Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• This game's art looked good and consistent throughout the entire game. This game did a good job meeting the brief, however the game would benefit from adding indicators that you need to die to gain power ups as it was confusing at first. The melee attack animation needs speeding up, as it is too slow and takes you out of the game. On the opposite side, your character's velocity is too quick and makes movement feel slippery when walking, so look at reducing that. I would stress adding SFX and VFX to your melee attack to indicate when an enemy has been hit. At the moment it's unclear on whether you actually hit them and it doesn't have anywhere near the same impact that it would with VFX and SFX. Other than that, the movement was fun and reminded me of CS:GO’s bunny hopping modes. Overall, a solid attempt!
• I really enjoyed this take on the theme, I think there's a lot of room with the idea of taking abilities from the enemies that have killed you, I do think in this regard you could of been more harsher with the damage the enemies deal as it's a core part of the game loop to die, but It's a very minor point. I do think a short tutorial or explanation at the start of the controls and the main mechanic would of helped to understand the mechanic as I did find myself stuck without realising what to do first (although this is displayed on the game page, it's my fault on not reading up first). I think on the mentoring front you guys did a great job, especially helping out a member of the team who may not of used Perforce before, as well as helping him integrate with the tools within a short period of time.
• The game shows a good level of fundamental game design and the art whilst basic worked well with the environment and suited a game jam timeline quite well. I found it a little hard to follow, the game could've benefited from some simple onscreen or world UI to help direct the player. I get the idea of dying giving you powers and it fits the theme quite well, however, I found that having to die to have a chance of progressing at all felt a little unnatural, when the jump boost was unlocked it made the rest of the game completely trivial as I could jump over everything and run along the walls to grab the keys. A fix for this might be adding invisible walls to not allow the player to skip the content, or simply make the fences larger. Whilst the game at its base level is playable it needs a little more fleshing out to become more engaging. Overall a good little game-jam game given the team composition, with a little more work it could become a fun little prototype to build on.
• As far as the theme goes, you can't get more literal than this! I like the way it works and I was able to work out the solution with all the content provided. it would have been nice if the bosses didn't die instantly, I was looking forward to a Shadow of the Colossus style boss fight! I love your art and particle systems! Some UI pop-ups and tutorials would have been nice! Overall, good job!