MAGS April: OROM (One Room One Month) (Winner Announced - See results)

[Dualnames]

What is MAGS?
MAGS is a monthly competition for all amateur adventure game makers. The idea is to use AGS to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner.

For more information please visit the Official MAGS website.

Why should I enter MAGS?
We're not here to tell you that you should enter MAGS, but merely allow it as a creative opportunity to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, and generally as a good kick-start for the new comers.

MAGS is the perfect opportunity to make a game, and the wonderful prize is to announce the next month's rules, and all competitors get the game placed on the MAGS website.

MAGS is meant to be fun and is aimed at everyone, despite their skill. If you have poor art skills work on graphics, and vice-versa, as the voting is based on "favorite" games, and not the most artistic. You may get help for the competition, as long as you end up doing something yourself. You should however be warned that it should prove hard to organize a big team within 30 days.

You are not allowed to (re)use material already created before this competition, you game must be completely new! An exception goes for sounds and music where you can also use free material that is available to the public. Modules and templates are allowed.

Please do not just enter the competition with a rushed entry (a game created in just some hours)

This means that you can make a game and rush it, but don't do it to just win by default.

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Topic: ONE ROOM ONE MONTH

This month's guidelines were set by Dualnames:


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!



Thread Rules:

1)  Comments are allowed at all times. Anyone can comment, critic and express his opinion about an entry, the MAGS, and the host's mother, without being obliged to hide it! As long as the critic isn't like "You suck", something more elaborate could be more useful because after all this is a test for all developers to see if they can really make a game within a month, therefore feedback is crucial. [/i]

2)  Participators are allowed to patch their games even while the voting but I should be informed via pm or here, and only IF the game has a serious bug that makes it crash. Due to the inability of keeping track of versions of the games, I've settled to this.

3) It would be wiser to add the game to the AGS database, so you can easily do changes to the game, while the voting is going on, without having to inform me at all.

So you can patch your game, if it crashes or if it can't be completed.


Have fun this month too!!
Winner:

Ben304 and Calin Leafshade with their game Eternally Us
You guys will set the rules for June! You will be pmed both with some instructions.

CHANGES
From the first of May, some changes will occur on the MAGS competition, hopefully for the best of developers and for the attraction of outsiders to this community.


MAGS A (January, March,May, July, September, November)

It starts on 1st and ends on 30/31st

The winner sets up the theme of the next MAGS A
Voting and playing lasts whilst MAGS B is going on. (2 weeks each)

MAGS B (February, April, June, August, October, December)

It starts on 1st and ends on 28/29/30/31st
The winner sets the theme of the next MAGS B

Voting and playing lasts whilst MAGS A is going on. (2 weeks each)


The winner of this month if not deadly obvious from this post, will set the rules of June. MAGS A and MAGS B are just a way to clarify and indicate condition of the competitions.

To sum up, there will be constantly a 30 days game making month, and a 30 days voting and playing month for that, whilst on the second process another game making month of 30 days will overlap.

Due to the great Days of No Entries, this will be confusing to all of you. The rules of May, are going to be set by a public poll. Those rules are set by me. You have one month to make a game. When May arrives, no more entries will be accepted. However partecipants and non-partecipants, will have the right to play and vote the games during the whole May. In May the rules set by the poll, or whatever we decide to set them anyway, will run another competition.

Summing up: Every month one new game making month round, one game voting month round.

It's about time you get what you deserve. I know this changes will be a little off the book, but the rules are just guidelines.

[Crimson Wizard]

So... does this topic means, there can be literally anything, just in one room?
How large a room can be?  


BTW, sorry to see what happened with March MAGS  

[Cuiki]

So... does this topic means, there can be literally anything, just in one room?
How large a room can be?  

I'm sorry but what exactly are you impliying with that roll eyes smiley? It looks rather ofensive, although you might not intend so. It's just that I've noticed you post that smiley extremely frequently.

Anyway, sorry for off topic. I like the theme and I would definitely try to enter if I wasn't so busy studying and working. It's something I've kinda always wanted to do for my first game because it doesn't require many time-consuming graphics and allows you to concentrate on puzzles which can therefore be wittier.

Hope to see some more creative entries than room escapes, though. 

[Crimson Wizard]

I'm sorry but what exactly are you impliying with that roll eyes smiley?

...irony, giggle,... maybe.

It looks rather ofensive, although you might not intend so.

Offensive to whom?

It's just that I've noticed you post that smiley extremely frequently.

Erm... really? Where?

[Ascovel]

I'm also sorry to see how the March edition ended. I'll try to come up with a silly, simple game for April, but I can't guarantee it will really happen.

How large a room can be?  

Surely not larger than two rooms.

[neon]

Anyway, sorry for off topic. I like the theme and I would definitely try to enter if I wasn't so busy studying and working. It's something I've kinda always wanted to do for my first game because it doesn't require many time-consuming graphics and allows you to concentrate on puzzles which can therefore be wittier.

That was exactly what I thought when I saw the topic. Could be a chance to jump in this month.

[Cuiki]

CrimsonWizard, it would look offensive to me, if you replied my post using it.  (<--see?)
Perhaps it's just me, but I'd never use roll eyes unless I found something extremely stupid and tasteless....(the one posted here is meant as irony of course)
Anyway, I don't want to argue about this, especially not in a constructive topic.
(And please, you probably use that smiley more than anyone else here (but I didn't do the statistics, so I can't guarantee)).

[Crimson Wizard]

CrimsonWizard, it would look offensive to me, if you replied my post using it.  Roll Eyes (<--see?)
Perhaps it's just me, but I'd never use roll eyes unless I found something extremely stupid and tasteless....

Erm... what can I say... that's a bit weird to hear you think that smile is offensive; to me it always looked like he's smiled kindly with slight irony; besides I usually use it referring to mine own words.

What actually bothers me most is how did you know I used this smile frequently... Have you spied on me? Now I have paranoia...

Anyway, you got me intrigued, so I made some calculations.
So far I made 752 posts (1.016 per day); in these posts I used "roll eyes" smile 38 times (+/- 1, because I could miss something). That makes one "roll eyes" smile per 19,8 posts... or approximately one "roll eyes" per 19-20 days.


After all this I hope these calculations will help someone in developing a game concept for MAGS April, otherwise it was a waste of time (and offtopic)  

[LimpingFish]

I've never entered a MAGS before, because I'm an inflexible bastard who finds it hard to design around a set of pre-determined topics.

I've twice been part of OROW though, so I might give this one a go.

[Calin Leafshade]

I also dont usually enter MAGS for the same reason as LF* so I might give this one ago

Spoiler below, select the area to read the text

*Except I'm not a bastard

[Radiant]

So yeah. Does that mean one screen? Or one AGS room which can be several screens? Or one in-world room which can be several AGS rooms? Or whichever interpretation you want?

For instance, I believe most of Nanobots takes place in one in-world room. Likewise, most of META (specifically, all of Awesmoe Quest) is one AGS crm file. Does that qualify?

[Questionable]

I'm going to make the biggest damn room you've ever seen...

Labyrinth: The Game

Working on my David Bowie sprite... =P

[Calin Leafshade]

I think the idea is that it can only be one 'room' in the sense that the AGS engine considers a room. So at no point can you use the player.changeroom command (except for titles and credits and stuff.)

[Ryan Timothy]

I imagine it's just like an OROW, where the rule of One Room isn't mandatory.  The OROW rules even state you can make a game with 2 or even 3 rooms or whatever, but the general rule is to stick with 1 room so that the game will actually be made.  I imagine that's exactly what Dual is attempting here.  A loose rule of 1 room, don't go overboard.

[Crimson Wizard]

Wasn't Alien Time Zone OROW game? It has at least 4 or 5 actual rooms. But figurally it's one same place.

[ddq]

If I can come up with some more puzzles and some decent art, I might just be able to enter this one. However, my computer is dead set on being a massive pile of fail, and I've got a pile of homework on my desk that keeps looking at me in a very judging way.

[Ben304]

Spoiler below, select the area to read the text

*Except I'm not a bastard

Pfff, we all know you're lying.

As for the mags idea itself, I think it's a great idea to try and get the competition back on track. Way to go Dual 

[Chicky]

Love you Dualnames!

[Dualnames]

Love you Dualnames!

I'm only quoting this post. The only one worth.

Seriously, there have been many OROW games that had like 5 rooms, though the rooms felt like one, and viceversa. It means sticking mostly to one room. There's no restrictions for more, but don't make a game that has like 5-6 rooms. Unless of course it feels like an OROW. ATZ feels like an OROW entry for example. Man-Boy has one scrolling room, that feels like an OROW. McCarthy Chronicles 1, wouldn't feel like one for example. Featherweight, might. Shoot I Got Abducted surely! As for META, it would clarify as an OROW competition because it's all in one place.

See my point through all the examples.
To sum up:

I imagine it's just like an OROW, where the rule of One Room isn't mandatory.  The OROW rules even state you can make a game with 2 or even 3 rooms or whatever, but the general rule is to stick with 1 room so that the game will actually be made.  I imagine that's exactly what Dual is attempting here.  A loose rule of 1 room, don't go overboard.

[NsMn]

I'd only need someone to draw for me and I'm in....