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Rook's Last Stand's itch.io pageJudge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- I really enjoyed playing this! I love the unique puzzle solving and the upgrade system. It felt fairly polished in most aspects and the music and art are pleasant. The game's opening is a very nice touch. The game just about fits the theme. Minor issues: - Some z-layering issues when pieces move. - Moving the camera around with the mouse was interesting but it made selecting things a bit difficult sometimes. I think I personally would have preferred the effect to only happen near the edge of the window and to have some form of minimap to be able to see what's not immediately around you. - While hovering the active effects seemed to highlight them, it did not show the tooltip for what they do again - maybe a bug? - I'd rather not have the tooltips for pieces I'm selecting to attack pop up every single time I go to select them. Maybe move to a modifier key? - It'd be nice to have an option to have an easier to read font ...*reads last bits before submitting review*... THIS WAS MADE IN SCRATCH?? I'm very impressed!
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LrKqroR6J0ps1X4m54dPm-TUe-8LoxznOfqI9o1TgGc
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
Summarise your game!
Play as the last Black Rook in the world defending the ruins from white pieces in this strategic chess-based roguelike.
Please explain how your game fits the theme:
In chess, you take/defeat other pieces by simply occupying their tiles. “You are the Weapon” describes how your rook character can take other pieces by simply moving into them without using any other items.
Is there anything you'd like the judges to pay particular attention to?
The engine used to program Rook's Last Stand was the popular kid's coding website Scratch, and it matches the quality of other jam games using simplistic block code behind the scenes. This was done as a proof of concept, and for fun :)
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Comments
Great game! Pixel art is solid and the music fits the NES vibe you were going for! Very responsive game, a nice twist on chess. Seeing all the pieces swarm in gave fear. Should absolutely consider developing it further! You really surprised me with this being made in Scratch! Not sure if it's a softlock or not but I ended up in a situation where I couldn't take out two knights because of their placement. Maybe the ruins would break that up? Otherwise got as far as wave 4 :)
What can I say, this is just great!
(jam game: Tiptoe Valley)
This is really addicting. I am surprised you made it in Scratch, that's pretty cool! I love that the art seems to be custom made for this entry (or if it's not, it fits really well at least), and the music is perfect as well. I could absolutely see this being a full game, and personally I really appreciate that you combines survivors-like waves and upgrades with turn-based puzzle mechanics. Love me a good puzzle game. I hope you'll turn it into a full project!
Played through your game on stream, if you wanted to watch the playthrough heres the vod timestamped to your game (if it doesn't work your game starts at 2:28:17)
Thank you! Will watch this asap :)
Wow, thanks for all of the great feedback! I have a lot of things to add post jam for sure. I'm surprised no one has told me about the spelling mistake in the credits slide, that's what 1am gamedev does to a man 😅
So simple yet full of depth, this is not just a great version of chest, it's a great game in it of itself. The controls, audio, visual, UI, everything is polished. Even the cards are cleverly designed.
Fantastic work, I'd pay to have this on my phone as is. Beautiful work of video game art, you should be proud of what you built!
The pixel art is nice and pleasant, and the music is really good! Gets you in the mood to slowly strategize. I also enjoy both the intro and the ending of the game!
I really like the incorporation of the walls, and not only that, but of the upgrade that lets you take advantage of said walls. Also, the upgrade to get one move after killing an enemy is an absolute godsend and makes getting into further waves possible.
This game is a very interesting version of chess with roguelike aspects, and I really enjoyed it. I ran into no glitches and it ran as smoothly as butter. Just wish I was a bit better at chess. 😅
I made it to round 12. Awesome game!
Thank you so much! The double kill card is meant to be in a higher tier of card and it's forced to be offered to you early on. Wave 12 is really far! I'm surprised the game didn't run out of cards to offer you :0
Round 12 is impressive! And thanks a lot for the feedback. If I had the chance to write the music better (and not force more work on my project partner as a result) I'd probably try to make two looped tracks that flow into each other and switch when the waves progress... But I also think that's beyond the scope of my abilities at this time.
Any later projects, however... >:)
Absolutely stellar entry. Excellent choices for roguelike powerups, and engaging, simple to understand but depth-ful combat. I don't think I have anything to say for stuff you could work on, it's just great
This is an incredible take on chess. Well done!
This is really well done! I really like the Unique Gameplay Design that also incorporate the Chess Rules! Hope to see more update and twist for this game! and I do hope you win!
Hoping to see if there is like a kind of Unique Boss Level Fight after finishing a certain amount of waves hehe.
The idea is so cool, well done!
you deserve to do very well in this jam
Oh my, what a splendid game you have made! Truly a wonder!
Cool idea, well made. At first glance didn`t know exactly what to do, but two turns later it was clear.
Super cool concept! Once thing I don't see people commenting about is the cell shape. I find it very bothersome that they're rectangles and not squares. It makes it more difficult to parse which tiles the white pieces will move to. Certainly not game-breaking, but an unneeded burden imo. Great game I love it!
Awesome concept, really fun to play. The sound design is so satisfying. For some reason it was kind of laggy on my end but that could just be my notebook. Amazing work, you can be proud of your work! :)
This is a cool one! Ditch the font but keep everything else.
Really fun and neat concept, I could see myself playing it more. I think kids at the computer labs/class will really enjoy this.
Could maybe pass as educational 🤣
this very creative, very beginner friendly even loved it!
Really cool strategy game! Lovely art and feel, and easy enough to know intuit what's going on through a few attempts! Always very impressed to see a simple core idea so well executed - well done!!!
Ok so I have no clue what is a Scratch limitation and what isn't, so I'm just gonna look at this like any other game to remove bias. Ignore anything that's not possible in scratch!
First impressions:
I hate the font choice. 5x7 is the minimum font size that "readable" but it's far from ideal and I had a hard time reading the text (especially some upgrades with "()" in them, they look like "C"). I like a bit of story as the intro, it wasn't too long, nor too short.
I love the artstyle and have no complaints there.
At first I didn't understand what I was supposed to do, it was probably explained somewhere in the story but you should always assume that players don't focus on what they are reading. The best is to explain what they're supposed to do when the game actually starts. Just a simple "kill all pieces" is enough. If we're talking about UI already, then I'd definitely add a counter that shows how many pieces you killed and how many remain on the map.
Another UI related thing is seeing where the enemy can move to so the player doesn't accidentally move onto a square that results in a death. I guess you can say that this is so that the game is harder, but I feel like it's an important QoL feature. If not all the time, then definitely show it while hovering over an enemy piece.
(or maybe I'm just bad at chess and seeing these moves is the fun part idk)
The kill chaining upgrade is insanely overpowered but makes the game so much more fun! I was quite overwhelmed on the final wave and did die unfortunately. I don't think I could have made it that far without this upgrade.
Not really sure what else I can say about the game, it's very linear and most of it is just well made! Of course it's a bit short, more map choices would be nice etc. etc. but I think we both know that so there's no reason to talk about it.
Overall, it's a well made, really short and simple game without any major mistakes. Kinda makes sense since it's using the rules of chess, which is a pretty well balanced game. KEKW