The Peter Principle

olivieryc 2022-10-02 23:58

Love the art style and concept of the game. I felt cheated at maths haha, am I bad at it?

shatteredmindofbob 2022-10-03 00:19

So, *I* get fired for spending too much time at the water cooler but nothing happens to those two nimrods who basically LIVE there?!? ...yep, it's realistic. Great take on the theme.

triangle-point 2022-10-03 02:07

Really good I was having a lot of fun playing it. it kept calling me bad at math but other than that a lot of fun

jonathan-holm 2022-10-03 17:36

Lovely game! The characters are actually **really** good, with the unique hair and t-shirts in so few pixels. :v:

madeofst 2022-10-15 17:10

This is pretty great! The concept is a lot of fun, running around doing different tasks and it's definitely a nice take on the theme. Makes you question whether the rat race is really worth it. I liked that were a few options for tactical play in choosing the right task as well. The art is really nice as well. A few more different options for tasks would have been nice, but you can say that about every compo game! My main issue is I think it just gets too hard too quickly. After about 5 promotions it seemed basically impossible. Not sure if there is an end game here (maybe there is!), but would have been nice to be able to see how far I was progressing against an end goal. Really nice game that deserves more attention - I definitely suggest you go out give some ratings to other games!

mossieur-patate 2022-10-21 21:43

(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

0. page: I knew the Peter Principle and just love how the advice leads to that XD 1. cute explanation page; and very clear! I like how you put the images in a yes/no fashion, around a clear small list. I had put some explanation pages for former games, and was always afraid it would be too much for the player, as implicit tutorials are best, but here, I feel this is already clear 2. oh, sprites in a 3D environment! Cute 3. ah, super small room! Actually, this is great for dense action: no getting lost! :) I imagined this would be a large company with many rooms, but you made a smart choice 4. varied tasks, great! By the way: including mathematical additions; this is exactly what *10 Seconds of Math* (which I tested a bit earlier) was asking! XD 5. I also like how reacting to others is implicitly a critique of self-interested fawning X) 6. (retro) sounds are a great cue here! And the interface is very intuitive (matching the explanation screen) 7. just a bit overwhelmed the first time (which may be normal), did not get the time to check the target; lost after a few rounds: nice funny sound again; bwahaha, "official reason" (about Ph.D.)! XD Are there several reasons? 8. second run: there is just the bar as I had seen! I thought I had missed something, but no. :) 9. wow, even a logic question! :) Very varied 10. lost a rank higher: different firing reason! May depend on rank, as I suspected first, or random? And things get hard quickly, in my opinion, about the 4th or 5th round! 11. lost again (clicked right out of the icon at the last instant XD); same reason as the first time, but for higher rank, so, sounds random 12. caught a glimpse earlier, really become aware of it now: "Señor Contributer" XD (why not "Contributor"?) 13. missed fourth letter from the board, came back to it: had retained my first three clicks, nice! 14. hahaha, love how the coworker’s line on Mercury is to be interpreted as good! XD I got the vibe intuitively 15. really funny how I end up waiting before completing a task, really makes you feel the interpretation of the Peter Principle XD 16. oh, actually won!! I thought this would go infinitely! And love that gangsta CEO style XD According to the Peter Principle, the CEO is now an incompetent ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Lazying my way to the top like an actual boss.

**Takeaway:** while the tasks themselves are simple, their variety and pace felt GREAT! They were also both simple AND tricky (except maybe for the board letters, although this does engage your dexterity by going for the mouse). Feels like good brain training! The game is also keen on the eye, has great sounds as cues and little funny music (how did you make it, by the way?); it is short, but just enough so it does not get overly challenging, which is fine for a game jam. The cheeky context of the Peter Principle is also great, and the pace gave life to that small office! A semi-criticism could be that the game may be tricky to extend into a bigger thing while still abiding by the ten-second constraint, but after all, why not, there may well be a clever way.

Thanks for the concise yet entertaining game, this certainly was a good one. :)

[Do not forget to review and rate other games, if you have enough time; it will also help yours get noticed and have testers and feedback. :)]

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@madeofst See above: there *is* an end to it! :) After a few attempts, I also thought this would get tricky, but it turns out there were not that many rounds; I did not count, but I think less than ten.