#LOWREZJAM 2016 - I rated all the games!!! (PART 1)

...and my long journey of playing and rating all the games just ended...

Unbelievable! I just finished testing all the games of #LOWREZJAM 2016! At least all I could run! Ah, that was fun! Right?!

Well where to start. Probably this post will be just a quick summary. First, I really enjoyed playing the games most of the time. Also I rated all of them and many of them got comment and some hopefully helpful criticism by me. I apology from the developers whom game I couldn't run because of technical problems or was multiplayer only and I had no one to test with.
Also there were submissions where there was no embedded game or download link. So the game wasn't finished at all in any way.

Actually, many of those games were promising, the screenshots were really nice and looked like a potentially good game. Yeah I know, never judge a book by its cover. I also didn't rate games which were basically just barely started. Some games didn't have too much gameplay, but gave some pleasant experience with their narrative or other strength.

I finished as many games as possible. Some of them really got me hooked. Also there were games which felt like addictive torture devices. They made me angry yet I couldn't stop trying again and again and again. Actually that's a good achievement!

Now, I counted the not rated games. There were 440 entries in overall (that's a lot!), and 33 32 are not rated by me for the already mentioned reasons. (I got a working link from the developer of Laika, so I could test and rate it while writing this article.)

I'll go in detail with some of the games in a later post. But let me tell you my thoughts. Again just a summary.
First, I found some extremely good games! Really well done ones in every aspect! Graphics, gameplay, controls, sound and music. Some games had potential, worked well, but they're lacking, probably because the developers were out of time. I really hope, many of the games will be improved after the jam based on many feedbacks. Some had balancing issues, good concept that could have worked better or was just unfinished and more content would have helped. And a few games... OK so some of them were clearly done in a short time and was still pretty good, but unfinished, also there were some "first games". I really hope this jam will help starters to improve! I read many of the feedbacks and I found most of the are really helpful! Also I was happy to see the attitude of the community!

Of course, special thanks to Home For Black Sheep / Devi Ever for hosting this awesome jam!
I hope you all enjoyed it! Stay tuned for PART 2, I'll write more about specific games and my experiences in details.