Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• 27/80

  Certain areas are progression blocks that corrupt your saves or block progress for that save, forcing a restart. (I made regular backups so I was able to finish the hour using those). Having the flute as a quick item was actually pretty annoying, especially in battle. The witch counting green potions was also annoying (as you can get both, but you have to get the green potion second). Why was it that the flute was a quick item, but the potions were not? The block puzzle can sometimes freeze the game if you move them rapidly while moving yourself.

  Why do I have text input right at the start with no information on what exactly I’m naming? You shouldn’t go through other people’s cabinets, but it is ok to break their stuff… How do these people have so many jars anyways? And why is there no run? Why are there two empty spaces in the options menu? Falling from the bridge forces a game over as it respawns you one space down instead of backwards depending on position.  Why is my game save corrupt already? Why is there an autosave?

  Why am I swimming on land? Rose area is broken, the ladder teleports you out immediately. One of the text lore items forces you to take damage and potentially die as it sends you above the ladder upon exit instead of below. Semi-permanent save menu grayscale if you touch a certain area in the map after leaving your house (appears to fix itself upon giving the lore npc a text item-if you have any left). 

  Entering certain areas can result in game breaking progression blocks that corrupt your save or otherwise prevents you from progressing if you saved after entering and meet certain conditions. The witch counts your green potions as potions, forcing you to drink it even if you are at full health to get the red potion, but the reverse is not true.

  On top of all the progression blocks, the title intro plays every time without letting you skip it. This is just frustrating.

  In the end, there were more bugs than there were areas. And I visited basically... all of the areas except for those that were literally impossible to reach due to bugs. Yes, that includes that one area that is effectively impossible to enter without finding clues that are behind bugged areas, making it impossible to finish the game in one run. Even the acorn quest is bugged due to using = instead of >=.  In the end, there were more bugs than there were areas and that is ONLY counting gamebreaking bugs-several of which area close to the start such as the swimming on land, several of which you might only encounter late into the game such as in certain temples, forcing you to restart all the way at the beginning after finishing over 90% of the game.

  I can barely walk a few minutes without the game breaking. I can't even remember the game itself, all I remember is being plagued with bugs, especially ones that teleport you to incorrect locations.

• PRESENTATION
  

  Graphics are custom made in 8-bit style. The maps are good for the style it was going for.

  Writing is well done, with no errors that I could recall. The plot is pretty much staging for the game itself. The dialogue is decent and some characters stand out a little, though most NPCs are very similar in tone and the way they talk.

  Sound was well used where it was used. Nothing exciting but nothing that jarred. Music was the same - it fit where it was used and nothing seemed out of place.

  GAMEPLAY
  Gameplay consisted of typical action adventure rpg fare - walking around, interacting with the environment using tools.

  You can get various tools in order to interact with the environment - from bombs to blow up rocks and walls, arrows to shoot enemies and targets, swimming fins to get past water blocks and swim.

  There were various puzzles - some easier, some harder. They were a good balance and used the existing mechanics to add more depth.

  When you died you loaded back up via the one save slot you had.

  I ran in to a bug with water to the north of your home where you could drown since it was tagged as a water tile instead of the grass tile that it was.

  ENGAGEMENT
  I found the game a lot of fun and it held my interest for a fair amount of time. I did get stuck in the first temple, though, and found that annoying as I couldn't figure out where to get the key or turn the coloured switches on/off. It took me a while to get the bombs to go to that temple as I was too busy exploring the world map itself instead. Fun game though!

  THEME
  The theme of the game was pretty much exploration and collection of McGuffins. You needed set items in order to access the areas to the items you needed to get so the mechanics made sense and focused on that aspect quite well. The theme was also represented in dialogue but only as a way to frame the quest.

  62/80

• This game was a lot of fun, although compromised by some bugs. Obviously you had a good understanding about what was so fun about the Zelda games on Game Boy because I felt sucked into this game in a similar way. There was one key difference, though, in that you go through the whole game without a sword, unable to damage most enemies until you get the blessed arrow. That was an interesting touch although it may frustrate some players. The story was surprisingly ambiguous by the end, not sure what to make of that. There were some pretty major bugs, the most serious one during the frog heart boss. I found that if I moved up at all, I could no longer move down to where I had been. So I had to beat that whole boss just using the middle two cannon things.  It also seemed like the frog princess collection puzzle was bugged too. Everything looked fantastic and the music and effects sounded very authentic.  Score would have been higher but bugs resulted in a deduction.
  

  Score: 61/80

• Theme 

  Best the three dungeons and find the Golden Pearl. Inspired by Zelda.

  Gameplay 

  Extremely buggy.

  • Drown on land when going north at the beginning.
  • Fell on a hole then spawn on a wall in one cave.
  • Throw a grass on the floor, before it hits the floor completely, you’ll see a gem, but if you open the menu on this exact moment and close it out, the gem disappears.
  • Boar hits me despite not being hit!
  • Save corruption on certain parts.
  • Flute when fixed crashes the game.
  • Why can't I kill enemies until I finish the game and then finally my arrows can? Why can't my bombs stun enemies but it can hurt me? It doesn't make sense!
  • There were a lot more that I can't bother to list them all. I felt like a beta tester rather than playing a game.

  There’s also some stuff I didn’t like:

  • Depends a lot on RNG. For example, the fire boss.
  • Random cracks can kill you.
  • Blocks can only be pushed on certain direction?

  Presentation 

  It’s solid. Just the way it conveys information is a bit irritating. For example, I didn’t know about the map until 30 minutes in the game roaming mindlessly around until a sign on the town tells me I can. I also didn’t get bombs 30 minutes in so I made 0 progress on dungeons. I honestly think just starting on the town would’ve been a ton easier and would do the game favors. You won’t even know you can pick up a bomb you already dropped until someone tells you (not the game).

  Engagement

  Lots of game stopping bugs on the intro that I seriously didn’t want to play this game out of frustration. I also kept saving just to make sure I don’t have to redo something or accidentally kill my progress again.

  Total – 35/80