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Rebello307 days ago(+1)

For us, turn-based-tactics allow you to take your time making a tactical decision by weighing up all the possible moves and coming to a decision that matches your strategy best. Like chess. Having a 25s timer on your actions, so they have to be played out like a real-time-strategy game is the opposite of a turn-based-tactics game. This could just be our opinion but turn limits on levels are OK but (real)time limits are not. The games starts off putting you under stress and never lets up.

You start the game with no clue what you're doing and what the controls are and just a timer counting down to your demise. Even once you've learnt the controls having the movement grid isometric and not aligned with the keypresses. It might have worked better as a top down board view so the movement matched up with the view. Alternatively using mouse to control the cursor could have alleviated this slightly.

We can see that running out of oxygen via the timer is in keeping with the theme, just not the turn-based-tactics style of game play.

You had no idea of the amount of damage you would do to an enemy unit when you attacked so you couldn't make an informed decision about who to attack first. You did get a health bar but the scale was unknown in relation to the damage that you could do with each unit. You did provide feedback on how far a unit could move, which made that an informed decision.

The graphics were simple but they worked for the type of game you made, like Into The Breach meets Countdown (TV show with a 30s timer!). The music did get a bit much after a while and had us reaching for the mute site button in the browser.

This all sounds very negative so can we just say well done for finishing and submitting your game, and with 4 days to spare! You could have added some more features in those 4 days! The game does play from start to finish and runs smoothly in a browser without any issues. Congratulations on submitting to the jam. We look forward to seeing more games from you in the future.

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Yxure306 days ago(+1)

First of all, thank you very much for doing such an extensive review of the game, I really appreciate it!

I disagree with the point that tactical games cannot have real time limits. After all chess is usually played with a time limit. When you set a time limit, it becomes just another resource like life or pieces left alive. I do think that 25 seconds is a short time but I couldn't increase the time without making it relevant enough with the mechanics of the game.

At the beginning of the project I thought about making the time you had left be the APs and not be discounted until you perform an action. I discarded it because I didn't like the idea that in a game about drowning you could take all the time in the world to make a decision.

Regarding the controls, the life and damage the pieces do I totally agree with you it could be much clearer. The music could also be less repetitive.

It's my first time making a tactical game and I ended up a bit burned because I didn't know how to do some things and the solutions I found made it difficult to add new features. But I learned a lot and I hope I can apply it to the next tactical game I make.

And congratulations on winning the jam, I had a lot of fun playing Scuba Squad. You guys deserve it!

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Rebello306 days ago(+1)

You're right about chess having a timer, although you tend to get 2 hours for 40 turns (3 minutes per turn), unless it's speed chess, which isn't the same kind of pressure as completing the whole game in 25s! However, this is what game jams are all about, trying out new things to see how to do them and what people think of them. We had 2 stacked timers in our last game jam, a flare for light which ran out in 5 minutes and an oxygen tank when swimming underwater which lasted another 5 minutes. Some people liked the jeopardy of them, but others did not. We had one of the original team who worked on Command & Conquer and Eye of the Beholder games review our entry, and he had some strong opinions on timers that we took on board.

We learn so much every time we do a game jam. It really is valuable, and the time pressure sparks the creative process in a way that you just don't get outside of a jam. Knowing that you have an audience for your game at the end of a jam, and that you're going to get feedback, makes all the difference. Well done again for completing your game and best of luck with your next one. Each one gets better in our experience.

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