A nice game that I enjoyed playing for a while, but I think it was a bit too long for a jam game, so I did not finish it.
I have written down some notes during my time with the game. Don't take them too harshly, it's mostly just things I noticed could be improved or changed or that stood out in some way. I divide the feedback into three sections:
Gameplay:
- I liked the lore. It is silly, it does not make any sense, but it works and it makes the game interesting.
- The game felt a bit repetitive after a while. Maybe I just did not get that far, but most parts seemed pretty obvious to me: Stay in the cracks or the middle of the room until you have enough moves to outrun the guards to the next pickup. Then either run back or reset to a checkpoint. Rinse and repeat.
- The dice rolling felt too random. Either just make it completely random and roll it for the player automatically or make the die roll slower so it's actually possible to hit the desired value at least semi-repeatably.
- The limited number of moves given by the roll feels more like an annoyance than a game mechanic. I know it was a submission to GMTK with the theme of rolling the dice but it just feels that real-time tick-based movement or a fixed number of moves per turn would feel much better.
- I really don't like the concept of power-ups that make some annoyance (slow resolving of enemy turns) slightly less annoying. It feels like the dev is rubbing salt into the wounds of the player by actually implementing something that mitigates the annoyance (and so acknowledging the awareness of it) but not removing it completely. There is no added value to the gameplay by letting the player wait until the enemy turn resolves, so you could as well just let the player skip it completely from the start.
- Swapping between the dice makes the gameplay more interesting but it took me a while to figure out how that works.
- Bonus points for having a dog protagonist!
Graphics:
- You use very simplistic pixel art and you managed to capture the characters, game items, and the environment very well, so props to that!
- The graphics are very readable and you use a pleasant color palette. Just sometimes it looks a bit inconsistent with the outlining, shading, etc. (for example the rock outline really stands out. Maybe change the color instead of giving it an outline?)
- Different pixel size on different things (small dice, inventory,...) feels a bit strange.
- Some things look more like voxel art than pixel art but this looks a bit inconsistent.
- Not pixel-perfect graphics along with the choppy tile-based movement does not look that good.
Sound:
- Great SFX that fit the game very well and provide good feedback to the gameplay
- The music is ambient and non-disturbing, which feels good during the game, although it feels a bit repetitive after a while.
Overall, good job on making a game that felt complete, worked well, and looked finished and polished.