Love all the art and design! The retro vibes are strong here. I think the stress system is a bit overtuned and hard to track, its a great idea but it could be simplified for usability. I particularly like the 8-bit headers you made, perfect for your theme! Awesome work!
Very, very interesting take on getting a boat racing game. I had Boat Duel as a kid and played it so much so Im glad someone got it as an inspiration pull! You made great use of it. I think with a little bit of editing and formatting of the type would help it out. Good work!
Turning sesame street into an eldritch blood ritual was not on my game jam bingo card...but I'm so glad you went there! I think it a bit too linear as it stands; but the themes, your color choices, layout, monster design, and everything else are all very solid. Thats my only real nitpick! Great work!
Great layout, great color scheme, love the retro vibes already! Really lookig forward to seeing this all fleshed out, even just a map would make this so much more usable. The items are very retro videogamey and wonderful! Loving this!
Love the map design as if it were a video game level style graphic, so good! The wise woman rumors is very fun. With more page space having map cutouts would help usability though. I wish the inspiration page was at the front, so going in you are armed with the knowledge of how they influenced the work. The zelda influence is very apparent, the items are like something you'd need in the game, which is awesome. Great work!
Love all the parody and humor in this, combined with the awesome art it really dials in on the inspiration. Like others have said about diversifying encounters aside from combat could aid in the playability of this. But I do enjoy all the statblocks and art so that is a treat! Great work!
I reeeeally love all the item designs youve done here! Nailed the retro video game experience of finding a bunch of dope items. Minor nitpicks with the layout being kinda busy, but the content is so so good! Awesome work!
This seems like a really solid foundation to build out from! Exploring 8 different and unique castles could be an entire campaign. The CCN is a genius move to make it scale, great work!
This is a very interesting and unique twist on navigation/hexploration. I'm really curious how a sesh would play out, because it seems really difficult, which is totally ok! I think the "rollback" is whats tripping me up the most...I see the vision though and really dig it! Seems like it would be super playable as a solo adventure as well! The monsters are all unique, and Im a big fan of how much bayou billy added to the theme! Great work!
An intro page with your inspiration would help provide context to your submission. I have some guesses though! I really like the idea of street fights, where weapons will attract guards. The Kings shell shock ability is very fun! Great work, love the retro vibes!
The many npcs meeting their fates as a use of forshadowing danger is rad. I think once the page restriction is lifted, incorporating an example of play could help clarify the crystal arrow procedure as its a bit complicated to read. Redeemable power ups is a very cool idea! The void boss with the lockdown abilities seems like a very interesting encounter given how important movement is in this adventure, awesome work!
I absolutely love all of the art you made for this, so evocative! This is a solid submission, tightening up the layout would make this shine even more! Great work, cowabunga!
Love the inciting incident of the shipwreck. I understand the time pressure, but a map of the island in the style of the room maps would really help drive more player choice in the exploration phase before the vault!
Love the tea town npc tables, very fluid and fun. The map is great. Though I thought it was a hex crawl, but it is more of a straight forward point crawl! The type is very brief but communicates all you really need to know to expand upon, which is great. This would be a very fun 1-3 session adeventure, but specifically would be great for new players or GM to shadowdark. The way its layed out is very usable. Great work!
Thank you so much for taking a look! I would love to expand it and if I did I'd give more focus on the sorceress and her dragon. The sorceress and mountain king are inspired by faxanadu, with a king sealing a blade in himself to prevent the bbeg from getting it, but in the process becoming their thrall.
Love the zaniness of this funhouse! Could really have the tower trundle into any game, making the usability very good! I wish there was a statblock for the Chimanticore, because that is a terrifying idea. Also a monkey in a jester costume is just A+ work!
This is such a genius way to instill those tough inspirations you got! You've got so great levity and humor in here, and the glitch system is a great twist. Super unique way to take your project, very impressive! I'm glad you included the example of play, since this is very different it helped me understand the concept. You basically made an entire new game based off Shadowdark!
The sword of chaos is such a cool item! Some of the art is a bit low res and pixely, not in an 8-bit way so it feels a bit forced. Which is a shame because the adventure is awesome that I feel it doesn't even need it to make it shine. Great work!
I like the setup for the adventure and character creation! The layout and usability could be improved to make it easy for a GM to pick this up and run though. The grapple sprocket is a very fun item and feels very megaman!
I really like the introduction, that could be straight up Dark Souls 4 which I love! The gritty tone in the art is cool, I just wish there was a bit of 8-bit influence throughout to dial in on the retro vibes. With a bit of formatting for the room descriptions this could be an absolutely amazing supplement. Great work this is awesome!
Wow you crushed the retro aesthetic here! I wish the inspiration page was at the front so I could read it knowing the influences ahead of time though. I adore the npc portait and statblocks, so good. Layout is a bit too busy but the flow of the adventure is easy to get so that helps. The summit map designed to look like the level if it were a NES game is a stellar idea. Overall this is fantastic work!
Tempted to make smorks a recurring bit at my table, such a fun design. Are descriptions for locations 9 and 10 missing? The layout and art is so clean and fun, the rampage kaiju potions are also a wonderful idea. Great job here!
Just by the tagline alone I'm sold. You combined all three games into your TAGLINE, that's just impressive! The rooms are a bit wordy and dense for a quick reference if GMing, but this is solid! Great work!
This is seriously my favorite based on visuals! Absolutely crushed the vibes, so good! I just wish the rest of the content matched it. There's a bit of content missing to make this runnable, but the bones are there for something fantastic. Some map labels, pc level suggestions, and formatting would make this great. I'm left wondering what your other 2 inspiration pulls were, because you nailed the megaman vibes.
Love how detailed Mudsbury is the special carousing table make it feel very lived in! With how densely placed the map locations are for the moon base, having some map cutouts throughout would be helpful, but with the page restriction that would have been tough. I really like the back cover, if this was in print at a shop and I read that it would pull me in 100%! You are also braver than I for going with the citrus colors, I also noticed that while researching retro magazines but couldn't bring myself to use them! The vibes are strong!
I love the portal/nexus style gauntlet of trials! My only comment is that since this is designed for a one-shot, there enemies straight up immune to non-magical weapon attacks, but there are no magic weapons that can be found in the trials or a way to enchant any with all the magic devices around. Love the indiana jones hook, great adventure!
I love the way you handled the inspiration, I'd say move the inspo page towards the front so that way reader get a hold of that information before diving into the adventure!
Thank you so much for such a thoughtful review and breakdown! I similarly had a concern early on if there would be too much reptition in the results. Between the heyed locations and if the players are focused on racing up to climb, they wont be exploring every single hex which lowers the probability of generating too many repeats...ideally! Though that does play into your point concerning encountering the mountain king... Perhaps I could expand the tables in the future to ensure that though. I really appreciate the insight! I will have to think on that and what ways to fix that. Thanks again!
The whole corrupted king with a swallowed sword is a huge inspiration from Faxanadu, then the stalking bit came from the ice bear in ice climber! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and let me know if you end up running it I'd love to hear how it went. Thank you!
I'm floored with how much you designed in the time limit, that dungeon is huge! And the locations are all unique and have something of interest to interact with. My only real nitpicks are the title fonts are a little tough to read, and I wish there were map references throughout the location pages but given the page limit restriction I get why they're not there!
All the statblocks are solid, I especially like the npcs as fun callbacks to the inspo. This would be so fun to explore as a player, great work!!
