Thank you for participating in the Jam & Toast game jam. I know you worked hard on this entry, and your hard work has paid off! You managed to be a finalist and I've had the pleasure to look over your game as a result.

Your game is quite unique. I liked the idea of having to track card orientation and didn't really find that to be clunky like I thought it might. I also quite like push-your-luck style games, which was a boon in your case.

However, there are still things that could benefit from improvement. My main point of criticism is actually with the rulebook. I'm sure you've seen already, but this has been common feedback across all entries. The rules PDF for this game is more difficult to read than some of the others because it's a lot of text on a stark white background, breaking this up with some images and examples would have helped with the reading and retention of the information quite a bit.

Still, I did appreciate the use of symbols and a few other smaller touches where you had them in the rules PDF. I also understand the idea of presenting a stripped-down version of the card for explanation, but I was thrown off a bit when the cards had more personality in the actual game. Since the rules are where most people start, having everything match to help sell the game would be a good idea as the stripped-down cards seem "boring" compared to the actual cards.

Dominik has offered you some good advice so I won't repeat anything he said there. He's given you more than enough to chew on and I agree with most of what he's said.

All said, I hope this doesn't feel discouraging. I enjoyed your game and it stood out from the crowd. If you were given a little more time, and weren't as restricted by the jam rules, I believe you could develop this game further if desired and have an even better product. I hope you continue your journey as a creator and I look forward to seeing what you decide to do next.

Thank you again for your participation and keep up the good work!

Thank you for submitting to the Jam & Toast game jam! I hope you had fun creating your game :D First, allow me to say, absolutely wonderful presentation. Of all the games, yours is my favorite visually. I can really feel the theme coming through and it's appealing to look at.

However, allow me to offer a few critiques on the game itself based on my experience with the game. I had a very difficult time getting this to work in Tabletop Simulator, and as a result, had to ping-pong back and forth between that and the card images because I couldn't view the full card in TTS. This might have been my fault, I'm not the best at using that program, but since I see it can work based on your pictures, some installation instructions would have gone a long way.

Putting that aside, I do agree with Dominik regarding a few points. I was also confused why each ingredient had its own icon when that didn't seem to matter. It's nice flavor but it felt like a missed opportunity for something to exist mechanically in the space. I also like his suggestion about gaining each witch's power as you complete their dishes as it gives the player a sense of progress and reward. If that proved to be too strong, a witch could have a "reward" side instead of the normal backs and I don't think that would negatively influence the game as I would still set it up randomly. Only person you cheat in a solo game is yourself after all.

Finally, I do not like the evil eye event. It felt clunky and mostly annoying. I agree that a more interesting event/effect would benefit this card. Maybe having to shuffle your hand back into the deck and redraw? That's like a half-misfortune. I'm not sure.

Otherwise, I enjoyed your game. I have to repeat myself because the game's flavor is truly top-notch. I believe this game could easily be expanded into a larger game after the jam if desired and it would be successful. I wish you the best in your future projects and would like to thank you for your submission once again.

Thank you for participating in the Jam & Toast game jam. Congrats on becoming a finalist as well. I've played your game and wanted to offer some thoughts based on my playthrough that might help you improve the game if you choose to develop it further.

Before that, though, I want to say that I found the game to be fun. I like tile laying games and found this to be a unique experience compared to the other titles in addition to this. I also really appreciated having everything preloaded as a Workshop mod in Steam for TTS. That made my life a lot easier and made me more excited to play the game as a player.

However, there were a few things that would have improved my experience. The first is pretty simple and that's a play example with pictures. I would have loved to have seen a completed board showing how the ant path, how many ants were left, and how final scoring worked based on that image. I was able to figure this stuff out on my own, but an example would still have been appreciated (I had to reread a few things to make sure I wasn't messing up, like how the ants only need a single-die wide tile of space to move).

The other minor issue I encountered had to do with the bonus point food tokens. The contrast on the words and/or numbers on some of the foods made them very difficult to read. The worst offenders are the kiwi and the lemon. Adding a dark outline to the text or something would solve this problem, but I would take the time to update that when the jam is over at a minimum.

Otherwise, like I said, had fun and enjoyed your game. Thank you once again for participating in the jam. Hope you had fun creating this!

Thank you for submitting to the Jam & Toast game jam! I hope you had as much fun making your game as I did playing it. I'd like to take a moment to offer some feedback and suggestions privately based on my experience with the game should you choose to adjust or further develop it in the future.

First off, I found the game to be fairly fun once I understood the rules. My main point of criticism is that the rulebook is a little confusing. I wasn't sure how utensils worked, for example, and had to read the rules a couple of times over before I really understood how they worked.

Two things would help improve clarity in the future:

1. I'd ask someone else to proofread the rules and ask you questions on anything they might be confused on. This might seem obvious and you maybe even did this already, but having a few people do this would help catch things you might have missed or didn't consider. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but English didn't seem like your first language and that likely contributed to what I was feeling if it was the case.
2. A play example would be really helpful. If you "played" a hypothetical floor of the game with a picture or two, this would also help players understand how everything works.

That's really the only "negative" I have for you. The cards are clean, I was able to intuit how a lot of things worked, and the encounters are just different enough for a short experience. You have a modular design so this could easily be expanded or built upon if desired, which is something I love to see.

Keep up the good work and thank you once again for participating in the jam!

Thank you for submitting to the Jam & Toast game jam! I hope you had a lot of fun making this game because I enjoyed playing it. I wanted to provide some private feedback here outside of my public comment to offer you advice and opinions based on my experience with the game in case you choose to develop it further or make another game.

To start, I really like the theme. It's great and the cards are all fairly clear in how they work. Having more of them would add a lot of variety and nearly endless replayability either as scenarios or expansions to this base experience. A modular design is great to have, and you do!

However, I did find the Truth Fragments to be slightly annoying. I really wish they weren't quite as punishing as many of them would cause me to instantly loose the game if I accepted them. I would consider instead changing to this kind of design philosophy for the future:  tradeoffs.

What I mean by that is offering the player choices like this:

Gain something for free (a single stat or sanity point)

OR

Gain multiple things (two stats or one and a sanity or two sanity, etc...) but it comes at a price (-1 to a skill or sanity), as an example.

If the player chooses to deny the fragment, they should always get something for free but it's minor (+1). Sanity is the easy option.

This would feel more balanced from a player perspective and offer more interesting choices. Of course, a few "unbalanced" and punishing cards are totally OK, but less would benefit the game.

Otherwise, I found the experience to be pretty solid. Thank you once again for your submission!