Rolling Valley

6/10 A snakes-and-ladders like game with lots of stuff added atop. Good: - the basic concept of the game is interesting. Although you do get a random number from a dice roll as input, you can choose which character to move and along which lane (at least at start). So it's a mix of luck and logic - the graphics style is nice overall, for a free game at least - judging by the first few levels, there are lots of mechanics and the game grows to be quite complex, which is good for a PC game - in the tutorial there are helpful highlights where to click, though maybe they should be of some other color, not white So-so: - music is funny but there is just 1 track. After about 15 mins of listening to it over and over it gets on the nerves. The game needs at least several tracks that would play in a random sequence. I'm not sure they should all be in comedy style. After all, it's cheerful for a while during the tutorial levels but in the end you're expected to play this for hours, evens days - the UI has a mobile feel which makes the game look cheaper and more casual than it actually is. UI elements are so huge as if it's a game for phones - English is above average (compared to what one usually finds on Steam for free) but still there is some poor wording that affects the clarity the tutorial. E.g. the word "grid" is used for the nodes through which the characters move. The dev should get someone who is an English speaker playtest the game to see which portions of the tutorial are unclear. For a game with complex, convoluted rules, clarity of wording in the tutorial is paramount Bad: - "Barren Valley Road" level (#3) is overwhelming. The tutorial before it barely explains all the elements (also in poor English), and it's just impossible to figure out what's happening. At times I got sequences of 10+ moves going non-stop. It's just incomprehensible. The game needs to introduce new rules at a much slower pace. The dev needs to distribute the same number of new features across twice or thrice as many levels - the view of the field is too much zoomed in, especially in the tutorials - huge tooltips where most of the rectangle's area is empty - one of the eyes of the characters is in front of the cap, the other behind the cap. I guess the cap should be in front of both of the eyes Overall, it's an interesting game with potential. Just really needs to more sparsely spread new features across tutorial levels. Btw I'm not sure adding multiplayer is of much importance here. Indie games don't get enough downloads anyways. So there won't be anyone online to play with. A hotseat mode is enough since there is no hidden information. And such funny games are best played with friends when they come over to your place. If I were in the dev's shoes, I'd rather focus on getting an excellent single-player experience. And only add multiplayer once the game is published and popular (if it becomes popular at all). [table][tr][th][i]I'm a Steam curator, you can [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43946907-Friendly-Nerd/]follow me[/url][/i][/th][/tr][/table]