This is probably the earliest I've ever hit 20 ratings -- and it feels a little weird writing this so early -- but I can't bring myself to break from tradition. Thanks to everybody for their feedback.

Preparation

I carried forward the lessons I learnt during LD48 and prepared well in advance: I had my genre (JRPG) nailed down a few weeks ahead of the theme slaughter, and a few ideas sketched out for each theme in the final round. "Unstable" was actually the theme I liked least of all the options, but preparing for them all still proved helpful; the Suikoden-inspired rock-paper-scissors mechanic I used had been on my mind since I saw the "3 rules" theme suggestion, and really helped keep the scope manageable.

Leaning Into My Strengths

My ratings so far reaffirm that I should lean into game genres allowing for a significant amount of text. I had most of the gameplay this time implemented by the end of the first day, and got to spend a lot of time thinking up stupid horse jokes. :laughing:

Go, Go, Godot!

Godot has clicked for me in a way that no other game engine has. I moved away from Unity a few jams ago and I'm never going back. I don't know whether it's that everything is self-contained in the editor, that it's open-source, that the Node system is intuitive or that I have an unfounded hatred of C#, but I love it. :heart:

Lessons Learned

• Godot's UI support rocks.
• Tweens are a good way to hack in some crude animations without much sprite work.
• Coroutines and asynchrony are essential for a good UI, but really brittle. I need to spend more time working on my understanding of yield -- every bug I encountered was eventually traced back to a missing yield, yields occurring out of order, or an extra yield preventing something else from progressing. :sweat:
• Making a logo for your title screen tricks people into thinking your game is more polished than it is.

What's Next?

One of the ideas that I had for "Unstable" was really promising, but way too big in scope for an LD. I'm hoping to build out the battle system I've built here to actually support JRPG-style commands, and eventually use that to prototype my new game idea. After building a pen-and-paper prototype first, of course. :stuckouttonguewinkingeye:

If you're still here, please consider rating here; I'll play and rate your game in return, and I always try my best to leave constructive feedback.