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Shadows of Plato's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Cleverness | #423 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Theme | #426 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Playability | #487 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Artistic Style | #957 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Simple and barebones game but it works and it implements the theme which is what matters most. This game holds a lot of potential if you expand upon it so definitely do that!
Did you include your Game Design Document in your downloadable files?
Yes
Tell us about your game!
An alien AI is trying to hack the space station you are on, if he gets to the central computer you lose. Every claimed terminal turns into an enemy spawner but you can reclaim them.
Did you remember to include your Game Design Document?
Yes
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes
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Comments
The controls were solid. I noticed the sounds were likely made in house which is a plus. I struggled with finding a visual or UI cue indicating I was hacking or able to hack a terminal. It did keep me playing for nearly 20 minutes. Visual feed back on the weapon would be helpful as well. I couldn't tell if was firing anything until I hit an enemy.
Thanks for the feedback. yeah I needed to make it more clear the lights dimmed around hacked terminals. And I did use particles to show the weapon was firing but they probably are not distinct enough around the weapon. I ended up skipping sparks where it hit since I added the hits triggered on the enemy but clearly that was not enough feedback so I'll revisit that decision. Thank you again for playing.
I did not understand at all which terminals I should be looking for - when I finally found one, enemies were spawning on top of me which made it impossible to both hack and defend at the same time. The rooms and hallways were huge, so it was a LOT of running to get from one point to the next. Looks like all the functionality is there, I didn't have any bugs or anything, and genre was very clear, so well done on making a complete game.
Yup documentation failure on my part. The lights go out when Plato hacks a terminal and those are the ones you counter hack. And yeah when the game is editable again I plan on shrinking the space between zones as well. Because of the way I built the map resizing it will be slow and jam time is real :).
Thank you for taking the time to play my game and the feedback.
Ok so, positives first, the music and sound effects were really cool as were the models, enemies looked very cool.
There are a list of things I saw that were broken, I couldn't figure out how to counter-hack (even if I was right next to the terminal it wouldn't hack if I held E), I couldn't easily tell what terminals had been hacked I could only guess, and sometimes even if I was pointing at the enemies they wouldn't get shot, had to be pretty central to their body to do any damage. Also sensitivity felt really high.
However, all that being said, it was fun to go through the level and shooting things was fun, and good job on getting something in before the deadline!
Okay just double checked I think I had a documentation issue. The terminals start not hacked and only after the lights dim has one been hacked and need to be reclaimed, as when I just played it let me dehack a terminal. Were the lights out where you were trying to reclaim a terminal?
Also just pressing E is enough (again, doc issue on my part).
OK after knowing that I was able to actually beat the game (eventually god damn it's hard) I shall re-write my review:
Game is actually really fun, if frustrating to get through due to the difficulty of fighting the enemies, mostly caused by the guys spawning RIGHT BEHIND ME and immediately shooting, also the hitboxes still feel off but that's less of an issue now I know the objective. Super satisfying to beat and to start knocking out those terminals. If anything I'd recommend a mini-map showing the ship with hacked and un-hacked terminals as well as where you are to make it clearer where the player needs to go.
I realise why I thought I was de-hacking at one point earlier when I was not was because for some reason the "you got too far away" message sometimes just displays even when I'm not hacking. Weird and no clue what causes it.
Also adding on that the music change with the boss fight was a really cool touch, and the music overall is super good. So yeah really fun game, awesome submission.
Appreciate the feedback and thanks for retrying after I mentioned the documentation issue. I def want to go back and 1) make it so the spawners "wake up" before attacking and 2) make sounds when they are near so you get warning before getting shot in the back.
It is funny because before some very late tuning the game was too easy so now I need to re-tune it the other way.
Hi, nice chatting with you in the game jam discord and great job on your game and making the deadline.
FYI I fixed the lose screen problem you mentioned in chat, delaying the appearance of the UI (minus the gray-out effect to make it obvious game state changed) so players won't accidentally hit quit if they are shooting right as they die. Thank you for catching that issue. Edit: Obviously this can't be available during the judging period but I'm knocking out a few of the more annoying usability issues for post-jam updates.