[TheTwelve]

====
anna
====

=======
summary
=======

You may have read about the OROW Competition 2 here or here .

When the smoke cleared, two games had tied for the win. This is a polished up version of one of the OROW Competition 2 winners, Anna.

The game is presented in pseudo-3D with a keyboard interface.

This updated version contains a number of updates including sound and music as well as a new and novel Flash manual that actually communicates with the AGS game in order to unlock story background and hints as you play the game. For example, if you find yourself stuck in the game, before consulting a walkthrough or the forum, open up the manual. It will check to see how far into the game you've progressed and unlock the appropriate hint for you. There are also several other hidden tidbits that will unlock as you play.

Play it again... for the first time!

====
links
====

The xii games Website.

The AGS Game Page.

Direct Download Link.

====
story
====

Welcome to Outpost Station. A deep-space lookout intended to serve as an early warning system in case of attack by "the enemy." You are Hero, a clear-room technician charged with the maintenance of all the station's systems including Anna, the intelligent computer system that runs the station.

The day starts as routinely as any other, but ends with Homeworld's very survival in jeopardy.

==============
version information
==============

This game was originally made for the One Room One Week Competition. The OROW Competition release version 0.9 was released July 16, 2005.

This is version 1.0. The following changes were implemented:

-Added sound and music
-Complete face-lift for the main menu
-Added new load GUI to main menu
-Added custom save/load GUIs to in-game menu
-Added credits
-Slight changes to dialogue text
-Speech is now ALL skippable
-New Flash Manual

=========
links (again)
=========

The xii games Website.

The AGS Game Page.

Direct Download Link.

Hope you enjoy it!

[TheTwelve]

In an unabashedly self-centered hope of winning over some people who may have overlooked the game when I first posted it, I'd like to add this review that the game recieved on the AGS games page:

Posted by madmanmunt on 2005-09-04 at 08:03
Anna is absolutely amazing. I wasn't prepared for how much I was going to love this game. A funny, intelligent and tense sci-fi adventure, Anna is something really different from your average one room game.

First, the graphics. Stylised, clinical, brilliant. The multilayered room, once you get to grips with it, works incredibly well. The cold, colourless images, especially that of main character Hero, reflect the technologically advanced atmosphere.

And yet, while the game achieves a perfect, detached futuristic feel, this is countered by real warmth in the superb script. A heavily philosophical 15 minute introduction introduces us to our two main characters, Hero and the 80% organic computer Anna. That Anna can feel emotions means that her relationship with Hero is complex and compelling. During the introduction it is set out for us as the pair bounce good natured insults off each other during a debate about free will. The script is intelligent and wonderfully observed. It would be easy to ignore the characters in favour of simply setting out the philosophy that Anna has come up with but the game intersperses this weighty dialogue with realistic emotional responses.

Anna is not even a physical presence in the game and yet her relationship with Hero is the most intimately observed and convincing relationship I have run across in an AGs game. The pair lapse into their career dictated roles only when necessary. The rest of the time they are sparking off each other with witty barbs or engaging in emotionally escalating debates. I may be going to far here but I'm sure I even sensed a little sexual tension between the two, the tragedy of which would be the impossibility of consumation.

Anna ends on something of a cliff hanger and I really hope that means we'll be getting some more Anna games. I love these characters so much that the entertaining gameplay seemed almost secondary to the unfolding story and superb dialogue. Anna is a major triumph all round and the best short game I've played since the first Ben Jordan.

If you try the game out, please leave some feedback! Thanks!