Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• You *need* to explain this game better.  I thought it was awful and poorly-made at first but then I sat here and stubbornly figured out what everything meant, and the game became quite enjoyable after that  :-)  You'll have much better player retention with some simple instructions.  

  I played until I got a win and then I played a few more rounds to try things.  The "combat" is deterministic so for every individual line you will know if it is even winnable or not immediately, then you have to decide whether it is worth clearing that line or not, as it might cause you to lose others.  Due to this, some games are unwinnable from the start.  I think the color progression could have been more intuitive.  Blue -> Green -> Red -> Purple was not super obvious at first.  Stairs could probably be differentiated from items but that's not a big deal.  Otherwise the game looks pretty clean.  Definitely a neat concept, it would be interesting to see this applied in other ways.  The one-dimensional aspect of this was interesting because in 2D games like this you are usually just trying to use walls and other obstacles to move one character but not the other, which is often a dull mechanic.  The game is very simple and short, but is complete and has sufficient scope.  Has many roguelike qualities but doesn't really play like a traditional roguelike, having more puzzle elements in practice.  The game was fun and I'm glad I played, and probably even has a fair amount of replayability for someone who likes this game's style of risk/reward decision-making.

• Can a failed experiment still be considered a success? If you dig for gold and don't find it, you can at least cross that particular dig site off on the map. Ultra is a handsome, well executed concept that crosses itself out.

  The player navigates a one dimensional dungeon. Every level change causes an additional one-d game to spawn below the first, with the goal being to stack enough of these games up simultaneously. Tactics are limited to choosing between melee and ranged attacks. Here the problem begins. A globally optimal tactic (alternating between ranged and melee) reveals itself early and quickly finishes the game. A run can easily be completed in less than 30 seconds without looking at the screen. This flaw dominates all positive qualities: the pleasantly chunky font, the stylish palette colors, the boldness of the rethinking.

  The experiment failed, but this too is progress. We can only hope the author doesn't give up the search.

• Cool puzzle game where you have to clear rows by getting your rogue to the stairs on each row, which spawns another row and takes you current row down a level. It's a shame that mechanically it doesn't go much deeper than firing your arrows whenever you have them, but still, an interesting idea!