Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• The Faded Forest is a game about razing forests, building structures, and occasionally fighting monsters. It reminds me strongly of two things:

  1. Board games, in particular ones like Forbidden Island or Pandemic where the players are fighting against the terrain itself. The limited number of actions per turn and varied classes each with slightly different bonuses are highly reminiscent of such games.
  2. Clicker games like A Dark Room. Progress in the game is repetitive and incremental, but also guaranteed since there is no way to lose.

  All of this together feels very fresh and The Faded Forest brings in a lot of neat ideas. I had a good bit of fun at first.

  Where the game lost me was the tedious slog to get to the (unexplained) victory condition. I'm fine with mechanics that require discovery, but many goals/items/buildings in The Faded Forest are totally bewildering. By the end of the game, I was fairly sure many buildings did nothing at all due to the lack of explanation and visible effects. All of this could be alleviated with a shorter game so the player doesn't have to take it on faith that something is going to happen.

  I did eventually beat The Faded Forest, but it first required me to painstakingly explore a 15x15 grid and go through 200 generations (i.e. times when I was sent back to the class selection screen and back to the center tile). Losing my claimed territory to the wilderness was fascinating at first, but after clicking 'Raze' after the 500th time (and struggling to find any paths that stilled work) I was tired of of it.

  There were also a few minor bugs: hitting monsters for negative damage, one total freeze, and shops that stopped offering the Sell option (at least this seems like a bug). Roughly what I expect from a 7DRL, so nothing to be worried about.

  There's a lot of critique above, but only because I did truly find the core mechanics interesting and I think they could really shine with a few tweaks that focused on reducing the tedium. The game feels artificially long for how much content it holds and could use some more explanation all around.  In a more compact form, all my complaints would probably be gone.

• Looks good, but feel like is lacking something to drag the attention to the correct spot.

  Didn't feel roguelike to me :/ and the UI can be improved. Other than that, great work.