Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• How clear & compelling is the game's central idea? I love the idea of interacting with dreams in this manner, as observer and agent to change them. I quickly got an idea for what I should be doing before reading mechanics. How elegant, useful, and intuitive are the game's mechanics? After the first creating of lists, the game takes a stronger stand on creating dreams. It flows fairly well, but could have dream making a bit more fleshed out. How cohesively designed do you think the game is overall? Being for explicitly 2 players is interesting, and I think the game is stronger for it. it makes the theme easier to grasp, and the questions back and forth fit the overall design of the game.
• First and foremost, I was totally captured by the theme of this game! There are some really fun and interesting tools for generating dreamscapes and imagery, and broadly, getting to be a fae goblin, tending to dreams and nightmares is very compelling and well executed. I thought the exploration and investigation of dreams was a major highlight - I wish the mechanics had supported this phase of the game a little more, although the dice mechanics for the major flow of the game are good. The epilogue options are all very interesting as well, and I think a great thing to include!
• The Dream Garden is a lovely exploration game and seems like it will make for a great two player experience. The back and forth creation of the dreams and the simple mechanics of d12 rolls, evocative sentence writing, and little plusses and minuses really works well together. There are a few places that could do with some clearing up, specifically around Dreamers, where I would have appreciated a slightly more rigid structure or firmer guidance. Being written in a clear voice and singular purpose makes the game feels very intentional in it's player freedom throughout, which helps sand down a lot of those rougher edges. I do want to make a note about this game's safety section: I don't like that the game states "Don't do this on a whim" when talking about needing to remove or strike certain topics of the game because of comfort or triggering material. That could be stated much more kindly, or not need to be stated at all. This is a place where the game would have been better served in stepping out of it's usual tone and into a more direct one.