- -Gameplay – Does the project have clear mechanics, win / lose conditions, and player progress / interaction?
- The mechanics are very clear in what the players will do, and the emphasis on the fact that there are “only lose conditions” really hits harder the mechanic importance that is conveyed of working together with the other players as opposed to just working alone. The video gameplay demo is very helpful in understanding the flow of the game in each turn as resources are lost and the remaining resources have to be reallocated, along with the sort of negotiation and community aspect of resource allocation that can be gained by talking through what different things may need resources at different times.
- -Aesthetic – Is there cohesive visual, audio, and/or narrative direction?
- Before my actual thoughts I just wanted to say that as a person with many intersectional identities, that memorandum got me PISSED and to that I have to say hats off to narrative they did their job and they absolutely COOKED. Also I am internally screeching at the inciting questions in the roachification draft narrative absolutely COOKED.
- Though it seems like the card art is unfinished, I like the idea of an image of a roach being on the back of every dilemma card in different colors to represent which resources were just lost, as I feel it kind of drives home the idea of the broligarchy in this game (and in real life ngl) seeing the differences between different “cockroaches of the world” but also seeing them all as cockroaches at the end of the day. It also highlights the aspect of protecting the most vulnerable in a community, through allocating more resources to them in their time of need, as losing important things can be detrimental to them and can only hurt during times of crisis. That all is to say that the art is cool, I like the card art, and the board art looks really nice. Although I think it would be nice, just for gameplay purposes, to have dedicated spots on the board for the resources to be placed, just to keep things organized physically.
- -Synergy - Do the game mechanics and artistic decisions support and enhance the project's intended theme and call to action?
- The game mechanics highlight the themes of the inevitability of our current climate crisis through the consistently draining resources, and the need to work together with those in our communities to ensure that the right amount of the right resources go to the right places. It also definitely might help to reduce individual guilt as different people have different backgrounds and experiences which might influence them to allocate different amounts of resources to different places, and that sometimes it’s not on one person to like save an entire sect of their society. Idk if I’m taking this too far, but I like this a lot.
- -Scope – Is the scope of the project reasonable for the timeline of the jam?
- After seeing the gameplay in action, I can definitely see that the project is within scope, as in my head there isn’t much more to do with this project other than maybe refining mechanics, adding more art, playtesting and distribution, and iterating on dilemmas and also maybe characters. All of which is very scalable and reasonable for the rest of the jam.
- -Production Plan – Is there a clear path to completing the project?
- Production plan seems very clear and actionable towards release, not much to say there. Just excited to see more of this project come out. :3
- (I am still full glazing.)