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A jam submission

Dice FolksView game page

GMTK 2022 - Roll The Dices
Submitted by Louis Denizet (@DenizetLouis) — 1 hour, 49 minutes before the deadline
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Dice Folks's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#3573.8023.802
Presentation#3724.1084.108
Creativity#4283.8383.838
Enjoyment#6873.4593.459

Ranked from 37 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
Auto battling based on dice rolls

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing art

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Game is cute and looks good. The mechanics are solid and fit the game jam's theme very well

However..

1- minor: moving your party forward was a bit tedious, getting them all moving together

2- Major: I found clicking and changing characters very finicky. Several times, I'd mouse over the enemy to see what their stats were, then go to click on a different character to swap, and instead the previous character would charge into a battle they were going to lose. Happened more than once that it put me too far behind to recover and lost and didn't really feel like repeating everything I did. It wouldn't be so bad if there was a retreat button maybe.

3- Nitpicky: If there was an option to speed up or skip certain battles, as based on stats the outcome is predetermined.

Second killed my enjoyment as I watched my dudes die in a fight I never wanted.

While this review is focused on the negative, I do want to restate that this is a solid game jam game.

Developer

Thanks everyone for the very kind comments <3 

I really liked the initial semi gambling idea in order to make a strategy game but I didn't really find a good solution to do that, so I made the game quite easy and allowed cheat with camera movement ^^

Submitted(+1)

Really nice game! I love the visuals. It would be great to be able to move several heros at the same time

Submitted(+1)

Wow, what an amazingly polished game, presentation-wise! Also, what a cool concept! I very much want this to turn into a full game!

I love the idea, this is one of the most strategic and interesting uses of output randomness I've seen in a while. Unfortunately, right now the game is extremely cheesable, as 1. you can just walk by and even through enemies and 2. you can select any dice folk on the map without having to "activate" them first, you can just send every singe of your dice folks directly into the final battle if you really want to. Which I did, the second time around. Players optimize the fun out of games.

Apart from that, there were a few UX issues that made the game feel a bit more tedious than it needed to be:
- As much as I loved the tiled dropping down and disappearing back into space, I would like to have a higher range of vision. Maybe have the semi-transparent tiles appear a bit earlier and more prominently? Maybe also zoom out the camera a little bit?
- Camera movement was also very slow and I wished there was a way to quickly switch between my dice folks, for example the tab key or number keys.
- Speaking of that, it would be really awesom to have a list of all your active dice folks on the bottom of the screen, including their stats. That would make it much less of a pain to look for which one I want to send into battle against a specific enemy.
- Lastly, some movement indicator would be nice to show if you would start a battle on the end square. Maybe turn the path red? On my first playthrough, I accidentally sent my 15-heart guy into a battle they were bound to lose because I didn't see there was an enemy next to the target square.

In spite of all this criticism, I think this game has an incredible amount of potential. If I were to continue working on the idea, I'd probably take it into a roguelike or tactics game direction with small, condensed levels where the focus is decision-making and not exploration. Maybe also add a sort of turn-based system where enemies can choose to initiate a battle on their turn, too. But that's just personal preference and I can just as well see this going into a more exploration-based traditional RPG direction.

One final observation: While more absorbing dice are just strictly better than less, it's very interesting to me that that is not true for attacking dice. While having more of them makes you a better allrounder, having less can lead to having some specialized characters. I think that's a really neat strategic component that can lead to some interesting decision-making.

Developer

Thanks for this big review and I agree with all the elements you mentioned ^^
 I must admit that I very very little focused on gameplay as I didn't see how it could be really interesting, I liked the initial idea but struggled to make it feel interesting!
thanks again <3

Submitted(+1)

Nicely done !! loved the aesthetic of this game  , simple cute and fun , no bugs  and nice sound effects too !! Good stuff overall , 5/5 !!

Submitted(+1)

Amazing concept/execution! I really enjoyed the game, so well done! Kenney assets are great :D (I used Kenney sound assets, but...)

Submitted(+1)

Turning the dice into a tactical decision is quite brilliant.

The way to move reminds me Roguebook, let player desire to explore more.

Well done! :)

Submitted(+1)

I really liked the strategy involved with choosing who to fight an enemy with. I did have trouble with the final boss, all my guys just kept rolling bad and couldn't kill him. I really like how you implemented the theme into your game. 

Submitted(+1)

This as excellent! Super simple yet also difficult and rewarding to find the perfect dice to completely wall an enemy. Wish there was a way to heal your guys, but that's what happens when you only have 48 hours. Great job!

Submitted(+1)

Very nice visuals (love details like the frogs!) and crystal clear instructions, it was a breeze to understand how the game works. With some more mechanics added this could become pretty fun. Like someone else said the fights could be bit longer, and I also was surprised I couldn't enter the dark green areas, they could have had even more height difference visible to make that clear.

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

This was cool, I especially liked matching dice face used as a "parry")

It sounds like an awesome board game combat mechanic, which I've never seen before. It worked well in this game, but since board games are a lot more limiting, seeing something that could work there is even more enjoyable. Especially if paired with custom dice / abilities that allow you to use, say, 5 as a 3.

Submitted(+1)

Even though I didn't have to do anything during fights I felt really engaged in them ! Especially the last one where my first fighter beat the last boss one on one with 1 heart left !

Submitted(+1)

Just amazing.

The aesthetic is great (though I see using existing assets). But the concept is what really grabbed me. Fantastic take on the theme and such a great way to incorporate dice thematically and also to play with randomness. The world is a lot of fun, the controls are great, and the game is very intuitive. Great work!

To give some criticism, I found the auto fighter to be a little slow (much better than doing it myself though). Maybe just speeding things up 10-20% would help? And having to move all of my recruits 1 at a time is a bit cumbersome. But I really enjoyed this one!

Submitted(+1)

Cool game ahead! love the art, the word is lively and it feels good to move around! the system is simple yet it works greatly, well done had a blast playing!

Submitted(+1)

The aesthetic is really nice, it's really refreshing.

I really really like the idea, having some folks absorbing/attacking with different values/dices and having to think about who to send to who, great idea!

And the frog jumping out, a must have :)!

Submitted(+1)

Awesome work, as usual !

Submitted(+1)

Soooo good ! The aesthetic, the feeling of the game is super cool !

The gameplay fit perfectly, is fun to play and refreshing ! Well done :D