Completeness - 2 / Aesthetics - 3 / Fun - 2.5 / Innovative - 2.5 / Scope - 3 / Roguelike - 4. Overall a really neat idea, it just needs more love (get it?). I'm *almost* able to glimpse what you were going for with this. I urge you to chip away at it. I couldn't figure out how to climb / descend stairs, and a few keys would crash the game outright. Some simple sound effects / music would help. I liked the idea of managing your symbiote like a Pokemon, and being able to activate / retire the one you want when you want.
Viewing post in Symbion jam comments
hey thanks for the feedback! There's a help screen available by pressing `?` that should have answered the stairs question (`>` goes down stairs and `<` goes up... if those keys didn't work then I need to fix that for sure). I'm pretty concerned that you mentioned a few keys that completely crashed the game! What keys would that be? definitely something that needs fixed ASAP.
I agree with your overall feedback though.. I wish I had been able to give a little more time to fleshing out the management and relationship between you and your symbions. One planned (but not implemented) feature would be the ability to level them up over time. Other planned features were mostly just more abilities like a blink/teleport and various other attacks.
I can't complain too much with the scores, but I'm a little frustrated that you gave the game a relatively low completeness score without being able to see anything but the first level.
Thanks for playing :D
Sorry for the long delay getting back to you. I did go back and retry your game, and you are correct about the help screen and keys. While it's "obvious", I see what happened - in some games that I've played using the same type of key layout, there's also an accomodation for using `,` and `.` -- in other words, not needing to also use the SHIFT key.
IIRC, I was trying to initially use "a" and "z" for up and down the stairs. "z" is what would crash it for me. It's fairly edge case, and most people will in fact find the help and actually follow it. :)
But nonetheless I do agree and urge you to keep working on it if you can. I think being able to level up your symbions would be a really neat idea. I don't know how far you want to get with it, but even as far as special attack / defense / talent bonuses based on your current mob and/or "environment"?
Apart from all that, a huge congratulations for even getting this as far as you did in 7 days. That shouldn't be lost, nor understated during this judging phase. (Not that it matters, but this is the 2nd year in a row where I couldn't even get a release out myself, despite how excited I get for these 7 days...)