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Prisoners Trilemma's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Game Design | #1 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Art | #1 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Polish | #1 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Narrative/Mood | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Audio | #3 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
My favorite aspects were the characters. You used the simple triangle shapes as a good base to add personality too and I liked how distinct each one felt. Their individual theme songs really went a long way to sell their distinct identities.
I mostly allied unless I thought they would betray me and that got me through many levels, although it left me too low on points to make it all the way through, which felt fair.
The button in the top right to flip over the page took me a while to click and I had no idea it would show a helpful explanation on the back, so using a different system for that or moving that info into the "tutorial" scroll might be a good change. I thought it was some sort of "undo" button.
I may have played this wayyyyyy longer than I intended to... You have a very addicting game loop here! I love the premise and enjoyed your characters. I felt a little guilty saving up chips on some triangles and always forcing Geriatric Gary to ally while I betrayed him repeatedly. Just couldn't trust that guy!
The shopkeeper was a great touch too! I clicked and clicked and clicked! Is the unlocking true?? I wasn't sure after the use your imagination line.
For the most part, I enjoyed the music. The game over music was a little over the top for me though. You have my respect though for making the music yourself! A great start! The SFX were great too! Especially the character sounds. It brought a lot of life to them.
My only recommendation would be to make the change to the triangle's stats more obvious at the end of the round.
Thanks for an evening of fun!
Thank you so much! It's really validating to hear that the game loop was addicting. When you're in the weeds it's kind of easy to lose sight of whether something is actually fun or not. As with my previous game jam entry, I'd love to revisit these concepts when I've built up my skills a bit more.
Making the music was a fun afternoon. I had a bunch of free time but wasn't feeling like working on the game proper, so I thought it'd be fun to try and make some themes for the bigger personalities in the game, and that sort of ballooned into making themes for everybody and tracks for specific screens. I have zero experience with music, so I know it's a little rough, but I'm still proud that I was able to fully implement music into every screen of the game. The game over theme was either the first or second one I made and I'm definitely not super fond of it either. I do genuinely think that the shopkeeper theme is kind of a bop though. I'll have to figure out what the next step is for making music if I want to make my own tracks for my next game, too.
The shopkeeper thing was a troll, sorry! I thought it might be a little mean, she was meant to be a sort of prankster character. I did think about actually implementing different characters with different tactics but that seemed like it'd be overscoping. But now that the competition is over that might be a fun idea to revisit! I think I'm satsified with where the game is at for now, though. And I'd like to work on something a little bit more presentable in terms of art.
I had little number indicators for stat changes on the to do list until the last week. Kind of just fell by the wayside. Wouldn't have taken that long to implement since I sort of already had that for spending chips.
Absolutely nailed the Flash game feel. Overall it is a was a very cute and complete game. The tutorial text was cramped and hard to read but once i did it made all the difference. So many little touches of details made it nice to explore and not just click buttons.
I did like this at the end of the game and definitely have to add one into me next game.
I played one round, having not read any of your tutorial information not quite understanding what to do. Then I tried again, actually reading what you wrote (lol) and had a lot of fun. I made it to level 18 or 19. I think the sound effects and jokes are all cute. Overall neat game!
I think there might be some good strategy stuff here, but I just didn't quite understand the mechanics I think. I made it to level 18 or so anyway by just betraying.
Are you supposed to try to make the other prisonors keen on hitting ally, while not being betrayed too much?
At least what I noticed playing: I believe you get a point if you are both allies, or you betray them (maybe two points if you betray them, but they'll catch on if you do it too many times). You lose a point if they betray you. You get no points if you both betray each other.
There is a tutorial menu on the start screen that explains how the characters make a decision on whether to ally or betray, and when you get to each character it states their individual ideals above them. You have to either make a judgment call based on this information or use your chips to persuade them.
You must earn a certain amount of points to beat each threshold (like every 3 to 5 levels they up the ante). If you don't have enough points, game over.
VeryLukley, please let me know if I understood that all correctly?
Yeah pretty much. Making the tutorial not be just a wall of text is something I ran out of time for, and even that leaves stuff out and requires prior knowledge of what the Prisoners Dilemma even is.
Outcomes of the game work out like this (a visual guide in game is included if you flip the paper around, although it’s a bit hard to parse)
You: Ally | They: Ally - You gain 1 point, and 1 chip (Trust with opponent increased by 1)
You: Ally | They: Betray - You lose 1 point, BUT you gain 1 chip (Trust with opponent increased by 1)
You: Betray | They: Ally - You gain 2 points. (Trust with opponent is decreased by 2)
You: Betray | They: Betray - You gain 0 points. (Trust with opponent is decreased by 2)
Chips are the currency used for special abilities and shop items, and also to sort of soften the blow of getting betrayed.
The idea is if that you betray constantly, the opponents will lose trust with you. (In addition to some strategies that will have the opponent betray you after you betray them) So you might power through early on if you only betray, but points will quickly dry up as nobody wants to cooperate with you later on.
Every 5 floors you must meet a quota to keep climbing the tower. It starts at 3 points, and the amount added increases by 1 each time. So the point quotas are: 3, 7, 12, 18, 25, and 33.
You get an ending if you pass the quota for floor 30 (33 points).
If you never betray, you can also get a special ending. (I think it’s more interesting and easier to do a run where you do a mix first, though)
That’s really helpful actually, thank you
Worked on this for 6 -7 hours a day on the first few days and the last week of the jam. I was really passionate about the concept and wanted to grind it out. The main difficulty was communicating necessary information to the player, which I still don't think I did great.