Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• This game fit the theme very well, and it was interesting to see an entry that fit the together theme in the format of a miniatures game. The concept didn't quite make sense at first, but we quickly got the hang of it. It was certainly difficult to communicate with your co-pilot without just saying what action you were taking, and also the rules didn't seem to expressly forbid doing that, so it might be something to clarify and maybe give an additional example or two. Overall the idea of two brains working together to pilot one mech worked out as taken from Pacific Rim. What was a little confusing thematically was why there were 4 mechs for 4 players if they were being piloted. Theme wise wouldn't it have made more sense for each one in that case to be piloted by 1 person? Maybe trimming it down to 4 players and 2 mechs, might make a bit more sense. The game definitely needs a lot more polish, but its a game jam game designed in a short amount of time so its fine. There was a good bit that was not balanced, particularly the point buy system. Either players should have less points or things need to cost more. Also some things that were clearly very valuable in a game play sense were just too cheap to buy and also pretty much impossible not to buy if you wanted to win. I am thinking primarily of the mech chassis, where the extra dice you got to roll with the more expensive ones just seemed like a no brainer to go for, not to mention the extra structure points. There also needed to be a little more attention to some of the powers. There were a few rules that, as written, did not make sense to us, like how to use items. Similar with stratagems, some things felt like we should just be able to do them without having to pre-declare our action, while other things definitely felt like they needed to be decided in advance to make the 2 brains 1 mech concept work. There was also at least 1 ability that a weapon or item had that was not described in the rules. You may want to either reduce how far models can move or up the recommended play space size. In the 2'x2' game area recommended it pretty much led to melee mechs dominating the map. Similarly, the short and medium ranged weapons may need to have their ranges increased a bit. Overall the game went well and we really enjoyed playing it! If you want to take the design further it mostly just needs more playtesting and balancing. For a quick 20 minute miniatures combat game for 4 people it works well.
• The concept of two people controlling one model was very interesting and has the potential to lead to some very interesting (if unintended) consequences. I think a little tweaking of movement/shooting ranges would help as close combat seemed much more effective than ranged. Some tweaks to attack/defense power would also help since some attacks feel undefendable and some armors feel impenetrable. But overall a fun game that you can tell a lot of thought went into with a HUGE variety of options to design your mechs with a lot of different abilities.
• I like the core idea of this. It's kind of like combat bridge, where partners have to work together without fully communicating. I would have actually made the rule no strategizing (or only non-verbal communication). Trying to guess what your partner might do and working that out over the course of the game could be really fun. I think the world building needs some work though, as the concept of together comes through for the two pilots, but why are the people fighting each other? I also gave if five on visuals because there weren't any, per the email judge discussion. I love the idea of people using any miniatures they have though as that allows for a lot of fun/different game experiences.