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A jam submission

Critical KeepView game page

Submitted by jhowl — 2 days, 2 hours before the deadline
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Critical Keep's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Roguelikeness#14.0004.000
Fun#113.3333.333
Scope#263.0003.000
Completeness#273.3333.333
Overall#303.2783.278
Innovation#403.0003.000
Aesthetics#503.0003.000

Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

  • Neat idea! Feels good to turn the tables on RNG for once. Despite that twist there's still a decent challenge there. UI is clean and it's easy to understand how everything works.

  • Well executed core RL gameplay paired with a mechanic that allows you to pick the best rng outcome from all parties in view for the next turn of combat. The map and UI are standard RL fare, but tile selection and use of color and space elevate the visuals above the typical tutorial implementation. Emphasizing the theme, rng misses and critical hits are color coded on the map and in the UI. The mechanic itself is clever, but putting your thumb on the scale comes without a cost and quickly becomes perfunctory. Items and enemies though, come in enough flavors to provide variety and the difficulty is balanced. The game is challenging, but not overly difficult.

    A well executed and polished basic RL with an intriguing twist. In the end, this twist doesn't add much, but it gives every appearance of being a rich vein for future development.

  • A game where the RNG is there to be manipulated to your whims. At any time you can swap the attack dice rolls with enemies, letting you give yourself all the criticals. There's some tactical depth in this too as you choose different weapons to fit the dice rolls you give yourself, and swaps misses around to different enemies to prevent damage. This is super fun and a lovely twist on normal roguelike mechanics. The game is technically quite easy if you're careful, though ranged enemies make being careful quite difficult, as they can easily get several hits in before you properly register them. The biggest fault with the game is the UI, as it's super fiddly to constantly be swapping items, swapping stats, and juggling the tiny inventory space with the glut of item drops.

Successful or Incomplete?

Success

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Comments

Submitted

I have just seen a video of this nice game on the channel of Rogueliker.

Jam JudgeSubmitted

Really neat idea!