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Dumb Little Aliens's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #2 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Theme Relevance | #3 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Clarity | #4 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Potential playability | #5 | 3.700 | 3.700 |
Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Hilarious concept that I’d wishlist instantly if I saw it!
The core gameplay reminds me mostly of the endless runner genre, of which there are many similar space-themed games - however, the strategic choices to maintain the scrap meter and more complex upgrade system might put this game in potentially new-genre territory.
The GDD was pretty well-structured and easy to read - especially loved the diagrams, and the custom art sold the overall tone and aesthetic of the game quite well. Most aspects of the game seemed well-covered and I could get a good picture of the progression and upgrade system. The core mechanics are still a little unclear to me though - do you get dialogue options when you hit another ship, or are they a separate mechanic?
I love the chaotic, frantic gameplay and the overall zany sci-fi aesthetic of the game, and that combined with slapstick crashes and explosions would probably get me to play it. The idea of pop-up menus and hats obstructing your view was pretty funny as well. I wasn’t exactly sure how the difficulty would ramp up over time though - or what the main source of challenge in the game would be - because the more ships you hit, the more scrap you get right? You get more and more upgrades, but the only balancing source of increased challenge seems to be the chaos meter and the police, and I’m not sure I want to be chased by them every single moment.
Overall a very attractive concept presented well, would love to see this made into something more :)
"do you get dialogue options when you hit another ship, or are they a separate mechanic?"
Yes! This is the main gameplay loop, where crashing into a ship will provide scrap, possibly modules, and a dialogue scenario where you can respond in a few different ways, each having their own outcome.
This scrap will be depleted overtime, as your health bar, so there isn't really any way to stockpile it. Overtime your Chaos meter is likely to fill up as people call the cops on you, leading to an increase in your health drain. It's similar to that of a survival game, where eventually you'll run into a cop, or make the wrong choice and be attacked by bikes, cops, or whatever weird stuff we put in the game, leading your health to deplete even faster.
I'm glad you like the game! We really wanted to push the funny chaos of it, so I'm glad that that is resonating well from our GDD.
This looks like a fun little game!
Made me reminisce about old browser site games of a similar art style and reminded me of Risk of Rain 2 in a way where you get different relics to upgrade your character in an increasingly chaotic game state.
Your GDD has great visual examples and it seems you've already got some good assets developed for the game conceptually with an easy to program game loop. Some of the items in the document pertaining to what inputs the player uses to control the ship and toggle its speeds/steering to collide into or avoid collision with obstacles was a bit vague.
Overall though, I could see this inspiring a spring of games in a similar vein of genre; well done!
Thank you for reading! I'm glad you liked it. We will definitely polish up the mechanics themselves before production. We had the idea of the mechanics down, but they didn't quite transfer to the document as easily as we would have liked. I'm really glad you liked it, and think it fit the jam theme!
Some quick notes.
I loved the core loop diagram.
I was a little confused about controls, based on what's in the GDD. Do you control the ship or the characters (or both)?
So, you would simply be controlling the ship. Mechanically, the character are just idle animations- they each have their own respective dialogue options though, for you to choose when in a dialogue event. (Think of it as the character being the one responding to the policeman or biker or whatever.) We will definitely go through and make sure the controls are more defined before pre-production ends. Thanks for the feedback!
When you initially pitched this idea I was going back and forth about whether I think it counts as a new genre or whether I would say it's just a roguelike. But reading the fuller description here, you've convinced me, and I can see how this is distinctly its own thing. And you presented it all in a way that's clear and communicates the sense of fun, chaos, and silliness that the game should convey. (The art also adds a lot, but I don't want to reward you too highly on that front, because it's not other designers' shortcoming if they can't do art.) Overall, very nice work, especially keeping it to such a short length.
Thank you! I really appreciate the feedback, and am glad that we could come up with a good way to convey the differences between our game and a standard roguelike. We definitely wanted to keep the GDD concise, and will probably make a slightly longer version for ourselves about the mechanics of the game for production. (And glad you like the art!~)
There are a bunch of submissions and I wanted to give feedback to everyone, so I'm going to list some strengths and weaknesses that I perceive from the GDD's in this challenge (take with a grain of salt, I recognize the challenge this jam theme + time limitations, especially during a holiday weekend).
Strengths: This GDD is so cute! You definitely played to your own strengths in creating a GDD that was delightfully branded and creative. I have a good sense of the second-to-second gameplay, as well as the feeling you're trying to bring about in the player. You have amazing detail in sections like Dialogue! I love that you have so much distinction for all these small details, I think it gives a lot of personality to this project.
Weaknesses: I was a little confused about the two panels at 3.2-3.3, which I quickly discovered as a sort of "spot-the-differences" challenge. A quick caption below to describe what you are depicting would be helpful for the oblivious among us (me). The only diagram was the core loop, but it wasn't super clear to me. Two descriptions were quite lengthy, and didn't need that much description, but then all the other items in the core loop didn't tell me much about what was actually happening in the game. "Event" is too non-specific, in my opinion. I could use more technical description in this GDD to understand how things need to be implemented to create this game. Lastly, I definitely don't think 3 months is long enough for this project, unless maybe it's a well sized team that already works well together, has bought into the concept, and they're only working on this game for the next 3 months (and sometimes crunching maybe).
All of this said, this was easily one of my favorite GDD's, and I think you did a fantastic job. I would almost certainly be terrible at this game, but I'm also sure I would get sucked into it easily.
Thanks! Glad you like the style, we wanted to really focus in on the fun and sporadic nature of the game.
for those two panels, those are just examples of two objects you may run into- an asteroid, which gives no benefits for colliding with, and a ship, with which upon collision, will provide you with a bit of scrap, maybe a module, and a dialogue option for more rewards or detriments. We will make this clearer in the second version, alongside explaining the core loop and player movement system. I'm sure it'll take us longer than two months, as we're a two-person team with no coding experience (visual scripting time) but I wanted to get at least a prototype out over the summer, so the date isn't quite correct. Thanks for the feedback!