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Thanks a lot for the feedback and the kind words. Reading your notes and Clyde's it occurs to me that "brokenness" of the game is thematically important. Now, you might be saying that just to be nice, but it's no coincidence that the name "Vangrolion" is based on the computer game "Vangers" an incredibly esoteric alien racing RPG that I never played more than a few minutes of at a time before giving up in frustration but still deeply love.

At the beginning of the jam, I tried to come up with a list of "player experience goals" since Danielle's always talking about the importance of them, but I didn't really know what I wanted players to experience. If I were to repeat the same exercise now, I'd say that I want players to have a shared experience with the NPCs of unpacking these impenetrable but tantalizing artifacts and making them into living games.

One of the inspirations for this is the card game "Mao" which is basically a game about figuring out the rules of the game. I actually tried to make a computer game out of Mao a decade ago, but failed to get anywhere with it (possibly because I didn't really have a clue how Mao is actually played). At any rate, I've retained a fascination for Mao and Calvinball and other games about inventing the game as you go. It would definitely be easier (and perhaps a better player experience) to avoid programming the minigames and simply use them as a narrative device in a visual novel, but it was important to me that players really do get to participate in playing and shaping these games.

In the original plan for OhBoyOhGosh, players would start combining decks of cards from various games together after the first game (shuffling different decks together is even technically implemented in the jam release, though of course that feature is never used). I hadn't thought of it in terms of a "failed" game night exactly, but I could see how it'd be fitting if some of the motivation for adding crazy rules was because the original game wasn't working.

When the Jam ended, I really wanted to get back in and fix the game to make it playable. Now that a bit of time has passed, I think I prefer leaving this version alone, since it really is the best I could do for New Jam City. I am, however, planning a spiritual successor with a different name.