[ChuckMcM]

Personally, I think a straight up analysis like the OP here is not particularly cruel, if it can be internalized by the team (which basically means they can listen to it and not take it personally)

Summarizing it seems to be, story is poorly defined, the retro-8-bit art doesn't work, and the lack of previous efforts does not give one confidence that these things will be fixed.

I agree that failures will help define the value of success in the future. (Experiencing overcoming that is the 'reward' for putting in the effort)

Short answer on the feedback, for the author, you are failing because you are not ready yet. This has been a good checkpoint, and you have some good ideas in this list of comments to explore.