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Dark Patterns's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #162 | 3.138 | 3.692 |
| Game Design | #195 | 3.072 | 3.615 |
| Fun | #195 | 3.007 | 3.538 |
| Overall | #202 | 3.112 | 3.662 |
| Theme | #223 | 3.203 | 3.769 |
| Art Direction | #223 | 3.138 | 3.692 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
First of all: thanks to all commentors! I’m sorry that my reply rate turned out so abysmal – after I had made up for the massive lack of sleep, I basically returned to further develop the game as I was quite unhappy with the version that I ended up uploading. I try to get the new version up sometime within the next week. For me it is finally fun to play. Yeah, I may repeat myself, but… this was my very first game at all (when not counting a handful of unfinished text adventures from many, many years ago).
With thanks & best regards,
Clapostrophe.
P.S.: I just realized that the page says that I submitted my entry 10 and a half hours before the deadline (o! if only I had so much time left). Actually I uploaded it within the last 15 minutes before the deadline. I had setup a private testpage and uploaded a extremely raw version (as opposed to the raw version that finally became the entry) – apparently that is the time that was clocked in.
I had no idea what I was doing, or how anything worked, sorry. I've never played wordle, so I was out of the loop immediately.
I thought I needed to send the bats to letters to spell something, but I'm not certain how the bats spawned, or what unlocked them - I spent most of the time with only 2 or 3 bats that kept dying.
I'm sure if I knew a little more on how to play I'd have been able to work it out.
Hey there, Magnanix – thanks kindly for your feedback! I agree, the game in the current state leaves the player way too much in the dark. Basically I underestimated the time it would take to include a guidance of sorts, delayed that task to the very last day and then lost the race against the clock by a mile. 2 hours before the deadline I “organized” a “beta test” for the first time and within the first 30 seconds I saw all hope evaporating. Haha. As it was my very first game I was learning Game Maker along the way and it got a bit much on too many fronts.
Now, I am currently working on a Post-Jam edition, since a lot of elements I wanted to include didn’t made it in. I feel like I owe it to the game as I still like many elements of the original idea and want to see them eventually come together. I wonder how much fun it is then. Actually, the Jam edition instead is something I feel not even comfortable to point someone else to. I even made some last-minute decisions that I felt sabotaged the experience (but then I had pulled an all-nighter and was hardly able to form coherent thoughts at that point).
The current state of the Post-Jam edition is already much more refined, if you ask me (well, my wife – the beta-tester – has still to give it a try). Nonetheless I still owe it a decent guidance part. But I already had some (stressful) fun with it various times.
Oh, yeah: you are right about the goal. One has to form a 5-letter word with the bats placed accordingly on top of the “towers.”
Per game round 2 possible solutions are pulled from the 5-letter list WORDLE does use. That is almost it when it comes to the representation of WORDLE in here. Well, within the Post-Jam edition there will be an additional feature included.
And yes, the rules how the portals open are undisclosed and finding them out via trial’n’error is hardly enjoyable – especially in the Jam version. I will take that into account.
Again, thanks for checking it out and taking the time to give feedback. When the jam was over it took me about 2 days to recover and then I returned to refining Dark Patterns and hardly expected anyone to come around to give it a try. The vast amount of game entries gave me the false impression that it needed at least some dedicated announcements to find any (willing) players in the first place.
Best regards,
Daniel
Fun to play, and good idea related to the theme, but the bats are slightly slow. Still great game for a jam.
Matches the theme, more time would likely have helped. Found the controls a bit clunky and the bats a bit slow, but it works!
The game seems like it has a lot going on design wise. The slow movement speed of the bats made it difficult to experiment with the mechanics. I like the lore that's hinted at as well.