Siesta-Rena (IGMC 2014)

Siestarena was one of the entries for the IGMC (Indie Game Making Contest) for 2014. As one of the judges for the RPG portion of the competition it is my pleasure to share my thoughts on the game. This review will basically just be the notes I took cleaned up. It will be based on the competition version of the game, so certain aspects of the game may have been changed.

Presentation
Graphics are custom. The maps are different depending on the dream, as is the graphical style. Each style is polished nicely, though there were two maps that were a bit too dark for my liking - I honestly could not see the exit on one map and was stuck there for a little while.

Music is original and pretty standard in use. The same as with sounds.

Writing was pretty solid. I didn't notice any spelling issues. The story was rather standard, nothing really special. Even the twist at the end wasn't particularly shocking, perhaps because we never really got invested in the character due to lack of any kind of characterisation beyond a shallow line here or there. It's a pity because it could have been nicely done if we'd been made to care for the character and his predicament.

Font was nice and readable, adding an extra dimension to immersion by fitting the game well.

Gameplay
Gameplay consisted of battling, puzzles and minigames. Battles were a simple affair, being well-balanced and requiring the use of skills to survive. It's very easy to die if you're not careful, but each skill has it's use and comes in handy to keep you alive.

You learn skills via level up, but with only a set amount of monsters in the game, you're limited to how many levels you can gain, thus, you only ever gain three skills total. One gives you three attacks on the first turn of battle and then morphs into a one-attack skill. The second will do damage and then heal you the next turn phase, which is very, very useful. The last will reduce your maximum HP permanently to restore your MP to full.

Puzzles are pretty standard. One is a matter of switches being pressed to unlock doors. Another requires you to find the right path through a forest (right, down, left) and the last is a series of logical questions that you must get correct (some of the clues are a bit vague but brute-forcing them works too).

The minigame is a basic 'race the timer' game, with you collecting plates. Easy enough if you don't mess up.

Fun factor
It was a pretty short game and once you knew what you were doing, fun in a way. You will probably get frustrated by the lost woods the most as the only indication that you're going the correct way is that you're teleported to one position instead of another.

Frankly, the game was a bit too shallow, especially as the ending tried to be all dark and serious. It just didn't really work for me. I scored the game 44 out of 60 in the IGMC. On RMN I'm giving it 3.5 stars.