Honorable Mentioned! Takeaway & Feedbacks :)

I am definitely surprised that I managed to make it for honorable mentions out of 244 novice submissions. I guess what failed for me this time was really the difficulty, the content and also the poor take on the theme :( It was definitely a great learning experience for me though! Till next time :)

Anyway, here are some of the judge's feedback for the game:

Feedback 1: Charms and Guns puts a twist on the towers of tower defence. The game asks the player to manage four turrets located at the four quadrant of the screen and use them to take out incoming enemies. The loop is extremely fun and well-executed. Personally, I love that the decription says, "the fun starts at level 4," when the fire charms spawn in and makes turrets go brrrr. However, as the enemies keep coming, I cannot help but feel helpless as my turrets go down one by one. It feels like even though they are turrets, in the later levels, they become much more vulnerable on their own as the number of enemies increase drastically, and becominng virtually useless when not powered by the player. However, it is a very fun game overall, and the only thing I would say is that I wish it has more content,

Feedback 2: For a novice game-jammer, this is a good attempt at making a game within strict time constraints given. However, while the game is definitely a technical achievement, whether the game is a good representation of the theme is questionable. The gameplay itself is a standard Tower-Defense type game where the player is tasked with defending a central point, from enemies. This part seems to be executed decently and is playable, but overall is a bit generic. The interpretation of the theme charms is also quite literal. Charms take the form in this game as power-ups, but instead of accruing them for oneself, you instead collect them and give them to turrets for short term benefits. It's not a bad take on charms, however, a more creative approach on it could've been explored. It also leads me to ask, why turrets? There's an obvious theme for the character that reads as a wizard, but the reason the player is defending a pot from warriors with spears is confusing. Aside from the confusing gameplay, a definite positive point to this game is it's tutorial. Sure it's short, and doesn't have a lot to explain, but the fact that a tutorial even made it into a gamejam game is impressive. A couple recommendations to improve the tutorial: Add text to clarify the objective, it could be as simple as adding "Defend this" and an arrow pointing to the green jar. Add text to clarify the power-ups. This is more of a nitpick, since its rather apparent as to what they do.

Feedback 3: This was a very enjoyable and unique game to play! The graphics were simple and effective, gameplay was fast and addicting, and overall the concept was fresh with good polish. However, the connection to the theme was very loose as the "charms" you collect from the middle cauldron dont necessarily need to be charms and are just regular power ups. Overall I really enjoyed your game and look forward to seeing more from