Below I've posted what the judges thought (judges' names removed where they were provided). Needless to say, as befits the contest there's plenty that's said about the video itself, which clearly has room for improvement, but I think some useful thoughts about the game come through as well.
To make this more interesting I'll respond/react to two of the comments in particular.
One judge mentioned a concern that this game could end up being too similar to Eldritch Horror. I wasn't familiar with that game previously, but just had a look at its BGG entry, and it does sound like there is a lot of "move somewhere, roll some dice to resolve encounters, do what the cards say". But it's clear to me that there are significant differences (which of course the judge couldn't have known). As far as I can tell, EH is similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill is similar to Fortune and Glory is similar to Arabian Nights: in all of these you face encounters that are atmospheric, but that put together assemble a hodge-podge mish-mash that doesn't create anything like a coherent story.
Now I don't think the encounter cards in Lost Adventures self-assemble into a coherent story either, but nevertheless there's a high degree of coherency that comes from the temple itself. Those other games feature encounters that are serial in nature, and so each should feel like it is the extension of the previous thing. In contrast, in Lost Adventures, we have a hub-and-spokes model of coherency. Maybe in Anakra you get "The graveyard is deserted; your contact isn't here as they said they would be" and then in Budapest it's "you are trapped in a room of the castle that overlooks a high cliff, can you find the secret exit?". Taken serially, those aren't ipso facto part of the same story, but they nevertheless feel harmonious when you think of each encounter as a spoke that connects to the bigger hub of aggregate knowledge about the temple. Thus each one is "I'm trying to locate this one person or item who can tell me something about the overall story". They're parts of a bigger whole. I don't think it gives anything like the feeling of random atmospheric stuff being thrown like "oh, some bats just flew by. Now I discovered a strange symbol on the floor. Now there's some howling. Now the lights just went out" stuff that sets a mood but doesn't go anywhere.
Another mentioned a concern that this subject is 'colonialist'. I won't comment on the validity of this concern in general, but as pertains specifically to Lost Adventures, I'd say that making this a game about an archaeology movie actually sidesteps this concern nicely. In movies of this type, the hero's quest is noble: Indy is trying to stop the Nazis/rescue some kids/find his father; Lara Croft (new movie, anyway) is trying to find her father; the Goonies are trying to save their neighborhood. Yes, pitching the game as competitive does make it a bit like a forturne-and-glory quest, but the inclusion of hubris, and the final hubris challenge, make it clear that impure motives are punished by the powers that be.
Game: Lost Adventures Your theme is interesting, and some of the decision making looks interesting as well. However, I don't really know how it plays from the video, I just know a little bit about a few mechanics. --------------- Game: Lost Adventures The theme of the game sounds not exactly like other games but similar. Based off the theme I am not entirely excited by the game. I am excited by the idea of trying to be the first, but your character won't retain the artifact in the end so you have hubris as a resource. I found that to be pretty interesting. I worry about replayability and how much variety this game will offer players if each game ends the same way, but I think I need to see and know more about the game to make that judgement. So far it sounds interesting! Best of luck. --------------- Game: Lost Adventures The meta theme of making a movie about an adventure is a really compelling idea to me. I love the way that you distilled ideas down & your explanation of your design decisions was fantastic! I really want to give this one a try! --------------- Game: Lost Adventures Love the idea of the game, but I'm not quite sure how distinct it'll be from a "go to place, have encounter, roll dice" game like Eldritch Horror (among others). Hubris is a great mechanism, but I worry that most of the game will be determined by a "go to place, roll dice" pattern. Interested to see how much the bidding plays a part. --------------- Game: Lost Adventures Lost Adventures seems like a fun, fast playing game. I'm especially intrigued by the framing of 'who gets to be the protagonist' I think that's a very creative solution to a very old problem. My main questions are how individual turns play out, the specific nature of threats, and other minutiae that i understand you didn't have time to cover in the pitch. The main thing though is that I feel like the adventure archaeology thing is perhaps a little too colonialist for me. seeking lost temples and acquiring artifacts seems harmless in the context of our favorite childhood action films and video games but I think perpetuates a line of thought that says ancient peoples and their culture are simply for fun and plunder. A bank heist theme a la Ocean's 11 or an action hero movie in the vein of Mad Max Fury Road or Terminator might preserve the format and structure of the game while avoiding harmful tropes. Nevertheless I wish Lost Adventures all the best and I hope to see more! --------------- Game: Lost Adventures I really like the concept of the game, particularly how a player can build hubris doing move powerful effects but must remove it to not lose to their own hubris. The description and video did little to inform me how the game actually played, though. --------------- Game: Lost Adventures I love the idea of basically making this meta-narrative around an Indiana Jones move as a game, but what I found lacking is what we as players actually do in a turn. I hear talk of phases and hubris tokens, but not what I actually do in a phase or what the hubris tokens actually affect. In other words: I still have no idea what kind of game I am looking at! It seems like a really cool and engaging concept, but as I am lacking context in terms of the actual game, all of it falls very flat. --------------- Game: Lost Adventures I liked your initial description of the theme, but then your description of the gameplay didn't seem to fit with that theme. It sounds like players are really acting as the characters fighting the bad guy, not screenwriters. Gameplay seems to be all about how successful individual characters are in their goals, not things like how much screen time the characters get. (Not to mention that screenplays aren't written character by character, with different writers jockeying for different characters to do better.) Do you really *need* the screenwriting part? Wouldn't it be more compelling and immersive to say that players are each taking on the role of a character in an archaeology adventure movie? I'm intrigued by the hubris mechanic and would like to hear more about that. --------------- Game: Lost Adventures I like the theme. It is an underdeveloped area of design I think. Is the game semi co-op or competitive? What advantage is there to taking on hubris? How does the risk vs reward play out in that area? --------------- Game: Lost Adventures I like the 'push your luck' element, both in the bad guy approaching in the over-world, and needing to shed hubris in the temple. The main thing I would like to know more about is the overall groove of the game. Is it a race game? Where we are judging how ready we are to enter the temple? Or do we have a set amount of time to collect sets (for example) to prep for the temple phase. And our ability there sets us up to do well or not in the temple phase? --------------- Game: Lost Adventures I genuinely appreciate that the game starts with research, its a fun addition to the story. You mention action movies, but I'm not quite sure if that's the meta of the game or just the way you've described it. Good luck! --------------- Game: Lost Adventures I don't think I got a really good sense of the flow of the game. When you're pitching, at least for me, I want to know how a turn works and how that turn is a larger part of the overall game. I appreciate the end-to-end description of it, but I think I got too much of a high-level look at the encounters / hubris / the enemy without a sense of how it all fits together. That said, I do love the theme (and your spin on it), so I'd be interested in finding out more about it down the line. --------------- Game: Lost Adventures I appreciate that the theme and mechanics go hand-in-hand -- what happens during each player's turn seems very intuitive. The pitch video was great and I hope to learn more about the game in the next round.
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