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FRANKEN JUDGE's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Style | #121 | 4.476 | 4.476 |
| Overall | #326 | 3.984 | 3.984 |
| Creativity | #427 | 4.048 | 4.048 |
| Enjoyment | #1277 | 3.429 | 3.429 |
Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
FRANKEN JUDGE was made and submitted as part of the Game Maker's Toolkit 2024 Game Jam. The theme for this jam was Built To Scale. As part of this theme, the duo at Hangover Sunshine felt inspired to take the term literally: "Built, with the purpose, to scale." This concept led to having the player balancing the scales of justice as the perfect judge, deciding the outcomes of each courtroom case. To further emphasize the weight of each decision, your rulings affect your reputation with three distinct citywide factions. These social classes have different values and beliefs, and repeated poor judgments can lead to your downfall. You were built by Frankenstein to weigh in on and scale these court cases, making you theoretically the perfect man for the job.
Development Time
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
"Hypnothis" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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Comments
I am amazed at the game's polish! the art is beautiful, the concept is very interesting, that's definitely something that I would buy and play if it were a full game.
Just letting you know, I noticed a bug when it comes to single-class cases: the opposite card gets chosen. If case involves two classes, it's all good, but whenever the single-class case appeared, I chose the opposite of what I wanted so that I receive the outcome that I need
Hello! Thanks for giving our game a shot! Yes, the wrong card bug. We fixed it! Once the jam ends we're going to get that updated. Thanks for calling that out and also for giving our game a play. Glad you enjoyed the concept!
- S. "Essay"
Awesome! I hope you continue developing the game!
The polish on this game in incredible. It looks great, and the storytelling and worldbuilding is really fun and effective. I love trying to decide for myself what I would do in this silly case before considering how to keep people happy. Feels just like being a corrupt judge, haha.
I ended up failing around day 10 because the peasants kept going down, while the other two were stuck at 100. I think that early on I slightly tipped the scales, and since the reputation system looks at everything at once, it just kept lowering the peasants even though I wasn’t doing anything to them. It was also difficult to fix because none of the cases changed stats by enough to do anything either way. (There also seems to be a bug where the wrong verdict can be selected)
But overall the game was still an awesome experience and one of the best narrative-driven games I’ve played. Nice work!
Hello! Thanks for giving our game a shot! Sorry to hear about that "opposite cards" bug. We got that fixed and are waiting for the jam to end to push an update. Also, yes, peasants start off waaaaay to aggro. Also fixed that in our prepared update. From what I've gotten to playtest with this next update, you have a lot better control of who you want to focus on when improving your rep with a specific faction. Regardless, I appreciate you giving the game some time and also for your feedback!
- S. "Essay"
I loved this game and I truly, truly think you could take it so much further after this jam. Hopefully you work more on this and publish it. I really enjoy this type of game, reminds me of death and taxes or we, the revolution. The art was also extremely nice. Great work! keep it up.
I think all the concrete suggestions I would give have already been given by other commenters, so I'll just say I think this game has great potential and hope you keep working on it after the jam. Procedural narrative generation could be cool here to keep the cases exciting and to have decisions clearly affect the subsequent cases offered.
Oooooo, I would've not thunk of a procedural narrative, or one altogether. I def think it would be cool if the cases were more situationally reactionary versus the altercation of Societal Ranks. Idea was that the Society statistics were a reflection of the situation in the town you're judging, but am wondering if with some sprinkles of narrative if we can make it more impactful. Kind of like a Paper Please situation mixed in with stronger-feeling consequences of actual courtwork. I could totally see a case coming in after every certain number of rounds that take in the narrative of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. We'll snoop and discuss. Appreciate the feedback!
- S. "Essay"
I'm in the process of reading Procedural Storytelling in Game Design edited by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams, so it's on the top of my mind. It's worth at least skimming through if you end up going down that route.
That's a good read! I've used that as a base for talking to game devs about what I do in my research. It's interesting seeing the difference of sifting v.s. planning, though I might be more partial to the planning parts!
- Mica
Really cool and well-made game! I think it's already been mentioned, but just to echo it, 1) peasants were difficult to keep happy and 2) some decisions I picked didn't actually get selected which made me confused about the controls lol. E.g. day 3 or 4, I got a case for clergy about reaping souls and when I picked the one that should have made the peasantry rep/ stats go up, the one that was good for nobility/ clergy got picked instead. Additionally, if you continue to work on the game post-jam (I hope you do!), I would love to see a lil fast forward button.
Again, hope you add onto this post-jam! I think you have something wonderful here!
Aaaaay! Thanks for playing our game and for the feedback! Appreciate the highlights of those couple of lowlights, def agree with all those points.
1) Peasants are way too mad, agreed. We have an update cooked where they don't start off as angry; the realistic approach was not the move lol.
2) Interesting catch. I know about this pesky card bug we fixed where it just didn't pick your card. Not sure of numbers not getting added. I know we fixed that guy and also some other stuff so I'm wondering if that got "auto" resolved. Something that def needs to improve is how we communicate the fun math in the game. Not being able to get rep up because people are too angry is something as a message that is lacking imo. I'm wondering if maybe a bug occurred in tandem with that situation? Regardless, we'll take a look!
Appreciate the time and thanks again!
- S. "Essay"
I think this is easily the best-looking and most cohesively designed game I've played so far. It's clear a lot of attention went into the little details of the visual design. And the writing is fantastic as well.
I admit that even after reading the tutorial, I didn't fully understand the results of my actions and judgments. Reading through other's comments, I see it was common for the peasantry to just generally be unhappy. I swear I tried to make them happy! But still ended up at 0%, heheh.
I also experienced the bug where I would occassionally receive the wrong card, but bugs are to be expected in a jam game.
But overall a very polished experience. I think if I spent a bit more time with it I could develop a better strategy :)
Yo! Thanks for giving our game a shot. We def need to balance the game a bit more and work on the feedback of player action. Can def see a trend with the peasantry just being waaaaay to unhappy. We have an update ready once the jam ends to fix that and also that pesky "wrong card" bug. Appreciate all the love for the design and writing, I did not sleep :,)
Anyhow, appreciate the time you took playing our game and for the feedback!
- S. "Essay"
Sure thing. You definitely did a fantastic job!
Really great; a consistent and stylish visual identity with an interesting theme and a quite literal interpretation of the theme and the thumb-on-the-scale idiom. Fantastically polished, well done!
Se ve muy pro el diseño y las animaciones. Además tiene stats y gestión de número, fascinante. Felicidades por su juego.
¡Gracias por tus comentarios! El arte fue mucho trabajo. No dormí lol.
- S. "Essay"
Te creo, buen trabajo 👌
The game is clean visually clean, the tutorial really helps to understand everything, all and all it's a very clean game