Well today’s adventure game made in AGS isn’t about anyone named Daisy, but if you can figure out the reference I’ll randomly put your name in one of my reviews, and if you figure out the double reference, I’ll put your name your name randomly in TWO of my reviews. Anyways, today’s game is about a little bot named Annie Android by Ben Chandler aka Ben304. “Annie Android has her eye on that handsome Mailbot, but is shocked to discover that she has been assigned to be another bot’s partner! Help Annie win the heart of Mailbot and defeat the nasty RoboHQ!” is what the readme says. So let’s see if we can help her out. Annie Android is made by the same guy who made Shifter’s Box. So it’s sure to be interesting.
Like Shifter’s Box, the style is uniquely Ben’s, with a certain golden-like color palette, which I think it’s supposed to make you think of metal and such. Maybe brass-like would be a better description. In any case Annie Android is fairly cute as is most of Ben’s characters. I’m actually enjoying the theme song that’s playing over the title screen. Let’s see how the in-game music fares. I like the in-game music better than Shifter’s Box too. I guess it fits the android theme better or something. So here we have Annie Android who’s just gotten a message from her message-bot about a mail-bot that’s coming around. He has some mail for her, or so I’m told. She wishes for romance, but as message-bot reminds her, she is just a machine like they all are. Plus Robo-HQ won’t allow an “unauthorized” pairing of androids and bots. They all have “designated” partners. What’s a girl-bot to do?
The one thing that strikes me here is that the interface is slightly different. Not quite as easy as in Shifter’s Box, of course this is normal as Annie Android is older. It’s an interface similar to the old SCUMM interfaces by LucasArts. There are three verbs, look, talk, and use on the bottom. Everything is done with the left mouse button. The thing that makes it not quite as easy, is the fact you have to go back to the verb bar.
Uh-oh, apparently when Annie looks out the window she thinks the mail-bot is handsome. As with Shifter’s box, Annie Android’s story seems to have a sort of philosophical message. I won’t spoil it, but suffice it to say, Annie seems to be getting something bordering on emotions. So far it’s a pretty good story too. Although I do like the music, it does get annoying after a while. Ben’s art seems to have a simple, cohesive, style that’s pleasant to the eyes. Let’s hope he make more decent games like these two. I keep thinking he could actually be making money right now, as his games seem to be of a professional quality, but either because he just has fun making them, or simply because he doesn’t feel short games like this deserve any monetary repayment, for the moment they remain free. Not that free is bad, on the contrary, I don’t have any money, so free is very good for me. But who knows, maybe Ben can have a “Career” in adventure games if he wishes it.
Final Analysis: Cute, interesting story, decent music, decent graphics. That actually seems to describe Shifter’s Box as well. I hope Ben never change’s that aspect of his games.
Name: Annie Android
Developer: Ben Chandler
Price: Free
Where you can get it: From it’s AGS page here.
Tags: Adventure, ags, Ben304, free, Freeware, fun, game, games, independent, Indie, point'n'click, retro styled, review, reviews, windows
Wow, I did not expect you to review this game, thanks :)
As for changing the nature of my games – well I like to experiment, but I am fairly happy with the circle that I’ve been running in and don’t plan to change too much in the formula each time – although obviously I’ll always be looking to push myself.
As for going commercial – there’s a number of reasons why I haven’t done it – doubts about the acceptance of simple low res graphics being one and the length of my average game being the other.
Thanks for the review, Keith :)
I also have a couple of your more older games, too, they’ll get in there eventually.
I think if you end up making a longer game, you could eventually go commercial if you want. It’s fine to be doing it this way though. Nothing wrong with doing stuff for free. But if you look at Herculean Effort, they’re making a bit of cash, as well as Wadjet Eye (Dave Gilbert).
I don’t know how they work out the length of their games but one way I used to judge old Lucasarts games is by how long it would take once I knew everything in the game. If you could do every action as quick as possible, and could get about 2 hours out of it, then when someone who doesn’t know anything plays it, it could take them a little while, and that would seem like a good amount of time. (Like walkthrough time would be about 2 hours).
Anyways glad you liked the review.