Post GMTK 2020 Jam "Jam"

CUT N SMASH jam comments

2020-07-26T22:31:45Z

Heya, I was assigned to your game for some feedback. I'll start off with the good things about the game. The idea behind the game is really interesting, taking rock paper scissors and combining it with an infinite runner is really original. Once I got used to the game it was overall fun, so player engagement isn't bad by any means. I'll list off quickly my smaller criticisms before moving onto the bigger ones: The music is too loud (if you're not going to provide a mute button, could you maybe provide a volume slider?) The difficulty of the game is a little bit of a high hurdle. The player moves a little too fast for players that are just starting out. I'd suggest tying a capped speed to the score of the player. The main menu doesn't pop. It's fine but it doesn't feel right. I suggest taking a look at this to snaz it up. Up arrow jump, but W doesn't. A&D and Left and Right keys change appearance. Main criticism about the game: 1. The tutorial about how you play in the first place was very unclear. When you write - "Left and Right Arrow Keys to switch between Rock Paper and Scissors" Players playing for the fist time have no context to what switching means. The text also needs a slightly darker background. It has a little box around it but increasing the opacity of it would help as I struggled to read it with the rocky background. How I'd fix the tutorial: 1. Change the main menu animation, so that the player runs through paper as scissors, switches to paper to destroy rock, but then is chased off by scissors. This foreshadows the game mechanics better than what I originally thought was a box headed uwu man being chased by scissors. 2. The game kind of starts off on the wrong foot. The first enemies you encounter are Paper, Scissor, Rock, while the player always starts on Rock. Meaning if you panic and don't know what you're doing in your first run, if you don't change you get hit. Which leads to you panicking and switching. Which leads to a 50% of choosing the wrong button and getting hit again, which leads to you trying to switch one last time and 50% of getting hit. A new player has a 25% chance to lose 3 hearts over panicking within the first couple of seconds of play. The easy fix for this would be to change the starting enemy order to Scissors, and then 2 of the same type. This would allow new players to see "Ok, so I ran into the first one and I passed" then "Oh no, I got hit. I think I've got to switch", and then 50% chance of them getting hit a second time, however this would likely get the point across that you're able to go through some enemies but not others while in different forms. Overall however you made this game within 48 hours, and that's an accomplishment in it self. I loved the idea and would like to see this grow. Congrats on making a game! :)