Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Assimilate is a real-time game where you become various forms by taking over the corpses of your fallen enemies. There are a handful of enemy types to fight against and to fight as, each with different speed, health, attacks, etc. You lose health when you attack, in addition to being hit, and as you run low on health you can exit the body and enter another fresh identity. The game felt polished, complete, and stable. Assimilate has a strong aesthetic and is a pleasure to watch as you play, with a simple but understandable UI and controls. The game is fairly short but has a lot of possibility should it continue to be developed. the player is asked to choose the map size upon starting the game, I initially started with Medium which felt far too large, grew boring while fighting the same enemies over and over and seeing the same terrain features, and had me wondering if this is all the game was or if there was an ending or way to advance to the next level; so I started over on extra small and think that these smaller maps are the appropriate size for the game's current scope. The player should probably not be given this option and an appropriate fixed size should be used instead.
• A twin stick shooter, and therefore not a roguelike, but one which is polished pretty nicely and quite interesting in how you use a cycle of taking over the bodies of other creatures to defeat a much more powerful boss.
• This reminded me of the battle scenes in the classic C64 game Archon. The possession mechanic is interesting and once you get used to it adds a lot to the game play. The dark graphics make it difficult to see on some screens, I had to move to a new monitor to play the game, perhaps a screen alpha or brightness control would make it easier to see. The music and graphics create an ominous, almost spooky vibe. Unfortunately, there was not a whole lot of traditional roguelike elements in the game, as it's basically just a 2D, top-down, action game with some interesting mechanics.