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Sherlock Jack's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #94 | 2.772 | 3.143 |
| Authenticity (Use of resolution restriction) | #107 | 3.654 | 4.143 |
| Overall | #136 | 2.362 | 2.679 |
| Audio | #151 | 1.134 | 1.286 |
| Graphics | #154 | 1.890 | 2.143 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Simple concept -- walk around a slightly confusing maze of paths, kill the monsters that get in your way, and find clues. The "tracker dots" around the edge of the screen are useful, since otherwise exploring the maze would be really frustrating. However, there are some usability issues; if you walk into a wall you tend to get "stuck" on it and have to back away. It would be much nicer if you were to slide along that wall rather than getting stuck on it; especially since you can only walk in 45-degree directions and the tunnels in the maze are at different angles, meaning that just walking is often joggling the keys to approximate that diagonal. This isn't the fun kind of challenge :) Also, walking down a tunnel only to find that it's a dead end is an amusing thing the first time but gets really tiring after that, because it's just annoying; all you can do is retrace your steps. I like the Sherlock framing, though, and the "cheat" button was very much appreciated!
The "sliding along walls" feature was one that I had planned to put into the game, but didn't do before the end of the jam. I had been testing using a gamepad, which I think makes the game much more enjoyable than playing on keyboard. However, I respect that the overwhelming majority of players will be using the keyboard as their controller.
I decided to upload version 1.1, which implemented the sliding as well as a bug fix; Sherlock Jack's sprite should blink when he's reeling from a hit, which had been working in an earlier version of the game, but as the rendering got improved, that feature got disconnected.
I encourage other people checking out the game to decide whether to play the 1.0 or the 1.1 version (I think that itch.io will make the 1.1 version easiest to play, but if you're a Game Jam Purist, 1.0 should be playable, just more work).
As far as dead ends go, that's just how the streets of London are laid out - if that makes this game too annoying, I'm sorry. I had been considering providing PDFs for something like 48 procedurally generated (and then fixed) neighborhood maps, so that players could print them out and use them for navigation to their next destination. I ended up going with doing the generation on the fly, which feels fine for an action game.
I could (well down the road) do a pass on the city map and prune out some of the dead ends. I'd probably have to generate a lot more street segments before pruning to get to approximately the current city size.
Agreed on London layout, but if I walk down a little side street in London it's so I can find the Neal's Yard cheese shop at the end of it :-) Dead ends are frustrating because all you can do is turn round and walk back the way you came, which feels like wasted time... but it may be that I'm just more impatient than most :-)
I call it "Theater of the Mind" - the player is invited to role play the Neal's Yard cheese shop gameplay on their own. I couldn't fit it into the 64 pixel constraint.
it's a nice simple game, a bit hard too ahah, well done! If you have the time play my entry, https://itch.io/jam/lowrezjam-2018/rate/293637
Cheers