Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Timmy Can’t Punch is a cute and very playable little game. The pixel art is charming and accompanied by 8bit style music and sound effects, which give it a nice overall effect. I found myself wishing there were a few changes to some of the mechanics. For instance, it feels strange to me that the player can stand on the same square as a gun enemy, and that gun enemies can also share a square. I also wished that the zombie enemies gave some indication as to whether they were on a move turn or a wait turn, as those calculations were often live or die pieces of information. It also surprised me that gun enemies could move into your line and ready a shot in the same turn, rather than having to start in the same line. Normally these would be nitpicky, but for a game with such a tight, focused mechanic, I think it’s important to get all the details right – especially when a single hit always kills the player!

  I don’t particularly see many roguelike qualities in this. There is some light randomization with enemies, but there’s only a single map and no progression of abilities or exploration. Even flavor-wise, brick walls and laser guns don’t feel particularly close to the genre. Still, it’s quick to play, and I found it satisfying to see how far I could get after I got a handle on the mechanics. 

• A short and sweet roguelike, excellent for short breaks. The different enemy attack patterns make for varied and interesting encounters. Clean and simple graphical style, looks good without being distracting.

• Kind of plays like a turn based pacifist shmup. You have to dodge enemy projectiles and try to trick them into destroying other enemies. Very quickly becomes overwhelming, but it's pretty fun. It'd be cool to lean into some shmup mechanics – turn based bullet grazing would be rad!