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THE MAGIC PEPPER's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme Fidelity & Creativity | #16 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
| AI Direction & Adaptability | #18 | 2.846 | 2.846 |
| Overall Enjoyment | #18 | 2.462 | 2.462 |
| Production Velocity | #19 | 2.923 | 2.923 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
The Biggest Challenge
The biggest challenge was UI debugging — I went through many iterations before it matched what I had in mind. The second was gameplay: I put a lot of effort into making the game more fun, and next time I need to consider even more. For me, facing these challenges was itself a breakthrough, but the biggest breakthrough was writing a complete game design document first and building the game from it — that greatly improved both my efficiency and overall planning.
AI Tools Used
Cursor, Doubao, Banana2
Areas Where AI Was Used
Code, art, music, sound effects
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Comments
It felt like some of the images weren't loading properly, but I still had a great time with its strategic gameplay and fun concept!
Thanks so much for the kind words — really happy you enjoyed the strategy and concept! And thanks for flagging the image loading issue: it's fixed now in an optimized build~
Clever idea. I failed the boss fight and I think it's because I had too much of one flavor?
Thanks! And you're exactly right — the boss, like every guest, judges all three flavors (Spicy/Sour/Sweet) against its target. Going too heavy on one flavor pushes you out of the Perfect/Good range and you lose hearts.
It looks interesting, but the assets—such as audio and images—didn't load properly.
I’ve actually run into the same issue myself before.
In my case, I resolved it by placing the assets in a flat structure directly under the root directory, optimizing the assets to reduce their size, and implementing progressive preloading.
I enjoy roguelikes, so I’d love to play it once the issue is fixed.
Thanks for the detailed suggestions — they really helped! I've applied two of them: the assets are now heavily optimized (the package dropped from 78MB to under 20MB), and I implemented progressive preloading so audio only loads when needed. I also re-verified every asset path and reference. The fix is live now — I hope everything loads properly on your end this time! Really appreciate you coming back to play it. I also played your game, and I loved it~
Same here, no sound for me either and the card UI was glitched out. Even in full screen, it didn't look as clean as the screenshot. Fingers crossed it's fixed in the stable release! Great job today!
Thanks so much for the kind words! Both issues you hit are fixed now: the audio (much smaller package + audio now loads on demand) and the glitched card UI (the game now auto-scales to fit any window, so nothing gets clipped). The full-screen view should match the screenshots much more closely now too. Hope the stable build treats you better — and thanks for playing today!
This is a standout. Turning curry-cooking into a Slay-the-Spire-style deckbuilder — play spice cards to hit each guest's Spicy/Sour/Sweet target within tolerance — is a genuinely clever, original mechanic, and the CURRY x PEPPER themes run through the whole thing (imps stealing flavor, the Black Pepper Chaos Demon). Map/events/shop/relics/energy all present and working. Enormous, coherent scope for a weekend. The presentation is lovely too. Really impressive work!
Thank you so much! Reading your review honestly made my day — it truly means a lot! I'm really glad the dual-theme concept came through clearly. And yes, I actually broke down Slay the Spire's systems and built the game following its design logic — you spotted that so precisely, I'm genuinely impressed! The fact that you noticed all of this tells me my design intentions really landed, and that makes me really happy. I put my heart into designing and building this game, and getting this kind of recognition makes it all feel worthwhile~~
On my PC, right after the game started, the in-game window appeared so large that it overflowed the screen, making it impossible to even begin playing. I had no choice but to try playing on my Android tablet, but it seemed like many of the card and enemy images weren't displaying.
Since I was able to get the necessary information just from the text, I kept playing until I cleared Stage 1. The game itself was fun.
Thank you so much for taking the time to play it — and I'm really glad the game itself was fun despite the issues! Both problems you ran into are now fixed: the game auto-scales to fit any window (so no more overflow on PC), and the assets are heavily optimized so images load properly on tablets too!
Thank you for the thoughtful feedback and the screenshot — that's really helpful !
I tried playing on my PC again, but while the game is displayed on the screen, the images still aren't showing up.
I even tried clearing the browser's cache completely, but the images still didn't appear, so I think there might still be an issue with how some assets are being handled.
I'm really sorry about that ！— I found the issue was in my compression method, and it's now been fixed. Thanks so much for your feedback ！！❤
Wasn't able to really play it. I got into a battle and didn't see any monsters or cards loading. Would love to try a more stable build
Sorry you couldn't get into it properly! That loading issue is fixed now — the assets are heavily optimized (the package went from 78MB to under 20MB) and the game auto-scales to any window, so monsters and cards should show up right away. A much more stable build is live now — would love to hear if it works on your end! Thanks for giving it a shot!
Audio isn't working on my end for some reason.
Unique concept! I think it's a little too convoluted for the average person to just jump in, play and enjoy without being someone who already loves this genre. A little handholding in the start would have benefited me personally. I didn't feel a motivation to keep going and see what would happen. But the execution is pretty good and the concept is really great!
I'll check the audio problems. Really appreciate the suggestions and the nice words! Your comments are spot-on and super helpful — they made me notice these issues. Thanks a lot!!
The rules were a little difficult for me, but I thought the combination of curry and a card game worked really well!
I spent a lot of time thinking about how to combine the two themes, so your kind words really made my day! That said, you're right — the difficulty is indeed a bit high. I should have added different difficulty options; that's something I overlooked. Thanks so much for playing! ^-^