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Ascending the Tower's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
How clear & compelling is the game's central idea? | #3 | 4.600 | 4.600 |
How cohesively designed do you think the game is overall? | #4 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
How elegant, useful, and intuitive are the game's mechanics? | #5 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- I was totally drawn in reading through this game. The tools for making the dungeon feel at once dangerous, alluring, important, and transformative I think are some of the most interesting I've seen. The game feels tense even just reading it, as I thought about spending my precious dice to succeed, but knowing that I was losing my opportunities to spend them at the end of the adventure to secure the future I wanted. Also keeping in mind that the Tower's dice could oppose me at every turn! I was a little worried while reading about trying to keep straight every detail about the dice and how they could be used, but overall I found everything about this game to be very compelling.
- Ascending up a mysterious tower for a reward is a classic game trops that brings to mind a number of proceduraly generated video games. The text does a good job at both providing direction on how the tower should feel, as well as provide enough space for the Tower to be distinct each time you play. The biggest issue with this game is unfortunately the dice themselves. A number of the mechanics seem overly complicated, and the way they are communicated to the reader had me scratching my head a lot. It felt like the text was just as confused about the dice as I was, but luckily there were a lot of evocative choices and answers to make up for it. The main thing the game seemed to be missing was a safety section, a key to safely navigating the adversarial relationship between The Tower and the rest of the table, not even to moention the surreal surprise weirdness of a game like this.
- How clear & compelling is the game's central idea? The Tower appeals to me as a central element, and the idea that is in Tarot seems present here too, that the Tower is not a good card to see, usually. How elegant, useful, and intuitive are the game's mechanics? the dice as capacity to do things along with a being a finite resource is interesting. there is a lot of mechanical support in the structure of the game as well. There is one confusing element in the number of colored dice needed, the text says four then lists 3 types. How cohesively designed do you think the game is overall? The game all wraps back to the central theme, the mechanics seem to go well to describing it. the game shares a single voice in writing, a very detached voice.
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Comments
This is really tight! I love the use of coloured dice, and the encouragement to interact with other players / have them answer your questions for you.
The treatment of secrets and the slow reveal is great.
As I read the file, each new rule that was explained was a treat. This seems like a blast and I'd love to give it a real play.