Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Overview Nice idea about playing entirely as a support for the group of adventurers. Not very roguelike-y. Completeness Game runs fine, and I never encounter any obvious bugs, but it definitely could use a bit more polish. Aesthetics Overally, aesthetically "Pillar..." is very pleasing game. But that title screen and rigged font... Fun Fun concept and decent execution. Innovation Playing entirely as a support definitely feels fresh. Scope Reasonable for 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness Well, it doesn't feel very rogueliky – it's more like JRPG with random encounters and permadeath.
• This is an entirely fine jam game, but it also feels like it could have been a lot more with more focus and polish. The artwork is very nice, and the gameplay is alright. However, the premise does not really come across at all, in large part due to the lack a consistent battlefield aesthetic. I appreciate the wide variety of the enemy sprites, and they could have worked if the interiors stuck to the idea of the tower. However, I find that going as far as including island maps inside a tower (even if there's a reference to "faraway lands" in the description) cheapens the experience. The lack of a consistent progression from level to level, and from battle to battle, makes each run feel like simply a set of unconnected random encounters. The way the game immediately sends the player from an encounter to the next, with no victory screen, log text, etc. does not help matters. Lots of traditional roguelikes, including 7DRLs, managed to generate palpable atmosphere with their examine descriptions and/or log text. Even pure JRPG-combat games like LISA, OFF or Darkest Dungeon were able to incorporate narrative into combat through creative attack names and/or in-combat dialogue. As it is, there's not even a way to tell how far are you into the game: you are just suddenly presented with an encounter that turns out to be a final boss, and then get a single ending screen. (I would advise to disable Alt in the ending, as it can quit the ending to menu while one is trying to screenshot it.) With combat, I like that there's both a factor of some enemies being clearly either vulnerable or resistant/immune to the priestess' sole attack, and of the difference between normal, tanky and "glass cannon" enemies. Deciding who to target when there's both a fire-vulnerable tank like the Ent monster or White Wolf, or a less vulnerable yet clearly more fragile footsoldier creature can be neat. As is deciding whether a particular encounter calls for buffing the ranged party members or helping your frontliners weather the assault at the start, or focus-firing one creature early to relieve the pressure and help ensure they do not get overwhelmed. Likewise, whether or not the enemies are capable of ranged attacks can make a difference in regards to whether or not it's safe to buff Mage/Archer. However, the balance feels off. I defeated the final boss on the first try after losing a few times before that. He felt much easier than any of the "late-game" random encounters featuring 4-5 enemies at once. And while the combat is functional and at times presents interesting decisions, it is rarely as good as the best of the genre. The lack of any sort of progression or resource management can help make individual JRPG-style battles feel more tactical, but it doesn't really come across here, and only aggravates the "nothing in the run is connected" feeling. There's also the UI issue where the tooltips are currently bound to middle-click. That is a REALLY unusual design choice, and one not mentioned on either the download page or int he tutorial. Right-click is usually the preferred way to display this information. Potential post-7DRL improvements. * Music/SFX. Their lack may be one factor why the game appears to miss the sort of JRPG magic it was clearly trying to recreate. * Shifting tooltips to right-click, and expanding them with creature/ally descriptions. * Inter-battle narrative of any kind. Something as simple as a couple lines of randomly chosen banter on a victory screen before the next battle can help a lot. * Some sort of a score mechanic. Keeping track of how many times your allies have fallen in battle, average turn count per battle, damage dealt/healed, etc. * More cohesive set of battle screens and/or some inter-battle character progression.
• ## General review It's a beautiful game ! The artwork is great, the UI very polished. Gameplay is interesting, it's a kind of JRPG, where you only play the battles. ## Detailed review Completeness: 4 It's a complete game, and even includes several game modes (the normal mode + a tutorial). I did not experience any bug, everything seems to work as intended. Aesthetics: 4 Beautiful art, reminding me of the snes JRPGS (Secret of Mana, FF VI, Chrono Trigger, ...). The UI is clear. My only criticism would be that middle-click on skills to find out what they do is not too intuitive (I know it's explained in the help and tutorial). Perhaps replace with mouse-hover ? Fun: 3 This game is worth trying, and definitely has potential. Could become much more fun with added tactical positioning. I am also missing a sense of progression. You are supposed to climb a pillar but the game puts you on a succession of battles in unrelated settings (ruins, island, desert, ice ...). Innovation: 3 It's like a classic JRPG, but the skills and the way time and turns are handled are new to me. Scope: 4 This goes beyond what I expect from a 7DRL, specifically the inclusion of detailed tutorial and help system. On the other hand, the author states on the itch.io page that many elements were leveraged from previous games, so the final is clearly something that has been developed over far more than 7 days. But that's allowed by the competition rules :) Traditional Roguelikeness: 2 Not a roguelike... As stated earlier, this is a JRPG battle game. You just move from battle to battle. There is no exploration, no item collection, no clear final goal. There are some tactical choices, but very limited compared to what you typically have in a traditional roguelike.