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The Uninvited Guest's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Your overall opinion of the game | #3 | 4.143 | 4.143 |
| Innovation (how innovative/unique is this game?) | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Mood (how evocative of mood/emotion/vibes is this game?) | #3 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Fun (how fun is this game?) | #4 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
| Theme (how well does it fit the theme?) | #4 | 4.571 | 4.571 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Yes! I love roll&write games and this one sounds like a blast! This has so many fun layers of mechanics and strategy. I'm printing this out for Spring Break next week to use with my 9 year-old.
OMG that's so cool!!! Please let us know if kiddo likes it 🧡 And thank you for saying so!
We've wanted to make a roll-and-write for like the last 4 Ludum Dare jams but never got inspired... And this time we inadvertently made one 😅😅
- ✨Beth
The kiddo loved the game! We started it together, with me "GMing" until we got a hang of the rules, but after a few rounds they took over completely. Props to y'all for the rules being so intuitive and well organized! They eventually did build a raft and escape!
They didn't want to journal while playing but they would tell me little anecdotes of how each day went as it was going. Plus, adding in sound effects when spreading destruction! They had strong opinions that we weren't going to destroy any forests: "NO check marks allowed!!" The kiddo didn't get any of the achievements except for Hard Mode (sooo close to Conservationist!) so I'll get that printed soon.
They wanted to suggest a Legacy version of the game where you use your finished playsheet but create a new character that arrives at a random hex and has to start from there while the island is already upset. I'm not sure that version would have a high chance of success, but it is an intriguing idea!
Thanks so much for coming back and sharing your experience. We don't often get to hear about people's game play, and it just makes our day!
Tell your kiddo thanks for the idea. We will definitely keep that in mind if/when we make new achievements/rule supplements/play sheets for the game.
It's great to know what age group would easily pick this up and that your kiddo related to the game the same way as me. SAVE THE TREES! There were a couple playtest iterations where I'd been SO CAREFUL with the forests and conserving them, so I didn't get checkmarks. Then I hit an event and just get checkmarks galore rained down on me. Needless to say, I had some editing notes for that bit!.. Those poor forests.
Anyway!! Thanks again, it was just delightful to hear about your playthrough.
~Angel
A whole lot of game here for such a short jam. I'm a little in awe. Great use of theme - I can feel the land saying, "you're not supposed to be here" with every roll.
I frickin love that, that's EXACTLY what we were going for! And thank you so much!!! 🧡
- ✨Beth
Ah, there's so much here! The achievements are so fun and cleverly written but I especially love the art and layout. It feels like a old video game from when I was a kid that , like, you'd rediscover on social media at some point and be so nostalgic and happy :)
Aawwww, well thank you so much!!! Angel is 100% responsible for the layout and like 80% of the art lol, and I've always wanted to sneak achievements into our games, and her idea inspired that happening :D
YES!!! Honestly this is, subconsciously, super classic-video-game inspired (especially the achievements part lol). "Fog of war" in those old-school strategy games was honestly one of my favorite things, never knowing what you'd find.
Thanks for such lovely, kind words! 🧡
- ✨Beth
I only played one game, but my first impression was I am going to need to play this game more. I did so badly XP. In hind sight my bad choices were obvious. Mountains are way more useful than I first thought. The art is amazing and I love the theme. It is an all around impressive game, and exactly as awesome as I was expecting. I don't know how you made so many maps in so little time. I know they are not that different, but it is still impressive. This is the most innovative roll and write I have seen since Cartographers. My next journal entry will be about my escape.
Oh wow, thank you so, SO much for saying so!!! That absolutely made our weekend 🧡 Angel actually read this to me a day or two ago and it made us both so happy to hear. Being even spoken about in the same breath as a published game like Cartographers is a huge honor, let alone the way you did it.
I will say that I think Angel and I, working together on stuff like this, have an easier time than a lot of people when it comes to making something quickly simply due to having two people lol. Having another person to playtest with, bounce ideas off immediately, work on it together with, etc. helps sooooooooooo much!!!
Seriously, I can't emphasize this enough but THANK YOU for this comment 🧡💜
- ✨Beth
I am playing the game, and I like the theme and gameplay, but have a question.
When you explore, and you get a small discovery, do you colour in all the undiscovered hexes adjacent to you or just one? The rules say
"When discovering hexes, colour AN undiscovered hex" but they also say "a small forest (ALL forest hexes)"
Which is it? If you colour in all of them then I have lost the game because the two times I discovered it was small water source so I am trapped in the corner with the destruction. (Unlucky I guess)
Thanks!
Directly under that in the Discoveries section you'll find the following:
"Roll a d6 and divide by two, then round up, to determine the number of hexes to color in for the above discoveries."
So if you roll your d20 and get a 2-12 on a discovery you will also roll a d6 to find out how many hexes you'll be coloring in.
For example: You roll a 2 - which is a small water source and all the hexes for this will be water. Now you roll a d6 and find out how many hexes. You then roll a 3. Divided by 2 that would be 1.5 so you round that up to 2 and color in 2 water hexes.
We will be updating that section to:
Please feel free to ask if you still need more clarification.
~Angel
I also just updated the main file to make this clearer :D I uploaded the original as "Ludum Praxi Edition" so people who are rating can still get that version, and I'll just remove that once the jam rating period ends.
Thanks for pointing this out! :D
- ✨Beth
Thanks so much! I spotted that in the rules this morning, having totally missed it, and have played once more. I won in 19 turns with 34 points at the end and got the thirsty achievement!
Really great game, would rate 10/10 if I could.
Also idk if this was intentional but it can be adapted quite easily for multiplayer which I like. (Everyone gets their own playsheet and the d20 events are communal. You control everything else individually a bit like the game Cartographers, if you know it. Whoever has the highest score wins! - failiure to escape = 0 points)
Aww thank you! We don't often hear feedback on our games being played, so we really appreciate it! Woohoo! Congrats on making it off the island AND with an achievement unlocked, NICE!
Yes! We have played Cartographers a few times. There's definitely inspiration there. When Beth and I play tested the game (many times) over our Praxi time limit we would play as we usually do roll and writes "alone together". But that was just because we wanted to have as many experiences and results as possible in the small amount of time we had to polish the game up. I really like the idea of playing as a group with the same events so that people can see what they can do with the same limitations of a day, and board, but their own decisions and luck. Now the trickier bit will be getting that bit to fit on the rules page!
~Angel
Whooa this was a challenge! I wasn't expecting such a big game for something made in so little time. I played for a bit over half an hour, which got me through about 5 days. I got very lucky with the rolls in that time, but some of the rules were a bit confusing to me. For instance, it wasn't clear to me if you were allowed to move to undiscovered hexes, and the discovery process itself was a bit abstract (I think I ended up getting it, though). Next, the skipping destruction in event 19, and whether or not that applies to discovering destroyed hexes. Finally, only the raft costs resources, and the other building options just cost energy?
All that aside, I really like the theme of the island actively trying to get you deleted. I felt a bit rushed, like I was trying to outrun the destruction. Honestly I never felt like it was possible to begin with, despite rolling well. I really like that there are achievements, and the optional journaling prompts are a fun touch too (though looking at only my game notes, I'd need a lottt more space!).
Overall, I'm super impressed by this. I might revisit it sometime, if I'm feeling brave...
Thanks for the feedback! I think having Beth and I both working on this as a team allowed us to get a bit more work done together that we couldn't have otherwise accomplished alone. But it was still A LOT of editing, playtesting, rewriting and tweaking down to the very last minute of our allotted time.
No, you cannot move into undiscovered hexes.
I went back for a quick read through and looks like we have an edit to make! (thanks for bringing that up)
In the actions section Move should read as:
Move: Move to an adjacent hex (touching the hex you’re in). Mountain hexes without a shelter (cave) require two energy as they’re more difficult terrain. You cannot move into water, undiscovered, or destroyed hexes.
For Event 19 the only exclusion is the spreading destruction phase. So yes if your first encounter of destroying a hex is say rolling a 13 while exploring and you discover a swampland, you wouldn't have to destroy one of the water hexes.
"the discovery process itself was a bit abstract" Was there anything in particular that could use clarifying to make it feel less abstract?
It was our intention to express that you roll a d20, consult the below table, and color in hexes equal to what is designated in that section. If you are in a corner and there are only say 2 available undiscovered hexes and you roll something saying to color in 3 you'd just color in what is available instead. When coloring in hexes you can pick one adjacent to you and color in hexes chaining to it, that can also be other hexes adjacent to you or other hexes adjacent to that first colored in hex.
Someone else had pointed out a confusion with the first "discoveries" section which also includes a d6 roll to find out how many hexes to fill in. We will be editing that to:
Hopefully that will help direct people to the roll a d6 portion to find out how many hexes to fill in there.~Angel
Hi! Thanks for the detailed feedback :D I just updated the main file to make the discovery aspect clearer (as Angel showed) :D I uploaded the original as "Ludum Praxi Edition" so people who are rating can still get that version, and I'll just remove that once the jam rating period ends.
Thanks for pointing this out! :D
- ✨Beth
I'm glad, it seems my assumptions were correct then! I think the exploration felt a bit unintuitive because in my mind, you'd pick an empty hex to explore, and then roll to see what is in the hex. But in this game it works a bit differently. I feel like the initial short explanation of the exploration action, [Explore: If you are adjacent to at least one unexplored (uncolored) hex, you may roll your d20 and discover the land there (color it in)], suggests it does work one hex at a time, which caused my initial confusion. Even a short line such as 'depending on your roll, you may discover the terrain of multiple hexes' or something like that, would have clarified things for me. Though I did end up figuring it out on my own after a while! The d6 halving and rounding up didn't cause confusion for me once I understood I could discover multiple hexes in one exploration action.
That's a great point, thanks! We ended up changing how exploration worked a few times, and ended up submitting literally a minute before our deadline, so we didn't get to proofread quite as thoroughly as we would've liked 😅
This also made me realize I phrased the instructions under "exploration" (on the prompts page) a little off. So that's also updated in the main (non-LP version):
You've been incredibly helpful, thank you for taking the time to let us know! 🧡
- ✨Beth
This game says it's $3, but it's on sale for free until the rating period ends :D