Graphically this looked really good, and it was nice to be in a bright sunny environment. Some of the assets didn't quite gel, some had realistic textures but some didn't, although the enemies were all very interesting to look at and consistent in themselves. The combat UI was nice, hexes are good, although we weren't sure whether they represented physical locations relative to the character or whether they were just combat upgrade slots. We didn't get the drag and drop mechanism from the inventory for a while. When we won or lost a battle we were never really sure why. Were there any puzzles or was it just about combat? We didn't seem to do anything apart from fight. Great job on producing such an excellent looking game for your jam entry. We look forward to see how you develop your game further.
Viewing post in Guardian Gorge jam comments
Thanks! Yeah, I get what you mean with the textures; I tried to unify the environment as a videogamey "slightly glossed reality", with the guardians as a surreal layer on top of that, but that's pretty difficult to maintain - especially when you need detailed near-field and low detail distant environments to look plausibly like they're the same thing.
I'm glad that you noticed the possibility that the hexes represented physical location! I don't think that was clear to anyone; I was definitely relying on the "front rank" and "back rank" buffs and debuffs to communicate a lot. In retrospect I should at the very least have had a "Formation" heading above that side of the inventory screen. The intention is that that positioning and those rank effects, alongside the limited space for weapons and equipment, have you make tactical decisions to maximise damage output while keeping stamina loss and damage taken under control. In practice, though, because of the very passive tutorials and my desire to balance the game to be very easy for the jam, there's not really much motivation or opportunity for the player to figure that out (nor is there much assistance in doing so).
Unfortunately only half of the planned dungeon got built due to time constraints, and the puzzles were back-loaded; one (two if you're generous) did make it into the jam build, but they're both in the final area so easy to miss unless you take the time to complete the bestiary.
In any case, thanks very much for playing, and best of luck with the rest of the jam!