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The Boss is Coming's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Artwork | #3654 | 3.283 | 3.417 |
| Narrative | #4788 | 2.402 | 2.500 |
| Creativity | #5921 | 2.962 | 3.083 |
| Enjoyment | #8804 | 2.002 | 2.083 |
| Audio | #8890 | 1.681 | 1.750 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
The game features a double countdown: a deck of excuse fragments that permanently depletes as you play (counting down your available options), combined with rising credibility thresholds each round (counting up the difficulty). The boss also physically counts down the time before he reaches your desk again.
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Art: "Pixel Office 32x32" by Masalimov Ilnur (see description for full credits)
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Comments
I loved the idea and artstyle, but the explanation on game rules both in-game and outside could have some work. I ended up just clicking and seemingly succeeding? Or not :) I'm not sure. Also the ultimate goal was unclear outside of obvious avoid work narrative frame. But I think the whole idea can be explored and improved. I would especially liked if excuses would went more into absurd and fantastical and one would need to fit it into characters backs story or some such. And boss catching the contradictions... well, I digress :) Congrats on the submission and good luck if you decide to expand the premise.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such detailed feedback, this genuinely helps! You're right that both in-game and page explanations need work — a couple of people mentioned the same thing, so a proper tutorial/onboarding is now top of my list for the post-jam version I'm currently working on.
On the "ultimate goal": there isn't a win condition by design — you just survive as long as possible and rack up points, and the run always ends when you run out of excuses. That's intentional, but I clearly didn't communicate it clearly enough, so that's on me to fix in the description and in-game.
I really like the idea of leaning harder into the absurd/fantastical side and tying excuses into a character backstory, with the boss catching contradictions — that's a great direction and honestly more interesting than what I have now. Definitely keeping that in mind as I keep working on this post-jam.
Thanks again for playing, and for such a thoughtful comment!
While conceptually I liked it a lot, the gameplay itself confused me. I didn't understand the logic of what worked and why. The art was fantastic
Thanks so much for playing and for the feedback — really glad the concept landed! You've spotted a real gap: due to jam time constraints I didn't manage to fit in a proper tutorial, so the core logic isn't explained in-game. In short: you pick an excuse card to fill in the boss's prompt, each excuse grants extra time based on how "credible" it is — but if you play the same excuse category twice in a row, its value gets halved, so mixing it up pays off. Adding onboarding hints is high on my list for the post-jam update. Thanks again, and glad you liked the art — all credit to Masalimov Ilnur for the "Pixel Office 32x32" pack!