Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• MushLike is a mushroom-themed graphical 7DRL that is feature complete in many ways but, in its current state, it is likely to gather mold. Completeness (3/5): The graphics, music, inventory system, and combat were all well-implemented, and there was even a bit of above-and-beyond work with that nifty hot bar, procedural talent tree, and graphical effects. But there was not a whole lot of variety or balancing and (most problematic of all) I could not get past level 2 or 3 of the dungeon because it would refuse to generate in repeated tries! But we don't expect perfection in a 7DRL, so it's at least an average in terms of completion. Aesthetics (3/5): The graphical tiles, UI, chiptune music, and animations were all strong features, though roguelikes tend to focus more on function than form. Along those lines, there were a number of issues that brought MushLike down. The way that the movement keys switched between movement and rotation on action activation was jarring. I could not tell if I had already taken a talent on the tree or not because the icon is identical, nor was there any indication that you needed to invest in prerequisite talents. The bigger mushroom pickups were so large that my first impression was they were movement-blocking mold. I had no way of checking my progress towards the next talent point and little feedback on how much damage I was doing, though either feature was not completely necessary. Taken altogether, the aesthetics probably should have been MushLike's strongest point, but these little UI detractions accumulated to the point where I felt it fairer to rate it as average. Fun (2/5): The main thing dragging down the fun of Mushlike is that the players' input does not take priority over the movement animation, so getting your character across a room takes a lot longer than it should. The movement interruption is a little thing that becomes a big thing because of how frequently the player has to do it. However, given the lack of balancing, the combat was more of a speed bump, and that's not so good considering this is the main activity in the game. It looks like there may have been plans for elemental-themed mushroom attacks, but I did not feel it necessary to bother when I played it, the whole magic system seems incomplete. Since there was a minimal need for a player to think tactically, all the digging through dirt didn't really add much to the game, it just slowed it down further (though it did add some much-needed variety to the level composition). The gameplay was better than a poke in the eye but difficult to recommend. Innovation (3/5): I feel that the inclusion of the procedural talent tree, unique inventory handling, and frequent digging demonstrated at least a token effort to innovate. However, they did little to enliven relatively standard core gameplay mechanics. Scope (3/5): Though the work put into the UI was above average, the core mechanic and depth of the content was not. My experiences might have been better if I were able to descend further into the dungeon without the level generation failing, but I estimate that what I found down there would likely have been a fair average for 7DRL entries. Roguelikeness (4/5): Featuring turn-based combat, procedural dungeons, bump combat resolution, and random distribution of enemies and items, I feel that Mushlike was strongly roguelike. It's not literally as deep as Rogue, as there was no hunger clock, unidentified items, or a number of other hallmarks reminiscent of stronger examples of the genre, but it still managed to pull off an above-average semblance for this jam.
• It's a bit simplistic but I found the presentation to be pretty cute.
• Nice little game. Aesthetics are cute, the concept is pretty novel as well. I never did quite figure out what some of the mushrooms did. I also ran into an issue - when I entered floor three, the screen went totally black except for my character. I thought maybe this was my cue to use a glowshroom but I couldn't trigger it.