Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Ok so the quality of this game is very good, I feel like it has a lot of potential but I did have a couple of issues with it.

  1 - Initially I would have said that the freeze speed needed to be increased, until I realised that the interaction with the tree doesn't actually take you to another level but it works like an upgrade shop, except it makes things harder? This game flow would probably work better if it was inverted, with the game being more difficult at the beginning and having players have to upgrade their player in order to make the game easier (spend longer in the cold) and also allow them to potentially reach areas that were too far in the distance at lower levels.

  2 - With the message that pops up when you go outside, I initially thought it was telling me I was close to dying. With the way the text currently works (popping up when you initially go outside from an interior) it would make more sense if the text said something like "You are being exposed to the cold! Make sure you get back inside and warm up before you freeze!". I also think it would be a bit more clear if this message was permanently displayed whenever you were outside rather than just for a period of time.

  3 - The end objective of the game wasn't entirely clear to me, nor was it clear that I had to interact with the Christmas Tree after gathering a certain amount of decorations. I went around and collected the majority of the decorations (including the 'secret' decorations you guys hid through the map ;P ) and when I realised that the Christmas Tree actually advances the 'stages' of the game I was able to speed up to Level 5 in one go. This also seemed a bit weird because even though the game got harder when the levels increased, nothing else actually spawned into the level - it just changes some of the player stats. I couldn't find the remaining 25 decorations that were required either, so I think some UX fixes needed to be implemented in this regard.

  4 - The jumping and level design needs to be tweaked so that you can't jump up any surface at any angle. The first thing I did was go to the edge of the map and jump off to see if I would respawn, which I didn't so I just had to wait for the cold to kill me.

  5 - When I jumped up to Santas workshop and interacted with the door I was spawned into what seemed to be a test level. I was also spawned into empty space outside the level, endlessly falling - and because there is no quit function implemented into the game I had to alt+F4 and restart the game.

  6 - The lighting is very bright and makes it hard to see in some areas. You need to adjust the lighting settings and implement some effects that will not only help set the atmosphere, but make it easier to play (such as fog).

  7 - The themes for the jam were not very clear to me for this entry.  Seems like you guys made a game more fitting to a theme like 'Christmas' than ' a way home' or 'nature' (although I do recognise that you play as a Christmas Tree, with trees obviously being a part of nature). I feel like the themes could have been implemented on both a mechanical and story level of your game a lot more.

  8 - One bug I saw someone experienced in the comments prior to playing this game myself was that they got stuck on a chair. The first time this happened to me I think I got pushed onto a chair by a snowman, and the second time I think the player controller went up one of the angled parts of the chair collider. The reason I think the player is getting stuck here is because they are being pushed up on the y axis, so the player script is detecting that they are falling and thus restricting the horizontal and vertical axis inputs (well the movement from them being applied at least).

  9 - The music and most of the audio seemed pretty quiet to me. I also would have liked to have heard more sound effects implemented, particularly in relation to player warnings and heads ups (ie when you are almost about to freeze to death, a heart beat or some kind of sound plays to remind the player to get back to shelter).

  Aside from the issues I experienced I thoroughly enjoyed playing your game, and I was very determined to figure out how to finish the game! I am disappointed I was unable to do so. If you guys implement the suggested fixes into the game, and address the game flow/play so that it is more clear and polished then I think this could be something that quite a few people would play!

• Outstanding effort.  Vibrant, colorful, and fun.  All the elements and systems work well together to give a terrific game experience.   Only suggestion is to constrain the camera when inside houses.
  

  Not strongly on theme, but that's no big deal.

  Keen to see what Team PTK works on next.

• This was a lot of fun to play. Only issue was the camera clipping when you enter a building. The snowmen got me as couldn't see to get my way out and avoid them.