Hey,
I have been writing up some quite detailed reports for people both here on Itch and on Reddit. After about 5 minutes, I was quite frustrated at constantly having to re-read everything that had already been presented to me as I dont think the terms were well explained. The description for CONCEDE is far more confusing than it needs to be. The first story, Sharma v NorthStar was honestly just such a dull concept for a case, that I didnt want to spend my time doing it. I have play-tested around 20 games in the past month, and I just could not bring myself to progress with the game after (accidentally) completing this case. I think that should be considered quite strong feedback, and I do mean it to be constructive. I can accept that you may have no budget for art, or that its just not needed at this time, but playing a fully vibe coded courtroom game, discussing contract law, with no sound, and confusing terminology, where it cant be full screened, with text crammed in such a small space that it needs scrollbars, was just something that even with the best will in the world, I could not progress with.
I selected one of three options (IN DISPUTE, CONDEDE, NOT AN ELEMENT, and I thought this was going to just be some initial decisions to get my bearings, and that I would dig significantly deeper, but then it brought me to make a decision, before I had learned literally anything about the case. The way you are meant to use the right hand column is not clear at all. I used it to look at the definitions of terms. I then selected one of the three answers above, and then clicked "SETTLE THE FRAME". I have no idea what SETTLING THE FRAME should do. I clicked it, and it gave me a breakdown of what I got right, and what I got wrong, which was completely irrelevant as I had not thought I had made any actual decisions, so I left the game frustrated, and quite certain I would not return as a player.
The game needs onboarding, and it needs a case that is more interesting than "Is this person entitled to hours they worked outside a contract period?". I understand law is not what it appears as in courtroom dramas, but this was not fun for me as a player. I would address the readability. I would maybe introduce a short, simple onboarding case where you guide the player through, and I would work on the visual presentation.
Thank you very much for the feedback! My intention was to test the adjudication mechanic before graphics, story and other mechanics and see if the basic premise of the game is engaging by itself. I fully expected to spend quite a bit of time digging through the logs, see where people stopped playing and figuring out why. You taking the time to provide explicit feedback answers a lot of these questions right off the bat. It also tells me that testing only one mechanic in isolation is going to be more challenging than I expected :)
I'm glad the feedback is in some way useful. If you push an update to the game, notify me, and I will try out the latest iteration, as its valuable to have a mix of feedback from new players but also players that have seen the previous iteration of the game too. If you address some of the issues outlined, I'm sure it will be dramatically more playable. Let me know when the next significant iteration is available for a playtest, and until then, best of luck with your development, and well done on creating something and sharing it with the world. Its far easier criticize than it is to create.