Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

• The interactive gameplay in the beginning, going through the phone and being active in the unfolding of the characters' connection was really creative and fun! It would help if the cursor changed when hovering over the right part of the screen, especially in the menu. In general, try to keep all buttons clear for the player in multiple states (idle, hovered over, and clicked) so there is no confusion about whether or not it's a clickable asset. Overall, it was a very sweet story that explored the theme in a more personal way. I could relate easily to the story, and it was a nice touch to have it happen through being the one clicking through and "causing" things to move forward. I will say, I know this was a short jam that gave very little time to polish things, but the story could have benefited from a slower pacing. Taking at least a little more time between their first conversation and their first call that isn't only about working together in order to build some sense of closeness creeping in. The narrative text happening between events kind of took me out of the game at times as well, I would have integrated it within the gameplay rather than have it appear in transitions. If it's an inner monologue, you could place it on top of the screen, or at the bottom like subtitles rather than take us to a gray screen — it was a bit hard to read the red text over the background as well. Red made sense with the title, but be careful not to hinder legibility by trying to use a single color. Adding a border, or making the background a more contrasting shade can help a lot with that without removing the red that is so important to the narrative. The art helped keep things clear, and was really nice to look at! I would try to avoid using handwriting, especially at this scale, for text assets that are meant to be read by the player. It can make it harder to understand. Finding a font that looks like handwriting can help in some cases, but I'm a strong advocate for digital fonts that were created specifically to be read on a digital display. Push your gameplay! Don't be afraid to use it to enhance your story throughout. Rather than switch to real life, keep it on a phone but put your characters in photos together. Show their goodbye conversations after the airport while sharing the last selfie they took together. The concept was interesting and innovative, don't be afraid to lean fully into it in order to make a more thematically cohesive game through its gameplay as well!