stay tuned! Today’s part, then, is dedicated to just one game:

Eternally Us

One bad hand and it’s all over. -Fiona

Broken rules aside 1)http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=40476.msg534474#msg534474, context is everything with Ben “Ben304” Chandler and Steven “Calin Leafshade” Poulton’s entry to the compo, Eternally Us. Context-free, the game is, like Steve Ince (So Blonde) calls it, a “beautiful” 2)http://twitter.com/Steve_Ince/status/13309496796 adventure. For a MAGS entry, then, the game is not only breathtakingly complete but also a fulfilling gaming experience.

The game is also yet another extension to Chandler’s formidable repertoire – a constant stream of short, self-contained adventures – that broadly discusses the same primary motifs, vehicles and themes, in many ways tying his output down into a more coherent whole. Conversely, Poulton is best-known for his well-esteemed (though also controversial) The McCarthy Chronicles.

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MAGS April: Part I

Martyn Zachary 2 Comments

While there are quite a few steadily recurring, deadline–based game creation compos currently in existence, like Ludum Dare, Java4K and PyWeek, one of the longest-running 1)cf. Ludum Dare November 2002, Java4K 2002 and PyWeek August 2005 – the IGF doesn’t quite count. Other examples are more than welcome! monthly competitions still ongoing is in fact the low-key Monthly Adventure Game Studio contest, or “MAGS” for short. Chris Jones’ engine has spawned a close-knit community that constantly produces periodic communal activities like the adventure series “Reality on the Norm” and a yearly award ceremony.

But why feature MAGS on this particular website, exactly? While we have obviously discussed a plethora of adventures both free and commercial before, doesn’t this begin to dig too deep into hobbyism?

First, whilst the basic idea of the compo may be deviously simple, it comes packaged with a twist every month: Each subsequent contest, as it stands, follows the creative guidelines defined by the previous winner! Such a constantly changing, personalized rule set makes for distinct competitions that always exhibit a different cross-section of genre, style and gameplay. Indeed, many participants seek to broaden their horizons also by battling the perceived limitations and constraints of the adventure-making engine itself.

April’s rule set was defined by Dualnames, who settled on the “One Room One Month” (OROM) format:

I know it may sound silly. But keep it simple, keep it plain. We’ve seen best of AGS games in the OROWs, and I’ve always wondered, if you had to have one room, what could you make more in a month. Keep it two people team MAX! Calin and Ben304 aren’t allowed to team up!

Second, for the very first time in five years, the compo saw no entries at all in March; in fact, this was the first-ever MAGS to not have an entry ever since the activity officially got its start in the June of 2001. 2)http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=40254.msg534461#msg534461 April – the month that I have chosen to dissect here – was luckily vastly more successful, and as such raised my interest in addition to its prolific participants. What better moment to discuss the competition than to find it revitalized!

Third, the MAGS website places great emphasis on all voters playing through each and every entry before casting their vote. Therefore, after the jump, I have alphabetically taken a look at all of April’s titles, even if the inherent clashes of style, scope, direction and quality do complicate this task considerably.

Fourth, if Destructoid can report on Ludum Dare (which Nabeel has done on this website in the past), then we can definitely talk about MAGS. Off we go with part one – parts two and three of the article will be posted on the website over the following days.

Each segment has a hyperlink to a download for the entry in question; the general voting page for all entries can be found here. Voting continues until the 17th of May, so you still have some time to familiarize yourself with the entries.

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1. ↑ cf. Ludum Dare November 2002, Java4K 2002 and PyWeek August 2005 – the IGF doesn’t quite count. Other examples are more than welcome!
2. ↑ http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=40254.msg534461#msg534461

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The Cat Lady

Martyn Zachary 1 Comment

Remigiusz Michalski’s Downfall remains by far the curiousest adventure title of yesteryear, a psycho-horror point and click that I personally spent considerable time with, trying to adequately wrap my head around its subtleties and twists. In delightful if surprising news, the Russian publisher Akella has picked up the game for release in mid-January.

The Cat Lady Promo 01

After completing his first game, Michalski quickly turned his attention onto a thematic follow-up to his first game. The new game, then, is titled The Cat Lady and looks to be, once again, an atmospheric, macabre adventure game developed on the AGS platform.

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Resonance Cascade

Martyn Zachary 8 Comments

XII Games’ Vince Twelve has just announced a pledge-based donation drive for his forthcoming indie adventure game, Resonance, which according to Twelve, is a game of “Speculative Near-Future Hard-ish Science Fiction!” The developer has even promised to put this astonishing, genre-bending tag-line on the game’s retail box if certain requirements are met. Here’s the bottom line on the deal, straight from the source:

I’ve set up a Kickstarter project for the game. Kickstarter collects pledges from kind individuals like yourself and, if the project meets it’s fundraising goals by the deadline, delivers your pledges to the creative endeavor that you’ve pledged your support to (in this case, Resonance!) In return, supporters get gifts or rewards for their pledge amounts! If the goal is not met, then no money or gifts change hands.

Twitter-toting tomfoolery aside, players of Resonance will get to control four unique characters, each of whom are searching for the secret vault of a spectacularly murdered particle physicist, and must work together to keep the scientist’s horrifying discovery from reaching the clutches of a dangerous organization looming in the background.

My two plus two cents, a trailer, more images and the various types of pledge after the jump!

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Super Jazz Man Review

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

Nostalgia is to memory as kitsch is to art –Charles Maier

Stevie Jack, I’m sorry to say, but we just didn’t get you. Or more importantly, we didn’t expect you, at least not to come waltzing down the street, dropping Barthes and Foucault, least of all, amidst all that jazz. We received you expectant of two things only: A sequel to The Apprentice, and colourful, fantastical artwork and animation.

Strictly speaking, we got neither.

Only now, three years later, am I prepared to face the fact that I was not ready, Stevie Jack. After all, in ‘06, the commercial AGS scene was still very much in its infancy, with very little on the market beyond The Adventures of Fatman. We had yet to accustom ourselves to the idea of rewarding indie game designers for their time, with the scene additionally still steadfastly shackled to the gaming heritage of the early 90s. All this despite the flavours and flairs of contemporary retro adventuring having already largely reached the plateau of its predecessors: The freeware version of The Shivah, for instance, had been released in June of the same year, and free games like Reactor 09 continued to push the content envelope.

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