Okay, I'm settled after my return from the business trip, so here is my personal short feedback on all submitted games. If you have any questions, please contact me by PM.
Reneuend: Once Bitten Twice Shy
I liked that your game has an interesting storyline with logical puzzles. You have also created nice artwork, and made all characters and character animations yourself. Also the background sounds (e.g. in jail) and voice-overs were used well, and added to the game quality. It is obvious that you have put much time and effort into the game.
Navigation was okay, but for me not always easy to find the location I was looking for. However if you walk around for a while, you get the idea of what is where.
There have been still some bugs in the game (e.g. being able to pick up things twice), so that the final polishing was missing. I have played the first and the second version, and indeed some bugfixing has been done for the 2nd version. A thorough beta testing time must be scheduled, which I know is especially difficult when you have a deadline of submission.
One specific suggestion for future games: Make sure that navigation areas are never underneath the inventory bar. Otherwise the player wants to use an item on something, but instead goes to another screen when trying to grab an item.
2poam: Camper Escape
I liked the opening cut scene. You have put much effort in the artwork, and there was humor in the game
I also liked the ideas for some puzzles (card game, color puzzle), however part of them was illogical and confusing in my personal opinion (e.g. the cross showing up).
I found the navigation through the camper difficult and user unfriendly in this game.
There has been some pixel hunting, or hotspots too small: E.g. to look under the oven, you need to click on the bottom part of the oven and not underneath the oven, this is confusing for the player, and makes it difficult to find items.
Items were partly overlapping in the inventory bar. Although this wasn't a hindering factor in finishing the game, it was still unattractive in terms of user interface. There would be 2 solutions for this: making items smaller and/or changing the settings for the inventory in the Project Properties.
Shafayat: Life Is For Living
The animations look very professional, but suggest (especially because of the heavy facial animations) that some modding tool (maybe from "The Movies" by Lionhead Studios?) has been used to create them. Since there are absolutely no credits, it's impossible to find out what your own merit is concerning the artwork and animations.
Having no credits is generally a no-go in my opinion for any game
Unfortunately I haven't seen a storyline, this was a very short game part based heavily on sequences of animations. I was missing the usage of AM features and interaction.
Don't get me wrong, it's of course allowed to use any legal tools/software for creating nice game contents, but it's necessary to explain in the credits what has been used, and what are your own merits. And especially for an AM contest, it's good to have the bigger portion done by yourself, and using AM itself more.
Anyhow I hope to see the finished game in future
Once again, thank you all for creating and submitting your games for this contest, and congrats!
