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A jam submission

Lexicon Hop: A 7DRLView game page

Hop, jump, leap!
Submitted by voidset — 10 hours, 3 minutes before the deadline
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Lexicon Hop: A 7DRL's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Scope#732.4493.000
Innovation#752.4493.000
Completeness#792.4493.000
Roguelikeness#942.4493.000
Overall#972.2452.750
Fun#1011.6332.000
Aesthetics#1062.0412.500

Ranked from 2 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.

  • I thought that the saved progression and jumping mechanics were interesting gameplay elements that had some good potential. Thematically presenting this as learning new words was a nice touch as well. I liked the game overall, but I felt there were some issues that prevented portions of it from being enjoyable.

    In terms of gameplay it was not quite clear what I had to do to progress. I felt like I spent a lot of time wandering around looking for a screen that was not a default forest.

    Some areas seemed to be impossible to deal: with such as an island with a stone tablet that had 6-8 enemies on it, or forest areas with lots of enemies. I found the best way to get around was by “surfing” the edges of each screen, and moving to a different screen to reset enemy positions whenever they  got too close. I think the game would have benefited from either a few less enemies, or a few more early game tools to deal with enemies. The early game is pretty brutal.

    There were some usability things that could have been cleaned up a bit:

    - Taking damage by jumping on spikey enemies could have been communicated a bit better.

    -When looking at the controls it was not immediately clear what the difference is between jump, leap, and hop

    -Falling into pits if enemies are blocking you on the other side.

  • Neat concept for a game.  Complete and winnable.  The art is charming.  Gameplay lacked some polish.  Not a fan of the meta-progression, because the early "lives" felt very weak and like death was imminent.  After learning a few words that eased up.  Ran into a handful of bugs.  At times it felt like I was wandering aimlessly, not sure where I was supposed to head next.  

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Comments

Jam Judge

Neat little game you have here.  The "words" theme/story were pretty interesting, and the hop mechanic was a neat twist (although a little annoying to have to alternate hitting the space bar with movement keys... maybe hopping should be the default?).  The art/tiles are charming.  

Falling down a hole and dying immediately is really annoying, perhaps it should reset to your last position and lower your stress/health?  I noticed if you bump into certain enemies over pits that it resets you like this -- although I had a bug where if that happened and your last position was a moving platform, then you are placed where the platform *was* (but no longer is), and get an action but will die the next turn if you can't make it to solid ground.

I think the game should provide some sort of indication as to where to go, maybe a compass or mini-map of sorts would be helpful?  At times I felt like I was wandering around with no idea of where I should be going or if I was going the right way.

Most maps reset if you leave and return.  This is very exploitable as you can just skirt the edges and wait for a map you like to generate, or leave and return to reset enemy positions if they get too close to you.

Is there a way to kill enemies?  I couldn't figure it out and just ran from them all the time.  The few I tried to hop onto just hurt me so I stopped trying.  Maybe it's a word that I never received.

If you move diagonally onto a new screen, you can land on a tile that you can't normally land (like a wall or tree).  If you keep moving diagonally between two screens, you can go *deep* into areas you shouldn't be.  See the screenshot below.  I was also able to get to the east desert area from the starting screen like this, before the opening appeared.

I wasn't a fan of how meta-progression was incorporated here.  The character feels too weak in the early lives until you learn some words.  It isn't very welcoming to new players and I think player retention would be better if the early-game didn't feel so harsh.

I did get to the end and beat the final boss and rid the lands of the Unnamed though.  Overall this was a neat game but could use some refining.