Skip to main content

On Sale: GamesAssetsToolsTabletopComics
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Adding a tutorial to a game during a three-day jam is unrealistic! I read the description before playing, but I didn't remember everything it said. Luckily, I remembered reading something about coal, reread it, and played a second time with shuffling. Only then did I write a review.

Why wasn't I impressed? - Perhaps because in the second session, I had little experience with shuffling and used it at a different time than a professional player would. So, yes, I had trouble removing the coal. And I don't know how much better an experienced player would have done.

Ah, that makes sense, and I think I have a direction to go from there. Sounds like I overcompensated for a problem I observed in playtesting, where first-time players were able to keep the game going forever. After that, I changed how the charcoal worked pretty dramatically to ratchet up the difficulty, but was only able to play that change by myself (which of course is not going to give me an accurate impression of how hard it is for others).

As you observed, if the charcoal is too hard to clear, it makes the other choices less meaningful, and becomes basically just a game of waiting for the inevitable. There are plenty of potential happy mediums I can explore between this and the older version, and the difficulty really shouldn't be staying at one level like it does here, anyway. Thanks for the response!