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A jam submission

That Sinking FeelingView project page

Mothership Tri-Fold Adventure. Board the Manta-61 submarine and find the crew of a sunken freighter.
Submitted by Olen — 5 days, 9 hours before the deadline
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That Sinking Feeling's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Theme - How well does it match the Jam's Theme?#14.4714.471
Usability - How "pick up & play" is this for a Warden?#44.0004.000
Overall#63.9413.941
Favorability - how much do you personally like the submission?#123.6473.647
Polish - How is the overall look/vibes/writing & design?#193.6473.647

Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted
  • Cohesive graphic design and readable layout.
  • Solid module concept.
  • Feels like it explains everything needed to run it.
  • Theme is on point. 
Submitted(+1)

There are some rough edges here and the plot is fairly standard Mothership fare, but I really appreciate all the thought you put into making this module Warden-friendly. 

Things that you did well:

  • Breaking up the information into digestible blocks, detailing the planet, the crew, the ship, the monster, etc. separately instead of in one big wall of text.
  • Providing a clear three-act structure plus intro and suggestions for the aftermath, instead of focusing on just the action and leaving the rest for the Warden to figure out.
  • Providing a decent amount of peripheral detail through very short sentences, rather than spending a lot of words on just the most important things.
  • Highlighting the things you want the Warden to pay extra attention to.

The design and layout isn't too bad. It's not super slick, but for the most part it's functional. My main complaint about that is that there are too many transitions between light-on-dark and dark-on-light text, which is visually kind of overwhelming. It's okay to use reversed type for headers or maybe one box per page that you want to call attention to. But having a 50/50 mix scattered all over the page just makes it hard to know what to look at because you're eyes are being pulled all over the place.

When looking at the freighter map, I didn't immediately see where the location key was. If you're not going to put them on the same panel, try to do something to visually connect them, like make sure their tops are aligned, or have a box or line that stretches across the fold and connects them.

I don't know if I'll run this because there are so many other options within the niche of "respond to distress call, fight monsters, run away," but it's one that I might think of if I find myself in a situation where some people want to play Mothership right now and I have nothing prepared, because you've done all the things you need to do to make a module ready to go without any extra prep needed by the Warden.

Submitted

Hiya! Here are some stray thoughts I wrote down while reading this one.

immediately love the aesthetic. one of the few video games in my house as a kid was harpoon for the atari, which was too complicated for my little kid brain, but i loved the whole submarine vibe and for some reason this unlocked that memory for me, haha.

great flow to this pamphlet. my eye is immediately drawn on the course it needs to go, easy to follow.*

"look[s] like the ribs of a dead metal beast" -- liked this. nice flairs of flavour in here. listening to godspeed you black emperor as i write this, feels like it'd be a song title of theirs. 

extremely minor, but, something about the morse on RIG-558 panel makes it look like SMS (two dashes vs three on the O's) -- could be a font problem? or could just be the reader i am using tbh

speaking of morse, love the bonus message :D

good lord the snitchdroid is walking the plank the first chance i get if i am playing this scenario

i LOVE how you've prepared the pre-freighter tasks to familiarize the players with the vessel and its inhabitants in section 1. feel like i have to improv this kind of stuff often, great to see it there on the page. doubles to mount dread and make the players "part" of the ship. great stuff

ugh the drowned are nasty business. love it

great stuff, loved reading this through. reminds me how much i never want to go on a submarine. at least not in real life. in mothership, i'm into it. great work!

*checking my notes for errors and realized i rote "flow" and "on course" here. i assure you zero seafaring-vessel puns were intended

Jam Judge

You've got an intelligent, scary monster, zombie crewmates, an SOS signal, close quarters... feels like “Mothership comfort food,” by no means a bad thing! I fucking LOVE comfort food.

While its a bit visually jarring with the off-white/pink and teal, it does create good contrast. I think it’s organized really intelligently with some excellent hierarchy of information. In print, this kind of thing is super important and a print copy of this would be welcome on my shelf. This could be a really easy, fun night of gaming where some other “more stylish” modules would require more input and filling in gaps from the Warden. Highly successful work!

Submitted

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

---Very useful Warden Notes with adventure key that explains how to read and use the module

---Good simple adventure frame, easy to hook the players into the action

---Strong visual design and colour choices make this easy to read and find information

---I like the slow escape mechanics that keeps them in the action longer. The 10m per minute to ascent seems short.

---Why wouldn't the PCs be in full pressure suits and have no bends? Cool in the fiction but unclear on the science

Submitted

A very solid adventure with good direction and Warden notes to work with. Can see this being very easy for a first time Warden to run. 

+ Great idea with dividing the adventure up into pacing stages than just locations and stat blocks

+ NPCs have a nice bit of quirkiness to give them some identity 

+ Fun take on the undead horror, giving them more intelligent capabilities 

If you're looking for feedback, let me know and I can expand further.