Play project
The Baby's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #22 | 3.947 | 3.947 |
| Usability | #32 | 3.316 | 3.316 |
| Theme | #33 | 2.684 | 2.684 |
| Overall | #35 | 3.197 | 3.197 |
| Enjoyment | #43 | 2.842 | 2.842 |
Ranked from 19 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
*in Werner Herzog voice:* I want to fight the baby.
Horrible, I hate it [/positive]! What a terrifying idea for a monster. I know one player in my group who would love (/hate) to fight this. For some actual mechanical notes: the maneuver having no potency on a burst that can inflict dazed, and costing no Malice, is crazy powerful, and the Malice spend on the trigger is really cheap for increasing an area size like that. I also don't really understand how the Malice features are meant to work in the context of an encounter, especially the aura, and the 7 Malice still requiring a maneuver also feels kind of wonky.
I found out really late that some of the explanatory flavor text was lost on translation. The aura compels a PC or NPC to want to care for The Baby as long as it is in The Baby's aura. In my playtest, the thing that stood out quickly was that once the players understood The Baby's aura, they kept their distance, so Dirty Diaper is powerful but hard to execute(3 speed is slow, and a PC would have to agree that chasing their teammates is "protecting" The Baby), and I took that as the trade-off. The aura increase on Tantrum again is powerful, but to what end? At this point, I hope players have discovered ways to separate a PC from The Baby, so attaching itself to another PC is desperation; a big enough aura could pull in passing NPCs or random forest creatures. When I played it, I kept one thing in mind: The Baby doesn't want to kill; it wants to survive. It's a parasite, not a predator, and that changed my tactics.
Lots of tables might find this sort of enemy uncomfortable to have in their game; but, for those who enjoy their boundary stretching horror they'll find a memorably creepy monster to quell.
Brave submission with a variety of good hooks. Very nicely done.
The concept of The Baby is really cool and I love the horror elements. The recovery drain on Who's Hungry? is amazing. You also hit the theme dead on and did it in a unique way. I only wish that The Baby was a leader or solo!
I was concerned that giving it two turns or Villain Actions would make it a much higher EV. I would love to hear your thoughts on what being a leader or solo would do for it.
“Horror, Baby”
Yeah. Yeah! Before this I hadn't conceived of a whodunnit ending with a baby as the culprit. And a final showdown with the creature being hot-potatoed by its thralls as the heroes try not to adopt the thing could make for a novel encounter. The hooks at the end are a great addition too.
Leaving a second comment because my first one was only about the missing document: I really liked this! It's got some very creepy vibes and is all around very flavorful and unique. Good job! :)
You know what, before reading it, I had my doubts. Then I saw the sample scenarios at the end, and they were all so inspiring. Lots of cultures have mythologies of a monster replacing a baby, and this is a DS version of it. It's silly and insane, but I can think of many ways of dropping it into a story. Cool concept!
Is there supposed to be document to download? Or is this entry just the screenshots on the entry page?
Thank you. Somehow, I clicked the "hide downloads" button without realizing it. You should be able to see the full file now.
I did EXACTLY the same thing. It's because it's selected by default.