I don't think any rating system can be perfect and cover all cases 100% fairly. I ran into a few issues of sorts while rating the other games in the jam. When I was rating story-driven games, I really wished there was a story-based category or two. "Magical Girl Use" and "Creativity" kind of cover that, but not really. At the same time, if there were story-specific categories, where would that leave games that aren't story-driven? Maybe a general "Immersion" category would work, though that doesn't seem right either.
The other thing I ran into was rating games that were unfinished or prototypes, clearly not meant as finished games, and not submitted under any false pretenses. In fairness to the other entries, it's necessary to rate these as they stand based on what's there, by the same standards. At the same time it doesn't feel right to measure a prototype by the standards of a full game. I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done about this, though.
And then there were a few entries I found so bizarre I didn't know how to rate them, but I think that's kind of a given for any jam. I did attempt to rate these anyway; the only entries I didn't rate were my own and the ones I could not play.
I don't know how you're interpreting the rating categories or if there's a way they're officially meant to be interpreted. The only category I really took as art-focused is "Art"; I didn't really consider the quality of the game's art when I rated for "Magical Girl Use" or "Creativity". The former I struggled with and rated mostly by feel, the latter I typically rated for unconventional game design, unusual style, or unique story, whether it really worked or not. I lumped in music with "Art" as well but maybe that should have been its own category or combined with sounds.
I think I've mentioned this before about a dozen times, but I really have no familiarity with the magical girl genre. You clearly do, having run a jam based on it, so I'm curious what you think about the direction I went in. How far off the mark was I? Did I get any of the tropes right by accident? What do you typically think of when you hear Magical Girl?
For graphics, it probably would have been better to grab a bunch of stuff off the Asset Store or OpenGameArt, and this is what I used to do, but I like drawing too much for my own good. I'll get better, someday. Maybe. I should just call it a unique style or something.
These actually aren't the default Unity buttons, but they are visually very similar (to the point where I sometimes forget to change them and don't notice). I actually made them a long time ago for an abandoned libGDX project. To be honest UI never even crossed my mind this time around- I tend to toss it aside as kind of a "does it work? yes? move on!" thing. I think the only time I ever tried to make it look good in recent memory was Ascension III's new HUD. So yes, UI is definitely something for me to work on in the future. One of these days I'll finally build that theming engine, maybe that will encourage me...
Anyway, thanks for playing, and big thanks for hosting this jam!
