Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• - Nice audio design - I like that the soundtrack is stylised and consistent! Audio balance is also pretty good - nothing important was too quiet, and nothing unimportant is too loud :) - The seagull patches are quite frustrating - a nice addition :) Definitely need to make it clear to the player how they're meant to get rid of those. Consider making them disappear over time, or once they've been his as I felt they're a little too punishing in their current setup. - Needs a tutorial of some kind as it's not clear how to use the various functions of the boat in order keep it going and survive the attacking ship. That could be some simple pictures or easing the player into it with a live tutorial that layers in the hazards. - Found myself getting a little frustrated with the bucket - perhaps the "use" button needs to be separate from the "pick up/put down" button, as I consistently kept dropping the bucket when trying to put out fires. - I like that fires take a few buckets of water to put out - building on the team player aspect. - The game allowed me to play with 1 player, and it didn't really work or scale to that few players...consider enforcing the player limit or scaling things based on the number of players. - Found the mix of pad and mouse input a little cumbersome (moving between the menus and the game) - best to stick to one to avoid the player having to swap between lots of devices. - Really liked the art style, it was excellent and consistent. It matches the UI style well too! The blocky colours help add to the almost comedy aspect of the game. - The endgame cutscene is a nice addition! Be careful with your camera angles here - this is the only place where you can "see behind the curtain" where you can see the sea isn't expansive and is just a small area around the boat. Although a cutscene is nice - it's best to cut unfinished/unpolished things from a product you're demoing to investors/releasing to the public :) - I really like the transparent cut out that follows each player character around! That is a really great idea and is well executed! It's almost unnoticeable in the manic-ness of the game. It doesn't quite work all of the time - running behind the mast at the front of the ship for instance could hide your character. - The dynamic camera demonstrated in your video also seems to work very well and is smooth - which is very important - and keeps everyone in view.
• Nice idea, with a pleasing art style, but the execution was a little off. Felt unbalanced (perhaps it doesn't scale well when played with fewer players), and there were various bugs when we tried it that hampered our experience.
• able to play one player unable to actually play beyond running around putting out fires and dying. no tutorialisation to the game mechanics just running around and guessing, wasn't able to load a cannon, tutorial on how that works would be nice (controls just specify interact). Visually looks nice, distinct style & branding but not able to get into it solo.
• The concept seems fun but requires some fine-tuning of the fundamentals before it becomes more fun instead of repetitive and frustrating. Bugs/Feedback - The cursor stays on the screen - The main menu does not seem to have controller support but the game does. - Usable items are difficult to locate/not clear, your assets blend into the background and asset prompt is unclear what I am interacting with, highlighting would be useful. e.g unusable cannon balls shiny, usable cannonball, "ship deck brown" colour. - UI elements are unclear or seem to not be working e.g. I assume the bottom bar is a progress tracker but it does not move, Health is the water under the boat but the UI is so small it is difficult to see. - Level designs do not seem scaled for different numbers of players - Animations seem stiff or broken such as repeatedly shooting an enemy ship reset the animation each time. - The camera sometimes obscures the characters in vital areas e.g the mast covers the player and the cannonballs in level 2.