Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Vigil@nte is both a faithful adaptation of Arkham series' combat and a really fun entry in its own right! It is more deterministic than most entries tend to be, and as such is easier to beat consistently the simpler, less balanced submissions if you think your way through: I have finished it on my first try, and then did it again and again immediately after: however, "Atman" was reduced to single HP when he finally brought down the boss first time around, and pretty much any given battle will end quickly if you fail to watch out for others' attacks or position yourself properly. Otherwise, there's a lot of fun to be had as you dodge thugs' blows and they are left vulnerable and exposed, or even outright fall over, ready for a devastating takedown. Same goes for countering an incoming punch and swapping position with a thug, exposing them to blows from nearby criminals that would have otherwise landed upon you. I would say the one issue is the way the game handles guns. In "Otham", everyone is apparently carrying blackpowder firearms, since they can only shoot them once before spending multiple turns on reloading. Once they have reloaded, however, they are able to fire as soon as Atman is in their line of sight, and they'll always hit. Considering that any enemy's punch always has a single turn of wind-up, this is rather incongruent. Moreover, reloading is not an action in its own right, but simply a timer: not only can the thugs with guns walk around and even punch while simultaneously reloading, but they won't stop doing so even when stunned or thrown to the ground. This factor also makes "Atarangs" less useful than expected: one might think that the best way to use them is to stun a gun-wielder right as they aim, or at least to interrupt their reload: in practice, it only works to stop them from picking a gun off the ground; alternatively, you can toss multiple atarangs in a row to outright knock them out after they already fired, but are now reloading. Altogether, I would have preferred that gun-wielders have multiple shots before needing to reload, but require a turn of Atman standing in place in order to lock in their aim before firing (and of course, that reloading is a separate and interruptable action). The game is largely mouse-controlled, and it consists of a series of single-screen stages, with Atman immediately transported to the next stage after bringing down the last thug. The layout of the stages is randomized somewhat, but the progression is still quite rigid (i.e penultimate battle is always against 6 or so Titan Thugs). The main difference between the playthroughs is not in the map layout, but in the order you get to unlock Atman's special moves: like in Crimsonland or Nuclear Throne, you get to pick of two randomly selected perks every other level, and this shapes your progression the most. The greatest priority is to get the Leg Sweep + Ground Takedown combo that is able to immediately eliminate Titan Thugs and even the final boss: even without Ground Takedown, Leg Sweep may be the only way to avoid damage if you happen to spawn in while already having at least one Titan preparing to punch you next turn. On the other hand, picking Lunge Punch for any reason only makes the run harder, since you'll rarely be in a position to use it, and when you are, Atarangs are basically always superior since they deal the same damage but also stun, and are not ignored by Armored Thugs. Somewhere in between are the extra HP traits and Super Dodge, which lets Atman jump immediately behind a given thug: useless vs. Titans who hit in a circular radius and of limited help on regular levels, but invaluable on the final level as you rush past endlessly spawning thugs to get to Mr. Yendor. The game does a fair attempt at emulating comic book style from bird's eye view - every punch is dutifully accompanied by "POW!" and the like. One issue is that the gun-wielding enemies are marked with a crosshair next to them, but this disappears from view if they are next to a wall. Additionally, it is not always clear which tiles are fully blocked by debris like trash barrels and which are not. There are sound effects, and the creator has apparently purchased music for this submission, which I commend. However, music is often inconsistent, and only seems to play in every other fight: in particular, the final showdown is always in silence. Altogether, it's a very nice game and a solid recommendation, especially if it receives a few post-contest fixes!
• The game plays smoothly and the special attacks make the combat interesting. I feel it lacks the sense of exploration you get playing roguelikes. Also adding some items to heal youself could make me move a little more . The graphics could get some more love; pointing this out just because you decided to go with graphical tiles.
• This is really promising! My only complaint is that it's sometimes a little tricky to tell what's happening without mousing over every character, but that's a really minor polish niggle. Great work! I'd love to see a more fleshed-out version!