Almost everything in this game is randomized: the battle grids, item locations, random encounters etc.
Ah, so the random generation extends to items too. Alright. I can understand wanting to have some things randomized so that the game can surprise even you as the dev. Though I think that the extent you went with it resulted in a worse experience for everyone else, which is part of the reason I couldn't rate the gameplay higher. But that was your choice to make and it's not that much of a big deal.
I actually do have a decent answer to it but for some reason, I lost track of it while writing the story.
I'll take your word for it. I guess we'll see that answer if you decide to make a third game.
It does more than insinuate. There's a reason why I made the Harold Jam hosts, and by proxy most other jam organizers, pressured and / or influenced by "The Organizers" and not the true villains in the game.
I suspected as much, but didn't want to come off as accusing you of anything in case I was wrong. I do think there's a time and place to just say what you really feel through an artistic medium, but I think this was handled poorly. And in the process, you've alienated a lot of those who were willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and saw your original game for what it was. But perhaps you don't care about that.
Keep in mind that I wasn't privy to this knowledge until after the jam concluded.
I remember reading the chats on the RPG Beta Testers discord back then and Sawyer repeatedly made it clear to everyone there that he meant to put the 'No AI generated assets' rule there, but simply forgot. So it was clear to me from the start. But yeah, you wouldn't know of that unless you read them too. Harold Jam has something of a small community of repeat contributors, so I think he simply assumed that everyone who participates will be part of the discord server.
If you didn't submit that game last year, eventually Sawyer would either remember to put in that rule for the next jam or someone else would try to submit a game with some AI generated assets and I doubt it would be treated any differently. Your first game at least used AI generated assets in a clever way.
I also remember some people being seriously alarmed Harold Jam will be 'flooded with AI slop', which I thought was something of an overreaction to what was ultimately supposed to be a memeish joke of a game submitted to a very niche game jam. And ultimately, I can't fault them too much, given the situation around generative AI at the time that has seemingly only gotten worse since. Still, I certainly get how it could put you off and why you'd want to poke some fun at that. I just think you didn't go about it the right way. In any case, I think enough was said about this already.