Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Art: What works well? Visibility into the background starscape and the upcoming pipe both work well. Visibility into the background despite your focus “on the road” means you could build in higher fidelity graphic art or even animated backgrounds to keep the player excited as they play and truly feeling like their surfing the stars. Visibility into the upcoming pipe mainly accomplishes a fundamental game function - letting the player anticipate and respond to what’s coming next. What could be improved? It’s difficult to discern the boosters that speed you up from the obstacles that slow you down, at least for the first minute or two as a new player. Color could help the player pick this up more quickly and not get discouraged by their own lack of understanding. Design: What works well? Smooth handling of the vehicle despite swinging around multiple dimensions. What could be improved? Requiring the player to use both directional key sets (‘wasd’ and ‘up/down/left/right’) left me trying to remember the instructions and, intuitively, replicating my desires with both directional key sets (which didn’t seem like it was doing anything). Maybe an interim solution could be to highlight a gentle warning on the screen when the player is clearly doing this same thing and nudge them towards the right combination of keys Audio: What works well? Music consistently loops without becoming a distraction! Also, rock fits this type of gameplay well (including the implied narrative) What could be improved? Some association between the music and the vehicle speed (or acceleration/deceleration from boosters/obstacles) would be cool to build emotional energy as the player accelerates and the stakes get higher. Writing: What works well? Minimal narrative, but setting the scene for this type of game is about giving purpose to the environment and I think the premise did this well. What could be improved? Cool animated backgrounds could help add to the feeling mentioned above!
• Really want to go on a space race now! I hope to see this one worked on more :)