Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

• You can smash, you can pierce, you can slam, the mightiest of weapons, the shield! I really like the approach of the shield, having to do the exact opposite of what you are used to in a fantasy dungeon game. Amazing to me that your guys were able to get such quality art done in the span of the jam, really impressed by it. It is both really nice looking art, and you guys maintained coherence across different objects, entities and scenario. The game plays super well, the movement is nice and gets really interesting with the lightning buff, the parry works the way you would think it does, without weird behaviors, and the projectiles get deflected to a direction that makes sense. These sound like simple things but to make them work this well in such a short time is a great achievement. For the game, what I would say that is missing really are things that generally don't have a place during the jam, because of time, so it would be more so recommendations on things to focus in case the development continues after it. Juiciness: especially since the game is about defending and parrying, instead of being on the offensive, you are going to want to make sure that those actions, especially the parry feels great to the player. The main way to do this is adding a lot of feedback when it happens. These can come in a mix of particles, sounds effects, outlines, object or camera shake, object distortion. While other elements of the game can definitely use this added juiciness, the main one to focus on would absolutely be the shield with the parrying action. Audio: very understandable that this wasn't much worked on since the team didn't have anyone with experience in it, but would be nice to sound effects and music receiving some love. The GDD is really good. You went into detail on what from your inspiration games matters most, went into detail of the player experience of playing the game as well as specified the main mechanics, which is so useful to have during development. And remember that other than being part of this jam's submission, the reason why it's important to create a solid GDD is because there is a lot of value during making a game to have a clear reference of goals, inspirations, what are you trying to achieve, mechanics and interactions. Especially when in a team, it makes communication easier, reduces doubt, and makes for less reiterations needed. It is not meant to be a presentation piece, but a source of truth for the developers, it's what should drive your decisions. Also pay attention to not call the game by different names hehe