It is time, for the final analysis of the comp, anyhow the final results come out tomorrow (Friday 03/08/2024) or MB next Monday. That said, I have a lot to unpack in this, sooooo, brace yourself.
The Game Itself:
@Luke Analysis
(QUICK NOTE: I typed this analysis a long time ago, and saved it for building suspense, so some parts may be outdated)
@Luke was a fan favorite to win this comp and this game certainly showed the why and how. In terms of decoration, functionality, and gameplay. Although, all the criticism I’ll say about the art is… Never mind, I got nothing abt it.
Let us get one thing down on the table first, the code is absurdly enormous, and it is still being coded in blocks as far as I can tell. I definitely do not recommend pressing the edit8/show-code button (no offense) because it absolutely lag spikes my devices. Anyhow, I didn’t really stay in the editor for long due to it somehow causing lag in all my other tabs/apps. I do say that MB it could use some optimizations or at least reduce the lag inside the editor (MB make separate files for the project??? I heard that works quite well).
There is one thing I’d like to point out, although it is probably the tiniest of the nitpicks I have to lecture about, there are multiple characters (selected by RNG ig) that you can use to fight these strange… Funni Moss Mushroom Spider Monsters??? However, only one character has an animation to go with his actions (mainly attack). All the other characters are just there, they just stay stationary for the entire battle, regardless of what cards you play. This often doesn’t bother me too much, however, I don’t think that the characters feel alive at all, they seem more like statues rather than people who are fighting monsters through cards. Like, this is all just subjective to me, but, without any animations, I can’t tell if the character is ACTUALLY using a card or not, it really has that much of an impact. Plus, you simply can’t forget about consistency, it does not bode very well (at least to me) that only one character has an animation, and all the others are unanimated. It is a strange game design choice to say the least. I won’t dock any points for this nitpick tho.
(literally the only “alive” guy lol)
GIF Source: Card Game: Sprites behaving in satisfying, unintentional ways - #16 by Luke
Now, finally, to go more into depth about the functionality and gameplay of Card Delver. The game plays especially well, with how all the possible cards get shuffled without many bugs, the map, the treasure chests, and how all the attacks/defenses are done through. However, I did find that some functions/mechanics are broken/bugged, such as the B-button. Which leads to one of my biggest gripes abt the game as a whole, a lot of the good stuff/mechanics can get seriously bugged and do the weirdest of things. And it can get really annoying to have to play with all these bugs flying around the place, and I have to reshuffle my already-good deck just to hopefully debug the mechanics.
Might as well lecture one last thing before I end this game analysis, and it’s the fact that the game isn’t very learny. When someone first enters the game, like me, I can bet that they can get real confused. Mainly with what each console button do, how much energy I have, what each card does to me/or the enemies, when will chests appear and when will they not. Often, the player should not have to require to carefully read the How To Play Document with every single thing they do, it takes quite a lot of time to ease into all of this stuff given how many possible inputs and outputs there are with each action.
Ah yes, now I am done with my analysis, like @Brohann and @InvalidProject analyses, I won’t mention the point score till I post the final results, although it is estimated in the 140-150 point range. Voting results are out, however. Either way, I have to say, your other games were worthy enough to be posted in the grand finale, and this game was no different. Congrats, @Luke.
Voting booth results: