Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• An entry which attempts to cross roguelikes with the classic fixed-camera horror games and even arcade/light gun games - and knocks it out of the park! The art side of the game is very well-done, especially when considering the timeframe - from the isometric perspective and the lightning system to your gun always occupying the second half of the screen, thus letting you know what your next shot is going to be, evne featuring brief reloading animations. Moreover, while quite a lot of entries with extensive graphics tend to neglect sound and end up feeling especially uncanny, this game makes no such mistake and has a consistently effective soundscape. The gameplay is pretty neat as well. Your character dies in only about 3 hits from the worms, with no way to heal, and you can only kill them by shooting them with the colour which matches their appearance once, twice or thrice, so having the wrong colour equipped results in extra turns spent on reloading. Luckily, your ammo is infinite and the worms are also slower than your character is, so you eventually learn to back out of every room you enter after spotting any worm and reload, if you need to, there, and to try and keep the monsters at the edge of visibility as much as possible. After all, your character auto-aims, and can even shoot through walls at times, which is probably a bug. Tank-like controls, where the same arrow keys can take you in a different direction than before if the room layout and camera perspective is different, may also take some getting used to, but it arguably adds to the experience and is a hurdle well worth overcoming on your way to beat the game. It has just the right amount of rooms, and an ending screen which is either a charming reference to poorly translated Japanese arcade games of the bygone era, or simply poorly translated by the creator. Either way, play it.
• Aesthetic is really nice here. Very harsh contrasts and simple but effective color. The monitor distortion effect isn't so harsh that it distracts from the game. The UI element of the gun on the right is pretty cool but also presents important information in a clear way. I like the simple controls. The game has its own feeling, which is very important, and it's got plenty of nice weirdness. I'd love to see more expansion of the core concept-- color-based attacks have potential but at the moment the combat is very simple without significant challenge or decisions. This is my only real gripe with the game-- it has a great baseline, but it is too easy.
• This is a heavily stylized schlock sci-fi game about escaping a space station where eponymous evil worms have taken over. You have to load cyan and magenta rounds into a gun and shoot the right color of worm with the matching bullet color. The game's controls are a little unintuitive for those who don't do so well with isometric as mapped to up down left and right, but once you get the hang of it, it's okay. Visuals are otherwise alright, but in some cases the stylization is more garish than stylish. Fewer very bright colors would help this. I'll shout out the shadows and dark/light effects generally, however, as looking pretty darn cool. The game is fun enough for exploring its mechanics but isn't very hard; there's a hidden information problem in here somewhere (what kind of worms will be on the other side of this door?) but it feels more like a guessing game. Perhaps in that respect it's good that basic kiting tactics are so readily available. Scope is about par for a 7drl, but it's more or less a traditional roguelike.