https://itch.io/jam/ascii-game-jam-2023/rate/2071749

What makes it not an ascii based game?

Could anyone answer? I spent 2 weeks of my life making this game, which I thought turned out pretty good(considering it's only ascii characters). Then the host for  some reason says "Disqualified, as this is definitely not an ASCII-based game." without any sort of explaination for why this "definitely" isn't a ascii based game.

I think right now that the host simply doesn't know why, and have chosen to ignore it to not embarrass themselves, ignoring the time and effort we put in to make this game.

Please correct me if I'm wrong

After discussing this with the jam host, we decided to requalify your submission, but please keep in mind that it will likely get a lower rating as you did not follow the rules.

The reason I disqualified it at first was that even thought it technically did use ASCII characters to draw the graphics, the way it was done strays too far from what is usually meant by an "ASCII"/TTY game. Your game appears to be combining characters rendered from a TrueType font which are oftentimes overlaid on top of each other - something that cannot be done in a regular character stream displayed in a terminal/terminal emulator.

Thank you for requalifying us!

Since it does the very same thing, i.e rendering in layers?

This game does the same https://alex5ander.itch.io/ascii-invaders
I'm sure more submissions have done it too; not sure why ours should expect a lower rating..