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A jam submission

DOWN THE HATCHView project page

A Mothership One-Shot
Submitted by Daily Ritual Press — 8 days, 12 hours before the deadline
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DOWN THE HATCH's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Usability - How "pick up & play" is this for a Warden?#34.1234.250
Overall#103.7903.906
Polish - How is the overall look/vibes/writing & design?#123.8814.000
Theme - How well does it match the Jam's Theme?#153.8814.000
Favorability - how much do you personally like the submission?#263.2743.375

Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

hiya, here are some stray notes i took while reading this one!

before i get into the doc itself, just mentioning that the product page is great -- my layout designer told me to make sure i pointed this out, as it was one of the ones she looked at when she was working on our product page. 

doc itself i have similar praise. laid out excellently, easy on the eyes, easy to find what i'm looking for at a quick glance.

i don't think the kronos tunneler has enough health/wounds. ;) no but for real, love the image of this thing. feels really novel.

the ai broadcast line written on bridge nexus location is fantastic. and in system deviations. i'd read an entire page of these things given the opportunity.

all in all a great interpretation of the theme of the jam. system deviations all feel appropriately different from each other, and still on theme -- really reinforcing the nature of the corrupted beast.

really enjoyed this one -- great work!

Developer

Thanks so much! I appreciate your feedback!

Submitted

Love the clean design and usability! It looks like lots of thought was put in to make the module extremely usable - And I think its pretty genius how you combined both the map and room descriptions.

Developer

Thank you!!

Submitted

The layout, design, and font-selection are all on point. This is one of the best I have seen in terms of Usability - mostly concrete details for the GM to run the scenario at a glance but with just enough flavor in things like the AI broadcasts to give it character. I agree with other comments that the machine itself doesn't really need it's own stats, just more environmental effects or ways for the players to speak to the AI or interact with it indirectly at first. High marks for Polish and Usability, plus I learned a lot and was inspired by your design. Great job!

Developer

Thanks so much! I appreciate the feedback!

Submitted

Very good entry. The strongest point here is usability. I just read it once and have no doubt in my mind that I could run it as a one shot this instant without a hitch.

This is also a great illustration of how to do a dungeon crawl in a game like Mothership, if that's what you want. It's a game that IMO lends itself more to sandbox style scenarios, but a dungeon crawl works well when escape is the goal, rather than the sort of "fetch quest" that's more typical of D&D type games.

I like that the environment is about as nonlinear as you could make it on such a small scale, while still having a clear start and end point.

The graphic design is decent and does a good job of making everything easy to read and follow, which is the most important thing. If you want to improve it, I'd suggest incorporating bits of the environment into the background and the shape of the text boxes, etc. So like, gears and drills and pistons and rust and slag, etc. rather than the generic "glitchy digital" treatment you've given it (which I would guess was largely for time reasons, as what I'm proposing would obviously take longer).

Along the same lines, the only thing I felt was missing from the content was more characterization of the machine. To get the horror vibes going in a man-vs.-environment story like this, the environment really needs to be a character. You did a little bit of that with the "AI Broadcast" random event, but I'd want to see more of that, with some stuff tied to locations. I would want to see more revealed about what exactly went wrong with the AI and what its motivations are... the setup sounds like a glitch in terms of just "caught in a loop, not knowing when to stop," but then the AI broadcast seems much more malevolent than that. If it's not just obsessively pursuing consumption for its own sake and is actually malevolent towards humans, why is that? It's something that should be explored.

Developer

All good points. Graphic design is arguably the thing I'm weakest at, so I appreciate that constructive critism. It's something I want to get better at. Just need more time and practice. The other criticisms are absolutely valid, as well. I'm keeping note of all of these for my updated release in the future. Thanks for the feedback! 

Submitted

Love the implacable consumption machine! This is a really easy-to-read one, I could definitely see myself running this! Here is my feedback:
+ Layout is really great overall, clear and distinct flow.
+ writing is concise, well-edited clear
- This might be a bit too linear, a lot of the branching paths feel a bit redundant/without purpose,
- Saves and damages could be bolded to provide more emphasis/ make them stand out.
- Kronos itself definitely doesn't need stats.
- The monster statblocks feel like they should be on the back side of the outer sheet, or the page with the locations.

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much for the feedback! 

Jam Judge

Down the Hatch is easy on the eyes, has a fun title treatment and great text boxe design. Information is well organized and follows the classic “Ypsilon-14” tradition of map layout (not a bad thing)! The writing for the KRONOS has great SHODAN vibes - the menace and seething human hatred is palpable.

A mining drill that takes an android logic core as a CPU is a horrifying thought and I love it. You've got a decently linear and very deadly dungeon crawl, but it’s got lots of character and some really clear room descriptions where I've seen other adventures turn industrial guts into vague purple prose that players can’t do anything with.

Recommendations: 

1) Kronos doesn't need stats if it's indestructible. Save that space!

2) Some headers (i.e. "Intake Shaft" and other room names) could be full white instead of the same off-pale-blue. Might create some better readability/visual hierarchy if/when you go to print!

Great work!!

Developer

I appreciate the feedback! I'll make some updates after the jam is over! 

Submitted

I read through you jam entry. Here's my written commentary on your adventure content and layout:

---Very straightforward adventure frame and hook, easy to run

---Good, simple visuals. Easy to read

---System Deviations - 10 minutes of real time is quite quick, and in an hours time you have a 50% chance of getting a double with only 10 entries.

---Kronos Tunneler could probably use stats from Shipbreakers Toolkit

---Great dungeon crawl, well laid out, something happening in each room

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! Shipbreakers Toolkit isn't a bad idea at all! 

Submitted

This one reads and flows magnificently. 

Developer

Thank you!