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The narrative in your GDD is fantastic, and the clarity of the doc is amazing as well. Your information was quite to the point, and I had little difficulty understanding the mechanics and how the game would function. Really the only critique I had was the inclusion of the Grimoire- will the documents be kept in there, or is it simply another document? I think having some sort of puzzle tied into it would help enhance the magic themes of the game, and would provide an additional avenue for puzzles and an addiction place to cross-reference clues from. If not, I'm not too sure of its role in the game, aside from being a part of the lore. 

Or I read it wrong! Overall, very nice GDD, great narrative, and I would certainly play it. 

"do you get dialogue options when you hit another ship, or are they a separate mechanic?"

Yes! This is the main gameplay loop, where crashing into a ship will provide scrap, possibly modules, and a dialogue scenario where you can respond in a few different ways, each having their own outcome.

 This scrap will be depleted overtime, as your health bar, so there isn't really any way to stockpile it. Overtime your Chaos meter is likely to fill up as people call the cops on you, leading to an increase in your health drain. It's similar to that of a survival game, where eventually you'll run into a cop, or make the wrong choice and be attacked by bikes, cops, or whatever weird stuff we put in the game, leading your health to deplete even faster.  

I'm glad you like the game! We really wanted to push the funny chaos of it, so I'm glad that that is resonating well from our GDD. 

I've never wanted to be a ghost bastard so bad. 

Seriously though, this game looks awesome, and your GDD was laid out beautifully. While there wasn't really a losing condition, I think it could be build as something similar to Kick the Buddy, where there isn't as much a losing condition as there are simply better and better ways to spook people. Your layout was very clean, and the visual aids were well made and easy to understand. Overall, lovely job on the jam. 

Thanks! Glad you like the style, we wanted to really focus in on the fun and sporadic nature of the game. 

for those two panels, those are just examples of two objects you may run into- an asteroid, which gives no benefits for colliding with, and a ship, with which upon collision, will provide you with a bit of scrap, maybe a module, and a dialogue option for more rewards or detriments. We will make this clearer in the second version, alongside explaining the core loop and player movement system. I'm sure it'll take us longer than two months, as we're a two-person team with no coding experience (visual scripting time) but I wanted to get at least a prototype out over the summer, so the date isn't quite correct. Thanks for the feedback!

Thank you! I really appreciate the feedback, and am glad that we could come up with a good way to convey the differences between our game and a standard roguelike. We definitely wanted to keep the GDD concise, and will probably make a slightly longer version for ourselves about the mechanics of the game for production. (And glad you like the art!~) 

So, you would simply be controlling the ship. Mechanically, the character are just idle animations- they each have their own respective dialogue options though, for you to choose when in a dialogue event. (Think of it as the character being the one responding to the policeman or biker or whatever.) We will definitely go through and make sure the controls are more defined before pre-production ends. Thanks for the feedback! 

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you liked it. We will definitely polish up the mechanics themselves before production. We had the idea of the mechanics down, but they didn't quite transfer to the document as easily as we would have liked. I'm really glad you liked it, and think it fit the jam theme! 

I'm super unfamiliar with limitations surrounding AI mechanics, so I'll just be commenting on the game design itself, assuming the AI works flawlessly.

I REALLY like your game idea. I'm a huge fan of TTRPGs, and this gives off the exact vibe I've been wanting from a TTRPG turned video game for ages now. I think you've given quite a lot of thought to the narrative and setting elements and have a lot of really good content to work with. That being said, I'm imagining this game from the position of someone with no AI experience. I think you could do a good job using only scripted events and variations of them, and even then, I think this would fall into its own social-strategy roleplaying game genre. some more detail would be needed in your GDD before usage, like menus. While you told the concept of the different actions, how they will actually function is also critical information to have. Very good idea overall. 

This game looks like it could be interesting. I definitely think that the GDD needs more refinement and iteration, as the concept is there but the game itself doesn't feel very fleshed out. Coming up with a system to interact with the environment rather than controlling the main character is something neat, however requires far more iteration and testing than a standard 2-D sidescroller. 

This game sounds like it could have a very compelling narrative and could be jam packed with interesting and unique puzzles. Unfortunately, I think your GDD doesn't really reflect this as concisely or in as much detail as it needs. Thematically I love the idea of warping through time Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure style, but I don't think that that is quite enough to be a new genre. Your GDD has a lot of unnecessary verbose wording to it, which does make it hard to read. I really think it is a great game idea, but just needs refining and consolidating. 

I think this is a perfect game to relax with, and I love the concept that you're going for! While the concept is most certainly there, as others have said, the GDD needs some more development. Especially with MMOs, there's a lot of small intricacies in mechanics, and there are a LOT of mechanics. The core gameplay loop has plenty of mechanics not mentioned, and probably needs to be visually reworked, as there's seemingly no starting place. 

I'm in love with the concept, and I'm sure when it comes out I'll get sucked in like I did with Animal Crossing New Horizons. 

The core elements of the GDD seems a bit unfinished from the looks of it and certain sections are either reexplaining some information, going into too much detail, or being just a bit vague so the overalls clarity is rather low.

I'd also say that the theme dosen't seem that unique falling into an action adventure game with puzzles and struggling against a very unique mechanic that does seem really fun I have to admit.

With all that criticism being said I really enjoy the concept and think if you had more time to flesh this idea out and work on it some more, this would be a really competent GDD and be a super cute game I'd love to get my hands on to play.

Very solid! I really like your theme, and as a Starcraft fan I'd definitely love hopping into the RTS genre again. I think you do a unique twist on the RTS genre, having an almost meta progression of sorts in the territory / map system that would set your game apart from other RTS games. Love it! 

Love the narrative-focused exploration elements of the game! Lots of areas for passive and environmental storytelling, and I really like the sci-fi, robot who doesn't know their creator trope. 

As for feedback, this section really stood out to me - 

While you explore your bunker, find other robots that have stopped functioning while carrying out their duty, dismantle them, and make the most of all the resources you can gather from them. Reconnect what has been damaged in each room, familiarize yourself with your surroundings, and discover beyond what you have been assigned. 

I think this is an amazing area that your game could really shine, but I think it needs to be fleshed out as something more than a Metroidvania. By fleshing out some of the mechanics and maybe having some unique inventory system or base upgrade choices, you could definitely take this game far. 

I would totally play this game! I've played similar titles- notably Bloons TD Battles, but I like how you go and expand upon some features that would add more uniqueness to it.  I think building your own path especially adds a lot of strategy and the opportunity to synergize your map style with your towers. 

One thing I think would help your GDD is the clarity in some areas, and some spin or main focus for the game. I suggest more unique tower upgrades as a way to make it closer to a deck-building game, where the players could come up with really unique playstyles, even when using the same units. Another idea is really focusing on the map-making area of the game. That was really new and intriguing to me, and I think could be expanded upon more rather than the unit system. 

I'd play sooo much of this game! Looking good. 

Woohoo! First GameJam! 

Yoooooooo