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Untitled Bowerbird Game's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Response Completeness | #2 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Fairness | #2 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Humour | #2 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Overall Enjoyment (Used to determine winner) | #2 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Puzzles | #2 | 4.400 | 4.400 |
| Story | #4 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Innovation | #5 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Minimalism | #5 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Atmosphere | #5 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Quality of Inbuilt Tutorial | #8 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Scope | #10 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- Fun little game, it becomes easier after a while, when you begin to "think as a bird." I really enjoyed it!
- So much innovation just for the purpose of getting laid ;D
- Short, but very sweet - I enjoyed my time with this a lot! The concept is both amusing and original, and the puzzles are just the right side of tricky without becoming frustrating. A great game, and I'm glad my Bowerbird got his girl! :-)
- I did enjoy this being the first of the ones where I could fly... and liked not having to make two maps. The minimal feeling of the map is really aligned with the minimal word use as well. It had an eerie similarity with The Ticket the game in the PAW tutorial which is why it felt familiar to me I think!
- I had a lot of fun playing this from a bowerbird's perspective. The bird's way of looking at the world was humourous and refreshing, and was very appropriate for the rules of the game jam. I discovered fun responses that weren't essential to the game, which contributed to my enjoyment. There were a few smart design choices here, including the musical cues and change of colour of the screen to indicate flying and landing. Excellent entry!
Prior Coding Experience (Optional)
many years of programming experience, but relatively little making games
Game Solution (Optional)
When in doubt, remember that you're a bird. Tweet! Tweet!
Number of Locations (Approx) (Optional)
8 ground + 8 in the air above + a few spots you can land on
Number of Puzzles (Approx) (Optional)
5
Maximum Number of Words Used For Messages (Optional)
I OFTEN USED ALL SIX WORDS
Feedback on the Treasure Hunt Jam (Optional)
This is my first jam. I was surprised how easily it came together. It was especially helpful to have someone to work on the ideas with. The forum was useful, everyone was nice, and it never took very long to get an answer to a question.
Twitter Handle (Optional)
https://twitter.com/benzado
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Comments
Just wanted to check that the event where the man(??) throws the stick for the dog is repeatable. I witnessed the stick, but could not pick it up because I had something in my beak, then the dog came and collected it. Is the game unwinnable now? Just checking.
It should not be. If you don't get away with the stick, then the dog will take the stick back to the lady, and she'll throw it again if you look. It should repeat forever as long as there are no bugs.
A very similar concept the duck game. Reminds me of the summer of 1997 when both Dante's Peak and Volcano came out at the cinema. Spooky.
Some feedback prior to judges seeing this (I'm not a judge by the way).
Make sure that all objects have an examine command. At one time, attention is drawn to the underside of a table, but you can't examine it. Also, there is a trash can that cannot be examined until someone puts trash in it (no examine message "nothing special"). There should be a custom message before the item is placed in the trash, and after the item is removed from the trash.
Love the beeps so far. Just pointing out early issues I spotted. Place do a final check of all nouns in your game to make sure there are messages. That is going to be the primary source of drustration for players that expect responses to every printing noun.
As far as debugging goes, you can set a debug boolean in your code, and then conditionally print something if the debug flag is set to true. There is also already a chapter on debugging in the documentation. I'll look at improving this based on your feedback.
What? Doodley the Duck is a wholesome game is about a mother trying to reunite her family. Untitled Bowerbird Game is about trying to get laid. They couldn't be more different! :-)
Seriously, thank you for the notes. You're right, I should do a top-to-bottom review of objects and descriptions and make sure nothing is missing. I've updated the game once, before I submitted. Is there anything special I need to do now that it's submitted?
You can update it at any time prior to the judging deadline or after the judging deadline. When you update, you usually have to select the current version of the html file via a checkbox. Make sure you update the game version number in the game_information {} section too, that way you can check which version is on itch by tping the *CREDITS command (a special adventuron system command).