Very interesting concept! I included it in my Fuck Capitalism Jam compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)
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Revolution In A Small Town's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
ANTI-CAPITALIST POWER | #98 | 1.571 | 1.571 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
this game has a lot of interesting ideas in it. i like a lot of the stuff in creating a scenario!
i did encounter a few balance issues that would make it difficult to play, namely
- rolling a d4 for each attribute can create really unbalanced characters
- a player has 1-4 vitality but a weak hit can deal 1-6 damage, meaning it can take a player out entirely
- boss enemies have 1-10 vitality but a strong hit can deal 2-12 damage, so same problem
aside from that, some of the layout decisions for your document made it hard to read on a computer. most people aren't going to print what you put on itch (especially a 16 page, full-colour document). trying to design something to be read on a computer would help your readers/players out a lot!
(going to avoid commenting on the AI art since many have, but let me know if you'd like some links to free resources you can use for art. also, jams are a great opportunity to parter with others, so in the future, it could be worth seeing if there are any artists who'd want to team up with you.)
I know you're already getting piled on for AI art, but one thing I would suggest, in the future look for free assets on itch! It can be beneficial to both you and the artist.
Unfortunately I don't have anyone to play with at this time, but it comes across as being a little too vague to me. I do like the scenario builder guide, but something like the Enemies section just feels incomplete. Maybe some premade enemies and bosses, an example of how items would be used (you mention an inventory and have a sizeable inventory on the character sheet), etc. would make it feel more complete. Personally, I think things like this are incredibly hard to balance anyway, so commend you on trying it in such a short timeline!
So, I saw on the project page you got a lot of flak for using AI images - which I can understand, it's rightfully derided. However, I can also sympathise with not being able to create your own art, I myself rely on free assets from around the web for my games, though I haven't touched AI myself for it - not just because it has a lot of inherent problems concerning stealing content and using sensitive data from datasets (The service you used uses stable-diffusion according to their website, which uses a dataset that has been criticised for exactly that). But also because it's hard to get coherent style and fitting images anyway. I usually check opengameart.org and search on DDG or Google for public domain or CC4 Attribution stuff, that I then maybe slightly edit. For this, I would probably have looked into photos from historical archives or from people that put their stuff into the public domain. One aspect where I think you could have used AI fruitfully there, without running into the same kind of ethical problems, would be AI upscaling and colouring, e.g. of historical photographs that fit the style you are going for. Those algorithms are usually older and less dubious.
But not to dwell on this aspect too much - and just saying that I don't think you are some sort of great sinner or something for using it - I unfortunately have no one I could properly playtest this with. Reading through the ruleset makes it feel like it may be both too complex and too shallow at first glance - a lot of mechanics, but I think not enough interesting ways for the players to interact with them and create synergies. That is *completely* an intuitive assessment, though, as I said, I can't really playtest it properly. In general, RPGs like this usually need to go through a lot of testing and revisions before they are fleshed out enough to be enjoyable.
I do like the idea and setting, and for a first time openly published game, it shows promise! Maybe, with this being in the public domain, some people will be found to refine it and replace the art in the same step? Don't get discouraged by the criticism you got so far, I think this shows real potential, and you should keep creating.
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