Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• "Orbital Decay" is a fun short roguelike with a Martian Gothic atmosphere and an interesting armor/hull penetration mechanic. Namely, if you shoot someone with a weapon of high caliber, there is a chance that you breach the hull, start losing oxygen, and potentially fly into the open space (and, sadly, die). The game features a selection of weapons and enemies balanced enough for a challenging playthrough - although after escaping once, I didn't really find myself craving to come back to the orbital station again.
• A great entry which knows its scope and executes it well. The core feature of this game about fighting zombies in space is that every ranged game has the potential to pierce multiple zombies at once, yet all but a few specialized weapons also risk tearing through the ship hull, which can at first suck bystanders into vacuum but eventually loses all its air and becomes a vacuum zone which consumes your oxygen supply. I have never really experienced the latter, since if you are shooting carelessly enough to trigger the chances of blowing through the outside hull (rather than the less important internal walls), chances are you also close enough to it to get sucked out pretty much immediately. Nevertheless, it definitely complicates your position and decisions about HP trade-offs. Everything else also works well. Graphics are easily readable and the soundscape is good. While too many entries place multiple floors that are functionally indistinguishable from each other, each consecutive floor both gives you the chance to expand your arsenal or upgrade the character, but also regularly introduce more advanced Undead. While the first couple of floors annoy you with the undying skeletons which will keep getting back up, later floors take a page from L4D with Tanks, and worst of all, Boomers, whose explosions can trigger hull breach on their own. Ammo is finite, and strictly limited (just four shots in a shotgun or rifle), but instead of having to scrounge for extra clips, it gets auto-refilled every floor. Basic melee is also surprisingly good thanks to its knockback; the chainsaw is plain awesome, though be careful not to use it all six times per floor, as then it won't get refilled. Upgrades are traits bought with credits, and a maximum of six are available, two per Toughness, Endurance and Accuracy branches. While they are hardly equal (i.e. if Accuracy 1 is essential for halving chance of hull breaches, Accuracy 2's damage boost mainly matters in case you have not found a rail gun yet), it is still a good system. The game even features a prologue and a plot twist in the epilogue, predictable as it might be. In all, a definite recommend.
• This is such a solid game. It makes you consider your tactics so much instead of just "shoot enemy" or "run away and hope for the best", there's also "would it be better to try opening the wall behind my enemy and venting the lot?" or, what happened to me far more often - venting the enemy by accident and sometimes myself. My favourite feature has to be being able to pay to see the whole map. It feels better to know where you're going - and where the enemies are - rather than dying to a wrong turn you couldn't predict. Restricted ammo feels like it's going to be a horrible part of the game but it's balanced out by enough guns on each floor plus refills every time you move floor, so you still have to be tactical but not so much that you resort to trying to punch the lights out of every zombie. Overall, a solid, good short roguelike.