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DISPATCH: Kodaswomey's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| How well are the themes utilized? | #12 | 2.921 | 3.200 |
| How well are design principles used to create a fun one-shot? | #12 | 3.286 | 3.600 |
| How legible and easy-to-understand is this mission? | #13 | 2.556 | 2.800 |
| How stylish does this one-shot visually look? | #13 | 1.826 | 2.000 |
| Overall | #13 | 2.647 | 2.900 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Which RPG system(s) is this for?
System-agnostic
How did you use the mandatory theme "Side Effects May Include"?
The environment and medications there involved have Side Effects.
Which hard mode challenges did you do?
1 player no GM
How harsh do you want people to critque your submission?
Be brutally honest
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Comments
Okay this is so cool, a simple time table game, immediately clear what the idea is. Good thematical use of the single player no gm as well, I like it.
As a physical prop, having the longshoremen, both pull list and the locations as "cards" during gameplay would be helpful – and having visual indicators for fragile, cold storage and unstable cargo – there's existing symbols for these, with useful visual shorthand.
It could also make it easier accidentally to treat the longshoremen as game pieces, having them as... game pieces. But all this would make it easier to track how the day progresses, add a feeling of reality and a sense of space, to a degree.
But currently I feel the information I would need to refer to multiple times does not stand out as much as I would like. Maybe they don't have to be cards, but some way of presenting the information in a way that's easy to spot and reference to.
Thanks for the notes! I'm in the process of completing and re-ordering it right now, so there should be a more functional (and prettier?) version up in either ~2 or ~72 hours.
I hadn't given much thought to the physical on-table arrangement of playing it printed. I guess it wouldn't be much extra work to add a page that can be cut into individual ID cards for each Longshoreman, with skills and a space for a portrait above or alongside their timesheet. Maybe a condensed version in as few pages as possible, and a 16-page page-breaked version arranged such that you can have all the separate leaves visible.
I like the ideas in this one-shot. The planning and execution of the tasks, mixed with the narrative / journaling should result in an immersive experience. It somehow reminds me of Cargo Commander (probably because of traversing hazardous locations to fetch cargo, and the bleak setting.)
I think it is somewhat unfair to rate legibility and style on what is a prototype / work in progress. Still, here are my comments. I did not have problems understanding the game, obviously there are parts yet to be written to allow it to be completeley playable. The organization of the rules could be changed. For instance, moving the main game loop (page 6) closer to the game overview (page 2) would have been helpful.
When reading about the longshoremen I imagined they were robots of some kind, but then, the need for breathing apparatus, suits etc. made me unsure. Also, the section about items mentions special requirements, such as coolant systems or large transport vehicles, but there is no indication of what is available or other restrictions on use.
As the one-shot is meant to be system-agnostic, guidelines to adapting the longshoremen skills to a couple of popular sci-fi systems would be helpful.
This is the shape of the project at Jam deadline time, so I think it would be unfair to other submissions to rate this one after more time organising and beautifying. I'm pretty sure I ticked the "be brutal" feedback box, and I've sub'd an unfinished project.
Re-ordering is high on the To-Do list, once it is feature-complete. Your suggestion is a helpful one; I'm obviously very close to it at the moment so it is good to get a guide on which bits of context are needed earlier to make later rules easily understandable.
The idea about guides for aligning the agnostic frame with specific popular systems marries with your suggestion that the equipment available is too undefined - I'll add a note to expand the intro/framing paragraphs to be explicit that there is a load of undefined space around the rules frame for the writer to make the world whatever they want. If it makes sense to be available, it is, but examples would also help.
The idea of the Longshoremen being ambiguously human is to steer you into the common side effect of siloed management being that they stop thinking of human resources as people. That's part of what the Health & Safety report and final summary is supposed to point at ("Did you stop thinking about your employees as people while chasing your KPIs?"), but maybe I've left that too ambiguous, if it's not coming through.
Thanks for the notes, there's good stuff to work with here!
There's a finished(?) art&colour version up now, if you fancy a look at it as creator intended. I took your points about moving bits around, which I think does make it a lot more legible. There are probably a few pieces that could benefit from being placed differently, but the various chunks are so inter-related I suspect the 'correct' order might be somewhat open to individual preference. Having talked it out with a couple of other folks, I didn't include much in the way of a system/skill conversion guide, but hopefully it should be somewhat intuitive in the context of a more complete game/system.
Congrats for the new version, and thanks for sending a message about the update. I'll definitely try playing, most likely during next weekend!