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A jam submission

Welcome Aboard Pontus StationView project page

This aquatic theme park has been terrorized by a highly dangerous alien lifeform. Designed for Mothership RPG
Submitted by Ogre College — 8 hours, 49 minutes before the deadline
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Welcome Aboard Pontus Station's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Polish - How is the overall look/vibes/writing & design?#24.6094.609
Favorability - how much do you personally like the submission?#24.2174.217
Overall#24.0544.054
Usability - How "pick up & play" is this for a Warden?#63.7833.783
Theme - How well does it match the Jam's Theme?#253.6093.609

Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

This is one of the funniest ones to read, and also looks really great. Full marks and then some for polish. The only critical thing I can say there is that it needs some proofreading. (E.g. It's hunger -> Its hunger,  dopemine -> dopamine, targetting -> targeting). But the fact that I'm pointing out typos and spelling mistakes for this one and none of the others just says there's nothing else to pick at.

Weirdly, this is the second one back-to-back that got an actual laugh-out-loud from me on the cover. The chipper blurb followed by "WE'RE ALL LIKELY FUCKED" as a customer review is perfect tone-setting and genuinely caught me off guard in its delivery, which of course is the key to most successful humour.

The illustrations are super charming and the layout work is up there among the better entries.

I really like the approach of putting super-brief descriptors for each location on the first line followed by the more detailed description of the contents. It's both helpful for the Warden's own visualization and should keep the flow going at the table as it allows you to instantly give the players their first impression of the location while you read and refresh your memory of the details. I will probably steal that idea for a module at some point.

Weakest point is probably theme. Not that it's a bad theme, it's just that the connection to the jam is both obvious and shallowly implemented. "Something aquatic" is probably the first thing that sprang to many people's minds, and you're not playing with the actual water surface much (transitions from above/below water, things emerging out of the water, plunging into the deep, etc.) like some of the other aquatic ones. Outside of the context of the jam it's not an issue at all, but there are some other entries that really embraced the theme and wove it into the whole story. 

Usability is almost perfect... it'd certainly be easy to run the adventure once it's going, and everything's super easy to follow and set up for Warden convenience. What's a bit weak is maybe setup, denouement, and secondary plot arcs. Just respond to a distress call, show up and.... I guess kill the horror and steal the treasure chest? I think the biggest omission is NPC motivations and how much they know/care about what's going on . It seems like they're all just hanging out acting like everything's normal in a kinda surreal way. I notice the horror also ignores the scouts... does that mean it's the players' imagination? Who sent the distress call? I guess this is another one of those "we want the Warden and players to come up with those answers" things, but it does make it harder to run and prevents me from giving full marks for Usability.

Submitted

This is really fun and madcap. It made me think a bit of the muppet show in a way (except quite a lot darker)! Enjoyed the descriptions of the locations and the variations in the random elements, which are well balanced. I did spot two typos - dopemine -> dopamine and it’s -> its (in front sheet text, is possessive form). The colour scheme, the layout and design is great. Particularly liked the way you handled the map. Great stuff!

Jam Judge

Pinnacle absurdist dark comedy here with a distinctive and extremely sleek style! Very, very polished, excellent ordering of information. Tons of little details and subtle, handcrafted touches that highlight and compliment the writing. The custom horror element is really novel and each NPC is fleshed out just right for my tastes!

I'm concerned that some margins or bleed might be needed for a print version with how closely some info hews to the edges/fold lines, but that's about all I have critically! You've put together a really hilarious romp and I am very compelled to drop this on my table soon. Someone save that poor delicious blobfish...

Submitted

Hello! First off I love the vibes of the pamphlet, it looks fantastic, it has a great sense of humor and it seems like it would be pretty easy to sit down and play. Great job! 

The only real critiques I have are;

1. I think while the statblocks have great info on the characters I think a little more could have been added mechanically, especially a combat score and damage they deal. 

2. The theme of "under the surface" was a little lacking, other than the adventure taking place at a sea-world equivalent. 

3. While I love the flavor of the introduction being in universe I think the adventure could have used a little more setup information. How long has it been since the creature got loose, what exactly the PCs are doing here, maybe a little more background on the station itself.

Other than those small critiques I think this is a great adventure and one I'm definitely interested in running. Great job!
 

Submitted

Praise: I love it. You left some work for the warden to do to get this to the table, and I applaud it. An adventure in this format can't explain everything. 

Criticism: I had some minor quibbles with the use of justified text, and noticed a typo. Otherwise flawless.

I think you deserve to win

Developer

Thanks so much for the kind words!

I normally don't like justified text - but gave it a go trying to make it work.

Submitted

WAIT A SECOND
You did questionable Morels? 
WHO ARE YOU??

You just show up to win jams?? 3/3 of your adventures won jams

Developer

I'm a professional jammer apparently!

Lol in all seriousness, just a dude with a bit of background in graphic design, an obsession with game design and a strong case of imposter syndrome. Would love to publish more stuff, but find it difficult to get the motivated outside the constraints of a jam (otherwise i would just be obsessively moving pixels back and forth and never release anything).

Submitted

I heard that, I think everything on my itch page was submitted to a jam. Finishing up the illustrations for a non-jam thing, but it's taken me probably 6 months to get this thing done

Submitted

This is a personal favorite of mine. Great in world content and flavour, the custom horror makes for a very replayable module, and the overall graphic design is super easy on the eyes and easy to follow. Only real point I have against this is the tangential relation to the Jams theme. Its in space, its vaguely water but not under the surface of anything. Consider placing this actually underwater, which would enhance the aquatic theming and horror. Otherwise amazing work!

Submitted

This is a personal favorite of mine. Great in world content and flavour, the custom horror makes for a very replayable module, and the overall graphic design is super easy on the eyes and easy to follow. Only real point I have against this is the tangential relation to the Jams theme. Its in space, its vaguely water but not under the surface of anything. Consider placing this actually underwater, which would enhance the aquatic theming and horror. Otherwise amazing work!

Submitted

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

---Cool map, easy to read and locate key NPCs

---Solid layout, easy to read and locate key information through the playthrough

---Cool horror generator, very monster of the week driven

---Something interesting happening in every room, and easy to improvise against

---Simple and effective rules for when Something Sinister Happens (2 rooms is a good measure)

Submitted(+1)

Ahoy! Here are some notes I took while reading - 

Loving the flavour of these "handwritten" chunks all over. Really the tone of the entire piece. Funny without getting too silly, if that makes sense. Still treats the threats and setting with care while being an enjoyable read.

Art and layout and colours all look great. I chuckled at the faceless star scout heads, and the stamp coupon in particular.

Horror table is on point. Dangerous and funny!

Took me a second to put together that "employees have keycards" bit. That's mostly a me problem, not a you problem.

My only worry with my table is giving them the opportunity to "nope out" -- not much stopping them from turning around and leaving. Probably not an issue for most tables tho.

This is a fun take on the theme, and from the few I've read so far, a unique one! Really struggling to come up w/ any "constructive criticism," i think you've really built something complete and coherent and fun and special here :)

Developer

Thanks so much for the kind words, and taking the time to provide feedback as it's super useful.

I don't think the key card thing is a you problem. It was honestly a last minute addition. There are some other places where I've implied some stuff without being super direct about it. For example Soggy Jack has a treasure map, that could lead the players to the treasure in the ocean simulator. I think maybe a little bit of this might be ok in a trifold format as your word count is limited - but too much of it might confuse the warden, and make it more difficult to run.

I think the hook / the ability to nope out is an issue with this adventure. I do think I need to flesh out the hook to better motivate the players. It's definitely something I plan on looking at.

Thanks again for the feedback, I really appreciate it :)

Submitted(+1)

Fintastic job, love it!

Submitted(+1)

Always cool to see more of your work, this looks awesome!  Here is my feedback:

+ Really fun vibe across this whole trifold, NPCs are really fun and Gilroy must be protected.
+concise and evocative room descriptions.
- A bit unclear as to why the players would come here and what the aim is, I assume it is simply, 'survive' but it is a bit unclear.
-the contrast of colours inside the trifold is much harsher than those used on the exterior (which I prefer) I think using the exterior colour choices for the internal boxes would make it look more consistent and less hard on the eyes.
- I feel like the map should be a bit more central, the current layout feels a bit wall of text-y

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much for taking the time to provide some feedback, I truly appreciate it!

You totally pointed out some of the things I struggled with. When I submitted for approval one of the notes I got back was regarding the quest hook / and how to start the adventure. Initially I made it too vague and open - Initially I included some inspiration on how the Warden could start the adventure (That was the idea behind the Now Hiring and Octocon Ads, alongside a handwritten message of warning). It was extremely unclear.  I reworded the handwritten portion on the cover to allude that a distress signal was sent out, people need saving, and there is valuable treasure on board. I get that Mothership isn't really about heroes seeking treasure so it is a pretty weak hook. Perhaps the investors of the station needs the PC's to recover some classified research in the labs? 

I did start by trying a central map - but I was having a difficult time with the layout and scrapped it as I was running out of time.  When I was envisioning the product, I had the idea of a theme park brochure, where there is sort of an abstracted, illustrated map - but I realized how hard it would be to squeeze all that detail combined with room descriptions. And you're totally right about the colors. Not really sure why I chose to make them slightly different - When I make some changes, that will likely be one of them.

Thanks again, your feedback has got already got me thinking how to improve it :)