Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Easy to grasp the goal, even if the gameplay itself was difficult. The power up variety was nice, but not sure how well some of them worked. I struggled to find the right situation to use the reinforce power up, and I thought the extra platform was just spawning randomly for the first few games I played. Some of the puns were good, but a lot of them did feel like they crossed into a little too much snark for someone who had lost. The fuse power felt a bit inconsistent - having a bar or something to help determine the power level could help with that. The mouse angles also felt limited - multiple times when I wished for just a bit more left or right direction. At first, the music struck me as a little too incongruous to the game, but after a couple of rounds I appreciated it. The pleasant, calming music definitely helped counter some of the rage. The textures for the different platforms were nice and definitely helped convey what to expect from a tactile perspective. There was almost a dream-like quality to the visuals that, like the music, felt out of place at first but then seemed like a good way to balance the other rage elements. I thought the icons and and layout were well done, but increasing the size or adding more contrast would probably be appreciated for visual accessibility.
• Explosions literally make it go. An excellent use of the theme. The game induces rage, but is satisfying to see yourself climb the leaderboard. Planning your next jump and trying to get certain powerups adds to the strategy and fun of the game. There is a lack of accessibility. Key binding and other control options would have gone far here. This is a unique way to do an infinite climber. I don't believe I have seen anything quite like this. The mechanics set it apart from other infinite climbers in a fun way. The music coupled with the explosions works really well. A larger variety of explosive sounds would have been great. Visually the game is appealing, but the UI doesn't seem to fit well.
• For a self-described "Rage Game", I didn't find it that rage-inducing (not that I'm complaining!) - the frustration of losing the run was quickly overridden by my competitiveness to beat my previous scores (and my friends' scores). I liked the Test Chamber / Training Mode aesthetics and the use of the fuse as the power meter, though the in-game UI was a little small, and other accessibility features like controller support and resizable window would've been appreciated. The textures of the platforms could've been less similar to better differentiate the different types.
• Theme: The explosions literally make it go! Using explosions to mimic the mechanics of games like Jump King is pretty cool Fun to Play: Using the powerups while moving was pretty difficult and the default keybinds didn't help. Being able to rebind keys could have made that process smoother. I couldn't actually tell if the length of the fuse told me anything about how much force I was putting into the jump because each item (rocket, grenade, etc) seemed to have a different length fuse, and each time you lost you were given a random new jump item so it was impossible to get a feel for consistency and planning on how long to press for any jump. Everything felt like a red herring. Accessibility: Having sliders for audio, screen shake, and screen distortion were great and the music before being able to get to that setting was calm and not loud. The red/green contrast for the health of the platforms is distinguishable through most forms of color blindness but the platforms themselves would be incredibly difficult to differentiate for anyone with a variant of that disability. The colors of the text border and the background in the Instructions menu under the Upgrades section is incredibly hard to read for various kinds of color blindness. Originality: While the jump-style games aren't exactly original anymore, the idea of the platforms breaking as you "jump" off of them is a really new take and teaches you to learn quickly or get punished. I was amazed at how high up people were on the leaderboards based on how hard the game was. It was a great addition! Audio and Visual: Having a button that I can press anytime to mute the game was *chef's kiss*, loved it. However, every UI element had different margins from the text and background it was on. Some had padding on the top/bottom and sides, some only had padding on the sides, and some only had padding on the top/bottom. That inconsistency is easily noticeable and detracts from the polish in the UI. The text for Screen Distortion in the settings menu is a smaller font than all of the other settings in that menu. The color palatte for the UI really starts to hurt in the Instructions menu where you start getting really clashing colors and different font sizes for the same information being presented. The text for the Upgrades Info in that menu is a smaller size than the other headers that say Input and Upgrades.