Reviews

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
Only the same turtle sprite over a card with a small number in the corner. The game would be exactly the same if instead of a turtle, it was a robot, a soda drink, a pineapple, a planet or whatever. So, this isn't a great implementation of the rule.

1.2. Fable:
Differently than what the name tells, there is no fable here nor anything even by far similar to this. It is just a very simple match-up and nothing more than this.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The cards are revealed with an effect intended to be iridiscent. But it don't looks very iridescent at all.

1.4. Speech balloons:
Didn't noticed any.

1.5. 2-players:
It is indeed a two player game - red vs green - although it is possible that some people wouldn't even notice this. Also, you could very well play it alone.

1.6. Charts:
There is a chart presenting the score for each player. But this is surely not an essential part of the gameplay and it would essentially be the same if they were numbers instead.

2. Game concept and idea

Just a very simple and crude match-up game. Really needs some work to develop a distinct game concept.

3. Technical and code

The shader to create the iridiscence effect clearly was an achievement to create by its author. Its the most difficulty and complicated part of the code and it looks like that the author devoted most of his effort there.

Also, I never heard about godot before. Intersting that people uses that to develop games. But I didn't understand godot well enough and my first contact with it was through this entry. However, the code is very simple, which is expected for a very simple game. With the exception of the iridiscence part, it is also very straightforward.

4. Graphics

The graphics really need some work. At least, it should present 12 different animals instead of 12 pairs of the same turtle featuring a small number.

The chart and the circle showing who is the turn could also be improved.

The iridiscent effect isn't very iridiscent at all.

There aren't speech balloons in the game.

5. Audio

Not implemented.

6. Fun

Unfortunately, not so much fun and gets boring quickly. But it has some replay value nonetheless.

7. Suggestions for improvements

* The first most obvious improvements is to have 12 different animals instead of 12 times the same turtle with differing numbers.

* Some option to choose how many pairs there are would be nice. If I am going to play it against somewhere else, it is good to have, let's say, 40 pairs or something like that.

* This is a match-up game, so there isn't much space for innovation. But you can still do a match-up of forest animals in level 1, then a match-up of sea animals in level 2, then a match-up of birds in level 3, then a match-up of microscopic animals in level 4, and so on...

* It would be a nice addition if two matching cards don't necessarily have the same picture, but instead pictures the same animal in two different positions or angles or places, so that the two matching cards are actually very different to each other.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 1 Genre 1

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

Interesting idea, but needs some work. As the author acknowledge, its game engine is very buggy, and its buggyness interferes with gameplay.

The characters are animals, for sure. And there is a fable about reaching a flower, but to be sincere, I didn't understood it nor could complete the game.

For iridisence, well, I didn't really noticed it. I don't know if the game "dustiness" had the intent of being "iridiscent", but if it was, it didn't work very well. There are some supposedly iridiscence falling stuff, but they aren't any useful or meaningful to the game at all, and their dustiness (as everything is dusty) don't let me appreciate their iridiscence.

The speech balloons were well implemented and are useful for storytelling, so this was implemented very correctly into the game.

It claims to be a 2-player game with one player controlling the skunk and the other the elephant. But this isn't true. It is just a 1-player game where you occasionally have to control 2 characters. Claiming that this is a 2-player game would be the same as claiming that "The Lost Vikings" were a 3-player game or that "Lemmings" was a MMO game, simply no.

There is a chart in the map page, but it isn't very useful and is perfectly dispensable.

The code is significantly complex. And needs some work to nail down the bugs, including sequence-breaking bugs. Unfortunately, there are many bugs that may screw up the gaming experience. Also, I suspected that I softlocked the game at least once, but I have no idea how.

The game controls are awful, and difficult to learn to use correctly. Also, they are very easy to screw up. Falling off the screen instead of navigating between rooms is common. Misjumping into the void due to bad timing into hitting buttons is also easy. Pushing or pulling stuff when you wanted to jump or vice-versa may also screw up things. Those bugs, specially the ones about moving characters, are very frustrating and this isn't intended as part of the game experience.

The game can be fun and challenging. Many other games were either too boring or too short, but this is not the case here. There are many rooms to explore and many puzzles to solve.

My suggestions are:

* Make the controls easier.

* Remove the dustiness.

* Fix the bugs.

* Make the map larger, with randomly generatd parts or different levels.

And with those changes, it would be a very nice game.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 3

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

This game concept was very interesting. However, it gets repetitive quickly.

The characters are all animals. But if they were humans, aliens or robots instead, the game would still work (and possible even better than with animals). So, maybe it was somewhat lacking in this department. However, it is still good as is nonetheless.

There isn't really any fable other than a generic "let's save the world" motif, or more specifically, "let's save capybaras while avoid or killing people who litters the beach, ride cars or are just walking around".

The time sometimes runs short too easily and may ruin the game. Specially after defeating a hard level, you will possibly have too few time to have any hope in the floolwing level.

Also, the chart isn't really a chart, it is a map. Making an excuse for that based on wordplay and exploiting ambiguities of the English language to call it as a chart don't really work. However, at least the map is an important concept of this game.

The oil iridiscence isn't very convincing and is just cosmetic. If it was not there the game would either be the same or slightly better.

The speech balloons are very underused.

There is a 2-player game part and it is really well done, being a truly 2-player game.

Got only one bug when playtesting it: When one of the player dies and the other still manages to finish the level, the dead player will be ressurrected in the following level and can still play, but its map will be invisible and unable to navigate rooms. Other than that bug, everything just works perfectly.

The code is pollutted with a lot of code inherited from previous games that were not properly cleaned. But it was competently developed nonetheless.

The game is very promising and bear a rich playing experience. My suggestions to make it great are those:

* Add more different enemy types.

* Fixed time per level. Remaining time of the previous level should be either meaningless or converted into money perhaps.

* Be more generous about time, so people would appreciate more the puzzling and enemy-killing aspect of the game and less trying to speedrun it.

* Most enemies are avoidable and worthless to kill due to time constraints and you might kill a few only for money. Make it mandatory to kill some enemies in some areas for things other than money (like keys, for example).

* Improve the puzzling aspect of the games. Different key types to different doors is a way to do it. Another way is to add switches, buttons, force fields, etc.

* Either make the oil-over-sea more convincing and gameplay-interfering or drop it entirely.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 4

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

This game features very beautiful graphics. Et il est en français.

It is really a 2-player game.

The music is relaxing when you hear it for the first time. However, it becomes really annoying from the second time and on.

The speech balloons are there for no reason at all. Oui et non, mais pourquoi? Je ne compreend pas!

I don't remember about charts or iridiscence, maybe I didn't even noticed them. Also, the animals (fish) are just incidental characters in the game. Further, a dog-shaped balloon isn't really an animal. There is no fable at all nor anything even remotely looking as one.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is not very good. It is a boring and uninteresting game.

But the game still have some potential nonetheless. There are some good game mechanics there that should be reused in some later game or an improved version of this one.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 5 Technical 3 Genre 1

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

WARNING: Beware the spoilers!

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
The game heavily focuses about cats. The 3rd level goes a step further and hints the existence of a cat civilization developing theories about the existence and behaviors of humans. This is a core concept in the game. If it was replaced by plants, soda cans robots or anything other, it would be a completely diferent game. Even if we replaced the cats by fishes, birds, dogs or pandas, it would be something very different instead.

1.2. Fable:
Up to the 2nd level it was a fable about cats telling stuff about arts. But in the 3rd level, the strong fable-ness shows up, hinting the existence of a cat civilization developing theories about the existence and behaviors of humans. However, as it is, the fable-ness is still far from complete and there is a lot that can be done in further levels that I hope will be eventually developed.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The sculpture shows iridiscent reflections, and its true iridiscence not just colorfullness or rainbowness. However, this isn't a core concept of the game, it is just a detail.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
Mittens speaks a lot, all the time, and this contributes to the charm of the game art. However, if there was just text without the speech balloons, it would be roughly the same. Still not a core concept but it is not far from being one.

1.5. Chart:
There is a chart in the 3rd level and it is the key for solving its riddle, being an important part of the history. However, it is just that, a gimmick of one of its levels and nothing more.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

Interesting, unique and well-developed game concept idea.

3. Technical and code

Typing can be hard or unintuitive to do sometimes.

The code is very complex and detailed C++, a piece of some hard work.

3. Graphics

The 3D is very well implemented. The images in the gallery are excellent and the art is fantastic. The iridiscence in the sculptures is great, although this is a mere detail.

However, the humans sculptures in level 3 need some work and are significantly cruder than what they could be.

4. Audio

Excellent music. Relaxing and fits the game with excellency.

5. Fun

The biggest problem of the game is that it is too short. Once you had looked everything and solved the riddles, it has few to no replay value. And all 3 riddles are quite easy to solve, so you may be able to finish the game in 10 to 15 minutes. However, when you still didn't finished it, it is very fun.

6. Suggestions for improvements

As the "v0.1.17" and the level selection menu implies, this is still far from complete. So, here are my suggestions:

* More levels. Much more!

* More stuff, more sculptures. Add a Moncat Lisa! Add some Vincent van Cat and Pablo Picatto works. Add the Eiffel Catower. Add Pyramids with a Cat-headed sphinx.

* This has a strong potential for being a very nice game about art for 6-10 years old children.

* Add sound to Mittens voice and, with the assistance of an adult, children 4-5 years old who can't still read or write would also
be able to play the game and they would be very fascinated by it.

* Also, it could be much better if Mittens showed different expressions when (a) looking at different arts or when (b) you failed the riddle or when (c) you got it right. Also, please, animate its sprite!

* Add a second cat later in the game when you add more levels could be interesting.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 5 Technical 4 Genre 5

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
The game is essentially a fishing game as its core concept. The player is the Heron, a vulture or bat or something like that.

1.2. Fable:
It is a game of animals, but this don't make it a fable. There is some idea about ending up being hungry for being too picky. The submissions comments tell what is the fable, but it isn't really all in the game as it should be.

1.3. Iridiscence:
There is a snail flashing colors when you finish a level with zero points. However, this is definitely not a core game concept and flashing colors is not the same as being iridiscent.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
Some speech balloons when you finish the game, but they are completely dispensable and don't tell anything really useful.

1.5. Chart:
There is a chart about which fishes you took while playing. However, with so few data to present there, it becomes almost irrelevant.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

The idea is in principle good, but it needs a lot of work to turn into something reasonable.

You only have a few seconds to fish, and with so few time to react, think, plan or anything, it is much more a luck game giving a random score for having the player fly around randomly than anything else.

3. Technical and code

The highscores are a lie. If you exit the game, they'll be resetted. Also, what does having a highscore really mean here?

If you are moving when the time runs out, you could accidentally skip the dialog and the bar chart screens.

The code is much more complicated than it needed to be.

3. Graphics

Sorry for being sincere, but the graphics are... well... The 14th in the ranking in my opinion.

I understand that pixelated games have some charm, but this charm doesn't bears fruit here, it severely degrades the game instead. It would be much better if the graphics were not so heavily pixelated even if the sprites were crudely hand-drawn.

Also, the fact that the sprites aren't transparent, either by accident or on purpose, only contributes for the uglyness of the game.

4. Audio

No audio.

5. Fun

The game is not fun. Could be with some small changes, like having more time to catch more and better pray.

6. Suggestions for improvements

* Improve the graphical resolution and abandon the pixelation or at least increase the resolution.

* Make the sprites have transparent areas.

* Redraw all the sprites. Even having hand-drawn sprites made by some kid would be better than this.

* More time to do more stuff. This way it would be much less than a luck 11-second game about the player just trying to catch anything at all and would be instead a game where the player should at least minimally elaborate some sort of meaningful winning play strategy and have time to enjoy it.

* In your submission text, you tell people to change some #define's to experiment playing with more time or more pray. Don't do that. Provide options inside the game instead of this. People aren't expected to have to change the source code or recompile it if they want a different playing experience, they are expected to change some values in some config menu instead.

* Properly save and load the high-scores in order to make them not a lie.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 1 Technical 1 Genre 2

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
If instead of animals, it was a game about robot or tanks or fruits it would be a strange game to say at least. The animals fits very well the game.

1.2. Fable:
There is no fable after all, just animals telling truths or lies.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The closest to that was having stuff with flashing colors and having dust around the freshly-lost heart. But flashing colors isn't exactly the same as iridiscence.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
This is a core concept of the game and it wouldn't work well without it.

1.5. Charts:
The chart is there, but the game would essentially be the same thing if it was not. Further, it is not clear for me how to interpret it.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented. There is a set of keys assigned to a second player, but it seems to be something from PICO-8 instead of the game itself. Further, I couldn't found how to play it with 2 players and I didn't found any 2-players stuff in the game's code.

2. Game concept and idea

The game concept is not entirely new, but is very well-developed and well-conceived, making it a unique and creative game.

3. Technical and code

Fitting so much in so few screen area is a big achievement.

The code isn't really in the submission. It is in the PICO-8 site together with the game itself. The upload is just a small PNG file with a poster-like draw about the game. However, PICO-8 uses PNG as links somehow.

Also, the code is hidden in a small link in the PICO-8 site. It is not distributed in the upload.

The code is simple and short, having less than 1000 lines. Most of it is pretty straight-forward. Sometimes it is misidented, but I don't think that this matters.

I couldn't find in the code, where is the sprite data nor the music data.

4. Graphics

The graphics are atari-like very-low-resolution and pixelated making it hard even to read some of the text due to having too few pixels for composing each of the letters. However, this seems to be a (self-imposed) limitation of the (unusually) choosen platform, the PICO-8 Fantasy Engine.

I understand that some people like this style, but I don't think that using this style fits this game well. It would be better with at least the double of its current resolution. However, as this is for PICO-8, it would be hard to make it much better within the chosen platform.

5. Audio

If the idea was to emulate the feel of some 35-year old game console, then the audio fits it very well.

6. Fun

The game is fun and enjoyable, and I can play it a lot of times without getting bored nor eventually exhausting it. It is winnable, but I myself, could never win it.

7. Suggestions for improvements

I would suggest myself to:

* Improve the resolution if the platform permits. You don't need to make it a 8K-screen photorealistic game, but at least it should not be difficult to read the text due to being so severe low resolution, specially for a game where reading and interpreting text quickly is a core concept.

* Add more properties about the animals. Like if it flies, walks or swims. If it is active during day, during night or both, etc. Or even a simple one: "I am looking right" and "I am looking left"

* Add more animals, like ant, cat, dog, spider, fly, fish, turtle and centipede.

* English, as well as other languages, can be frustrating to get right when concatenating string. The game produces "i am a elephant" instead of "i am an elephant". You are lucky that this isn't French, German or Spanish.

* Sometimes, having 4 or 5 animals instead of 3 makes it easier instead of harder. The reason is because when we have more data, we can classify better who is the odd. However with more than 5, it just gets harder as intended.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 2 Technical 4 Genre 2

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
Good use of the birds as a core concept. The game would be significantly worse if instead they were robots, tanks, fruits, people, paper bins or whatever.

1.2. Fable:
There is a hint of fable about the force of the union for freedom - "With team power, we are finally free!" But it is only a hint that there is a fable there, it still is not really there yet.

1.3. Iridiscence:
There is a rainbow and the birds change color. However this is not exactly what iridiscence it, although this is something close. Further, if those effects simply were not there, the game would be essentially the same.

1.4. Speech balloons:
The usage of the speech balloons is clever and their absence would significantly degrade the game, so their usage was satisfactory as a core concept.

1.5. Charts:
There is a pie chart showing the proportions of how much birds were freed. However, it is completely unnecessary to the gameplay.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

The game idea's is about freeing up birds stuck in some sort of trap. This is a good idea.

3. Technical and code quality.

Shifting the birds hue is an interesting feat.

The code is done in Python with Pygame and is simple, small, straight-forward and of good quality.

4. Graphics

The graphics are ok for the game and they work well for it, but they are far from being something deserving a special prize for graphical achievement or something like that. The implementation of speech balloons was great. The implementation of iridiscence was on the way, although that just changing hues is not the same as being iridiscent.

5. Audio

Not implemented.

6. Fun

Unfortunately, once you finishes the game, it is done and there isn't anything new to discover. There is none or very very few replay value on it.

Also, it is very _UN_challenging: I could finish it in less than 10 seconds on my first try!

7. Suggestions for improvements

As it is, the solution to this game is very simple and obvious: Just click the birds as fast as possible to make them go up and re-click any of them that goes down. So, my suggestion for improving the entry is to not make the solution so simple and obvious anymore. So, I suggest that:

* The game should have a diferent number of levels with increasing difficulty. The level 1 could be the game as it is. But as the levels advances, other than just adding more birds, different birds could behave differently.

* In more advanced levels, you would need to free up the birds in some order, otherwise, they entangles themselves even more.

* Teher could be places where you would need to give a task to some birds, like grabbing a key or a stick somewhere in order to be possible to release some other bird.

* Implementing some form of river crossing puzzles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_crossing_puzzle), in which there are birds up and birds down similar to the case of people or stuff at left or right margin of the river. If things are done in the wrong way, then some bird die, or the situation becomes a great mess that needs to be undone or some other bad thing happen.

* Add some enemies, like cats or snakes that devour birds that aren't released or are released in the wrong way. Or perhaps the enemies are also trapped and shouldn't be released by someone who is just clicking everything on the screen.

* Add some hazards like electrical wires, lasers, tripwires, booby traps, fires, falling rocks, poisoned food or whatever. Do the things wrong and you screw it all up.

* Have the player need to do more to more to the birds other than freeing them. Like also having to feed them, take their fleas out, and caring for birds that can't fly due to injuries like broken wings.

* Make it very complicated for free up some birds. Instead of just being trapped, some birds could also be tied, chained, imprisioned, glued, tarred, sleeping, etc. And releasing them out of all that mess would need some really brainpower and the usage of a lot of stuff in a lot of different steps.

* What if some birds are egoistical or uncollaborative but you still need their participation to win and can't leave them behind?

* What about eggs and birds needing to take care of them?

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 2

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

1. Rules implementation

1.1. Animals:
Unfortunately the implementation is superficial. The game would feel exactly the same if the player was controlling a robot, a jumping car or a jumping fruit instead of a lion.

1.2. Fable:
Just because there is an animal saying that you should try again when you die or finish the level without all stars, this doesn't make the game a fable.

1.3. Iridiscence:
The star iridiscence is very well implemented and convincing look. However, it is not a core concept, since if the stars were plain yellow instead, the game would feel the same.

1.4. Speech Balloons:
A speech balloon is presented when you die or finish the game without 100% of the stars asking if you want to try again. But again, if it was not there, the game would be essentially feel the same.

1.5. Chart:
There is a pie-chart showing the percentage of stars collected. But it is so discrete and dispensable that no-one would miss it if it was not there and the game would be essentially the same thing, it was not a core concept.

1.6. 2-players:
Not implemented.

2. Game concept and idea

The game idea for now is just a generic platform game. Platform games are good an quite easy to turn out into a crazy unique idea, however this game don't do that, at least not yet as it is.

3. Technical and code

If you click the `tins2023.exe` file, it will crash at the start up. To run the game, you must type `.\zig-out\bin\tins2023.exe` in the console from its root folder. This makes non-tech-savvy people unable to play the game. This could be easily solved just by moving all the files in th `zig-out\bin` folder to the root directory or just adding a BAT file in the root dir with `.\zig-out\bin\tins2023.exe` as its content.

The code is done in the ZIG programming language (https://ziglang.org/).

4. Graphics

The graphics are simple and crude and could be better. But they aren't a horrible mess at least and are somewhat ok-ish. Got iridiscence implemented in the stars and they look great and also got speech balloons implemented somewhere, but they are mere details instead of core concepts.

5. Audio

Not implemented.

6. Fun

There is some challenge in trying to find all the stars. Also, since there are some points of no-return, if you don't do it correctly, you'll have to do it all over again. Unfortunately, once you finishes the game with 100% of the stars, it is done and there isn't anything new to discover. And it isn't difficult to get 100% stars, there is no hidden trick there.

7. Suggestions for improvements

As it is, this could be the game's level 1. The game would be much more interesting if:

* There were more levels.

* There were objects like switches, keys, doors, elevators, teleporters, spikes, pools, traps or anything that makes progressing towards the level much more challenging.

* There were stars that are really very well hidden and very tricky to reach.

* There were enemies, like hunters, hyenas, alligators or other lions.

* There were Other animals that could help or hinder your advance, specially if they talk.

* There should be a reason for colleting the stars. Like trading them for something, giving them to someone or perhaps returning them to the sky.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 3 Genre 1

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

The game idea is very interesting and the usage of colors is very smart.

However the colors aren't really iridiscent. They are just a mosaic of fixed colors. But this might be close enough.

There are some speech balloons, y los animales hablan español. But they don't show anything really important.

The characters are all animals: a snake and a lot of gray evil foxes that turn normal orange-brown when cured.

However, there isn't a fable there yet, although there is some message about colors being lively, good and happy in contrast of colorless gray being dead, evil and sad.

There is no 2-player stuff.

The chart is interesting and helpful, but it isn't very accessible.

However, the game is very unfair and unbalanced. The objective is to defend the castle, but this task is hopeless and doomed to fail quickly.

The game is infinite as it is. However, it can't be even played for long time. There are simply too many enemies swarming the castle and you are only one, too weak and too slow to defend it, and the castle is too big for that. And this is sad. With only small changes, this could be fixed.

The code is somewhat confusing and have some structural problems, but it is workable and far from being a huge mess. However, making it compile and run was difficulty, and was one of the hardest to get a working binary file, mainly due to missing DLLs.

My suggestion for improvements would be:

* Make the cured foxes regenerate the castle color or fight the evil foxes or help the snake somehow. As they are, cured foxes don't do anything useful.

* Make the castle smaller or add things like teleporters or maybe less entrance points in order to make it more defensible. Castles were built with the intent of being formidable strongholds very difficulty to be invaded and easy to defend, but this isn't the case here.

* This game would become much more interesting if it features levels. You could either make the game finite or keep it infinite. At least, the first levels should be easily beatable. Later levels, difficulty, but surely beatable and only if it is still infinite, some very distant levels unbeatable.

* Or perhaps, if there is only a single infinite level as it is, add some highscores presenting how long players endured.

* Make more usage of the chart. It could show also not only the total color of the castle, but also the coloring/grayness per castle part (floors and right/center/left).

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 3 Genre 3

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

An interesting game idea with a lot of potential.

The game characters are animals. It would work more or less the same if they were humans, aliens or robots, but there is some intrinsic artistic value in making them animals. However, there is no fable here.

The iridiscency is very beautiful and I think that it was the only game that implemented true iridiscence instead of just being overly-colorful. The downside is that if the crystal had solid colors instead, it would be the same.

The graphics are very well made. But I suggest that you reduce pixelation since the game don't really need it. This is specially bad at the charts since having a poorer resolution is bad for them.

I think that its speech balloons are somewhat lacking. The workers say some things about their needs, but it is still very hard to understand how to please them.

There is no 2-player stuff, or at least, I couldn't make it work.

The major problems are:

* Your asteroid is too small and sometimes you run out of space or don't find any suitable space.

* It isn't clear how to build your colony: Sometimes you have cafes around and your workers are still hungry. You have unoccupied houses an your workers are sleeping in the streets. And I'm clueless in understanding what is wrong.

* Sometimes you think you built it correctly: There are mines, cafes, houses, a spaceport, some roads and all the buildings are near each other, but no, all your money just goes down the drain, nobody goes to the mines, people leave and you get bankrupt.

So my suggestions are:

* Double the resolution. This will only make the graphics better.

* Make the asteroids larger, or perhaps, a way to navigate between multiple asteroids.

* Make it easier to diagnose what is wrong and how to fix it. Maybe a way to inspect how tired, hungry or happy a worker is other than just having it tells you when it is aleady too late and they are already very tired, very hungry or entered the spaceport in order to leave.

* The cafes sell stuff that are too expensive.

* A house should fit more than one person.

* The player should have some control over how cafes serve people to avoid you get bankrupted just because somebody entered a cafe and spent a lot of your money there.

* There should be a way into priorize work instead of just letting workers decided randomly what to do: Which mine should be mined first? What should be built right now and what should be built later?

* More variety for economical activity, like vehicle factories or farming food.

* What about war against another players? With all of the building military, invading, raiding, conquering, destroying, defending, killing, spying, sabotaging, fortifying buildings, repairing, etc.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 4 Technical 5 Genre 3

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

Yes, it is a really and definitively a fable. Other games just had a poorly made-up fable or a poorly executed fable or were no fable at all, but this one is a real fable. However, it is a bad fable. Either be a "racist" for refusing the scorpion or take the scorpion and then it kills you. This might imply that being a "racist" is good.

Also, this it not even a game. There is no gameplay whatsoever.

The iridiscent hat isn't really iridiscent at all. It is just a hat with flashing colors instead of iridiscent colors. And it is there for no reason at all.

There are animal characters and speech balloons (well, sort of) at least.

There is no 2-player stuff. There isn't even 1-player stuff.

Also, no audio.

Some graphics are good, but some were joined together poorly.

The code is complicated, to say at least. The code shows clearly that it intended to be a game, but unfortunately, it was not.

It was also difficuly to run due to some missing DLLs that I needed to grab elsewhere.

Scores: Overall 1 Artistical 3 Technical 1 Genre 2

Review by victorwss all reviews by victorwss

This gains the audio bonus for sure. It was an interesting idea.

However, it was too far incomplete to ever be qualified as a game, although it is playable at least. Also, it have nothing to do with TINS 2023 rules: No animals, no fable, no iridiscence, no speech balloons, no charts and no 2-player stuff.

The code shows that it is something very incomplete, just a proof of concept of a gameplay mechanic and not a game yet, much less one within the TINS 2023 rules.

Unfortunately, there isn't much more to say.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 2 Genre 1