Marking Anniversary, Games Spar
Every month, underground adventure creators rush to finish their games in order to make the deadline for MAGS, the Monthly AGS competition. Recently, the contest has produced entries such as Spooks, The Family Treasure, and Cedric and the Revolution.
In June, MAGS turned five years, and to mark the anniversary the contest adopted a special set of rules: Each entry could choose freely from any past rule set of the contest. The winner was to receive a special prize, a MAGS CD featuring most games ever created for the contest.
Three games are now competing for the honor of becoming the fifth anniversary MAGS winner.
From Dave Gilbert (Two of a Kind) comes The Shivah, probably the first adventure game ever to feature rabbinical dialogue puzzles. Named after the seven days of mourning after the death of a close relative in Jewish tradition, The Shivah puts you in the yarmulke of Russel Stone, a disillusioned, bitter and broke Manhattan rabbi. The murder of a man he threw out of the temple years ago leads Rabbi Stone into a conspiracy that may cost him not only his congregation, but his soul.
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Meanwhile, Zor and Bartimaeus cross over to the other side with The Netherworld, a verb-coin controlled game where you play as a newly arrived shade in the hereafter. Something to check out for fans of Spooks.
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Finally, Radiant (META) offers up Infinite Monkeys, undoubtedly the most extreme of the entries. Radiant claims to follow every single rule set ever used for MAGS, and the conflicting requirements of so many different restrictions have led to a truly eccentric game. In addition to the plot ("a futuristic game set in the past where the Mittens crew in their zombie-infested flying city has to help elves by taking a journey through time during their new year's party to stop the supervillain's conspiracy in his zoo"), Infinite Monkeys is set apart by an overwhelming interface featuring twenty five verbs (including "pinch", "wear" and "play on"), which can be rearranged at will.
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If you go right ahead and download and play The Shivah, The Netherworld and Infinite Monkeys, there is still time to cast your vote for your favorite candidate. But hurry, as voting for this anniversary edition of MAGS is due to close soon!
Edit: As voting has now been closed, the winner of the Anniversary MAGS contest is The Shivah. Congratulations to Dave Gilbert.
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