Beautiful little game, the emotions mechanic is very smart and I like how the game has a deeper theme, but the story gives a cute spin to it. The sound design is great and the characters are adorable - I can see myself spending more hours in a world like this if you decide to polish it some more!
I think the game would benefit from a small tutorial (I still don't know what happiness does other than the double jump, which took me a while to figure out. Smart detail!). Also, it needs some ways to inform their player of their progress or to nudge them in a certain direction (like highlighting the NPCs, letting them know they collected the honey and should head back to Sadness, have finished cleaning the oven etc).
What wasn't clear to me from a narrative point of view, is the story of the NPCs. According to the story, people got polarized to a single emotion... yet their names suggest that the people are the emotions themselves. Maybe this gets clearer later on, but at first it seems like you're telling two different stories.
Finally, this may seem like too much of a nitpick but.. making bees the enemies you kill and stealing their honey might come off the wrong way. I'd consider swapping the bees with actual monsters.
Overall, this is a great first step. Dig deeper and I'm sure you'll find lots of ways to make it impactful and memorable!
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Iridescent's itch.io pageJudge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Your GDD is well-structured and simple, and the development timeline image is a great way to show your planning ahead. However, add some in-game images would help highlight key design choices. Since your art style uses a monochromatic color scheme, consider how this might affect Tritanopia and other kind of colorblind players. As it’s a puzzle game, expanding on the puzzle design that is tied to its philosophical and emotional themes would add meaningful depth to GDD. I liked the main menu — an eye animation with the colors could enhance it further. The NPC at the start was a bit unclear since I couldn't talk to them. Perhaps a bubble prompt or interactable highlights would help a lot with that part. The color/emotion mechanics could benefit from a tutorial. A pause and settings menu would also improve usability for audio control and for taking a break from the game.
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ASKSlUnMRqh5cVw1YWaKtjdOX2PleC9fkRDKjHsYyK4/edit?tab=t.hx7bcpxwcfz2
Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
Yes
Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
Yes
Summarize your game!
Player can switch between different emotions by clicking F.
It influences what dialogues you can get and what abilities you have. Sometimes you have to choose a proper emotion to progress through the stroy
Please explain how your game fits the theme.
The world once got polarized and people in it have only one emotion - the one that corresponds the most to their last emotion they felt at the polarization event. And now the player - the only person capable of switching emotions - can bring a tragic couple together again and begin a process of depolarizing the world. Also i have written a description for itch.io page
Is there anything you'd like the judges to pay particular attention to?
Focus on figuring out what emotion the player has to be in
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