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Lexicon Hop: A 7DRL's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Scope | #73 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Innovation | #75 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Completeness | #79 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Roguelikeness | #94 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #97 | 2.245 | 2.750 |
| Fun | #101 | 1.633 | 2.000 |
| Aesthetics | #106 | 2.041 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 2 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.
Neat concept for a game. Complete and winnable. The art is charming. Gameplay lacked some polish. Not a fan of the meta-progression, because the early "lives" felt very weak and like death was imminent. After learning a few words that eased up. Ran into a handful of bugs. At times it felt like I was wandering aimlessly, not sure where I was supposed to head next.
I thought that the saved progression and jumping mechanics were interesting gameplay elements that had some good potential. Thematically presenting this as learning new words was a nice touch as well. I liked the game overall, but I felt there were some issues that prevented portions of it from being enjoyable.
In terms of gameplay it was not quite clear what I had to do to progress. I felt like I spent a lot of time wandering around looking for a screen that was not a default forest.
Some areas seemed to be impossible to deal: with such as an island with a stone tablet that had 6-8 enemies on it, or forest areas with lots of enemies. I found the best way to get around was by “surfing” the edges of each screen, and moving to a different screen to reset enemy positions whenever they got too close. I think the game would have benefited from either a few less enemies, or a few more early game tools to deal with enemies. The early game is pretty brutal.
There were some usability things that could have been cleaned up a bit:
- Taking damage by jumping on spikey enemies could have been communicated a bit better.
-When looking at the controls it was not immediately clear what the difference is between jump, leap, and hop
-Falling into pits if enemies are blocking you on the other side.
Successful or Incomplete?
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Comments
Neat little game you have here. The "words" theme/story were pretty interesting, and the hop mechanic was a neat twist (although a little annoying to have to alternate hitting the space bar with movement keys... maybe hopping should be the default?). The art/tiles are charming.
Falling down a hole and dying immediately is really annoying, perhaps it should reset to your last position and lower your stress/health? I noticed if you bump into certain enemies over pits that it resets you like this -- although I had a bug where if that happened and your last position was a moving platform, then you are placed where the platform *was* (but no longer is), and get an action but will die the next turn if you can't make it to solid ground.
I think the game should provide some sort of indication as to where to go, maybe a compass or mini-map of sorts would be helpful? At times I felt like I was wandering around with no idea of where I should be going or if I was going the right way.
Most maps reset if you leave and return. This is very exploitable as you can just skirt the edges and wait for a map you like to generate, or leave and return to reset enemy positions if they get too close to you.
Is there a way to kill enemies? I couldn't figure it out and just ran from them all the time. The few I tried to hop onto just hurt me so I stopped trying. Maybe it's a word that I never received.
If you move diagonally onto a new screen, you can land on a tile that you can't normally land (like a wall or tree). If you keep moving diagonally between two screens, you can go *deep* into areas you shouldn't be. See the screenshot below. I was also able to get to the east desert area from the starting screen like this, before the opening appeared.
I wasn't a fan of how meta-progression was incorporated here. The character feels too weak in the early lives until you learn some words. It isn't very welcoming to new players and I think player retention would be better if the early-game didn't feel so harsh.
I did get to the end and beat the final boss and rid the lands of the Unnamed though. Overall this was a neat game but could use some refining.