I also got to play this as a judge, here are my thoughts:

Overall I found this a very enjoyable puzzle game. I do wish you would remove the misses though from the game as I had a series of 3 rounds just go miss miss miss miss miss miss. Maybe it was bad RNG though, but still I think given the puzzle nature of the game removing misses would add to the game. Also I do wish leeches just stayed dead, considering we got limited health and healing items. 

Except for those little suggestions though I have nothing else to suggest. The game was fun to play and I hope you do expand on it. And congrats on getting to the finals of the IGMC!

I was one of the official judges this year, and now that the results have been made public, and I'm free to do so, here is my score and thoughts on this title:

Overall score: 8

Cute aesthetic for the game. I liked the art, the music, and sound choices, but I found the puzzles to be a little bland. I overthought the second puzzle, and once I got the hang of it, it felt like it could get very repetitive very quickly. So I was happy for the boss fight to change things up a bit. I hope that if this is continued, that the boss fights will be varied and interesting to break up the monotony of the puzzle levels. I also felt the font was a little harder to read, and didn't fit as well as other aspects and assets.

Hey there ladybug_games, I got your game for judging so here are some of my thoughts. Good use of custom art, and I love the idea of using paintbrushes to bring color back to the maps.  Drifty has already shared a lot of the same issues I had with gameplay, so I'll try not to repeat it. White words on a white background made dialogue hard to read, I wish you had either made the message windows darker or switched the words to black instead. 

I'm sure the deadline kept you from adding more items and enemy types, but if you keep working on this project I hope you add some more. An item where you throw paint instead of a rock could offer up some new ways to solve puzzles, and maybe a leech that doesn't attack but instead searches the map to remove color could force players to defeat it before they can focus on the color map.

Overall, congrats on making a interesting puzzle game! There are places that could use some more time and polish, but the puzzles themselves are fun and rewarding to solve.

Colorbound

by ladybug_games (@ladybug_games)

Hey there ladybug_games, thanks for submitting a project to the 2022 IGMC. I'm Drifty and I was asked to judge your game in round two of the IGMC 2022 game jam. Here's some feedback about your project.

I like the title screen, artwork and music selection. The sound effects while navigating the windows sound great. Throughout the entire game the sound design was on point and I was very pleased with your selection of audio.

I don't like the font that you've picked for this. It's too watery and hard to read. The 't's look like 'f's and it's foo confusing fo read. :wink: Personally, I would change it.

The story is good and the characters are cute.

The gameplay is satisfying and I can see a real appeal for this.

At the start of a new color map, I would auto-show the color map once instead of forcing the player to open the menu and check it every new map.

Failing to hit the leeches is just straight up frustrating because it consumes your whole turn. What about instead of taking your whole turn it takes a set number of movement to swing at a leech? That might make it less frustrating to the player.

Tossing a rock should do more than one heart of damage.

If all leeches are 'down for the count' just skip their turn.

At certain moments right before the player's round starts I was able to move my character without taking a 'move point'. An exploit patch might be needed.

Allowing leeches to get back up is annoying and should be removed in my opinion. The game has enough fluff and time wasting already.

Maybe allow more saving, when the autosave comes up I hit cancel button on accident. :(

The boss fight mechanics were very interesting and different. My final Point Count was 8350, I'm sure that's a terrible score but at least I had fun. :)

Viewing the Photo album tries to pull files that are missing and thus creates a game breaking bug. However since the game ends and this is kind of a bonus feature I wasn't bothered all that much by it.

Overall I think you have the makings of a commercially viable product and you should very much consider continuing to work on this to make this game jam entry a full release for sale.

I'm not a huge fan of puzzle games but I found this one to be quite good. Great job and I hope you keep making games.

-Drifty

This is easily one of my absolute favorite games in the contest. It's extremely charming, it's simple enough to grasp, but there's a lot of potential for more puzzles and more difficult battles. The only real problem is that it just seems to cut off right when it starts getting teeth, and juggling menus is kind of a pain.

Thankfully, if this is just a demo, that means more is going to be on the way, right? I'm going to eagerly be looking for more news as time goes on! Thank you for your hard work, and I'm looking to see more adventures of these two dorks!

I absolutely love this -- it's the sort of puzzley game that is right up my alley! It feels like it could definitely be a more strategic, less real-time spiritual successor to the Splatoon series -- the colors especially are giving me that vibe -- but honestly? I enjoy this setup more, personally. I will echo what's already been said about the font being a little hard to read, but the art and presentation otherwise are quite lovely and I had a great time playing this game.

Thanks for sharing it for IGMC! :D

I feel a lot of splatoon vibes or am I wrong? :D I love puzzle games and I had a lot of fun with this one! The concept is simple but fun at the same time, I also like the drawings/art style! Good job!

Hello!

I just played your game look interesting, I love your idea and concept.

Some level harder than I thought (Or I thinking too much)

This game is puzzle and small adventures feature!

Colorful graphics and cute characters!

Good luck with your project.

Glad I went and played this myself after watching Indrah's stream - because I -DO- like puzzle games and I quite enjoyed this.

I like the art and presentation, it's very charming and consistent. I feel like some areas need a little polish, but given the time frame and the amount of art, that's understandable. I like the concept, it feels very unique and fresh! I've never played a game with the same concept and the final fight was an interesting blend of the puzzle and the combat.

A few things to keep in mind if you plan to come back to this!

* Change the font. It's very hard to read in large bodies of text. It matches the aesthetic of the game, and is fine for title cards like LEVEL CLEAR or headers on the tutorial boxes, but it shouldn't be used on dialogue, tutorial text, or anything with sentences.

* I'm not a fan of some of the sound effects? I can't place why, but some of the slide whistle sounds were a bit grating. Maybe it's the volume of them. The Leech turn sound cutting into the music got on my nerves a little too. I was enjoying the little bop! Get out of here, leeches.

* After beating the game, it offered me a photo album, however it crashed when I tried to view it. It could not find "Art_8.png"

* Some QOL adjustments. Buttons mapped to skip a turn and the colour map for sure. I'd even go so far to say to just have the colour map displayed on screen somewhere, if you can find a way to do that. You gain nothing by hiding it in a menu since the player can look at it whenever they want.

* You miss too much. A lot of turns are wasted just smacking leeches. Rocks are the most efficient, but there's not enough of them. Maybe having rocks respawn (since the leeches do) or giving the player a starting quantity of rocks will help offset this.

* FINAL BOSS - I didn't like that the colour map changed without any indication. For how long the fight took, I knew the layout well and then it suddenly didn't work. I was very frustrated. Just adding a line of dialogue or some sort of popup saying the boss rearranged the ground or something idk. An indication so the player goes "oh something changed? I'll check the colour map!"

* A turn order display for the final boss might be nice too, so you know when he's going to reset you and you can plan accordingly.

All in all, lovely work! I really enjoyed this game and can tell a lot went into making it a complete experience. Good luck in the jam!

I tried this out. Cute presentation, thought ultimately it was too puzzle-y for me, just not my thing.

A couple things I did notice: 

• The font can be hard to read. 
• You seem to miss a lot of the attacks on the leeches, which feels like wasted time.
• There should really be some kind of shortcut for the color map and end turn.

Starting off, the artstyle to this game is really cute and charming. I love the aesthetic of colorful characters in a monochromatic world and this game brought it in full force. Not only that, but the painting mechanic is unique and fun. I feel like if it was implemented in a full game, I can see a lot of opportunities to strategize trying to paint while dealing with the Leeches and having your party members not being on top of each other's paint areas.

Now moving into the cons, White text with a light gray border on a white background is a bad combination and it can be hard to read what's on screen half the time. While I love the artstyle, some of the assets do feel a little rushed. For example, the drawings at the beginning don't really feel like “Children's drawings” but more like “Someone trying to haphazardly emulate the style of child's drawing” if that makes sense.  Lastly, I understand it's a demo, but I feel like there wasn't anything in the plot to hook me in, making me feel a little unsatisfied at the end.

Aside from that, this was a fantastic game. I’ll be interested in what comes to this project in the future.