Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Wind Vane Wanderer is a lovely puzzle 7DRL, rock-solid and well-scoped, featuring a vision of a desert merchant society as a theme. Completeness 4/5: An excellent UI, intuitive gameplay, and would seem to be rock solid. The compass UI element on the left does not seem to do anything and the victory screen simply says "The End" instead of "Game Over," but this is otherwise a very complete (if feature lean) game. Aesthetics 4/5: Though the actors feature only one recolored sprite, they do animate, and the graphics of all the sprites lend well to the presentation. The inclusion of sound effects and suitable music work to bring together the illusion of wandering these windy desert marketplaces. The most impressive thing is that the UI is able to innately communicate the details of moderately complicated gameplay mechanics. I very much wanted to give a 5/5 here, though the merchant stalls do have a minor flaw in that you cannot see what they are selling if there is another stall in front of them. Fun 4/5: A well-balanced mixture of begging, stealing, moving and buying gives the player plenty to think about while granting them considerable agency. While the experience is short and the game fairly easy, the intuitive UI helps to communicate the hustle and bustle of these desert marketplaces and the elaborate social dance involved, resulting in a solid (if somewhat simple) gameplay experience. Innovation 4/5: I was immediately impressed at how this game successfully turned the usual violence inherent to roguelike conflict resolution into more of a social and economic game. I was also impressed with the choices made to communicate various game elements to the player and the novel desert merchant setting. I have no doubt that it was a better than average entry on the innovation front, though I would not say that it did enough new things to garner a higher score. Scope 3/5: Though accomplishing what was set out to do inside the 7-day deadline with aplomb, the scope was not particularly ambitious. Four identical maps except for increasing size and adding another kind of merchant, and then the game ends. Roguelikeness 3/5: The gameplay is grid-based and turn-based, the marketplace map is procedurally generated, and there is a hunger clock (and a thirst clock as well). However, a number of staple roguelike gameplay pillars are discarded, and it ends up feeling more like a puzzle game than Rogue. The overall roguelikeness is fairly average for this jam. Overall, Wind Vane Wanderer is a very solid entry that reflects your growing skills as a crafter of quality game experiences. I would be surprised if this was not one of the better scoring games in this year's jam.
• I tremendously enjoyed this game. The way you managed to describe game rules and mechanics visually, without needing any text at all, is fantastic! Adding a new type (color) of wanderers on each new map was a nice way of increasing difficulty as well. Wind Vane Wanderer was definitely one of my favorite entries from this jam. Some notes: > I don't know how this discussion is going to end, but want to let you know that more than one person wanted to give you 5/5 for aesthetics here. > While the game certainly feels original, I didn't think that it had enough novel mechanics to qualify for a 4 in innovation > The scope feels just right, and our guidelines say it's 3 for what feels right for a 7DRL. > I did not find begging useful at all
• Inventive and elegant. Pixel art is simple and understated, without being minimalist. A lot gets done with a deceptively limited number of sprites. The palette meets the gameplay requirement of distinctive colors while still being attractive and coherent. The gameplay is not immediately obvious, but doesn't take more than a few play throughs to be mostly understood. The difficulty curve and overall length are basically perfect for 7DRL. Overall excellent execution.