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Yes, sorry I was playing on "deus-ex-machina". I'm referring to the GM notes where "armored paladins emerge, smiting everything in their path!"

This is really great stuff! I would run this (well, a revised version of it.) 

I laughed out loud when I saw you turned the pinball table into a dungeon map; so good! The little ice hockey easter eggs in the mercenary descriptions is very fun. 

The Kurosawa vibes here are very strong, more-so than 8-bit vibes, but that's a trade I'm very happy to make. 

Love the patrol and alert systems, very elegant and flexible for responding to players raiding the castle.

I would really like to have seen additional maps to zoom in on the buildings' layouts, without these I think it becomes demanding for the GM to track what is going on (particularly the castle locations.)

I can tell you were really fighting to fit everything in to the jam's restrictions, and the formatting/layout has suffered. Please do a post-jam revision to give the dense descriptions more room to breath! It would make this much easier to run, which is something I would do!

Loves the 80s "kids on bikes" energy of this! Great intro to get the players all in the right mindset, lots of fun references to the NES games.

I think a little bit more structure and some extra detail to the area keys could really help punch this adventure up. For instance, when investigating the prison cell in the barracks, the adventure just says "after investigation the players learn...". This really leaves a bunch of work for the GM to actually come up with the details there. You have the elements (the glyphs, the letter,) but it would be great to tighten that up in a clear set of points for the GM to have at their fingertips. Separating the descriptions out into chunks is a really good practice that I think you could employ here. Start with what would be immediately obvious details to the PCs, then have extra detail for the GM that comes from further PC investigation.

I'm not a huge fan of the Paladins-ex-machina fallback to save the PCs if things are going sideways. Much better to have good resources the PCs can find and use to save themselves with smart play, imo.

Overall, very strong intro, cool concept, just needs a bit of tightening up in the area keys to really make it sing. Good job!

Very solid! This has to be the most ShadowDark adventure I've seen for the jam so far. Definitely less gonzo (which is also awesome, its just good to see some variety on the gonzo spectrum.)

I really like the near-identical room keys for the two schools, really creepy moment for the players to cotton on to as they explore. Smart players will realise the school of Korreg Lem is not a great place to return Leffa to. I think you did a really good job incorporating the inspiration into tangible gameplay with the platform mechanics.

Overall a very measured distillation of the NES games you were given, well done!

I'll get my gripes out of the way first because then I want to talk about how cool this is. I think the way the information in your entry is organised is hurting it. Info tends to be is scattered over various pages, and it feel like there's a lack of consistency in the overall format/structure of the adventure. Restructuring to consolidate related info (for instance, all the tomcat info) into single spread would be a welcome improvement.

Okay, now what I love about this.

Love the anthropomorphised and plant-kin ancestries. You let me play as an anthro-turtle zipping through a sewer on a skimmer and that is seriously awesome.

I think there's a solid foundation here for a cool setting, but there's only the start of it present in this jam entry. The sentient ooze sewer is a location I want to know more about! It would have been really awesome to see something like a point-crawl for it. I also think the Oozetown Corpos are a great faction that could be doing all kinds of nasty operations in said point-crawl. There's lots of potential!

Overall this is a rough gem, but it is certainly a gem.

You pulled off a great Jeopardy! challenge here. Nicely done.

I think there's some playability issues with the other encounters, though.

I found the grid-iron encounter a little unclear. It would have helped to have more detail on the diagram: where are the red and yellow flags? Where are the opponents and player positions?

I think the 1 hour timer is not enough time - I can see a good chunk of that being burned up just explaining and clarifying the first encounter alone, since it is a fairly novel challenge. Would definitely want to play test and up the time limit if needed.

The biggest area of improvement I can see though is the premise. There's a lot of unanswered questions and it feels non-sensical. What is the purpose of the flying city? Why does it have these game masters and challenges in it? What is the final boss hoping to achieve? What became of the previous people sent to solve the problem? What happens if the PCs succeed? I think if you put in a background section and explained the events/causes leading up to the current predicament it would help a lot.

I also think it would be cool if the players had some more options to play around the challenges, rather than be railroaded into completing them. The social manipulation for Lady Query was a great start, would love to see more of that kind of stuff. Mess with the flying dude's flying apparatus, allow a people to break through the doors to the next area if they use smart team work, etc.

I'm so glad to hear that! The little "chalk mystery" was my favourite part of the whole project.

Thank you! You should see the amount of "mess" that I cut from the original ideation...

Lots to love in this! I would run it. Great job on your first release!

Usability:

• Overall this is a great springboard for an adventure, though I can see the GM needing to do a fair bit of fleshing out in certain areas if the players decide to really dig into it.
• For instance, in the Dorani Town I can imagine players trying to steal/heist the cosmic sphere instead of risking the Steelblade Cup. As the adventure is now, this would require the GM to completely synthesize that material. Also having some detail around the beastforged encampment sieging the town would allow players to raid/disrupt it.
• Similarly the beastforged outcast hideout could benefit greatly from becoming a keyed location. This would also let you increase the amount of treasure, which is something you noted as being on the scarce side.
• The adventure seems bottlenecked by requiring flight to reach the head in the sky. It would be good to add more than one solution to ensure there isn't a dead-end.
• Illustrations of the monsters would be helpful, particularly the custodians, which I had a hard time visualising.
• Wilderness map is a little hard to use; what is adjacent? Maybe break it down into a grid? 

Formatting:

• You've achieve a lot of good things vibe-rise with the formatting, but it comes at the expense of usability. The 8-bit landscape background is a bit distracting from reading the text in certain areas, and could benefit from being toned down significantly in contrast.
• The magenta header colour is a little fuzzy. Toning down the saturation would help.
• The bestiary layout is a little confusing with the beastforged stats being broken away from the core description.
• In general the layout gets a little loosey-goosey to fit things in, I think if you broke away from the NES manual page size, or increased the page count and introduced more structure to the formatting it would be a good thing.

Inspiration/Vibes:

• Great work! It feels not only in line with the material, but has a very 80s vibe in general.
• The steelblade minigame is a cool unique challenge.

Good advice, wish I'd thought of that!

Thank you! I made the maps using Inkarnate, which I whole-heartedly recommend. I had intended to actually just use these as mockups and hand draw over them to make a more illustrative style, but time dictated that I had to just polish them up and use them as is.

Thank you! The Xilef encounter was very rushed at the end of the jam. I intended it to be like Mirror Image in that once you hit one, its obvious who Xilef is and subsequent attacks for that round can be targetted reliably.

The Cyclops key can be burgled off him with some care, though I should have been specific about how that particular challenge should be resolved in order to make it something to scratch one's chin over. I wanted to make sure thieves had a lot of good moments, and this was intended to be one of them. As for telegraphing the medusa, no he just likes turning into a boulder, which I'm realising is confusing that they're unrelated. I also think there should be dedicated telegraphing of the medusa in Laconia via the classic "extremely lifelike statues" amidst all the ruins.

In general I think I cut too much explanation to fit into the time and space restrictions, which leads to these ambiguities.

I appreciate your thoughts!

Some cool stuff here! I like the heavy faction elements and the megatroid PCs, though I think there's more that could have been explored with incorporating Mario elements - a pipe network seems like a natural fit.

The biggest area of improvement I see is the adventure leaves too much work up to the GM to round it out and prepare it to run. For instance: "Each tunnel should advertise its owners with three obvious clues and one subtle clue" - these don't appear to be in the entrance location keys; treasure needs to be rolled on tables; "draw a more detailed map" for the Dead God's altar; etc.

Perhaps a lot of this was due to the jam's time and space restrictions. I think if you could flesh out the keys with more detail it would improve things a lot.

Nice and weird. I like that the tower can appear in any existing campaign that might be happening. I like the animalistic powers the players can get, though I think its a slight missed opportunity to (somewhat horrifically) transmogrify the players as part of the process.

I like the twist of the wizard being dead, but it feels a little anti-climactic to reach the top and not have some kind of showdown happen. The escaped monstrosity would be a natural choice.

I do wish there was a bit more going on on each of the levels rather than a single encounter, but its understandable given the jam's space limitations. I think expanding out the dungeon after the jam would greatly improve it.

Love this! Would run it.

The time-abyss gut-drop feeling of going into the future instead of the past is a great hook. The villain being a former ally corrupted over time is also really great. The themed dungeons are good, though the water dungeon not having a single boss like the others felt a little underwhelming. 

It would have been good to have a bit of information gathering possible so the players can strategise on which order to tackle the areas. The rumours feel a little weak. I think there should be more of them and have more useful information about the challenges the players are going to need to overcome to succeed. Without good information all destinations feel like the same choice.  Hearing additional rumours from the wandering NPCs would make running into them even better, I think.

But the main point of improvement I see is the way the dungeons are keyed. The big blocks of tiny text are just very hard to parse easily.  I'm sure if you reformatted once free of the jam's restrictions you would overcome this, though.

The only other thing I would love to see is just... more! Fleshing out the wasteland a little more with some meaningful navigational choices (do we go through the rust pits or the sandstorm?) for the players would be a good addition, imo.

Love this! I would run it.

You've done a great job of capturing the joy of being a bunch of disgusting toads with their own zany perspective on things. Making it a gauntlet is an inspired choice.

The choice of technologically advanced elves who are imposing on nature does clash with their archetypal trappings, which was a little jarring at first. But really playing up their snootiness helps to overcome this. Who doesn't like putting snootiness in its place? I would have liked to have seen Li'ink take a bigger role, maybe taunting the battlewugs over an intercom (classic Battletoads vibes right there) to maximise his aura farming.

But the main point of improvement I can see is the map. It's functional, but doesn't do very much to help the GM understand what each room is about and how to run it. If you could punch it up to be more illustrated with the rooms features that would be mint. Bonus points for making it look like something a battlewug would draw!

Excellent layout and presentation! 

The navigation mechanic is neat, though it might be a bit repetitive if its always just 1 character in the party making the check. It would be cool to have the party collaborate more.

I think the core structure of the adventure is a little grindy. There's not a lot of decisions for the players to make other than pick a hex, go there and search, hope to roll well on result to get some signs.

The biggest thing hurting it is the random result roll after searching a hex. I think signs could have been incorporated into more of the hex locations (similar to the orc camp, which I think is great). Or at least have something in each hex that can improve the result roll. This gives the players more direction when within a hex, at the moment they feel a little aimless.

A stronger time pressure in the adventure would be cool too. For instance, incorporate the orc faction hunting for Dr. Oiram more thoroughly.

Very cool to see a Simpsons take on SD! Very much reminds me of the weirdness of the old comic books. I'm not a huge fan of the high emphasis on combat, would like to have a seen a bit more of a balance of game pillars.

I lol'd. I like the presentation of material as a literal instruction manual. I feel like Anticipation could have been incorporated more, though.

Very clever incorporation of the breakout mechanic! I like the unusual choice of gargoyle as quest giver, too.

Yes! It's great because any flaw or questionable deed players have done in other sessions becomes fuel for the GM to put back in front of them and make them literally face themselves!

Thank you! I try to be as sci-fi with my fantasy as possible, wringing out as much concept from a magic ability as I can. This also helps with following the design principle of, "Can I reuse something already here instead of adding something new?"

Really glad to hear you like the map style! What I really wanted to do was a hand-drawn isometric cutaway with exaggerated feature details, but there simply wasn't enough time with my schedule, so I fell back to a digital map in a simplified style. It was an experiment for me, but I agree it evokes early 2000s Dungeon magazine and the like. I think it is a good combination of illustrative detail and readability.

I would have found the covers you were assigned hard to work with. You did great job in turning those into an intriguing and thematic adventure!

Nocturne is a deliciously manipulative villain, and the various moonlight gimmicks make for a good puzzle for players to understand and master.

Overall a great adventure! I would run this.

Love the flooding mechanic and the basilisk rampage finale.

However, I think the Explorer's Prepared mechanic is game-breaking. Being able to summon effectively infinite torches, rope and oil is far too powerful. Maybe a per-day use could balance it, with an entry on the traits table to increase the number of uses per day (rather than being able to add non-basic items, since I worry players would choose Potion of Healing).

I think you did a really good job of incorporating your prompts. Good job on focusing on the needs of the ghost, and setting up the house a series of clues for how to put it to rest. I do worry that some parties still won't put it together, but that's what the magic longbow is for, right?

One point of feedback: the usability of your adventure suffers from the overly-cramped lines for the room keys. This is the material the GM needs to be able to parse effortlessly at the table, which means space for the eye to scan and find information. Next time I recommend you prioritise sufficient line height, bolding of key information and splitting information into player-given and gm-known for your key.

Tip-top layout. Great villain. I love the mysterious levers and the dungeon state resetting with the torches. That's sure to pull the rug out from the party!

I like that the encounter table isn't just bone-dry combat encounters, but I think they don't allow for many meaningful choices for the party, or changes to their plans.

Overall a great little dungeon, well done.

Thank you so much. Battling with the page count was a great exercise in brevity. I felt like I was trying to close the zipper on an over-packed suitcase. 

I haven't encountered The Adventure Zone vs Dracula, but I am obsessed with Dracula, so maybe I should check it out!

I'm very interested to know which details you think would have been helpful for the factions.

Thanks! When I saw that cover, I knew I had to go for some Army of Darkness evil clone shenanigans.

Thank you! The layout was a big challenge and the factions were my favourite thing to write, so I'm glad you like it.

Thank you! There's plenty of room in between the lines (no pun intended) to tie Elmir's work and Siriso's tampering into a broader campaign based around plane-shifting. If you do run it, I would love to hear how it turns out!

Yes! I'm a big fan of escape out of prison failure states for players, and bending bars feels very pulpy.

I felt it was important to include a prison in this adventure because of the fairies' poison ability. Potentially fighting multiple fairies, each of their attacks having a chance to put players to sleep for hours meant the game could just end with the entire party being put to sleep.