Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• PRESENTATION
  

  Graphics are a mix of different packs and RTP. They fit well together and look quite good. The mapping is pretty good too, with attention to details.

  The writing is quite well done, technically. The story is a framing device for the gameplay and pretty non-existent beyond "this guy has a shop and makes monstructs". The characterisation is nice though and adds a bit more depth to the experience.

  The sound is quite nice, though a bit more SFX would have been nice to hear. The music itself is very nice and the variety and choices allowed make for a pleasing presence.

  GAMEPLAY
  The game is basically a simulation for monster creation. You are given blueprints to use to create monstructs with, and then hand them in or sell them for money in order to purchase upgrades for your tools.

  The tools boost your stats in the monstruction area of the game. You learn a few skills by making particular monstructs of a required quality and 'spending' those as points to learn the skill in question.

  The monstruction is actually a battle scene where Health and Magic are renamed. You lose a certain percent per turn or by using certain skills. The enemy HP becomes their progress (how close the monstruct is to being completed) and their MP becomes their quality (how good the monstruct is, quality-wise). The idea is to try and make better quality monstructs with the moves you have (since you lose a set amount of HP per action, you are racing to boost your quality and progress to a point where you can call both at the high end of their respective bars.)

  Some skills give you more HP or MP, others increase the benefit of Progress or Quality made.

  You can also customise your tools to create ones aimed more towards boosting Progress or Quality. You only have access to one type of tool (as far as I could find) and thus you can only give them two upgrades, which can be bought at a shop (only the lowest teir, at that).

  You could also do various small things like changing the music during monstruction and the background - just small things that are cool customisations.

  ENGAGEMENT
  I'll admit, the ideas and concepts were interesting. I liked the ideas of monsters making fake monsters for humans to grind on. I didn't really enjoy the monstruction side of things that much. It was okay but it wasn't really engaging to me. I would have liked something along the lines of finding resources to build with in addition to what there was as the main component of the game felt a bit... lacklustre to me.

  I also didn't like the world design that much. The maps were good but there was something about them that was a bit off - they were a façade for a bunch of useless NPCs who did nothing to add to the game. The few characters who were actually interesting were fine, but for the most part it felt hollow to me.

  THEME
  The theme was creation and both the mechanics and the writing focussed on that, so it hit the theme fairly well.

  60/80

• Theme 

  A game about an artisan monstructist. It works.

  Gameplay

  The gameplay is very unique and solid.  However there is an issue where the game randomly crashes whenever I mass produce monstructs in a row. This in turn means lost progress so I have to deduct it on that.

  Presentation 

  The game is pretty polished but I’m not a huge fan of the last map. I feel like it could’ve been conveyed better.

  Engagement 

  I definitely made sure I 100/100 all the blueprints. It really is fun but I think on a final game, it will be hard to get engaged longer.

  Total – 64/80

• This was a very clever and charming concept and fun to mess around with even if I feel like I am missing a lot of the nuances on how monstruction works. The early stuff was pretty straightforward but there seems to be a major difficulty spike when you get the monsters from the library. It doesn’t seem possible to make a quality dragon with my current stats but maybe I’m just missing something. Aside from that, it’s a really fun world to interact with and filled with cool NPCs. I would have liked more stuff in general - more commissions, more upgrades and songs, more story, etc. Take that as a compliment.

  Score: 58/80

• 62/80

  Enjoyable gameplay overall. There are a few areas where using the mouse is not very efficient for movement. It seems odd though that you can make monsters out of nothing. Might be something to consider later on.
  

  Nice little concept and story, though it definitely looks like it is set up to be expanded upon. Game sound does not seem to update automatically. The graphics work, though they definitely aren’t particularly special, they at least convey the world. One area is especially cramped, especially considering the name would suggest it being much bigger.

  Enjoyable game, the endgame content could definitely do with some improvement. The game is short and could use some improvements and expansions.