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Into The Tower of The Magi's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun: Is the adventure fun to play in an OSR playstyle? | #84 | 3.350 | 3.350 |
| Overall | #102 | 2.983 | 2.983 |
| Usability: Is the adventure easy to use on the fly? | #104 | 2.700 | 2.700 |
| Writing: Is the adventure original and fun to read? | #106 | 2.900 | 2.900 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I just wanted to say that, out of all the adventures that I read for this jam, this is one of the ones that my mind keeps coming back to.
There's just something about it that really grabs my imagination – the open-ended encounters, the weird and original monsters, the high walls with no roof that leave you vulnerable to the crystal bird. It has a truly incredible sense of place.
I don't know if there's a name for this kind of fantasy, but this adventure really tapped into the childhood blend of Munchkin cards/Lord of the Rings action figures/Lego castles/Fate CRPG/modeling clay monsters/Discworld/Majesty: Heroes of Ardania that my brothers and I lived in when we were tiny and would sword fight in the basement – crazy, homegrown fantasy from that Wild West time before Fifth Edition and Warcraft III decided the look of everything.
Not many things kick off my imagination and nostalgia all at once like that. I read through this adventure and immediately wanted to start doodling pictures of these monsters and environments.
I would absolutely, absolutely love to see a deluxe version of this.
James, thanks so much. Your comment means the world. In terms of tone and theme, you seem to have understood my intent to perfectly. This was my first game Jam, and has been my first successful attempt at putting something out into the world. Given what I have learned, the feedback given, and the wonderful praise (I was shocked someone even bought it!) from everyone including you - I am very motivated to improve, revise, and release a deluxe edition, and following that, the game Jam has emphasised how doable adventure creation publishing is, so I hope to release more in future.
Hot Rain Falls was my most memorable adventure. As I think I commented on the page, I was struck by the simple yet brilliant design of running the heist crews on encounter dice and structured timelines. To say it will fundamentally change how I both run and design adventures is an understatement as it is nothing short of brilliance. Not to mention the fantastic premise and the ever marvellous "something floats by" table.
To that end, I would ask what your plans are as far as publishing goes? I would be remiss If I didn't see if you would be open to collaborating on a project in future. I'm not super competent with Itch, but I'd love to get in touch and see what we come up with.
I'm so glad to hear the deluxe version is in the works! I am definitely looking forward to it!
And thank you so much for the kind words! This was also my first game jam and my first successfully finished project – getting this kind of feedback has really inspired me to keep trying to write adventures!
I haven't thought about publishing too much, but I do have a few ideas for other adventures in the same setting (psychedelic Renaissance Venice in Florida is just too much fun to play around with!) If I get a few of them written, maybe I'll put all of them together into a collection and try publishing it!
I would absolutely be open to collaborating on something in the future! I don't know too much about Itch either (this is the first time I've done anything on it), but I'd absolutely love to keep in touch and work on something together! Have you joined the Discord that one of the jammers set up?
yep I’m in the discord, I’ve messaged who I believe is you, my name is the same there as here so drop me a line when you have a chance!
Yup, that's me! Looking forward to whatever craziness we can come up with!
Mariner's dagger that can always be used to point north is an interesting magical item with some cool flavor, to make it unique. I enjoyed that detail.
thank you, glad you enjoyed that detail!
Man, wizards be casting! And how I love a cocky champion. Lots of fun rooms to delve into. Nice work!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
This is very good! Its the style Im looking for and running myself (you may've noticed the similarities with my own). I was laughing all the way from the stair men to the champion and the wall mimic, thats the good old school stuff.
Thank you glad you enjoyed it. I'm hoping to polish it up now the jam is over so hopefully you might have a chance to try running it! <3
Nice adventure. I liked the open nature of encounters like the Champion, who wants to duel but not necessarily kill anyone.
I'm not sure if it is the font you used or everything being in bold. But I would reserve bolded text for specific things that I want to draw attention to.
One cool trick I found with drawing maps. If you put it in Paint.net or a similar program and crank up the contrast, it can create a cleaner picture. Might not work with graph paper though.
Good job though, looks fun to run!
Appreciate your feedback and I think your criticism is spot on. Some choices were made given time constraints to simply get something entered. The font I chose wasn't as robust as I thought and layout could use a lot of polish. Will likely revise now the jam is over. Thanks for checking the adventure out!
I like that it's designed to be dropped into any existing campaign.
It might increase legibility to add a bit more spacing between the text columns, as well as making the headings bold or in a different font.
I liked the map illustration, it was very usable. The stair man drawing was great too, the Incandescents and the Crystalline Vulture are begging for a similar treatment.
The Assumptions section up front is useful, so readers can get a grip of the most important ideas right away. The Hooks section was also great.
Thank you very much for your praise! This is my first game jam ever and time management is a huge takeaway. Following it everyone's kind words has inspired me to try my hand at another round of polishing with more time to deliver a final adventure and not ship something workable for the deadline. Appreciate your feedback and thanks for taking the time to read it.
Thank you for creating and sharing it!
This was also my first game jam and time management was probably my biggest takeaway too, the last 48 hours were an absolute mad dash.
First published adventure! Great job. The hand drawn map is and locations are easy to follow. The Stair Men are just crazy. Love it.
Thanks! really glad you found something to enjoy in there. thanks for taking the time to read it!
First thing that jumped out at me was your inclusion of a brief blurb about how the tower could be included in any setting. I liked that, it immediately got me as a DM thinking about how i could incorporate this into other settings.
Your writing has a very classic TTRPG vibe to it, comes across as intelligent and thoughtful. The setting itself is very interesting, and it feels wonderous and dangerous.
I am humbled and could genuinely not ask for better praise. This is my first time publishing and getting everything done was a challenge. If you do plan to run it, I'm planning to update and improve the layout after the Jam to make it easier to read, and Id love to hear how you get on. Thanks so much for checking it out.
Reminded me a lot of Karazhan, which is my absolute favorite dungeon from any medium. The threat of the vulture and how it warped the tower adds to the unique situations going on in each room, which I like a lot.
Thanks so much! I have never come across Karazhan but I will fix that ASAP! Appreciate you taking the time to check out my entry.
Nice OSR style classic adventure with an old tower for the PCs to navigate.
To improve readability my suggestion is to make a 2 column layout, hope that helps!
thank you for your kind words, I'm looking to make a revision after the game jam and I'll keep this in mind :)
Some solid stuff here, but the layout made it difficult to find important information. Layout choices like breaking up the text with colors, contrast, or borders might be helpful.
Thank you, I 100% agree with your criticism - Time management was a big challenge during this game jam, but everyone's wonderful comments have inspired me to revise and improve this afterward. I'm glad despite the challenges you managed to gleam something interesting, and thank you so much for checking my entry out!
Man, the stair men are brilliant!
haha thank you James, they were the product of some fever dream having discussed bitcoin with my cousin. hence the ledger, them being "blocks" and armed them with flails for "blockchain" I'm glad a bad pun landed as an interesting monster!
Very unique entry! It was a little hard to read with everything in italics, would love to see a version where italics were only used for important details. Good job!
thanks for the feedback knighthouse! I'm glad you managed to power through. I'm hoping to make a revision post gamejam as I have had some amazing encouragement and feedback, the font in hindsight does need to be revised to make bold and italics more of a selective choice which will pair nicely with my planned revisions to the text to make it easier to read and run.
Cool concept of a teleporting tower. Nice job on a first adventure!
Thank you!