Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
Playability
- Nice intro, the writing is pretty funny.
- Some of your text is blurry when played not fullscreen. Otherwise, I did not encounter any bugs.
Theme Implementation
- Right on with the theme. I like the idea of slowly evolving over time. Your art supports this as you go from stick to the Weird stick, somewhat uncanny vibe.
Cleverness
- The shop escape mechanic is not balanced well. Everything is absurdly expensive for the gain rate. I expected them to start low and scale with each purchase to prevent certain strategies (such as only buying energy). The amount of stats that you gain does not scale appropriately with what you're expected to face. Defense is by far the worst stat:cost item in the shop. Escaping to shop also rerolls the enemy you're fighting and refills your AP and health, making it so that you're never in real danger.
- There is no Game Over state. When your HP is reduced to 0 you open the shop.
- The only things you can buy are stats. The only things that matter are stats. This game is just balls of stats ramming into each-other. The only benefit of Slam/Orbit is to bypass the defense math and that you click fewer buttons. I would recommend giving Slay the Spire a play through and paying attention to how that game balances cost to card effect, and how it manages to create interesting scenarios while playing and deckbuilding via enemy and card design.
- There is no strategic benefit to ending your turn.
Artistic Style
- I appreciate that you put a lot of work into the vibe, with the uncanny background and the gilded screen borders.
- I would recommend unhighlighting buttons that you cant pay energy for, and unhighlighting shop items that you can't buy so that you can purchase things in one click instead of selecting, then clicking the buy button. Maybe have an overlay over the item as you hover over it that says "Buy?"
- The animations for the attacks are pretty elaborate.
I commend you for the time and effort that you put into this project. Despite my criticisms there are some things that I ended up enjoying. Thank you for your participation!
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11WMof-8TOIFdLXUXD9rbs6R9gFryFK_QeDN67G9HnMY/edit?usp=sharing
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!
In Stick Ascension, you are the weapon. Starting as a humble stick, you battle through waves of enemies, upgrading yourself into increasingly powerful forms—from a simple wooden staff to a deadly revolver. Along the way, you’ll face slimes, dire wolves, black knights, and even deadlier foes, using strategy and action points (AP) to execute attacks.
You click on buttons to either attack (strike, slam and orbit) or you can go to the shop to buy upgrades.
Please explain how your game fits the theme:
We are a stick that evolves into progressively better weapons.
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