JUDGE COMMENTS:

$Zinfandel

 A nice, atmospheric adventure with a
short story! There are indeed multiple 
ways to solve this - I found that 
the 'trickery' route is much easier 
than the 'violence' route with how easy 
it is to get overwhelmed. If you're 
planning to use an engine like the
rope engine again, I would suggest 
using respawning breakables instead 
of water to limit incoming messages.

(Sponsored!)

$PogeSoft

 Get your revenge and purple key by force, 
stealth or subterfuge. A board crammed 
with things to do, puzzles to solve and a
key to get. There's an interesting attempt 
to assign different player actions to 
different shooting directions. The 
dialogue is ok with some choices 
illustrating how people will ramble on 
about the same thing if they don't know 
how to end the conversation. However, the
board feels too busy at times.

(Sponsored-ish?)

$Dr. Dos

 Another impressive board that I could see
being expanded to a larger game (or at 
least a segment of one). The intent seems
to be to be able to usurp the evil king 
through stealthy means or violence, though 
it's a bit unclear in some cases if you're
making progress or preventing yourself 
from being able to continue. This one 
features an unusual engine where the 
direction you shoot lets you use specific 
items as you acquire them, like how one
would map items the C-buttons in "Ocarina
 of Time".

 Where this one really suffers is that the 
engine causes you to constantly hear water
sounds and messages with every step you 
take. I'm not sure if Sam was aware of 
Cle(e/a)n ZZT at the time, but didn't see
anything recommending it, and from other 
judges I've heard the engine of choice 
with ClassicZoo for WiL's game. A silencer 
object that plays rests combined with a 
message clearing object that prints a 
blank space could have suppressed the 
water regardless and made for a more 
polished experience, but in practice 
all you need to do is just need to hit "B"
at the start of this one to enjoy it.

 Receives the coveted award of:
Water water everywhere

(Sponsored!)

$kkairos

 Interesting little thing with multiple
approaches. I think I somehow got 
softlocked out of the combat approach, but
I was able to get by with a different one
on another run.

(Sponsored!)