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Fearsome Five - A Staff Only Adventure's itch.io pageJudge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- The animation in your game is absolutely gorgeous, and the story is both hilarious and wonderfully imaginative. The gameplay feels smooth and responsive, and the attention to detail in the animations, card artwork, text, and UI is truly on another level. The story continuation of a previous jam entry adds a delightful layer for returning players. As someone who really enjoyed the first game, it was great to see familiar characters return. That said, this narrative connection might feel a bit niche for first-time players. If you plan to develop the game further, a short recap or introduction to the story could help make it more accessible to new audiences. I particularly enjoyed the small hidden details, like the mice in the fallen log or the pixie hiding in the bushes. The music also has a whimsical quality that matches the tone of the game beautifully, and even the death screams managed to feel amusing rather than jarring. One area that felt slightly out of place was the movement indicator. The broad orange line stood out stylistically and didn’t quite blend with the rest of the visual design. Your GDD is excellent. It provides all the key information and goes above and beyond by giving insight into the development process. I appreciated how detailed it was, though I could have done without being reminded of Creambeard the Goon Wizard! Overall, this is a vibrant, polished, and entertaining experience. Wonderful work.
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pSwH1XJmpV0fRrvO_JToKdgjNw8-uHDuLWPF55AE6Ng
Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
Yes
Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
Yes
Summarize your game!
Play as a happy little staff in our deck-building turn based tactics game, as a team of only one!
The story and world are a continuation from our entry for the previous game jam, "Staff Only" (https://moonkey1.itch.io/staff-only)
When building your deck, cards are laid out as available loot (5 cards along the top), and your current deck (15 cards along the bottom). You can select a card from the top and a card from the bottom to trade so you always have 15 in your deck, but you can make as many trades as you like.
In combat, click to move your staff, or click a card to begin targeting it. Some cards (eg. potions) can be used on enemies if you feel like it, but click your character in the game world to drink it yourself. You can move up to 3 spaces, and use as many cards as mana allows, in any order. Your hand size of 5 and full mana will be restored at the start of each turn.
Please explain how your game fits the theme.
‘Only One’ interpretation - You are one Staff- Doing the job of many.
Our early discussions kept boiling down to a singular idea or concept across multiple genres. You are one character, attempting to do the job of multiple people.
This led to the idea of a “One Many Army”, a cliche idea that we thought would probably see a lot of entries during the jam, and we almost discarded early on for another idea. But further discussions within the team lead us to the spiritual successor of our last game “Staff Only”. We loved the lore and art of the game that we wanted to continue with the adventure.
We liked the idea of a tactics game, like Pit People, but instead of people it’s just one outnumbered character. That makes the movement choices feel more significant and you can’t just go in guns blazing.
Is there anything you'd like the judges to pay particular attention to?
We'd love for you to enjoy our game and have fun.
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Comments
Congrats! I'm so happy this made the top 10 and I got to learn more about the lore, I LOVE IIIIT! I made a small post about my favourite games from the jam and I included yours too, let me know if you'd like me to remove it or change the image :D
https://yukisia.substack.com/p/8-tiny-free-games-i-need-more-of
Fun idea! Looks nice and sounds crunchy. I'm not the card type of gamer, but it seems like a neat deck builder
Well, this is definitely a candidate for jam winner - which is scary for me aha, i was starting to feel kinda confident until i saw this game.
These critiques are very unfair for a jam game, and mostly consist of me saying "more systems pls", but they might help you if you're aiming for a full release
I think you've got something really good here, but to reiterate: i do not think the design space of "fire emblem but you only have one guy" is viable for a full game. Your game plays like a mix of DND combat and slay the spire, a small party that provide support to the staff would significantly increase the amount of gameplay you're able to offer players at a relatively small cost to dev time.
Streamed my review live on twitch
Amazing intro cinema, extremely well polished result.
Amazing entry, music, art, everything. Honestly gross you can even submit this for a jam. Seriously amazing! Not much feedback at all. Id suggest aiming to polish/extend and publish this somewhere and become mildly rich niche indie developers ASAP.
Review starts around 2:44:30
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2529218932
You're too kind! The game wouldn't be half as good without Moonkey leading the charge as lead developer.
Your realisation for the knock backs from the bombs was great to watch, but I'm absolutely amazed you didn't get killed by the 4 previous bombs thrown at you while standing on a cliff, near water or near a fire.
Never realized how often it could have happened until thinking back either, truly a miracle! Great stuff
I can gush for ages about the visuals and the intro cinematic, for real!! Loved the mechanics, loved the humour! The tall elf... oh my god, literally me. Great job everyone!
Really impressive work. The art, UI, and overall polish are top-notch, especially for a jam entry. The idea of being the one overworked magical staff for five different heroes is such a fun twist, and it made the combat feel chaotic in the best way. The humor and personality in the cutscene and character designs really helped sell the vibe too.
I did run into a couple of minor issues, the camera moving when trying to hover over the cards near the screen edge was a bit distracting, and I can see how the enemy range matching the player’s can make strategic positioning tough. That said, these are small things compared to how clever and fun the core idea is. Also when trying to swap from one card to move felt un intuitive.
Excited to see the continuation from Staff Only, and I’d absolutely play more if this turns into a bigger project. Great job to the whole team!
ooh a sequel 👀
Cool game! Nice graphic design and music score, and I liked the overall gameplay with the levels and new enemies. I especially liked the opening cutscene that was quite humorous. It would be cool if there were unlockable cards to put in the sack as you went on, the overall customizability is a bit low.