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Bounded's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #24 | 3.643 | 3.643 |
| Overall | #68 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Gameplay | #80 | 2.786 | 2.786 |
| Graphics | #116 | 2.571 | 2.571 |
| Theme interpretation | #138 | 2.214 | 2.214 |
| Audio | #169 | 1.357 | 1.357 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/Syldarion/Bounded
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Comments
Very fun concept, but it takes some time to understand, very good!
It did take a bit to understand the idea behind it, but it is a really interesting idea behind it. I understand AI was a last-time addition, though I feel like the blocking mechanic is only for it to use. I'd say I have a small issue with the presentation. Mostly about how the AI turns look like. I reckon some transition, or even change of the background colour, would work well there. The controls are functional, but feel a bit sluggish, though this isn't a timed game and aren't the worst problem. If it was up to me, I'd add a visual notification in which direction Q and E rotate the block.
Thank you for playing! And thanks for the feedback. You're basically 1:1 with what my roommate told me. I'm pumped to get a build out with all the feedback implemented.
Perhaps worth considering the spells being asymmetrical between player and AI. AI might just have more more negative interactions (and easier to achieve), perhaps with a different winning condition. And perhaps the player's special spell could be selectable... With asymmetrical approach you wouldn't even need a robust AI as long as it would be good spells to make the game interesting for the player.
It's really cool!
It did take me a while to understand the rules though. Like at least 4 attempts.
This is such a novel concept. Five stars for innovation. Graphics is also nice and polished. Also the AI... I'm amazed. It's not great, but I imagine it requires a lot of effort to make an AI that can play a strategy game - I know I can't.
However, I think it can have better feedback to the player. When I defeated the AI I was confused because suddenly my elements were empty and I thought there would be something more - I only realized that I just won when I saw the turn was back to one. You didn't put any audio here (which means with a heavy heart I have to give a one for audio score here), but a little audio feedback here and there would have made this game much better.
Also I think this is a little bit of a stretch to the theme lol - I gave you three stars for Theme interpretation tho
Interesting concept, but the game could use some tutorialization. I kind of figured out that you have 1 rotate per turn (?). I could make the mana pools, but it seems like a lot of the spells don’t do anything?
I would suggest having a two-up display to allow the player to see the opponent boards without switching. I could see this being an interesting strategy game.
Thank you for checking it out! I agree, and it seems everyone else does as well, it really needs a good guide. That's high on my priority list for future iterations.
I played (and beat) this game, and found the concept very fascinating! That said, I have to agree with elennick that it is very difficult to understand at first. Perhaps explaining that three earths binds the fourth element, three fires scorches the fourth element, and that two waters transmutes the other two elements would help (that way there could just be three explanations for those spells). Also, the A.I. wasn't nearly challenging enough. I beat it on turn 26 and it still had only three tokens total (short the 12 needed to win).
I think this has a lot of potential! Reach out to me if you want to collaborate in the future.
Yeah, the AI was a last minute effort last night, it really needs some help haha. It doesn't really try to look ahead the current turn or anything beyond trying its hardest to make tokens.
I agree with the different way to explain what the runes do, rather than just listing out every available spell.
I'm glad you liked the concept! Thank you for checking it out.
The A.I. was from last night? Nice work, then! Yeah, I think an easy way to make it viable is to get it to favor yellow pairings so it can have more moves.
I had a difficult time understanding what was going on and how I could manipulate the board. I know there are instructions in-game but this seems like it might benefit from more elaborate instructions on the page or something. Seems like there is depth and an interesting concept so it'd be great to have more insight on how to utilize it without just trial-and-error. Would also be cool to have more audio/animations as feedback to what's happening.
Thank you so much for the feedback! I've been getting the audio/visual feedback comment a lot, and that will definitely be high priority.
I'll also add a How To Play to the page right now!