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Black Board Bold's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Scope | #4 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Aesthetics | #8 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Fun | #11 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Overall | #20 | 3.389 | 3.389 |
| Roguelikeness | #23 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Completeness | #27 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Innovation | #40 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
I'm coming in as someone who hates stealth games, but I actually enjoyed this. Solid style, great references to Metal Gear (especially that intro), guards felt well made and I had fun attempting to sneak attack guards and sometimes failing abysmally.
Roguelike inspired by Metal Gear Solid (which I have never actually played, unfortunately). I did get a win in this game, although I was caught 16 times along the way. The game felt reasonable complete, polished, very few noticeable bugs, and relatively balanced although every map will not be winnable (though most are). The dialog screens are great, colors are nice (especially with themed levels), guard vision is easy to distinguish, symbols to denote guard actions are clear, controls are symbol and intuitive. Combat is not traditional, the game is actually mostly stealth oriented with "sneak-attack" mechanics to subdue enemies. Scope feels reasonable for a 7DRL. The game is fun and worth playing at least once but may not offer much replayability to most roguelike players.
At start - big plus for intro! I suggest everyone to read it all, as it explains game mechanics nicely, in interesting way.
I like visual aspect much - simple animations are immersive, colours and map symbols are aesthetic.
Boy, this game starts to be hard early. Enemies FOV is long and wide, and their movement is not predictible, it seems. And it's the problem - on the one hand, game encourages planning, but actual gameplay is more about improvisation. Additionally, Player can move in 4 directions, alerted enemies - in 8.
Not every piece of mechanics is clear. Player may be detected even if should not (maybe fov algorithm is not symmetrical, or creates artifacts?). It seems that player standing in front of alerted enemy can jump behind him, leaving soldier confused. But sometimes, trying to perform this action, I'm getting killed.
These issues are big problems for stealth-based roguelike.
Game lets replay levels upon death, so I can't say it's true permadeath, but it's almost necessary - finally, I reached level 8, but since 4th floor, I had to use replay features a lot...
PS: bug to fix: enemies can block on stairs
Successful or Incomplete?
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Comments
Hi! You've made a neat game, it's fun to play a stealth-oriented roguelike every once in a while :-)
There was a real sense of suspense at times, as if I was actually hiding around a corner while being hunted. I also liked the ending quite a bit although I did accidentally skip past the very last screen.
By the way, I think I may have found an exploit? If you walk straight into a guard that is tracking you, you can trade positions with them a few times until you eventually subdue them. It seems repeatable although I don't think it works if another guard sees you both.
I also ran into some odd situations at times. I think one is expected where a guard will just watch the stairs or a corridor without moving. But the really odd one is on the pink level below, where the three guards with "no vision" are just standing there not moving. I noticed similar affects near the single-tile walls, I wander if it messes up their pathing? Or maybe it's working as intended... figured I'd let you know either way.
Anyways I enjoyed the game, thanks for making it :-)
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
Yes, these are both bugs. Because they don't make the game harder (or un-winnable), I've decided not to fix them until judging for the jam is complete.