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Die Fiend!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #319 | 3.929 | 3.929 |
| Overall | #1109 | 3.393 | 3.393 |
| Presentation | #1422 | 3.429 | 3.429 |
| Enjoyment | #2093 | 2.821 | 2.821 |
Ranked from 28 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?
You play as an entropy gremlin that manipulates dice rolls in order to help an adventurer slay monsters.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing art
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
Congrats on finishing your game!
I encountered the controls bug someone else mentioned. My first play I couldn't do anything because I tried to check the description again and it broke the keys. Weird bug! Fortunately, I was able to refresh and try it out.
I really like your premise here - I was chuckling at the line "you are an entropy goblin", well done. However, this game was almost unplayable for me. Everything was just too small and the colors were too similar. The orange/red gems looked too similar, as did the green/yellow ones. The dice were all too small to be able to read without hyperfocusing on them. When you have so much important information on the screen, it needs to be easily readable at a glance. You've got so much unused screen real estate - use it! Make everything at least twice as big. Maybe 3. Maybe more. And turn up the saturation on your colors. You want everything to be readable and quickly so the player can spend their time strategizing instead of trying to read the screen. And while this is a game jam, it's best practice to avoid things being identified solely by color as this might make the game unplayable for those with colorblindness. Try to get in the habit of associating accessibility with any time you think of the word 'color' when designing. But this was a jam, so understandable if you didn't have the time to work out a solution for that.
I liked your art a lot, i just wish it wasn't so tiny! Well done on this. I hope you keep designing games because this has some interesting interactions going on. Keep making games!
Thanks for the feedback! I didn't play the game full screen during the jam, and realized after submitting that it wouldn't stretch. So yeah that's something to improve. The art is not mine, but I'm glad it looks cohesive.
I agree that accessibility is important! However I will point out that nothing in the game is identified solely by color: the dice have colored outlines but are mainly identified by the number of pips, and the color of the gems is determined by the room they are in, which have 1 to 6 pillars arranged to match the die faces. The game is equally (un)playable in black and white.
That said, you're clearly not the only one who didn't make the connection between the physical rooms and the die faces. The pillars were literally the first thing I put on the screen, so it never occurred to me that people wouldn't pick up on their significance. I should have asked someone to playtest it during the jam. Lesson learned for next time!
Thanks for the in depth reply!
To clarify - the small dice were equally hard to read. Both the color and the size made them difficult to read.
Clever bit on the rooms though! Totally missed that!
This was interesting. I didn't quite understand it for my first 5 minutes or so though, so definitely needs some onboarding. It also lacks any real reason to keep up with its loop of RNG and gem-pooping --- even if the core loop is intriguing on its own. The whole thing was extremely polished and the sounds added to the experience. Good job!
Very original take; maybe it could have done with some better onboarding, but I had fun once I went back and read all the text :D
Very great concept and execution! The presentation and gameplay were cool as well. Amazing work! :)
It doesn't feel like my controls are doing anything n.n'
I don't know if it's something to do with my system, but it seemed like my controls did nothing, and the game just ran by itself.
Not gonna rate 'cause it wouldn't be a fair assessment.
Huh, weird. The right side of the screen indeed basically plays itself, but you should be able to control the white gremlin on the left. There's footsteps and a pickup sound when you collect shards.
Ah I actually just ran into the same problem. For some reason if you click outside the playing field, the arrow keys only scroll the page. But reloading and pressing "play" again seems to fix it, at least.
Ah, I see. Indeed that was the issue.
Extremely confusing experience but the game controls feel good and the artstyle is nice. Didn't even realize you had to place the gems in specific places at first and even after I did, having to play the game on the left side made me basically unable to understand whatever was going on the right side. All the systems seem pretty intriguing though if you can figure out how to present it to me without me getting really confused
I love the premise and concept of the game itself and you being the rng manipulator for the "player". That's a fascinating idea and I love it a lot. That being said, it is beyond confusing from a gameplay perspective what/how I am actually influencing what. When I thought I had figured it out..I hadn't at all actually lol. Then again, I know it's a 48hr game jam and this is incredibly ambitious so I can't fault it too hard. Very enjoyable experience overall!
Pretty interesting idea! It took a while for me to get everything fully, but I can see a nice little loop now .. I would definitely recommend a lot more visual feedback and affordances, it will help players feel more comfortable. It is nice that there is not a lot of context switching! Great effort, excited to see how this develops!
Would love your feedback on my submission, I think you will enjoy it!
Its kinda brilliant the way you are playing two entirely different games, I feel like it could be streamlined a little more and you would have something very interesting that goes beyond this Jam!
This is a great idea ! There's a lot of potential behind the mechanic.
If I were to nitpick, I would however say that there is a bit of tweaking to be done:
Overall this is a really really good idea that very strongly appeals to the video player's more mathematical side , which is a very unique thing. However there's some tweaking to be done to truly make it feel interactive and balanced.
I thought it would be impossible to get stuck because you can always go back the way you came. But I guess a new shard spawned behind you? Something to think about after the voting ends. Thanks for the feedback!
yes exactly. not gamebreaking since you can put down the shard but a bit annoying.
No problem hope the feedback helps :) again, really cool idea
This is a neat concept - it took me a little while to get my head around all the mechanics, but I think there's a satisfying gameplay loop of moving crystals around to deal with vulnerabilities and immunities!
Really cool game once you figure it out! I died on the horror! Really enjoyed this! Great work!
i got too confused at the beginning and i am too lazy to figure it out. the game looks fun though.
I'm so glad I decided to keep playing even when I didn't really know what I was doing because it's definitely REALLY fun once you figure things out! If I had to offer some advice, I'd say that it's not terribly clear that where you put the crystal down matters, as there aren't very many defined borders between the sides of the dice. I think it would have helped if there was like a dotted line or even if each side had it's own colored border, as it was very confusing before I figured it out. Personally I think the attack combo system was a little confusing, as I think the fact that you had to roll very specific combinations with the chance of not even attacking at all made it a little more confusing than it had to be. I definitely did enjoy your game though and I can totally see myself playing it in the future!
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah a thin colored border around each room might help a lot. Glad you stick with it haha.
This is brilliant! The concept is so creative and interesting :> the gameplay itself is a bit confusing and took me a little bit to figure out, but once I understood I thought it was so cool! The art style is very pleasing and sound design is also super satisfying and really adds to the experience. I super enjoyed playing this!
I think this the most interesting game I have played so far. The idea is really interesting and I like think the presentation is clear. But it is defiantly a bit complicated and I feel like my feeble brain was just not strong enough to figure out what to do so I just stacked everything in the 6 side.
So after a little bit of trying I fugured out how to play it. I like the idea of rng manipulation *wink*! Though I wish the manipulation itself was a little bit less of a hassle. The complicated part of the game happens on the right, with the abilities, the monster etc, but I am doing buisy work on the left most of the time.
Fair enough! I realized a bit late that while playing you basically have to pay attention to two games at once. I had plans to introduces "entropy ghosts" on the left side to make the gameplay there more fun, but it probably would have just made the game more complex than it already is.
I feel like the gameplay is really deep and interresting, but unfortunately is way too complex and not intuitive to enjoy.
Still a nice submission !
This game looks really good! Love the presentation, but unfortunatelly the math behind it escapes me. I think with a bit better explanation / ux it could be a really cool RPG experience. Nice work!
I am fascinated and I really like the color palette