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We apologise for an issue with your judge's feedback being posted the normal way. This won't affect your game's ability to content to win the jam. Here is your feedback from your judge:

The game starts strong with a fantastic intro and an interesting art style. Movement feels fluid, and both the music and sound effects complement the experience nicely.

However, after evolving or mutating, my character did not appear, feel, or play any differently from before. Even if no gameplay change occurs, adding a slight visual indicator to represent the evolution or mutation would help make the progression more tangible and rewarding.

Your GDD is very complete, it contains all the necessary information along with the visual indicators I could hope for.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable experience, and I hope that you extend this game further with more levels, enemies and mutations.

We apologise for an issue with your judge's feedback being posted the normal way. This won't affect your game's ability to content to win the jam. Here is your feedback from your judge:

At first I was very confused by this game and didn't understand how to play the game. I slowly started to figure it out slotting new runes into my wand until i was slinging nuclear bombs at my foes. This game has a lot of potential but is held back by the lack info given to the player. Just having keys listed for how to equip and use. The Runes themselves have no info on what they are or what they do so it makes it very hard to decide what to equip. Adding info to the Runes allows players to quickly decide what works best for them and gives them more impactful choices to their wand. I was really digging the mix of 3d assets in the play button and with certain wand runes causing 3d projectiles to fall onto the screen making the gameplay chaotic. The GDD was very light, missing key graphics for how the mechanics break down. Try adding the Rune page with a short diagram of what the slots are and what they do. Keep making cool games!

We apologise for an issue with your judge's feedback being posted the normal way. This won't affect your game's ability to content to win the jam. Here is your feedback from your judge:

This is an absolutely fantastic game with a highly original interpretation of the theme. The art, sound, and gameplay mechanics all feel incredibly polished, creating a professional and immersive experience.

During my playthrough, I may have gotten lucky with my initial choice of sigil, as I didn’t need to change it during the fight against the demon. To increase difficulty and introduce more variety, it could be interesting to require players to draw from a set array of sigils when performing exorcisms, rather than repeating the same one. I did see in the GDD that sigils would be “overused” in harder difficulties, which sounds like a promising direction for balancing.

Your GDD is excellent, it provides all the key information and goes above and beyond by offering deep insight into the development process. The only thing missing is visual material, such as images or examples, which would have been especially effective given the game’s strong artistic design.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this game, even with my less-than-perfect mouse drawing skills. It’s a polished and creative experience that left a strong impression.

We apologise for an issue with your judge's feedback being posted the normal way. This won't affect your game's ability to content to win the jam. Here is your feedback from your judge:

If there was one game series if loved watching from afar but couldn’t play because I lack the auditory ability to locate sounds… it would be FNAF. Your game felt like a way for me to be able to play a FNAF game, which made me feel good. The only things that I would comment on would be to keep working with the art style to perfect the illusion. I’m not saying the art style is bad, more so that adding a few frames to the closing doors, or a moving flashlight near the bottom right of the screen to show where the light was coming from, or the screws moving to their proper place would not go amiss. Maybe also adding some red herring noises/visuals into the mix to add to the tension. Moving on to the Game Design Document, everything I look for was there. I mean it… Everything. You took the template (didn’t change the name of the project or the page numbers, though) and proceeded to fill every section with the relevant information to your game, including the graphical prototypes for each of the game mechanics presented. I especially want to point out the Development timeline, which is my most important section to look for, and found it laid out exactly as I have it on the projects I work on. All in all, Great Work!!

Your entry is disqualified for not including a game design document we can access without downloading

Your entry is disqualified for not providing a game design document

Your entry is disqualified for not being playable in browser

After reviewing your game, we have decided to disqualify your game on the grounds of breaking the spirit of the jam. You were given two weeks to make a game for our jam, and given that you submitted to both PSGJ and GMTK jam, you must've made the game in a single day. Your game's judge also did not see strong evidence of "only one" being the primary theme of the game.

Given the confusing wording and the lack of AI use elsewhere, I'll make an exception and requalify your game. I'll try to improve the wording for next jam to be more clear.

I have requalified your game. I'd recommend making one game per jam for next time.

Your entry is disqualified for using generative AI in your game design document.

It's not something that is explicity stated. However we regularly get games submitted which are not genuine attempts for our jam. Being in another jam is usually an indicator of this. Given the size of your game, the state of your game design document, and the questionable implementation of the theme, we concluded that this is likely not a genuine entry. Either you completed the entire game within the one day of overlap between the two jams, which is not within the spirit of the jam since we give two weeks, or it is not a genuine submission to at least one of the two jams.

your entry is disqualified for being submitted to multiple jams.

1

your submission is disqualified for not having a game design document

you uploaded it to itch wrong. https://itch.io/docs/creators/html5

Your GDD is not set to be publicly viewable. If it is not public by the time a judge gets to your game, it will be disqualified.

Your entry is disqualified for not having a web build and not having a significant enough GDD for us to give feedback on

Your game is disqualified for not having a web build and not having a significant enough GDD for us to give feedback on.

Also not being playable in browser

Your submission is disqualified for not having a GDD

Your submission is disqualified for not being playable in browser and not having a significant enough GDD for us to give feedback on.

Given the sources cited, I have no reason to believe there was a violation of the no AI rule here.

ooh a sequel 👀

We apologise for the initial low quality review. Here is a review from a new judge:

Your game shows some solid principles and as a fan of rhythm games I enjoyed the challenge of it, however it has plenty of room for improvement.

GDD

Your GDD shows a good vision for the game. You clearly lay out how you want each part to be like. It'd be great to have some more details on your plans for artistic direction, maybe a sketch for how you want the main gameplay to be laid out, and some planning around your target playerbase would be good to see. I like the prioritised to do list.

Art and UI

I found the art throughout the game to be alright but not all elements were very cohesive with each other and sometimes lacked consistent proportions or amounts of detail. I think with some more iterations and polish it could look quite good.

I liked the floaty menu UI. The rest of the UI however could use some more work making it clear what's what and could do with following some UI design principles for layout and distinguishing what different things do/mean.

Music

The music was great. I especially liked the spacial audio. Maybe that could be correlated with where the enemies are coming from in the future.

Playability

The game was lacking quite a lot in playability. While it may be generally familiar to those who have played similar rhythm games before, there was no indication of at what point you were meant to swing at or whether you were early or late in your swing. A tutorial would have been very much appreciated.

Overall I believe this game could go far with some work. I hope you continue working on it!

## Judge 1

The dark humour and artwork set the theme, and I could appreciate the vision as you laid it out in the GDD under Theme Interpretation.

I really loved the shop and the strategy it offered with the different fun items you could buy and having the option of which limb or body part to pin cushion the dude before he goes out on his auto-battling crusade. I felt like I was winning fights a bit too easy at times, yet other times I was hanging on for dear life. The horror is real. Great game overall; keep up the great work. I felt the passion through your words in the GDD and your game. I can't wait to see you flesh out your ideas more and explore. your vision

## Judge 2

The game was absolutely fantastic. While the mechanics of an auto-battler and the relatively simplistic graphics helped establish a gritty atmosphere, the gameplay itself was highly engaging. I had an absolute blast experimenting with different builds, whether focusing on speed or hard-hitting strategies. Taking a wrong turn—or being too greedy—and losing one of my six absolutely necessary and vital arms felt like a punch to my 16 hearts.

The soundtrack was fantastic, perfectly underscoring the chaotic and harsh reality of my seasoned fighter. The upgrades at the black market were almost always useful, though I personally wouldn’t buy from a place that just has hearts and stomachs lying around—seems a bit unsanitary!

The GDD was fantastic, with graphs, diagrams, and animations providing deep insight into the development process.

Overall, this was an amazing game. I was genuinely sad to see it disqualified at first since I spent over an hour playing it in my spare time. I truly hope you continue developing this game further, with more bizarre body parts, enemies, and possibly even bonus stages and bosses. Keep up the great work!

## Judge 3

Excellent GDD in terms of scope and planning. The planning that went into the game is really exceptional with excellent use of concept art. Really good at conveying your intentions with the game. Only lacking point would be a well-laid out workflow.

Now to gameplay, a simple design executed well. The simple UI and graphics made for a smooth running game with space to focus on the gameplay itself.

I didn't even see half of the body parts I think but I could already see a lot of different strategic combinations. This gives a lot of depth to the game. Great variety and a good game overall.

I didn't write the review but I will pass on your thanks to the judge who did

I should clarify I wasn't personally the one to judge your game, I'm forwarding the review from the real judge to protect their identity. I'll pass on your kind words to them :)

After further review, your game has been disqualified for being a nearly identical clone of an existing game, "nodebuster"

We apologise for the late review:

This was a fun experience! It was very easy to pick up and the upgrades all felt very nice to add.

Some notes:

- The game window didn't shrink when exiting fullscreen

- There is no concequence for not destroying something - I quite enjoyed juggling things to prevent any enemies from reaching the right edge until I got too powerful for it to be tricky. An insentive to keep doing this would be great!

- The text on the progress bar got obscured by the progress

- It wasn't made clear in game what the things you are fighting are

- There wasn't any audio

- It'd be nice to see some polish such as more customised UI, a background sprite, a menu, high score etc.

Your game design document is really good and will give you a strong foundation for developing this further. Well done!

We apologise for the late review:

First of all, your game oozes with style. The red white and black aesthetic is really cnice and the music and UI are all very fitting. It however wasn't always very clear what was going on. The game could do with some more TLC to the player experience when switching between scenes.

I found a bug where if you shoot an NPC while they are dying, their animation will reset. NPC behaviour also seems generally quite janky and could do with some polish.

Also when the upgrade box appeared I wasn't able to close it and got soft-locked.

You can also run off the side of the screen in the starting area.

It'd be nice to have QoL like being able to click through dialogue instead of just pressing space. It would also be good to have an indicator that you do in fact need to press space for dumb people like me.

Your GDD contains a lot of cool story-related stuff but it'd be great to see more than a few points about inspiration, gameplay, art, music etc.

Overall I enjoyed playing. I hope you choose to develop this further!

We apologise for the late review:

Very well put together GDD,I am very happy with the completeness and number of sections. I particularly like the concept art and your workflow schedule. The GDD was effective at setting the games vision and showing where you wanted it to go.

Game ran smoothly without any issues. I really like how you have to take the terrain into consideration when movin, especially when encountering ranged enemies. That being said you can also use the terrain to your advantage. Great level design overall.

A nice set of uniqueness with the different abilities that the player is able to learn. The fuel gauge also means you can't spam your attack mindlessly so you need to pay attention.

The theme music is great, the ability sound effects could be tweaked to be more congruent with the rest of the audio.

We apologise for the late review:

GDD

Very well-made document; every single section has plenty of details, and the timeline is well fleshed out. The only thing I would add is a few images for the mechanics and art sections.

Gameplay

Since on the itch page the feedback asked was if the game felt intuitive, I decided to play it before reading the GDD. Yes, it's very intuitive. The movement and exploration feel amazing, and the combat section is very fluid.

At first, I thought that the time was very generous and the threat low. Then I got careless, and the big green balls kept sneaking up on me. After that, I focused on keeping the balls in check and forgot to manage the heating. Then I pulled my recovery but almost ran out of time. The hubris. Difficulty and time seem well balanced now.

The exploration section is amazing. I am well versed in checking every nook and cranny, and the small, silly comments really did an amazing job of setting the ambiance. Very enjoyable gameplay.

Art

Very charming art; it did wonders setting the tone from the beginning until the end. The animation is super smooth; I love how you made the two halves of the robot move semi-independently.

Great color palette and so many little details on the assets. And I found a kitty.

Sound design

Very chirpy BGM, animated music. With all the other components, it enhanced the atmosphere the team built. The SFX is on point for every interaction. The guns feel great, and the panels are breaking even better.

Last thoughts

What a nice experience, and very well paced. I loved the little environmental storytelling too. I felt like an armed Roomba checking every bit of the rooms.

I especially loved the last bit, after the third puzzle with the four green balls shooting thingies on each side; I hope my fellow judges enjoy it just as much as I did.

The vagueness is intended; they can read the rating. Shhhh.