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Very fun entry! and bonus points (not actual points haha) for the artbook! love that you did that again for this one!
I don’t think i have much to add as my points were already made on some of the ticket balancing etc, but I liked this one and was very happy to get to read it!
Never enough scenarios tricking players into thinking they are getting downtime instead of more punishment!
Strong stuff overall! The aesthetic is certainly "bubbly themepark brochure" to the extreme but it works for me! Tons of creepy moments throughout and an effective "corporate myth" to tie into the theme. My main quibble has been echoed already, which is just the low payout/variety of Merit earning chances - especially for repeat visits, it could begin to veer into "okay we'll just steal the pass" which definitely becomes a full adventure. Highly fixable, just a playtesting/numbers game imo! Well done, great work!
Art: Boy, I really enjoy the art of this one. Maybe a personal preference, but I love a good bit of texture, drop shadow, outer glow ect. Its fun and zany without falling into the realm of "overly busy". The illustrations look very professional and set the tone wonderfully.
Writing: A classic Mothership set up. The theme park gone wrong. An idea I've seen done (and personally done it) plenty, but this still stands as a fresh take that absolutely inspires.
Game Design: I think it provides enough tools for Wardens to work with. One could grind out the leisure activities and ticket gathering into a longer session, or go off the rails and have a much quicker, more tense session, thinking outside of the box to escape.
Theme: definitely checks the ancient myth box plenty well enough. I do enjoy the looser interpretations of the theme.
Layout: Not much to say. Looks great, easy to read, everything is where it makes sense to be.
Utility: Very pick-up-n-play. Could also be shimmy'd into a campaign with ease.
Favorability: I like the visuals and vibe of this submission a lot. I love the heavy satire, would be a great fit at my table. The only thing fighting against it is that there are a handful of other great "theme park gone wrong" mods out there. Honestly not the worst problem to have though.
This is one of my favorites so far. Seems like a really fun downtime setting. I am probably in the minority on this issue, but I'm not a fan of drawn maps in trifolds unless they are specifically adding something. I would rather have that space used to flesh out the locations a bit with more gameplay and have the connections be shown with lines between the textboxes, Ypsilon 14 style.
Art: I like the trifold tenets Venn diagram and the map. I don't think everything needs to have textures applied though, it gives a messy overall impression, compounded by having too many different accent colors. If you're going to use the jam palette, I might try to limit yourself to those colors as they go well together, but the harmony gets disrupted when you're adding pink and red as well. (This is coming from personal experience with the last jam, where my main takeaway from feedback I got was that it's easy to go overboard trying to add visual interest. Most of my post-jam work was on reducing my palette and dialing back decoration in service of a clean, readable look.)
Writing: A clever idea, well-executed. A capitalist work cult never goes amiss in Mothership.
Game Design: I like the idea of making downtime more interesting. I worry that, as written, this would quickly become boring and frustrating for the players and Warden. They could successfully do all the things on the map that earn tickets and still only be 1/3 of the way to being allowed to leave. Of course, they could raid the ticket-printing setup or something, but that runs contrary to the idea of this not being an adventure. Maybe have a setpiece like an "Inspiring Oratory Competition" that occurs once they realize their predicament, which would allow them to quickly earn their freedom through some awkward roleplaying.
Theme: Full marks. Obviously mythology-themed and would fit in with more overtly satirical interpretations of the Mothership universe.
Layout: Full marks. Nothing wrong with the tried-and-tested map-inside-story-outside format.
Utility: Seems very pick-up-and-play except for the issue mentioned in Game Design above, that it would drag on after it stopped being fun if run exactly as designed.
Favorability: I like it. It wouldn't fit into one of my campaigns because I'm a bit lower-key with my satirical elements, but as a player I would enjoy it if inserted into an appropriately over-the-top campaign.
Thanks for taking the time to leave some thoughtful feedback!
Fair points on the colors/textures and game design. I was thinking a bit too mechanical; "do thing" -> gain/lose stress/merit and hadn't considered more engaging mechanics.
Regarding the tickets, that highlights a communication issue on my part. The intention is that the 125m fare is a single fee that covers the whole party, and most of the activities reward per-player, so for 1-2 players they would be short, but 3-4 players should be able to afford to leave.
No, that's just me not thinking carefully. Of course the players can pool tickets. Although with the arcade games, one of them setting a high score makes it harder for the others to beat it. It does create a separate issue for small groups as you say.
There is also the trap of buying a souvenir and only being told afterwards that you needed those tickets to leave, which could set even a larger group short. Overall, the idea of being trapped in a supposedly relaxing location until you have exhaustively done all the things and pretended to have a good time is thematically strong but maybe a bad gameplay experience, so I'd build in more shortcuts for a bored party (unless the desired outcome is that they murder the mascot or raid the ticket-printing facilities).