Outbid by one dollar!

Well, the MAGS vote results are in, and OneDollar won by a landslide by using the sneaky underhanded tactic of making the best game. The puzzles in Rock Rock Rock were its downfall: they were pretty poor and it was VERY short. Oh well! I already won before anyway and OneDollar deserves it!

Competition Commision

So, voting is open in the "Under the Earth" background blitz and there's a good selection to choose from.

You can also draw CJ in the Sprite Jam Halloween edition. Spooky!

And a new Tune Contest with the theme of metamorphosis has begun. Get composing!

Warm mittens

Well, Mittens (the annual AGS meet-up) is scheduled to be in Florida next year after this year's French and previous excursions to Greece, Spain, Canada and Staines. If you're at all interested in meeting a bunch of wierd internet people and are over 18, then head over to the Mittens 2009 thread and find out about it and express your opinions for the planning thereof.

New game explosion

AGSers are trying to keep the economy afloat by themselves as their output has shot up! Suddenly, a deluge of quality games have entered the database: Adventure, the Inside Job, Life of D Duck 2, Erk: Adventures in Stone Age Real Estate, Stediddy in IP1 and This Game! Only Sarah Palin's Saks' store card is working harder to stimulate the global economy!

Wow Wow Wiki

Some people have been getting together and trying to improve the AGS Wiki. Good for them. Read about their exploits (and then pitch in!) in the forum.

If you're not sure WHY one should do so, check out my earlier blog about the AGS Wiki.

Election 2008

Your vote counts, so make sure you head over to the MAGS site, try all 3 games and vote for the best. Eggie, myself and OneDolalr are all battling it out for the coveted October MAGS.

AGS 3.1 Release Candidate 2

What, no terrible pun in the headline? Well, CJ's put up RC2 and hopes that this will be the full release if no-one finds any problems. No doubt lots of people won't start using it until it IS released and then he'll have to fix the bug they find. Can't people take a risk and try it out now? Pfff, the global economy needs more risk takers, you know!

Nano Review Mo

An Occasional Player's review have taken a look at Ivy's Nanobots and liked what they see.

All will soon be clear

Dave Gilbert's just unfuzzified his Playfirst project pics a bit more. Can you guess what the secret is?

MAGS in the can

Yay, MAGS game is finished, although considerably smaller than originally intended. This was a pretty bad month to try and do it, really. Oh well. Beta testing ongoing on Stickam... lets hope Indie can do the missing walkcycle in time for tomorrow!

CJ to start charging for AGS

No, not really, but unfortunately another global giant has come a cropper in the credit crunch... CJ's been given the boot by his "real" job. Still, that leaves more time for improving AGS!

Other amateur stuff

Some other adventures out:

The Room and The Apartment, two Adventure Maker games

Virtual Novel Heileen

Mock the Nominees?

I've put together an idea for how the AGS Awards nomination page might look (albeit with a lot less games than will be eligible!) and I'd like to hear feedback here or in the Awards thread on the forums, please.

The Colour of Magic

Fancy a sparkly cursor trail like in the Discworld games? Or like those you get with spyware-ridden Windows cursor pack downloads? Well, guaranteed spyware-free is monkey_05_06's SparkleMotion module which provides this fairy dust effect.

The Light Fantastic

Well, Ben has another wee graphics tutorial up on his blog, giving some info on how one can do reflective highlights of the surrounding environment.

October Offings

In the offing for October, the following games from the "In Production" forum:

Eye of the Tempest

Radiant and Crystal Shard's latest stunning-looking offering is this Bard's Tale style RPG. Radiant's previous maze game, MOTLPAA, had somewhat less monsters in it but Lands of Lore fans should look forward to this and no doubt it will be up to Radiant's usual high standards.

3Thousand

This action game planned by new guy MAZAA will see you fly a spaceship round collecting stuff, we hope.

Stediddy in IP1

Another newbie, uncle-mum shows off some naive-style graphics and promises hot girls and untimely death.

Boryokudan Rue

This stunningly gorgeous-looking game that The JBurger is making looks like something worth waiting for. With graphics like this, who cares what the game is like! We certainly won't rue the day when this is released.

Fallen Legend

DazJ's low-cost commercial game looks lovely and is coming along well it seems. Some voice acting samples are available on top of the earlier demo. Release is planned by this Christmas so make sure you add it to your letter to Santa.

Dial F for Fedora

RON fans will love this... because its a RON game. Max Griff deals with another case in Brentimous's game as you can see in its teaser trailer download.

Stick Quest

Another newcomer, tombom62, presents stick figures in whiteboard-style in a short adventure, coming soon.

The SSH appreciation thread

Yay! The "pick of the month" thread transformed into the "lo-res sucks" thread and is now the "SSH appreciation thread"! Why not head over and tell everyone how great I am, too?

Seriously, though, thanks to all the people who posted their support there. On the other hand, I have the password for the secret pick page and only CJ can change it so I don't need your support, I am (nearly) all powerful! Watch the next 11 picks be the Princess Marian games, suckers...

Compo Update

• Background Blitz is open with the theme "Underworld"
• People want the Animation competition to restart (so go and do so, people!)
• No-one voted in the Tune Contest so Questionable will choose the winner himself

Picky about Picks

Well, another thread complaining about the games page lack of ratings orderability and also abou the pick of the month. Funnily enough, there seems to be an argument this time that I should only choose 800x600 or higher resolutions as the pick of the month. Obviously a 320x200 game can't be good... *sigh*

This is all old territory and I shouldn't let it get to me, but I think I'll head over and post an irate reply now...

The Longest Journey

Well, a new record for the the longest development of an AGS game is set... and the game is only just announced. Yes, an untitled commercial game is planned to complete in 2017 and sell for an inflation-adjusted $25. They originally planned to use TADS, or Adventure Maker but now have said they are switching to AGS. I can't wait. No really, I can't.

MAGS progress update

Well, I thought I'd give you loyal readers the inside track on the most awesomest MAGS game this month. Here's a sneak screenshot and some news:

• IndieBoy has made some graphics, obviously. Others still underway
• I have scripted up a small amount of stuff, including the pictorial speech
• Dualnames has given me a pile of music and SFX but I'm having problems using his lovely MIDIs in AGS (they make AGS hang...)

Keyword Kaos

Well, after some more google analytics browsing, here's some fun google keywords that brought people to my site:

• shag ags: I know some people like AGS a lot, but that's going a bit far
  
• zorst report: All those people looking for a CBeebies programme found my blog instead!
  
• adventure game terrible difficult hard download freeware -online -demos -shooter -platform -rpg: this guy was pretty specific in what he wanted
  
• jordan exclusive: You won't find Katie Price pictures here, I'm afraid
  
• necromancy blog: Today, I raised 3 people from the dead and then updated my facebook page...
  
• shagtonight: Looking for love in your area?
  
• a "thank you on my end as well" : did they get "merci" tattooed on their bottom, or something?
  
• how to make youself sneeze: why would you want to sneeze?
  
• nuts dropped: thanks for the update
  
• up from the depths, 30 stories high, breathing fire, his head in the sky: Stories? Although the Harry Potter stories are thick enough for a pile of 30 to be quite tall, maybe...?
  

Does distress make me look fat?

Strange Visitor's Damsel has been chosen as a freeware pick at IndieGames. Congrats!

Big game hunting

Some updates from some of the "big games" in production:


New portraits of Joey and Rosa for Blackwell Convergence
Public beta of Les Miserables available

Bankers get all RC

Yes, I'm recycling my jokes to reduce the carbon footprint. And also, what's the difference between a pigeon and a banker? A pigeon can still put a deposit on a Ferarri!

Anyway, the "Banker Edition" Release Candidate 1 of AGS 3.1 is up. For those of you not in touch, AGS 3.1. features high-res native co-ordinates, 1024x768 support, enhanced dialog system and a bunch of bug fixes and minor enhancements.

Why your anti-n00b rant is broken...

Oooh, controversy in the forums as monkey_05_06 tells new posters to read the manual. Whatever next? They'll be expecting banks to only loan to the creditworthy next!

Any Zombie will do

The latest singing contest to get a part in an internationally famous show has begun. With Simon Zombie-Cowell as a judge, you actually have to invent a clever character rather than sing. And you win a part in Time Gentlemen, Please, Zombie Cow's sequel to Ben There Dan That. Head over to cowland and read all about it.

Cardinal Sine qua non

AdventureGamers have their Ben Jordan 7 review up and its pretty positive. Steve 'stepurhan' Brown does another good review.

Inky

I was just looking again at Inkoddi's awesome flash animation page and just felt I had to link to it in case any poor souls out there hadn't had the joyful experience of viewing them.

Tomato Sketchup

Ben304 has just put up a sketching tutorial on his blog. Go and learn how to sketch a zombie!

Rock stars

Well, this months MAGS has a Stone Age theme chosen by Radiant and I've decided to have a go again. My one previous MAGS entry, Pixel Hunt, won so maybe I've got a chance. Last time, it was just me doing everything (hence very simple graphics and possibly no music at all) except for Beta testing and Voice acting for which I roped in various IRC denizens. Well, in the modern webcam age, I've roped in Stickamites IndieBoy, Sylvr and Dualnames. Go team!

There's a draft design document in google docs (great for collaboration) and Indieboy is already doing walkcycles and stuff, so progress is good so far. Le'ts see if we can get that is everything planned done in time.

You can also read one of our competitor's MAGS blog. It's not as good as mine.

Vote for change!

Well, none of the entries may be as maverick as Sarah Palin or as committed to change as Barack Obama, but the voting is already open in this year's biggest most important plebiscites:

Tune Contest (10 Electoral College votes)
Background Blitz (17 Electoral College votes)
Stefano has already won the Golden Granny in the Sprite Jam (27 Electoral College votes)

Under the Soundless Mountain

Little Girl in Underland just missed out on the medal positions in the results of the TIGSource Bootleg Demakes competition. A Solid 4th place deserves mucho congratulations to the "GrIvyslav" team. Soundless Mountain II got the 1st place.

More hidden AGS stuff

Here's a couple of AGS games I also found: Super Evil I and Super Evil II (in development)

The Escapist magazine had a non-Yahtzee article that mentioned AGS back in August.

AGS wins Toronto Deathmatch

Well, in my occasional trawl of google for AGS-related stuff, I found that an AGS game called "Wheel of Space" was the overall winner of the University of Toronto's game-making deathmatch 2008! A more detailed review of the game is also on the site, and the author's blog on the game is here.

This game wasn't announced on the forums, as far as I can see, and seems to use some Roger paintovers and "eclectic" graphics (like Jessica Plunkenstein) but it beat out non-AGS games, so yay for them!

AGS Awards 2008 up for debate

I'm asking a few questions of the AGS community about the next AGS awards. They won't be underway until January, but having the debate now leaves plenty of time for discussion and implementation. Of course, my decision is final! :D

Head over to the forum thread to discuss, or PM/comment if you prefer.

Top 5 AGS Top 10s

Here's my list of the top 5 AGS top 10s of all time! Actually, I could only find 5 in a brief look on google... and they're not by any means AGS-exclusive. In no particular order:

CaptainD's epinions top 10 freeware adventures list

Independent Gaming's 2006 top 20 freeware adventures list


Gaming World's top 10 AGS games list

Rampant Coyote's top indie graphic adventures

My own 10 top AGS series list

Please let me know if you find any other top 10 lists!

YabbadabbaMAGS

The October MAGS theme set by Radiant is Stone-Age: so make an Ayla and Jondalar game or a Barney Rubble mystery: its up to you. Ugggh!

AGS Walktubes

Long-time pneumatically-sigged member JetXL has made some video playthroughs of AGS games over on Youtube. So, for example, continuing the Andail theme:

It's all about Andail

Petter Ljungqvist is one of those people who is so awesome that you feel compelled to write a blog post all about him. He wrote the classic AGS games series of Tulle's World, created the AGS Dictionary, has been a moderator on the forums since, like, 1842, is a fab artist, wrote some AGS Operas, hosted a Mittens once and generally exudes elf-like coolness.

Cougar Hoohah

The new pick-of-the-moth (moth? I mean mouth, errr, month) is Cougar's Quest for Freedom, one of the least-downloaded high-scoring 3-cup games in the games DB. It's a wee gem. Sometimes MAGS and OROW inspire games that are great even when considered against games that took much longer to arrive.

And to try and judge what pick-of-the-months people like, the new poll is to try and determine what people's favourites have been this year. Please vote and I may take the result into account in future. Or just pick one at random as usual...

Radiant won and lost

Since he entered the only 2 MAGS entries this month, Radiant won! And lost! KATA beat out Awesmoe Quest to get this month's MAGS title. Radiant's META history has come back to haunt us yet again. Cuppit forever!

Ben is the Best

Well, another poll has finished and Ben Jordan has won the day as the best release of August 2008. It must be those excellent beta testers and SSH cameo that did it...

Space Pirates was a close second, no doubt due to how much everyone on Stickam loves IndieBoy. Well done!