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Codex Nocta's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| How well did this game execute its ideas? | #2 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
Ranked from 4 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.
- This was one of the most exciting entries in the contest, it's a really cool use of a summoner unit and it's so well done. Simplifying the units and combat interactions between them really helped with getting into it and used to playing, plus it let the different kinds of units shine more. There is an obvious luck element to it that can cause problems for a few turns, especially early on, but it does even out a bit as you draw more. I will also note a bug where the Fey Spirit didn't take any damage when the description suggested it should, making the game a bit more manageable than it might have been. I would definitely be interested in a full length game where more cards are obtained over time and if it has the ability to customise the deck between maps.
- Super fun submission. I loved the chasing miniboss, really gave the game the push of challenge that it needed. Good pacing and difficulty level too, as I was able to complete it in about an hour. The cool thing about this submission is that is has replayability, since the card order seems to be random. But still it feels very balanced. Great job.
- Codex Nocta is one of the most interesting entries in this jam. The idea is having a limited deck that you can draw a card each turn and can use it to cast spell or summon a disposable unit to attack (since the Summoner doesn't own a weapon on its own). But because of the card nature, it also has its drawbacks. It's much more RNG reliant than regular FE game because of it (for example, you can stock up several spells that wouldn't help in a situation that would require drawing an unit). Despite this, is actually fun to play. Would recommend.
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Comments
Finished playing this and enjoyed it! The middle part made me sweat a little since I was getting really bad draws and was being carried by lucky crits from my minotaur, who was honestly my MVP the whole way through. The swarm at the end where you fight the guy with throwing knives was also a point where I only got through because of some pretty good luck. I thought making the boss move without warning as soon as you attack him was kind of a dick move, and the village that gives move+1 is really weirdly placed... You're already being pressed to hurry, so I sent a monster to that village (a ballistician who had already missed both of his shots) and wasted it. The extra move bought me an extra turn of letting that ballistician kite the cerberus rider, but I was mostly just thinking "really, are you kidding me".
From a technical standpoint this game is awesome. Love the card drawing and the balance was surprisingly good, and more importantly cool. The assassin's gimmick was probably my favorite, besides that minotaur whose back probably aches from carrying me so hard. Stacking buffs on him was really fun and had that card game feeling to it. I appreciate how useful the buffs are, too; I think you mayyy have erred on the side of them being too good over too boring, which was the absolute right call. The fairy dancers were also neat, mostly because of the 3-turn timer that I thought was really interesting. On another note I would die for Sarah
The balance is good, the cards are dope, and a couple of the encounters turned out really fun, especially near the end when I started drawing better cards (not sure if coincidence or design). Kiting the cerberus with summons that had fallen behind was fun. Mostly I'm just not in love with the map design and most of the first half, the fun of which seems to rely very very heavily on what you happen to draw due to how dangerous the enemies are and how shaky the hit rates are for the most part without any real way to improve them. I saw you said in another review that you had improved hit rates in an update, so I'd hate to imagine what they used to be like.
All in all, great concept and execution of the main mechanic, but I think the level itself holds it back. That is, the parts that are still Fire Emblem are what I feel are lacking, haha. All the interesting enemies are saved for the end, and luck is a huge factor in how annoying the early and middle parts are, not just in draws but also accuracy and crits.
Hey, saw that you tried my game (thank you for that btw, good to catch bugs like that) and decided to return the favor.
Unfortunately while the idea of combining cards with an SRPG is something I've always wanted to do (and you're off to a decent start yourself) in its current form this game looks to be very luck-reliant. The character absolutely needs a monster or an attack spell to get through enemies but the player won't always have one. Furthermore the player just doesn't get a whole lot out of individual monsters since their weapons break eventually (for me Skeletons lose their weapons faster than their health). You could pass the turn over and over to draw more but eventually the enemies would catch up if you took too long. What's good about it is, I like that the cards can be put together in interesting combinations (Inner Rage on the Chicken for instance) but again, the monsters are fragile so setting up a combo means investments don't always pay off.
My suggestion (and it's late in the contest I know) would be to have the player's hand start with 5 cards instead of 3 and fill it back up to five every turn; this would let the player throw away what they don't need at the moment, and I would also allow the player to get more out of the monsters, maybe by introducing a healer monster (if there is one) and making their weapons infinite use.
Oh and I don't know if this is intentional but if you heal a Fey Spirit their poison effect wears off and they can be used infinitely. Felt nice to figure that out though. Up to you if you keep it.
Anyways, good luck in the contest and I hope I've been helpful.
Thanks for the feedback!
The Fey Spirit thing is definitely an oversight, haha. I set the duration to infinite now, so you should be able to use it to get 2 extra turns (as intended) but no more than that.
I don't really plan to revamp the draw mechanic - the monsters being mostly disposable is definitely intended so you don't completely snowball. Skeletons especially are meant to be reliable (high hit rate) but not worth using buffs on. Assassins, Dark Mages, or Chickens you can keep alive for the majority of the map due to higher weapon durability and scaling well with buffs for one reason another. I did actually experiment with infinite weapon durability in earlier builds, but it made the game too swingy, since if you played carefully, you could keep most of your units alive and get a massive army in the second half.
But I definitely have gotten some other feedback about the RNG being too punishing, so I'll push some small changes (slightly increasing player hit rates and some durabilities) to make it more forgiving if your draws aren't great. I don't think I've seen an impossible "draw seed" yet (it's slightly rigged so you'll never be completely monster starved), but some unlucky misses at the start can really screw you, so I'll try to reduce that.