itch.io

Thanks for the input. Space ends up being the excuse for everything sometimes I fear. Logical, but still frustrating. I tried to make sure to convey point 1 through small elements, so glad it at least did come through. If I expand this module, I will likely add more similar things throughout. Regarding point 2, some breakage was intentional, requiring more consideration on how to handle things when rooms are split up from rotation. I did some testing to find if they could be accessed if someone was rotating things, but the combination of possibilities was beyond the scope of time to playtest. I was considering altering elements if I did an expansion. 10 especially given how important that area is. I considered making it so the core 6 coffins hold the phylactery and the two end ones hold a set encounter and reward between them. On 3, solving the cube will depend a lot on which order they rotated everything in. A single video may not be enough. However, I was deeply considering adding a link to a site for 'solve the rubiks' automation to help a GM resolve setting it back to standard start. In the end, space didn't allow for it and it seemed like someone could look it up easily on the internet. Still, one element I considered was to have grabbing the Phylactery yank them all out of the puzzle immediately to at least resolve the need to find their way back out.

Of course. It's kind of funny how I actually had experience that applied directly to such a wild ride style setup. Hope it is useful.

Dedicated cover. Seems like a lot of people are doing that this year. Not a huge issue, especially here where the page size is A6 instead of A5. Not a lot of real estate lost in exchange for some concept gains. My only critique would be that the choice of cover art feels far more like an old video game cover than an old paperback. Not speaking ill of it, simply letting you know the first impression I get from the visual.

Back cover is loaded with vital information. Good place to put things you want to reference regularly. 2 NPCs of note, an encounter table, a note on how to stat the encounters instead of needing to explain them completely. Pages don't include numbers visually, but I would still reference the page number the chimeric mutations are found in the Hybrid note. Especially for the print version where the page number explains itself by flipping pages. Last is a list of Science Fantasy relics. The trope is certainly suited to the era of pulp fantasy novels one might find in the Appendix N. A good number of these aren't just benefit alone, which is good. Having some 'curse' there as well means things get more interesting and requires more thoughtful usage.

The situation is straight forward and well marked with bold call-outs. Overview of the setting is clear enough as well, though calling out 'clawing kudzu' had me immediately glance over to the mutated flora chart. If only the word 'kudzu' was bold, I wouldn't have looked over. Adding clawing made it feel like a monster call out rather than a visual highlight. It's nice to add more flavor again in the form of magic as psionics. It's reskining rather than trying to create an all new system.

Lots of hook options. I like this. Many products focus entirely on rumor tables (I'm guilty of this as well sometimes) as a means of getting people involved. I like that you have multiple directions to approach it based on the type of players you have. Motivations of wealth, prophetic visions, hope of useful information, etc. Not just “A thing is happening over there”. Good choice.

Under the Chimera entry, is it meant to be 'rarely'? As to the Chimeric Lord, I like that he's not some endlessly obvious evil to defeat. Kind, wanting people treated fairly, etc. On entering the next page, your entries immediately are referencing valuable information. Number of guards, page number to find the hook, which Roman numeral to move to for location data. Good. Excellent in fact. Highly valuable as a GM trying to pull this out of a folder after a long time not looking it over.

Okay, technically I get the map first, but it's serviceable. I can talk about that though I suppose. You've kept things from getting dull by the use of the kudzu images snaking around the borders of pages, so art isn't really lacking here. There's always something to keep a page from looking like a wall of black and white. Heck, you even use the kudzu leaf as a bullet, which is really smart. The map style is in keeping with the cover, so makes sense. What I don't like about the map is just a personal thing.

Every mountain has the exact same markings. Cut and pasted peaks regularly spaced around the valley. I get it. They're not really important to the situation and players probably aren't going to go exploring them. Still, for me, many entries only have that map as the core visual in the interior. If you do an expansion, it would be worth it to consider remaking the map with a little more time and care put into the seemingly-unimportant elements. Feeling like time was taken on those small details lends a sense of care to the design of the map. At the end of the day, all that matters is knowing what is where and I understand that. A hand sketch with circles and lines can do the job. Still, you clearly cared enough to make it more than that and I feel it's worth the little extra time to go all the way. Not a point issue, just a sentiment.

Back to the adventure. Lots here for hints of what is going on. Some set interactions where player actions matter. Waterfall though bothers me. The minute some players realize there's no down side, I have known them to go gung-ho on the option offered. I'd add some sort of risk of negative effects rather than always positive mutations.

VIII notes several vehicle objects not noted in the document. Given the system neutral element, just noting something suitable as a similar concept for scale would be nice. For example, the skimcycle could easily be noted as “Speed equal to a horse at full speed up to 6 hours. If allowed to cool 4 hours, can be used again. If run more than 6 hours or not allowed to fully cool, may overheat and explode as a fireball 2:6.”

Under IX, I would bold the whole stench of death element. So now on to the keep. Not going to lie, it feels very weird doing a random dice roll to decide how many rooms are in the keep that capstones the entire adventure. Only the 4 seem to matter though and I'd have to figure out where in the world they all fit together. If I am running this on the fly, I am throwing all of that out and just using those 4 rooms. Small keep. It is what it is. I read it over and then go to scroll to the next page to see what we have next... and there's nothing there. We reached the end.

Kudos on the game setup. I was all in. I was lost in what was happening enough that I wasn't keeping track of what page I had reached. But the ending feels abrupt and painful. I know I can make all of what happens from there up. I do it all the time. But when I am pulling out a premade adventure, I am doing it so I don't have to do all of that extra legwork. This is an amazing first half of a larger event. I say do expand this. Add a second half to the adventure where players are forced to make a hard choice between a kind man with cruel methods verses a status quo being restored even if it isn't pleasant. No obvious good or evil, just two people with their own goals using what tools they have access to. Hard choices. These were my final thoughts as I got to the end.

For better or for worse, this was on the list of games I wanted to review. The why of that is the part that may annoy you or make you happy, depending on your goals. That cover image hit me and I was expecting this to be a somewhat whimsical silly game. I half expected it to be written in rhymes. Why? Because the combination of simple imagery, strong color distinction, and that font with the little person symbolically above it made me absolutely reliving my childhood. It feels like a full commitment to the Dr. Seuss evocation. I'll be judging the document on its own merits, but realizing it was designed to be horror enough to need a content warning was a slight disappointment. There goes my hopes of a monster stat block for a Lorax. Oh well.

I'm not familiar with the system in use here, so that's a point against me on offering useful insights on mechanics. Still, I am sure things will make sense enough once I dig in further. As I've said in other reviews, I am never a fan of more than a short paragraph of 'read-aloud' blocks. My style of running games doesn't fit with monologues well. I much prefer when these sorts of blocks include either a key point list at the end or bold words for key elements within the block of information to call my eye to what's going to matter on the fly. It allows those who like the read-aloud elements to have them while still allowing those like myself to have our own method addressed.

GM only section immediately references seventh son of the seventh son, evoking elements of Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son, and The Spook's Apprentice by Joseph Delaney. No idea if that was coincidence or intentional though. Especially given the similarity between Alvin and Alair. Weird little tale of what is going on. Missing a comma in the sentence about Yena though. Not a point issue, just pointing that out.

Not sure if moments are part of the system, but seem fine. Little tone aspects. At this point in reading, I don't see them more as bits of set dressing, but perhaps they come into play later. Treasures are alright. Two of the three are quite fun if the players decide to do something with them. Once I get down to the summer residence, I find a person who is hiding and knows what happened. When I look back at the GM info again to be sure I wasn't misremembering, it indeed says all of the people on the estate are there mesmerized. Perhaps change 'all' to 'most' in that case. Or 'nearly all' perhaps?

The mime enemies are,.. okay. Less than obvious weakness is fine considering it is caused by unholy beings. The list of 6 things they do feels a bit weak though. You are going to get a little unexpected backstory out of me here. In high school, despite being involved in athletics, I was also involved heavily in theater. One of the special clubs I was in was mime. Shocking they even had it as a club honestly. I spent 2 years studying mime and perfecting elements. There's a lot you can do with mime.

The most obvious option for combat is allowing some of the mimed objects and effects to become real. That's pretty bog standard though. What you can really make good use of is a little known element of mime. The line of silence (or circle of silence, etc). I'm not sure how much it gets talked about even in books and documentaries about mime. Basically, you may notice on almost every form of mime makeup, there's a very strong division point between the makeup and the skin. Sometimes it is just a crisp edge, other times it is marked with a black outline around the white. This is the silence line. For as long as it remains unbroken, the mime is supposed to stay silent. It's treated by some mime groups as a sort of sacred and unwavering barrier. To the point where the mime troop may banish you for breaking it and you need to smudge the line at the end of a performance before you can start talking again.

While it's a silly tradition I doubt most groups even follow, it is useful. It's a distinctive cut off between the real world and the performance. I could easily see you using this in your own setup here as a way to free the brothers. Smudge the line. Breaking the line frees them from the demon possession. Perhaps even allowing the demonic beings into our own world instead of inside the brother! Harder enemy in exchange for maybe saving a brother. Food for thought.

So then onto the last page I see an audience member wanting to escape. This strikes me oddly. Since the audience is captivated, this person has to be Yena right? But if it's Yena, I have a hard time imagining she's counted as a trap. Is the automaton going to be clawing her way out or something to cause trouble for players. It feels a little unclear here, at least for me how this person is still able to try escaping. The very next entry says Yena's there, so it obviously isn't her then. All quite confusing for understanding why there's now a second person not captivated in an adventure where 'everyone' is captivated and never leaves.

The slime's weakness is beautifully strange and entirely fitting. Without really knowing the system, no idea how well designed the enemies are for this, but they seem consistent in design. The ending itself implies there's no saving the brothers and they might recur as an enemy in the future. You gave a few options for player actions at the end, so it's not a railroad event exactly. I just really like the idea of a possibility of undoing the deal that transformed the brothers. Doubt most players would figure it out, but still noteworthy.

So overall, seems like it could be fun. There's a lot of silly turned horror possible. Lord knows there's a lot of sources for ideas from things. Killer Klowns comes to mind. The layout is clean and everything felt easy enough to find. It was consistent, but felt a little short. That's not an insult though. Wanting to see more and have a better feel for the setting, world, and adventure are a good thing. Nicely done on this overall.

Thanks for the thoughts. You are correct about blue. It was a solution on how to make a problem into a feature. Early on, I realized I could save both space on the map for vital information to go as well as create an unsettling mechanic if I didn't turn those into map sections, but doorways into the extradimensional space where the box is actually hidden. With more space, I would have created some custom elements to that space. As to Rubik, I don't have a good excuse for that one. As many passes to look for typos as I did, I should have caught it.

For some reason, my computer is trying to treat the pages as 3 A4. When I tried to convert over to spread and see how the system handled it for print, it left a lot of extra space. At first, I thought maybe they were A4 pages instead of A5, but when I did the pixel rate to dpi conversions, it was within the A5 size range with only a few pixels short on the long sides. I have no idea what is going on there, but since the system says it is indeed A5, I have to assume there's just some small issue I don't understand.

I do a quick scan of the document and see it's largely a dungeon with the first page dedicated to system-elements. There's a map referenced with a functional link. I can only assume it was due to issues with the reprinting of someone else's maps. I'll be honest here, I would have been happier with a map included. Especially considering you only used 3 of your 4 pages. Even if the map 'quality' was a little lower, having it with the document to directly reference back to instead of linking to a second page is more in keeping with my preferences. If I was printing this out, that map wouldn't automatically get included on the 2 sides after all.

System neutral conversions and notes are comprehensive. I doubt most GMs would have any issues finding their way around the information. The down side is it does make the pages with information feel cluttered. I found myself referencing back to page 1 a lot just to be sure I was understanding correctly. Was this one bold underline italic or bold underline? The little arrow was paths right? Seems like a path but let me double check. You get the idea. Based on the fact this is referenced as part of a larger setup, I can only assume this visual language is shared across the entire product line. Probably good to stay consistent, but it's a bit rough for me personally on a visual level. I could see applying other techniques to help here some.

At the very least, you can probably eliminate some of the redundancies. I don't need to know tables are bold italic. I can see a table is a table without the need for any real call-out there. Similarly, you note items with a symbol, but also with italics. Chapters/Rooms/Important Areas can collapse into a single entry since they share markings. Things like that could shave away some of the cluttered feel to the page. It's actually strange. So many entries I have pointed out how helpful calling out details would be for some key points. Here, I find myself seeing so many things called out that my eye doesn't naturally land on anything.

Clear background, clear goal. Always good to start with. Key faction noted right away, also good. Mystery as a module nature is nice. So many are find items, kill things, fight BBG. Something where the goal is clear, but the details are fuzzy and there's not some obvious target to attack makes for a nice change of pace.

Crime scene is nice. Lots of things to look at, lots of ways for different players to shine by searching. Even missing a clue or two won't be an issue. You might not get the whole picture, but you can see enough of the puzzle to have leads. If it was a larger work, I would add some red herrings (not dead ends, but things that lead down a less direct path to answers) and maybe a few more locations to explore. Given the space constraints, not a huge issue here.

By the second location, I realize the path element can be removed entirely. Every location can lead to every other location. No real reason to include it here. I make it to entry 3 when I realize the linked map doesn't seem to have anything to do with this set of independent locations. Am I missing something or no? And then I see the Cemetery mentions a crypt. Ah.. okay, that's probably what the map is for. From the way it's described, I don't really need a map though. On the fence about the whole map situation at this point.

Anyway, final encounter isn't ridiculous. Balance will probably vary a bit from system to system, but overall I could see the level set noted working for this fight in a lot of the systems I am familiar with. Minimal tweeks needed. All told, there's a lot of chances to use abilities, a lot of times to explore RP, a reasonable set of leads to explore the mystery and a capstone fight to pull it all together. Fair work. Single piece of art at the end isn't doing anything for me, but it's not hurting things either.

I still am surprised at the use of only 3 pages and still feel confused regarding the mention of maps in the explanation page, but no apparent need for a map, nor direct inclusion. Maybe it's me. As I said, the amount of call-out information kind of makes me want to go cross eyed. Items, mysteries, fights, traps. Lot of things in a surprisingly tight package. While I don't know if I'd run this at my own tables, there's certainly a number of things I can take away from this and use in different ways at my table. Sometimes that's more valuable at the end of the day. Thanks for taking the time to participate and for doing something atypical with your adventure!

I kind of just stared at this entry for a while. I normally take time to look at it as a whole, consider art elements, get an impression of the piece before even reading. I'm at a bit of a loss right from the start here. There's... um... text. No clear game elements at an overview level (I am sure I will find them as I read), no stat blocks, no call out areas, no...um... game. It looks like a solid length of prose. Like a short story more than a game. Kind of curious as to how this comes together. The only real visual comes in the form of columns. They're symmetrical I suppose. I can see italics vs regular font, so there's that. I feel like even at a glance, it's going to be all about the theme and writing here. So, I guess I am digging in with no real insights.

We start with a title and an overview of the backstory and expectations of what is going to happen. Clear enough. Might be an interesting means to set up players who have never played a system to learn that system. Works alright as a baseline. Nothing making me stand up and clap, but nothing crazy either.

And then I get to garrison and realize I don't know what system this is for. It mentions Ego (my capitalization here) in character creation. With it not being bold or capitalized, I initially was about to dismiss it as just being an odd phrasing, but got wondering if it maybe was tied to the system. With that, I moved from the jam page to the landing page (jam judges don't see those automatically fyi) and find out it is a homebrew system made DURRING the jam period.

I mean, kudos for the dedication, but this then got me thinking about how much you put into the system time-wise. So now I download that. It doesn't get measured in any way for your vote elements, but personal curiosity required it. I expected maybe a 5 to 10 page ultralight TTRPG. What I found was over 40 pages of game. I apologize, I'm not reading over the rules. I skimmed at best because there are over 300 entries and this wasn't part of the judging criteria.

Sir, allow me to commend you on your dedication to shooting yourself in the foot in the most spectacular way humanly possible. I don't know how much time you spent building this system, but the time you spent on that could have gone into your actual judged entry. Based on what I am reading in the document, it could just as easily have been system neutral with almost no changes. You could have spent all that time refining this, having people look over it and make suggestions, etc. I won't lie here, it's hard not to want to judge it based on that knowledge rather than just the content (such as it is). Okay, onward.

Okay, I read the italic 'read this to players' text... but I can assure you good sir I am never reading something this long at my table. It doesn't have bold for key elements either so I can't skim and do my own descriptions. These are the blocks of orchestrated text that kept me from using many modules from decades ago. Some people like them, but without bold elements or a bullet list nearby, I have to go in and create a short list myself to use. If you are someone who really enjoys these, more power to you. You'll get a lot more happy GMs if you can find a way to keynote them with bold elements though so ones like myself can instantly know the important elements at a glance.

I get to the end of the Garrison section and there's some RP, so that's good. I never liked games where everything was combat and nothing else. I know I'm the outlier there though. The thing is, there's very little game to this. A couple of stat influences on social interactions, but there's not been anything to do for players but talk so far. Even some of that was semi-scripted as well though.

Next section (apparently there are only two) starts back up with another long read-aloud section. In that section, you explicitly state what a player imagines (can imagine). Personal thing, but I never tell a player what they think or may think of something unless they are under some form of mind control. I describe it, sometimes in floral or moody terms, and let them decide what they imagine. Nothing to vote on about that, just something to consider.

I'm going to be honest with you here. If I wasn't doing a voting review, I would have checked out several times in all of this. I'm on page 2 and so far the only game here has been a couple reactions from NPCs based on character stat blocks to see who they like more and a navigation check. A lot of this feels more like it was meant to be the first chapter in a novel rather than an actual game.

Halfway through the second column of the second page, I find something any player can sink their teeth into. The guide goes away and is clearly attacked badly. Considering she is a veteran and they are newbies, seems like a rough setup though. Any threat bad enough to do that is probably not one they all survive. I will say here I wouldn't have the slab fall only as they near the entry. That feels very 'DM refuses to let you do something smarter than the planned adventure' to me. Instead, have the sound of the slab falling happen in the same time frame as the unseen combat. This way, if they reasonably backtrack, the sound becomes an 'aha' feeling of recognizing what had happened. Same situation, very different vibe.

Every failed strike hitting Sarah in the fight is pretty harsh. Low level characters are likely going to end up hitting her a lot. I don't see any stats for her character here though. The monster I assume is in the TTRPG book, but is this NPC in there also? If so, strange choice to include in the book. If not, I need something to work with here. At least her existing HP if nothing else.

And then we are again doing the 'door shuts so you have to do what I want' trick. Same feeling as above for the same reasons. Then it's wandering with rolls to decide how they do. I don't know your system, so not sure how likely getting a 10 or 5 are. Presumably low enough not to TPK or have them wander out with no idea of what is going on. Instead of a list of things they can find out with exploration or successful rolls, you have another large text block to read. Seems it's an 'all or nothing' answer if they decide to dig deeper than 'horned things worshiped stars'. Sure.

Lastly we end the (well not so much adventure, but...) path with a, um, monster eating lesser monsters while also pooping them out. Was...this intentional? I know some entries have small language barriers, but nothing in this made me think it was a second language. She's just swallowing them hole and immediately sending them back out? Is this supposed to be birthing them or was it just meant to feel horrific? Not the worst part of this encounter, but the one that gave me the most pause.

Again, I am assuming stats are in the book somewhere. Again, I don't like telling players how they feel. Just have insight say it doesn't seem like a fight they could win short of a miracle and let them decide if they want to dive into a pile of death or not. It's written as if they automatically escape somehow if spotted. It also says they unlock a new passageway when they do. Unlock how? Does a wall fall away? Do they literally have to find a key and unlock it? Does the hand of God descend and hold it open for them? Don't know, they just do.

We then conclude with one of two situations and telling the players exactly what they remember/think. The end. I get it. It's meant to be a poignant reminder of the foreshadowing from before. I also get how I am sure I have come across as a patronizing jerk through most of this review. I endeavor to be painfully honest and to point out all of what works and all of the ways things can improve.

Digging in to see what was going on with the companion TTRPG you designed here tells me you seem to have a narrative focus in your interests. Nothing wrong with that. I think you've let it remove some of what makes a game a game though. There's no map, no npc stats, a third of the document is read-aloud bits, and ever player choice is basically as follows: (Do a thing? If yes, go forward. If no, go forward anyway but some issue occurs.) I get that player's don't always have a choice, but they need to feel like they do. Quantum ogres work for some games, but you have to paint the illusion they were always there rather than you shuffling the board. Those doors are probably my single biggest complaint about this adventure.

It reads more like a story with a few choose your own adventure moments. It's clear you have passion here. You crafted a story with the space you had and put a lot of thought into what you wanted to say or have happen. You were so passionate, you spent 11 times more effort/page space into a core system design than the actual jam itself. I can't judge on your TTRPG. I can't judge on that massive effort you must have put into it. I can only judge on what is on a single sheet of letter-paper. 4 A5 pages of text. No art. Almost no stats, no bold usage, only one meaningful choice they can make.

This entry upsets me, not because it was terrible. It upsets me because I can see both the core of an idea worthy of exploring and the tremendous amount of inspiration you felt to make a whole system. I truly wish you had worked to refine the core element of the jam more. Even if it meant using another person's system. Even if it meant just making it system agnostic. I think you have potential to make some amazing things and this entry isn't reflective of your potential. Please... Please don't let my words prevent you from doing more. I hope they instead are something you can allow to sit for a time and then with time light a path to greater things in the future. Keep that passion. Keep growing as a designer.

Thank you. I understand the sentiment about the cover. I wanted to fit certain non-play elements in and that real estate was the best choice. Putting the item up there was a last minute decision that may or may not have paid off depending on who you ask.

Thank you. It was pretty tough to fit in there given how much space the map elements ate. I'm pleased to know it came through properly

Thank you. Glad you liked it

First test is always adjusting my sizing so the module sizing matches the sizing it would be on a piece of paper if I printed it. I can't decide if you pass this test or not. I feel like I might have to do an actual print to be sure. The font size feels like it could stand to go up by a point or two. At the same time, you didn't crowd it so tightly that it feels like an impossible wall of text. I think how I am going to fall on this will be decided by how I feel at the end of the review.

So, starting with the cover you went with the bold choice to have a cover and then not crowd it with information. What is here does tell me most of the important things. Title, designer/writer, system, level expectations, setting style, and imagery that lets me know this is taking place in space. Not bad for a cover that looks fairly open. Good job there. With the cover being so open, I decide to flip to the last page now as a glance. Yep, feels like a back cover in keeping with the front one. Excellent. At A6, this means it feels like a legitimate trade paperback of the time period. We're off to a good start.

We start on page one with an overview. I've met GMs who would be confused here, but I think most would get it. Since such individuals do exist, you were kind enough to have a colorful call-out telling us the key goals of the module. Bonus points for not looking like another bulleted list. Probably only possible due to the simple 3-goal setup.

Next is a map, but the page after isn't just the key. Instead, we diverge to the countdown clock. I feel like (if you can do it with the space) I would have felt it was more natural if the countdown clock was swapped with the map. This means I have an immediate understanding of the ongoing risk before I ever see the map. Orbital decay information and a clear graphic for the tracking of what is going on. That would cause the map to move down where the number key is so they are together. From there, I move to the information for each of the numbered rooms.

I'm not saying this layout is bad. Printed in a configuration where pages open in the correct order, 2 and 3 will face each other. Not a huge issue in that case. However, if someone decides to scale things up and single-page prints each, it means turning back and forth between two pages due to the way information was split. Something to consider.

Formatting was done so the borders of each line are aligned. Usually this looks very nice, but the very first line of the second paragraph under Orbital Decay Timer ends up having very open spacing between words. It may be worthwhile to find a way to reword this so it doesn't have such a jarring break. This happens in a few other places in the document as well.

Regarding the timer itself, I kind of love how this works. Nice changes with each drop down the ladder. Having down constantly change could be a real harrowing experience.

What I don't like is an all-or-nothing game. For a one-off that's fine, but if I wanted to integrate this into an ongoing game somehow (not sure how, but could be fun) I am going to be in a rough spot. If players fail, the universe dies. Never my preference. Basically, this adventure is absolutely limited to a one-shot game.

Two words: Space Pterodactyls. If anything at all screamed theme, this is it. I'm suddenly remembering the old movies and cartoons from the late 70s that were inspired directly from the pulp era stories. I don't think you need the stat diff for calming a second time on the same page.

Blasphemy is painful and sad. An interesting use of a monster besides the obvious 'it attacks' situation. Giving it a backstory of it's own and making it affect the room without directly affecting the characters is nice. They'll almost certainly mention her name if they find the journal though, so it sets up an event that won't trigger the moment they enter the room. Solid.

Next room has an interesting mechanic where players have a hazard that can be converted into a boon if they figure out how. Nice usage. And of course, a valuable item under the ooze. Of course at least one of them is getting coated. It's probably the one already bearing a low intelligence and wisdom anyway though.

Kraken is a rough enemy, but you give several ways to handle it. My experience is players never willingly put out a torch in ShadowDark, so having other options is nice. The passage shifting is an interesting mechanic as well. Gems should have a bit more clarity. (50gp each) vs (50gp total). Different people will read this information quite differently.

Flesh tanks are fair enough. A trade-off effect if you get in them and some elements to put a twist on a common enemy. I only just now realize I should note good job with using bold to call out key elements. When I glance back over things that's important.

Legal stuff, sure enough. Handled cleanly. Tiny print doesn't matter on this. Anyone who cares enough will pull out a magnifying glass or look at the PDF. Nice to see another familiar name involved in the project too.

Area 6 again offers a way to avoid combat if players wish. It probably costs a little extra time, but if they took a beating earlier it may be vital. Ape is another sad element that adds a lot to this adventure. Also interesting to see people can wager their souls on a game of cards. It would be more impactful if this wasn't a one-shot style setup though.

Simple enough boss fight where there's enough change to keep it interesting. Snake swarm may not be much of a deterrent to players. Depends on the group class spread. In the treasure after, the Duskblade is probably the only one I am likely to pull into another game. The rose is basically useless outside of low g and the apple is mostly interesting if used in a game with a lot of contact with angels.

Gravity generator is well explained. Numbers where I need them, details laid out clear enough. If they end up here before the final battle, they deal with a flying snake pool. I hope they break it for that alone!

It ends with the encounter table. Logical spot for it considering the overall design. Encounter 6 going off in some spots would end in strange results. Somehow contracting to push you through an entire room to reach another. Otherwise the encounters are varied enough to create interest. If you make the top 20, I would use the either the front or back page 'appendix N' notation to indicate your placement as a sales point. It's already in both spots, so you may as well make it do double duty. The one on the back is most easily modified this way, but the front cover is going to get seen more.

Honestly, it seems to be a relatively complete module that's self-contained. Nothing is hard to find when I go hunting for it and the look, feel, and concepts are all solidly within the theme. There were some smart encounters built into this and several uses of creatures to enhance the overall theme and feel of the setting. Bonus: it passes the 2 year test. I could pull this out blind and manage to run it with relatively little digging through books or confusion over text. Good job here.

So starting with the cover, because the cover has a whole page dedicated to it. “It's a bold strategy Cotton, let's see if it works out for him”. Including a cover at all eats a quarter of the space you have to work with. A fair number of us did make this choice, but with only a few exceptions it was used to show a bunch of extra information through various means. You instead chose to let the image do the talking and told a story with that artwork. The only thing here other than the title is that it's Appendix N Jam and your name. It does pull weight though. The massive Ifrit dominates your initial view. Your eyes then recognize the smaller figures in the foreground with their two very different personalities. Finally you see the figure in red who almost blends into the surroundings as if he belongs there even more than the dominating figure before him. It all works very well to spark curiosity and represent the sense of many old pulp novel covers. The only element that is at all out of place is the Ifrit's design feels more stylized than the other elements of the image. Not a shock since I assume it is photo bashed. There's probably no fix for this and it isn't so jarringly different that it detracts from the art.

Art focus carries over to what is clearly meant as the back cover. It again leans into the book cover aesthetic which I love. If I was going to nitpick, I wouldn't have the three suns lined up in a neat row like that. It feels unnatural. Also, if I print this out, the back cover is going to be on the front facing side of the page and the front cover is going to be on the rear facing side of the page. The title repeats. I say use this as a call-out of theme instead. Many books put some bold phrase here to set the tone of the words that come after.

Level is clear, game is clear (we all know 5E is 5E D&D). Short and sweet italic text sets a tone and isn't intrusively long. Immediately after is a clear direction of where the players are aimed and what is going to be inside. Good. There's instant setting here with the sun mechanic. Clear ways to avoid constant fire damage, but also a clear limitation on flying. Smart players can find a way around this, but probably it means burning off valuable spells. There's an immediate way out of the sun and a clear dumb choice. Players can manage a very short wait and rush to the shelter of the canyon wall to progress further. Good. Bold unthinking folks might burn to a cinder, but most players are going to be cautious enough to figure it out even if they don't make the roll when it gets suddenly dimmed out.

Encounters are very well balanced in nature, not just fights. 4 is pretty fun since players are probably thinking they die if they lose, but avoid the fight simply by not winning. Having traders on 5 who can whittle away their valuables is smart too. 6 creating an ally if they aren't murder hobos is pretty solid too. I like it.

Into the following pages, the art continues which is nice. Rough for the printer, but undeniably pretty. I can skip the first page to save ink, but there's no way around it with the others. I didn't download all of the variations you had since I wanted to focus on the core voting element here, but if you haven't already, consider uploading a low-impact version that's going to lighten the ink load. Maybe faded or heavily simplified in a gray scale for those who just want to print it out even if it means missing out on the lovely visuals.

So far, I had recognized most of the bold entries for different entities. I have no idea about Isatum-nisu though. Not sure if I just don't remember them or if this is unique to your module. If they are pre-existing in the bestiary, great, but I find myself looking for a stat block somewhere for their default. I often get around this issue by including a source and page number in my text alongside the name of a creature. (Think the old White Wolf books. WW15 pg. 221) This also applies to loot so I can instantly pull it out in the middle of a game without having to stop everyone to answer what the item is. One thing about these short modules is that I tend to use them as 'quick draw' items in a folder. That means I usually haven't spent hours pouring over them right before the game and bookmarking pages.

Map side note: Fallen star as a spaceship appearing on the planes of fire implies this isn't a plane so much as another planet the portal took them to. It's an interesting idea, offers unusual items some games don't always normally have, and totally falls into the Weird Science Fantasy element of the Appendix N.

Second map thoughts are in a different vein. Everything about this place is fire. It's obvious right? But this is a location where they are protecting it from others who also live on a plane of fire. Almost everything and everyone here is fire resistant. How much of a shock would it be and an 'aha' moment if players pull the lever and are suddenly blasted by freezing cold instead?! Just a thought. I would probably alter this if I was running it.

Single solution puzzles normally bother me, but unless the players are in a constant act of healing up, it seems likely at least one of them has burned skin at the moment. It might do well to drop another hint earlier in the setting by someone lightly burning their hand to open a vault door or something like that. Just a thought.

Everything comes full circle in the end. Not sure how I feel about the abrupt end being a default combat after witnessing that what they came for was BS, but could be worse. It's meant to be read out, which I never actually do. I tend to just get an idea of what is going on and RP the event as I see fit. Again though, it's not a giant wall of text to follow and I can just as easily get the idea of things from reading it as I would from a more bullet pointed situation. No fault here, personal style. Since it's not super long, I am not concerned.

You found a lot of good ways to pull theme, visuals, and writing into this. Gameability seems solid too. Even though I don't run 5E, I can probably run this without much effort and just convert it to whatever system I want. There were a few hiccups like the confusion I felt about the natives, but I could also just say they are human variants in terms of stats without batting an eye. I did feel like the map was a bit linear. A long path with a few side options you would need to backtrack from to reach some bonus content. This remained true on the volcano. If I was going to change only one thing, I think it would be to rework the canyons to offer you multiple paths. Things where picking one over another means missing things, but trying to loop around to everything means more risks of encounters and sun issues. Fundamentally, they're trying to aim for a singular location so they're probably going to keep going in a rough line anyway, but giving them options is always nice. It prevents players from feeling like they /have/ to go a direction just to progress the story. Nice job on this.

Thank you for the high praise and the insights. Don't get me wrong, I like having my ego stroked as much as anyone with positive gushing. That said, I have gained huge growth from hearing even the minor nitpicks of a work. I can't always adjust everything and don't always choose to make changes if it was a conscious choice, but knowing where things caught people is incredibly useful.

The public domain art was heavily photoshopped to make it my own and suit the adventure. I had to make some hard choices due to space limitations and I think they do show to those with a keen eye. You point them out yourself actually. Optional rooms that were harder to access tended to have the harder monsters which led to the wide spread of levels. Confident higher levels would tend to explore more actively in my experience. There's ways to move the puzzle or handle it that could potentially resolve it very quickly as well. I had to dedicate space to resources and a safe location for those who get utterly lost in there for multiple sessions too. 

With more space (and playtesting) I would probably have worked on custom monsters and more balanced encounters. Good catch on some formatting/spelling errors that made it past multiple sets of eyes as well! The library element was a hold-over from an earlier edit where you had a chance of finding useful books or gibberish books. I cut it down for space and clarity, moving it to being a specific book related to the adventure over time. I'd had a larger backstory aspect to find out things that had gotten cut down as well. By then, I was so focused on the mechanic I didn't even consider making it automatic. Interesting choice.

As to my Itch name, it is a hold over from before I was doing my own modules. I write my novels under D.X.Logan and decided to use it there as well since my website references both my fiction and my TTRPGs. I've considered altering my Itch name to match, but didn't want to do it mid-jam and keep forgetting after jams are over. So glad you enjoyed Styx and Stones as well! I'd love to hear more about your experience with it if you wanted to message me directly.

This is my first trifold review, so congrats on that. I don't know the Mothership system yet (it's on my wishlist, just haven't had time or funds yet) so my input on system-specific elements is going to be limited. Similarly I don't do solo play, but should be able to offer up some insights hopefully.

When I scale this to the size of a printed page, readability is pretty low. I have old eyes, so I called my son over to see if he could read more than the titles and he had to get pretty close to the screen. Space is at a premium, so I get it, but it means this is only going to be usable digitally for anyone with a less-than-stellar printer. Something to be aware of.

The blue outlined white on black text of the cover reads as nothing legible until I scrolled in to a larger size. Other text registers as readable (if squinty) at size. That one read as semi-gibberish when scaled. I also don't know if a content warning is needed on the document as opposed to the landing page, but since it isn't intrusive it's not an issue really. I find that people who would have an issue with such things would rather see it on the landing page and not even download rather than get a copy, download it, then find out.

With the C-fold configuration it seems you're going for here, I think swapping the 'Who Am I?' and 'Resolutions' section would probably be more what I was expecting. That would put the most vital element of deciding if I want to pull this from a pile without having to open it up at all. Front is a visual, back would note what is going on at the start and the mechanics I can expect while playing.

The setup is tells me I am expecting to have a high action, fast paced mystery. Amnesia is a pretty classic setup for television, movies, video games, literature, and of course single player TTRPGs. Nothing wrong with using what works. It's nice to see how the mechanics and resolution work together to not drive you to a set answer, but allow your own actions and interactions to decide who you really were and where you end up. As I read further, I found myself wondering how some of these outcomes could be tied to the tracked values or if they were all simply random along the scale. I ponder how the low number options might mean you were one, but turned to the other as a turncoat situation. Hmm. Resolution in six rounds feels short, but having not played solo, maybe I am wrong.

Interior overview has my initial thought being how three of the seven noted locations are going to be sitting right on the page fold. If I use this frequently after printing out, the spot may become harder to read. Not super important with the information other than the cradle not being on that line, but noteworthy. At this map scale, I definitely am not going to explore much with only six rounds. You'll only get to a few named locations, especially if you need to backtrack around a hazard. This was probably for replay value? Tracker at the bottom is impossible to miss, so no complaints there.

Reading over everything makes me feel like there's solid and easy to follow information here. Even without knowing the exact nature of the Mothership mechanics, I can infer them. I can easily follow how you might move around, make decisions that influence the outcome. Player autonomy to decide how they would act in a situation pushing towards a specific outcome, but clues also working to drive things in their own direction that might agree with or oppose player actions.

Some of the hazards felt like they should have a +/- elements for how you handle them. As an example, the brain spider of 5. It has combat stats, implying you end up in a fight. I can see assuming it was friendly and helping it. Lippoy side of the scale probably means it goes about it's business afterwards. Intruder side, maybe it attacks afterwards. If you attack it outright, you shift a point or two towards intruder. 4 and 7 could have these sorts of options too. Doing that would create more dynamic interactions while traversing the ship.

I don't know if you'd want them rolling after these hazards for a clue or just letting their action alone handle it. I can imagine killing a brain spider, moving you towards intruder, but then rolling a 1 on clues and suddenly feeling like you recognize it after the battle. Something to consider.

As long as I don't scale this back to match page size, I quite enjoy this. Not being a solo guy, it doesn't feel like it overstays its welcome and offers a fun little self-contained idea. There's a good blend of set endings and uncertain ones to offer dynamic options along with player agency. You are pretty certain about your ending in some locations, but might be pretty caught off guard if you waver close to the line until the bitter end. Seems solid to me.

Art cover pulls its weight well enough and the layout is clean. Map and tables make sense and are easy to follow. Being trifold, I can pretty easily check the rules by closing the flap for a second, which now at the end makes it clearer why you made that decision on where to place things in the back. I'd say the trade-off of not having the opening blurb on the exterior is made up for with the ease of double-checking how to handle round to round actions without flipping it over. A lot of the choices made here are making up for the small font. If I could read it easier at scale, I would probably print this off even without owning a copy of Mothership yet.

I think with some tweeking (especially if there was a way to up that font just a little) of small things this could hit a 5 in 2 categories I currently saw as a 4. The weakest point is writing, but when the weakest item is still strong enough to hit 'good', that's not a negative really. Nicely done.

Thank you. Glad you liked it.

Thank you for the detailed comments.

Oh, I also forgot to mention the note on Talos was a nice touch for a way to maybe stop them if you didn't get the proper weapon. I always like having multiple options on handling a situation.

Five seconds into opening the document and I'm already sold on theme. I don't even care about the contents and instantly want to keep this in my collection. Torn cover with shading, yellowed paper, handwritten notes in the spare spaces between typed fonts. I almost always suggest that if you are using a cover page in a low page count jam, you make the cover carry as much weight as possible. This one does very little for Writing or Playability, but it is absolutely carrying a heavy weight for the visual and theme elements.

The rest of the document has a lot of open space. Again, this goes a long way on visual and theme, but is limiting the impact and elements there for game aspects. This is not to say you didn't make the space work well. Right away, you give a clear objective. No fluff and filler. Detailed, concise, and on target.

Immediately after is a danger clock to outline the scope and consequences. As I read through the map, I find myself feeling like I can pretty easily work out the details or extra mechanics as needed from what is here if I need to. I would probably flip the numbers on 4 and 5 since the obvious path is sequential in that direction, but just a personal choice.

In 5, you mention an item that can kill Talos, but when I go to Talos, I don't see it there also. For GMs who skim, that might get missed. That said, this whole document doesn't have that many words, so it isn't as big of an issue as it might otherwise be. On 6 is the first time I paused. The notes are still damp... on a frozen planet in a ship that's been here who knows how long without life support since it's split in half? I have so many questions and I'm never going to get answers. This would be a perfect place to have one of those handwritten call-outs asking how it's still damp. It doesn't answer the mystery, but does show you're aware of the oddity and suggesting to the GM to use it as a creative point however they want. It's pretty neat to have the meta of the blue notes being found also being this paper in the setting itself.

7 could use a few adjustments to the way it is written for clarity sake. First is “She cannot be consoled, and she will not leave unless convinced successfully 1d6 times.” The word successfully assumes you did it, but then you need to do it potentially 5 more times. I would instead change it to something like “She won't leave and cannot be consoled unless 1D6 effective reasons or impactful arguments are given to convince her.”

The second is “Once convcined, the moon leaves Jupiter’s orbit, and the party is returned to their spacecraft before crashing on the surface.” Typo aside, some people may accidentally read this as being returned to the ship and then crashing again somewhow. I would instead have probably reworded this to “Once convinced, the party finds themselves on their restored spacecraft prior to the initial crash. The moon can be seen leaving Jupiter's orbit.”

The Revenants end up being at the end and kind of threw me. Only now do I realize what the dancing comment was written about. I go back and skim and don't see anything about Purple Princess though. I am only now finding out Talos from the block above is the Blue Queen. Maybe add a small (The Blue Queen) in small print under the name Talos.

I imagine a chance of encountering Purple Princess as a random moment to appear and really complicate situations. Imagine being in the middle of a fight with the White Bull or Talos and a moment of friendship helping one another causes Purple Princess to appear and coax the players into letting themselves be killed! I just wish it was clearer early on that the emotion events are a trigger. I darn near overlooked this thinking I was looking for a random table of some sort.

Overall I love this. When a document is full color background, I need it to be solid to be willing to print them due to ink usage. I would say this is worth it. I'm probably not going to run it, but only because my groups favor settings where there aren't spaceships or earth solar systems. I'd have it just to have and maybe adapt at some point to a similar concept like shipwrecking or something. If nothing else, it just looks really good and clean. Good job.

A choice was made here that I really don't understand. As far as I can tell, this is an entry never meant for printing out. The choice of header font, the color heavy design, and the decision to put a bright white on a vibrant blue are all pretty rough for readability. When I scale it to page size, it is basically unreadable. This holds true even on the headers, especially the second page set (spread). For some reason, it seems like there's a noticeable readability difference between the first page set and the second set. I assume it was bolding or something else.

There's a 0% chance I would ever print this out to add to my folder by the sheer volume of blue ink usage alone. If I wasn't using an ecotank printer, it means I would burn down the blue of a cartridge in no time. More importantly, it would be printing the blue and leaving the white blank... which bleeds a little and is going to be just as unreadable in a printed page as it is on a screen. Possibly worse depending on the quality of someone's printer.

I tried blowing up the sizing on my screen and found that I needed it over 100% of a rather large screen to read and it only became sharp at nearly 200%. This is really doing your work a disservice. I don't have an issue with the hand-done nature of the map, but do feel the splitting might not be ideal in the pages version. I also feel like the dotted lines probably aren't needed. It's water. There's not really a path there. I can go from any point on water to another unless there's an obstacle and even then I just skirt around it. Personal opinion on that.

Story so far is okay. Could probably use some tightening of the prose to be a bit more evocative since you're dedicating such a large bit of space to it. I like the bolding of the NPC, but then when I skim the document I don't find any call-out block to tell me more about him. A bold name by itself isn't really super useful other than just remembering what to call him. Points of interest key is fine. It states increased and decreased, but then you wait until the second spread to show what that means. If I were to print it, it means flipping the page over to make use of this when I pull it out two years from now to skim and apply. It would serve well to find a way to put the ebb and flow info somewhere here where you can naturally find it right away.

Encounter list is okay. Some wording choices could be improved. For example: “A buoy surrounded by fog traps the players. Everytime it is encountered, something about it is more eldritch.” The wording implies it is the buoy that somehow traps us rather than being trapped in the fog. I do love how it grows more unsettling if encountered repeatedly though. I'd probably reword this one as “Players are trapped in a fog centered around a buoy. Each time this is rolled, the buoy grows increasingly eldritch.” 4 I assume bat is meant to be boat. No rating issue for typos, just wanted to point it out. 6 has a similar issue with the wording as the fog. A lot of these get really weird if you are crossing between 1 and 8 when they happen. Only 2 make sense.

Initially I was wondering how in the world theme was going to play in this. It was feeling a bit like a generic adventure until the pattern of Lovecraftian elements became pretty clear. The cheerful color kept me from thinking until the world 'eldritch' popped up. You might get better mileage by leaning into the Lovecraft visuals if you decide to work on this further. This could be something as simple as a stylized header bar for the entries.

Another moment of a bold wording, but at least this time it shows exactly where to look because it is bolded elsewhere. What is the whistle? No idea. No call-out block again. The second area at the end is worded like it's actually a spell rather than an object, but the block where it first appears kind of implies it is an item the kids scavenging give to the adventurers. I reread the 'cast it in' and realize it is meant to be cast into the flames rather than cast a spell. Again when I do the 2 year test, I am going to be lost pulling this out of a folder to run on a down night.

The shipwright's home is neat, but it's at this point I am suddenly feeling like I am in a video game rather than a tabletop. I think the limits to access are neat. I'd probably just have the door seal over at high tide rather than worry about complex airlocks and diving. I suspect the video-game vibe is coming from the 'repair and upgrade for treasure' element.

The reef is good. No real comment here. Open ended for me to throw whatever I want in here and a clear value to players who are less combat and more craft focused. The reeds can also make an interesting encounter, but there's a lot of odd wording here. If you work on it more after the jam, I would tighten this up some.

The sunken watchtower is fine. Feels like there is a larger backstory, but the GM's going to need to do the legwork on that. I'd rather this have been more solidly tied to the larger story. The cave... is. It is. A whole story and adventure could probably be built around this idea, but as it is, it's not really gameable. A player reliving a memory isn't probably fun for everyone else at the table to sit through. I have no idea what hugging a memory looks like. I can probably make something up, but again when I am using this as a one-shot, I don't want to be doing this much personal legwork just to make things make sense.

The riptide makes me feel like it swings wildly between dangerous and Monkey Island cutscene. Given the otherwise Lovecraftian vibe I feel like you're going for here, I doubt the latter is what you were aiming for. The lighthouse section is labeled as 'The Reeds' again. The lighthouse keeper immediately makes me think of the game Dredged. Not ideal to have me thinking of video games twice in the same module. Especially since the repair and upgrade thing along with general Lovecraftian elements were also in Dredged.

Lastly, the ebb and flow mechanic is split right down the bottom middle at the very end of things despite being absolutely crucial to the entire design. More importantly, there's no real mechanic to this. It's just 'up is harder than down and figure it out'. With every major element of the module hinged on this, having a patterned method would be nice.

Overall, there's a lot going on here. Clearly you put heart into it and were full of ideas you wanted to get into these pages. I think it came at the expense of substance however. Elements seemed disjointed with the only ties between them being the eldritch natures. There was a lot to explore, but strangely not a lot to do. One of the first places players go is where they get a key object, but if they go wandering to the lighthouse first, the adventure is over right away.

The whole thing is about finding the octopus wizard guy, but almost everything happening is unrelated to him or the quest. I'd have much rather seen things like the sunken tower being where the whistle was hidden. Maybe getting to know the shipwrights son as a way to learn what to do with the whistle is good, but if it's the /only/ way, there are a lot of player groups where they just never find out. The biggest things to improve the overall module would be to tighten up the writing some and to add more cohesion between the overall set of events. Adding more gameable elements to help the GM not do so much leg work would be nice too. Oh, and please change the white on blue thing. Reading this at the printer scale was not possible for my old eyes. Regardless, I hope some of this helps and thanks for entering the jam!

Okay, so first thing I got in my overview pass was just how much this felt like a big wall of text. 3 columns, some bolding, and the exterior line wrap do a bit to help mitigate this. That said, some call-out boxes, uses of color, or other methods would have gone a long way to create some visual interest through the piece without costing any of the content. Incorporating the credits and link into the border were a smart use of an otherwise decorative element.

Page one is our setup and while some of the wordings could be tightened up a bit for better flow, clarity, or simplicity, it does it's job well. Several times I found myself quickly jumping down to skim what was being referenced to be sure what I wanted to know was going to be there. That's not an issue (especially with only 4 pages) though it could be if you decide to expand this. Something to be aware of.

At the mentioning of masks, it points out premade vs create your own. Jumping down, the area is pretty strait forward about what is there and obviously no mechanics since it is system agnostic. This said, I would have liked to jump down and find a few suggestions on existing masks (I can make up more details myself) to pull from in a pinch as a DM if I wanted a few there for players who aren't crafty (system dependent) enough to make their own and I just pulled this out of a folder for a one-off on a given night. System agnostic means no way to suggest a benefit to making their own, but I can figure that out on the fly from what is here.

Map threw me for a few minutes. My brain kept wanting to overlay it on top of the castle due to the similar shape and those guard posts (assuming they flared at the top) even though I know the page one and key said courtyard. This wasn't helped by the widest point of the map being the narrow part of the of the isometric visual and the actual squares being roughly a square when I counted them out! This might be something that could be addressed to improve the playability. I could also see putting a faint grey castle shape up against the proper wall so it's very clear how it is laid out in relation to the picture in the corner. If I am going in cold from my emergency game folder, this removes any pause in the flow for me.

I'm not a huge fan of flavor text paragraphs since I basically never read them and just roleplay out whatever's needed. In this case, I don't mind it a lot. It is a few sentences that inform me what is even going on here right at the start and not used again. Good. Easy to work with even if I don't use it as empty narration.

Breaking out of the cell being automatic and the roll being about not drawing attention is a good choice. Still might end in TPK given their lack of armor and weapons, but still solid choice. No risk of the dreaded 'everyone fails and nothing happens' some modules suffer from. Torture room is just a visual in theory, but players will almost certainly gain improvised weapons before moving on. Good choice for progression. The corridor is a bit strange. I'd have rather seen a set encounter here like a lazy guard rather than some of the strangely random options instead. The idea of giant rats (without any obvious source in such an actively used castle) or festival litter down below feels a little too 'this is a dungeon lol' to me. Save the table for later on and just put a lazy guard here not expecting to encounter anyone. Maybe separating the corridor below from the ones above in terms of your table and then replace rats with some castle dogs or something?

Nice choice again for a decision for the obvious exit or risking a threat to gain better armor and weapons. Masks I already covered, but good that there's no way to miss this location. Store room feels a bit dull, but depending on the roll could create some interesting events (system used making a lot of difference here). Courtyard's fine, lots of potential story elements or encounters. 'I' and 'J' look nearly identical on the map! I had to stare a few minutes when I had it at printer scale to decide which was which. Not helped by the fact that they are in similar placement. My original thought was it was 2 'I' locations serving to guard both ways to the gate, but apparently not. This also makes me question why there's only a gatehouse on one side and not the other.

The clockwork guard is interesting. It's not letting /any/ guest leave. This means players can try going through the castle, climbing walls, finding a way to get it distracted on another guest, etc. Player choice for the win. It's not clear if the players will be aware of its nature or if that's DM only info. And of course, this is meant to be able to plug into a larger setup. That's good too. Instead of a one-off location they might manage to finish in an hour, it can lead to several nights of play depending on the player choices and all I need to do is grab a castle map. If you decide to expand this, I would love to see the greater castle and maybe include some court intrigues in it. That falling body could even become a major story plot in some games.

I think the weakest element here is theme. It mentions a book (that never existed), which is kind of a fun meta, but in two years when I pull this out I am going to have no idea what that's about and since the book doesn't really exist, I am going to be left blinking and just ignoring that part. There's nothing here that really feels like it isn't just as easily an entry in every other dungeon map jam outside of that small note. I don't see any recurring characters who feel like I read them in a pulp fantasy novel. I don't have a sense of the greater world beyond 'everyone gets locked in and has to wear masks because reasons'. It's a solid dungeon. Is it telling me Appendix N if I didn't read it on the border of every page though?

Wording choices are evocative for the backstory. The wording could be tightened up a bit in a few sentences. You managed to dedicate an entire page to backstory. It's a bold choice, but due to how you did everything else, it worked well for you. I think the easiest improvement to the setup area would be finding a way to highlight or otherwise key-point elements that matter most. That way when I go to run this, I can just glance over it and immediately know what I need to jog my memory.

There's a limited amount of art here, but it's used well. Page one is evocative with the contrasting obelisks that aren't as they will literally appear, but instead placed to create impact. Very effective and immediately has me nodding about the choice. The other art is limited to maps, but I'm already fine with that. Making good use of what you have. Other layout elements are separating everything with rough wavy lines so there's no doubt about what goes where. Color is used effectively as well. The duality of the situation is reflected thematically in how you have the outer pages done in gradient and the inner pages contrasted. The thing that worked the least for me artistically is the division lines. The rest of the art elements felt so intentional that those lines felt like an afterthought. MSPaint sort of fuzzy digital lines. The single easiest improvement you can make on the art aspect is addressing the visuals of these lines.

Some playability suffers a few small issues. As an example, you have numbers for elements detailed about the map, but no corresponding number on the map. While the locations can be inferred, I don't want to be trying to do that mid-game. Adding a corresponding number on the map so you know where a bit is at a glance would go a long way. I can't really speak to stat elements for Cairn since I haven't played that system. That said, I didn't see anything that felt like it would raise a lot of eyebrows. Nothing broken as far as I can tell.

Thematically I would say this is certainly on point for feeling like something out of the Appendix N. The story behind it, the evocative language at the start, the visual impact of the image. Even the vague sense of naked people without actually showing true nudity that was so common on old book covers. Theme feels the strongest here out of everything about it.

Ah, okay. I was so confused when I ran it through a translator and it got Insured Bankruptcy. I knew there had to be a purpose, but was kind of at a loss. Thanks for clarifying the meaning. Hopefully others who review read your reply here so they don't have to rely on questionable internet translators.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This one didn't stick the landing for me. If you told me it was a game inspired on Disney's Ratatouille I might have nodded along for theme choice, but as an Appendix N inspiration I am just not feeling it. It's not a 1, but not really a 3 for me either. I think I could get some ideas from this, but wouldn't bring it to a table.

There are some especially jarring choices for usability. The background graphic caused me to have issues reading it for example. The roll tables in tiny font turned sideways at two different angles was an especially baffling choice. I had to increase my screen size to even figure out what they were. If I printed this, my printer would probably just render it as entirely unreadable. I have no idea what system this is tied to, if any, but it mostly feels like setting for something else.

The single art item (such as it is) is a stamp whose text is difficult to read due to font choice and that when I attempted to translate it came out to 'Insured Bankruptcy', which didn't help me at all. I don't judge on typos, but there were several I caught that were pretty easy to find. Word choices too made it feel like English might not have been a first language here.

As a whole, I think there's an idea here that could be pretty gameable in the right circumstances, but as it is currently, I just wouldn't consider trying given the amount of outside effort it would take me to make it functional for my tables. Sorry. Good effort regardless though.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, as I understand it, the criteria for qualifying is as follows:

Is it a TTRPG Module (Heist, Point Crawl, Puzzle , Dungeon, etc.)?

Is the module limited to four(4) A5 pages or less?

Did the participant avoid generative AI usage (not likely provable unless they state it outright for some reason)?

Obviously judges would disqualify these outright of if those aren't met. However, as the voting public, should we avoid reviewing any entry that would not qualify to avoid tainting the ratings on the public favorite prizes?

With most projects, I like to offer supplemental materials for the users to make their lives easier. What form this takes can vary, but is often relating to clean maps or scaled up maps for printing off and easy use around a table. Obviously no supplemental material is going to get accounted for in voting, but is there any issue with adding such things on the landing page for the people who would want them? At least so long as they are adding nothing to the entry itself? Most jams I have participated in take no issue with it, but I wanted to check before doing anything that could be considered disqualifying.

Time isn't on my side, so this is going to be a smaller comment than I normally try to give. Still, I hope you can find something helpful in it.

Non-voting thoughts:

I absolutely understand why it was included, but I've never liked countdowns where the result is death. This includes puzzles, map traversals, or end-of-the-world scenarios. I've met far too many players who find a way to get obliterated. Not always by making bad choices, but sometimes by sheer poor luck. I'm not against TPK, but I also know it can be pretty unsatisfying to step into a situation where the options are win or everyone is dead. At least without other possible outcomes being a chance.

Also, with 60 minutes (presumably real time given how Shadowdark is generally played) means I can't imagine most of anyone I know pulling the adventure of successfully. I've played non-SD games (thankfully SD is a lot quicker usually) where a single round of combat ended up eating too much time for this to be viable. I'd want to play test the time limit heavily before committing to it.

Inspiration:

Okay. I can't lie here, you nailed this. There's absolutely no ambiguity as to where the games inspired things and how they absolutely are required to have built this adventure out. You actually broke my rubric on this. A 5 is when someone has one game absolutely represented and the other two heavily woven in to bolster the total. You literally brought all three equally deep into the concept.

Usability:

I'd be cautious bringing this to my table. It would depend on the players present. The win or everyone is dead mechanic of it means it just isn't going to be fun for some of my players. I don't play with people who can't accept dying, but I also don't give them situations where only two outcomes are possible. I know far too many players who , when asked if they have what it takes, would say nope and have their characters go elsewhere well away from the impact site.

Page 3 is very wall-of-text for me. Doubly is the fact that I basically never read pre-scripted comments. I'm not against having them, but if you can find space to add a bullet-point alternate or maybe use bold text to draw attention to a few key words. That means just skimming the page mid-game I can see what I most need and improve around the players talking and interrupting the NPC. There are other parts throughout where similar scripted moments happen.

Room 1 either doesn't say how many of each color are there or I am going blind. I keep reading it over and over, but just not seeing an indication. It might be visible on the map, but at the size it shows on my screen, I just can't tell. Maybe when saying the flag effect, add the total number of them in parentheses? Like Red Standard (2)=...

Room 2 I love a roleplay challenge. I don't want everything to just be dice rolls. Some thoughts though: What is stopping a less than cooperative player from just attacking (we all have that one player)? History is often unique to each table's setting, so are the history sections viable? I doubt most of my players could answer deep questions about the lore. Some of these questions are so painfully easy to answer it is almost a freebie room. Lastly, I'm not sure I love the action boon set. With the room already being relatively easy, it is almost impossible to fail for a lot of the players I've had over the years.

Room 3 is interesting. I'd point out that movement in SD is pretty abstract. You indicate an exact distance (which is fine), but then say 3 to 4 rounds. I would probably firm this up as saying 100' Long (triple near). This makes it clear immediately in SD terms exactly what you can expect and how the rounds will play out.

General – The monsters/NPCs lack some of the stats I expect to see with SD. Probably not meaningful to some, but if I needed to check their wisdom or something, I would have to try to reverse engineer it on the fly. Worth considering. Also, you have several places where various things could happen, but no random table to decide it. I don't personally need a roll table, but having it means instantly knowing exactly what to do to determine which thing happens in a round.

This is going to sound weird, but for once I don't think the maps really add anything here. They're basically just square rooms with evenly spaced items. The description was actually clearer on the first room /before/ I looked at the map since looking at the map mentioned 5 flags on poles, but then I saw what looked like 6 stone pillars. I know a number of people who play on the round turn table style game boards for games like Shadowdark where everything is broken into Far, Near, and Close. Trying to represent these rooms in that layout would be a lost cause. I think you could have dropped the maps and used the extra space for more valuable things. It feels wrong saying that. Heh.

Vibes:

Vibes... is so subjective. For me, this feels like it was definitely set up like a gauntlet of games, but doesn't give me any real NES feel. I'd say I'm getting a lot of the top-down early 90's PC game feel more than anything. The artwork largely feels like it would have been in a standard TTRPG, so isn't doing anything to enhance the vibe either. Not saying it's bad art, just that the writing itself is being left to pull the entire NES vibe and I wasn't there. I don't think the feel is bad as a whole, but can't rate it higher since I'm really looking for NES in my Vibes for this jam.

Boss Room is pretty standard video game concept and the whole damage some object to weaken and defeat him is the most solid NES vibe I think here. Sure it shows up in modern games too, but we all know it was the only way to win any boss fight back in the day. Spam the attack on whatever was floating or sitting in the area until he started flashing red or something. Hah!

Overall:

I can't believe you broke my rubric for Inspiration. How do you get a six on a 5 scale? Be proud of that! If you can pull off similar in the future and up your numbers in the other areas just a little, you'll be hitting top 10 regularly I think.

As with last year, thank you so much for taking the time to do a review. It's too bad you weren't able to participate this year. Still, your insights have always proven helpful and I grow as a designer each time.

Yeah, since I was aiming to emulate the old NES instructional pamphlet, I was inspired to include a controller. After all, every manual has one somewhere! With ABBA being the revive code, it only made sense to make it the altar. The Dragon-eater was something I almost didn't go with, but it was just too much fun not to make the center of the adventure.

Thanks. Glad you liked it.

Everything I say here is just things that strike me as I read over the piece. Thanks for taking the time to make this game and good job on getting it completed in time.

Non-voting thoughts:

I'd change 'Live through your crimes' to 'Revisit your crimes'. Just a personal choice though.

Stress bonus' sometimes color just the word stress, but other times the bonus number as well. Probably should get that consistent.

I probably missed it somewhere, so you might want to include a note in the item section on if they disappear after leaving the nightmare. I assume they do.

Inspiration:

Without even needing to open the games, I can see the clear influences of two immediately.

Usability:

The hook page offers a lot of value on setting the expectations right away.

Muscular men succeeding in an attack could be an issue if some of the PCs are buff. The more they succeed, the worse it is for him!

I assume you picked the font for it's somewhat pixelated feel, but I find it a little hard on my eyes personally.

Given the 'mental' nature of this, I would love to see the stress become health. Instead of going up, it goes down so that it's a super easy leap for players to grasp exactly what's happening. Every 'stress factor' is doing damage to his mental health. This would eliminate tracking extra information but still treat things very differently from the standard. As a bonus, it means strong intelligence/wisdom sorts of characters would have the higher health in this setting if you wanted to play with that mechanic some.

This could make healing a tricky thing since you aren't healing physical health though too! If not, there needs to be an easy way to track what is happening. Maybe a little printable card for Quintus with a little stress bar or something.

I don't know how much I would ever use things from this outside of the adventure itself. That's an unfortunate thing because there's some interesting stuff here. I somewhat wish I had a player version of the spell used by the Ikari listed. Obviously a high level spell, but could be fun to take away from this!

Vibes:

Holy crap that cover. Maybe I don't get NES vibes, but I sure get a feel for the wild insanity I am in for from the moment I open the document. I was a little surprised to see the map before even seeing the inspiration, but it also gave an idea of the madness ahead.

Both in the visual way this reads like old NES stuff and the overall wild feel of the game, vibes are strong in this.

Good job on this one!

Allow me to preface this with a statement. I'm going to break down things as I go over them. It isn't intended to be harsh, but instead to help point out where there is room to improve or where I think things worked well. I hope you will take the feedback for what it is; an attempt at constructive criticism. I hope you'll join next year's jam as well and I get a chance to see how you've developed as a designer.

Non-voting thoughts:

Zero chance anyone ever prints this out due to white on black. I'd have to burn up half my black ink to do a print out. Also, the white on black is a major turnoff to a lot of people. It strains the eyes to read.

I will say that the map looks very nice on the black background though! Everything's clean and clear there, though I would put the overview map at the start rather than the end so I have a clear understanding of how it all fits together going in.

I know groups who would immediately make everything here useless. I understand why, given the NES games, but it makes it only usable on groups who like to play along with the DM's prompting.

I could see a couple bad rolls blocking off important pathways since there's a rather linear path happening. Something to consider as well.

The most interesting version is if you end up finding the slide and having to reverse-solve the situation. Having the big bad just standing up in a tower smacking a gem means you could finish him off pretty early into the crawl too.

I think you can drop the word Core from SD Core page references. Standard nomenclature is just the title abbreviation and page number. I know there's an argument to reduce it further in various ways, but Core especially can easily be dropped and lose nothing.

Inspiration:

I took a little time to look up the games you got. Fire and Ice is pretty obvious. I think you missed the chance to do something really creative with the Golf pull. Just adding a metal club to a monster felt like a cop out to me. If you'd not drawn attention to it, I wouldn't have even thought of the concept of golf at all.

Metal Slader Glory felt a little more present, but more like window dressing. If you had it to do over again, I'd say try to bring the other two games more solidly into the designs. Golf especially is a hard one, I understand, but it's those rough pulls that can inspire the most creative designs. A lot of this felt like it could have been any random adventure design regardless of the games being used.

Usability:

I like that you list clearly which rumors are true or false. It meant without reading any further, I knew which ones were just red herrings.

It makes note of flame spirits being unable to handle water or ice well and or travel at all on ice slides. I'd have rather seen this put somewhere near the monster section because when I go to reference a monster, I want all relevant info where the stats of the monster are. I get why it is where it is, but a reminder note at least would help.

Since the fairies aren't really relevant once you reach the island, this is more of a themed map with a goal than an outright adventure. I would have liked to see more back and forth being possible.

As soon as I started reading the map, I realized a critical flaw. The entire location is created of ice, but it was already clarified that fire beings are restricted in their movements when the ice is there. I realized they need to have restricted movements, which then had me looking to their stats and realizing I have no idea what you want the restriction to be represented as. Are they slower than listed?

Which now moves me down another tangent of wondering how the place made entirely of ice is still here. It should have melted down from flame creatures heating up everything so much the fairies can't be here. I feel like either there's missing information (the compact ice is magic and the building itself doesn't apply to the monsters for purposes of restrictions. The monsters were supposed to have a 'reduced' version or maybe the movement listed /is/ the reduction, etc). One of your encounter rolls indicates things /are/ melting and the description of the bridge from the guards is saying things are melting, so it all just feels like this needed more thought.

After bouncing up and down repeatedly through the document, I as a person picking this up outside of the jam would have been at a loss and decided it probably is just broken. I'd possibly use elements somewhere else and do a lot of revamping of what is going on.

Am I missing something in section 2 of the map? Almost as soon as the players enter, they can easily bring the whole adventure to a fail state without even knowing. The only person who will be down in 11 is the queen. There's no stats provided for her, but if she was better than a player or Druin, she wouldn't have needed the help. I would rethink this. Perhaps a fall and damage situation. They skip some of the map, but take potentially lethal damage.

When I got further into the reading, I think it was meant to be 10 instead of 11. 10 speaks about the guards being unaware the bride above /THEM/ is melting.

I could do insane things with the treasure by the way. Lacking the object language of Shadowdark feels like a miss here, but far more importantly I think you need to give real dimensions here. Saying Near in this case offers me the ability to just insta-screw enemies pretty readily. Just my opinion on this one.

Why isn't magma brute included down with the monsters?

Vibes:

This is the weakest part of your adventure/map. You kind of capture the side-scroller tunnel effect, but I doubt that's your goal. The pixel titles might have more impact if the majority of writing wasn't a more standard font. It feels like an easy nod without any real oomph. Without any art, you need your writing to carry a lot of the workload on vibes and I think it fell short.

Final Thoughts:

It's not a bad entry, just not really playing up to the potential. With it leaning so hard into one specific game and barely touching the difficult draw, I don't get excited. If not for the flame and ice mechanics, it could be a reskinned adventure from just about anywhere. If you decide to go back and make changes, I would try to work out the fire and ice a little more cleanly. I'd also try to increase the ways to engage beyond simply doing as the fairies ask. I hope you had a blast working on it regardless and you got your entry in which is more than 75% or so of the people who started did, so solid success on that count! 

Allow me to preface this with a statement. I'm going to break down things as I go over them. It isn't intended to be harsh, but instead to help point out where there is room to improve or where I think things worked well. I hope you will take the feedback for what it is; an attempt at constructive criticism. I hope you'll join next year's jam as well and I get a chance to see how you've developed as a designer.

Non-voting thoughts:

Zero chance anyone ever prints this out due to white on black. I'd have to burn up half my black ink to do a print out. Also, the white on black is a major turnoff to a lot of people. It strains the eyes to read.

I will say that the map looks very nice on the black background though! Everything's clean and clear there, though I would put the overview map at the start rather than the end so I have a clear understanding of how it all fits together going in.

I know groups who would immediately make everything here useless. I understand why, given the NES games, but it makes it only usable on groups who like to play along with the DM's prompting.

I could see a couple bad rolls blocking off important pathways since there's a rather linear path happening. Something to consider as well.

The most interesting version is if you end up finding the slide and having to reverse-solve the situation. Having the big bad just standing up in a tower smacking a gem means you could finish him off pretty early into the crawl too.

I think you can drop the word Core from SD Core page references. Standard nomenclature is just the title abbreviation and page number. I know there's an argument to reduce it further in various ways, but Core especially can easily be dropped and lose nothing.

Inspiration:

I took a little time to look up the games you got. Fire and Ice is pretty obvious. I think you missed the chance to do something really creative with the Golf pull. Just adding a metal club to a monster felt like a cop out to me. If you'd not drawn attention to it, I wouldn't have even thought of the concept of golf at all.

Metal Slader Glory felt a little more present, but more like window dressing. If you had it to do over again, I'd say try to bring the other two games more solidly into the designs. Golf especially is a hard one, I understand, but it's those rough pulls that can inspire the most creative designs. A lot of this felt like it could have been any random adventure design regardless of the games being used.

Usability:

I like that you list clearly which rumors are true or false. It meant without reading any further, I knew which ones were just red herrings.

It makes note of flame spirits being unable to handle water or ice well and or travel at all on ice slides. I'd have rather seen this put somewhere near the monster section because when I go to reference a monster, I want all relevant info where the stats of the monster are. I get why it is where it is, but a reminder note at least would help.

Since the fairies aren't really relevant once you reach the island, this is more of a themed map with a goal than an outright adventure. I would have liked to see more back and forth being possible.

As soon as I started reading the map, I realized a critical flaw. The entire location is created of ice, but it was already clarified that fire beings are restricted in their movements when the ice is there. I realized they need to have restricted movements, which then had me looking to their stats and realizing I have no idea what you want the restriction to be represented as. Are they slower than listed?

Which now moves me down another tangent of wondering how the place made entirely of ice is still here. It should have melted down from flame creatures heating up everything so much the fairies can't be here. I feel like either there's missing information (the compact ice is magic and the building itself doesn't apply to the monsters for purposes of restrictions. The monsters were supposed to have a 'reduced' version or maybe the movement listed /is/ the reduction, etc). One of your encounter rolls indicates things /are/ melting and the description of the bridge from the guards is saying things are melting, so it all just feels like this needed more thought.

After bouncing up and down repeatedly through the document, I as a person picking this up outside of the jam would have been at a loss and decided it probably is just broken. I'd possibly use elements somewhere else and do a lot of revamping of what is going on.

Am I missing something in section 2 of the map? Almost as soon as the players enter, they can easily bring the whole adventure to a fail state without even knowing. The only person who will be down in 11 is the queen. There's no stats provided for her, but if she was better than a player or Druin, she wouldn't have needed the help. I would rethink this. Perhaps a fall and damage situation. They skip some of the map, but take potentially lethal damage.

When I got further into the reading, I think it was meant to be 10 instead of 11. 10 speaks about the guards being unaware the bride above /THEM/ is melting.

I could do insane things with the treasure by the way. Lacking the object language of Shadowdark feels like a miss here, but far more importantly I think you need to give real dimensions here. Saying Near in this case offers me the ability to just insta-screw enemies pretty readily. Just my opinion on this one.

Why isn't magma brute included down with the monsters?

Vibes:

This is the weakest part of your adventure/map. You kind of capture the side-scroller tunnel effect, but I doubt that's your goal. The pixel titles might have more impact if the majority of writing wasn't a more standard font. It feels like an easy nod without any real oomph. Without any art, you need your writing to carry a lot of the workload on vibes and I think it fell short.

Final Thoughts:

It's not a bad entry, just not really playing up to the potential. With it leaning so hard into one specific game and barely touching the difficult draw, I don't get excited. If not for the flame and ice mechanics, it could be a reskinned adventure from just about anywhere. If you decide to go back and make changes, I would try to work out the fire and ice a little more cleanly. I'd also try to increase the ways to engage beyond simply doing as the fairies ask. I hope you had a blast working on it regardless and you got your entry in which is more than 75% or so of the people who started did, so solid success on that count! 

I think I'm going to go ahead and call it done. It is functional as-is. It would need populated by the DM/GM, but the images are suggestive enough to be usable for most systems I think. The required door mechanic is on the page, so I'd say it's within the limits and spirit of the Jam.

Due to a medical issue today, the work I had planned to do to transfer the map into a finished form, colorize it, etc didn't happen. I only have about an hour left to work on it, but there's precisely zero chance I can do a cleaned up version in time. That said, while it lacks details needed to run it, the basic map itself is done and ready. Do people think I should go ahead and post what I have and just clean it up down the road? Does technically done count? Heh

I'm glad you found things to enjoy in it. I appreciate your taking the time to comment!