Little Eco Planet by Wheerd

I made a little puzzle game about making sure all the animals are happy. The controls are a bit clunky, but you can select the animals with the mouse and then move them with the arrow keys.
I started of building it in puzzle script and then I reimplemented it with Phaser for prettier graphics. Unfortunately I ran out of time :confounded: Otherwise I would have liked to add some music and sound effects. Also, the controls don't feel that great, probably just mouse controls would have been better. Still, I am fairly happy with the result overall :relaxed:
Links
- WEB: http://wheerd.de/ld38
- SOURCE CODE: https://github.com/wheerd/ludum-dare-38
Ratings
| Overall | 118th | 3.714⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 151th | 3.5⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 190th | 3.357⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 220th | 3.536⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 375th | 2.929⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 302th | 3⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 31🗳️ | 45🗨️ |
I know it's really hard to come out with those level designs, so it's pretty impressive in a so short amount of time. Nice entry :thumbsup:
I would second the mouse control comment, as the first thing I tried was drag-n-drop :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: . It is very playable in its current state.
I think I'm with everybody else on mouse control. But I could also imagine this being on touch devices. This is the kind of game I would love to play on android. :D
A shame about the lack of sound.
Overall a cool little entry with potential to be completed in a pretty decent game!
If this were a more traditional game, I'm not sure if ALL animals would be introduced in the tutorial. Maybe just the first four animals, then a few levels with just those four. The the next two and a few more levels, etc. It feels kind of a lot to have all those animals introduced without giving me a chance to really learn them!
That said, I WANT to learn them! Great work!
@clegamecoop Thank you :smile: In that level (6 on the desert planet), there is only one place for the lion that works. Like all the other animals, the lion is unhappy on a desert tile.
@james-dunlap The trick to that level is that the vulture does not "block" the line of sight of the leopard.
@simonhutchinson Thanks! PuzzleScript helped a lot to get started with the puzzle aspects of the game. I can really recommend trying that for puzzle games.
Definitely separate the tutorial. Put the tutorial for each animal in the level prior to their first real appearance.
As some said, maybe splitting it to get some tutorial levels everytime you wanna introduce a new animal would be nice, but what you did with the small window at the bottom of the screen to remember the details for each animal is great!
Really smart way to exploit the theme, graphics are nice too, maybe some music would be welcome ^^
I just got stuck at the end of the level 10, can't manage to get the monkey the food he needs ahah
Great work ! :D
Sometimes I "accidentally" solved a level while I was moving an animal to some point and happened to pass a "solving state" (which I didn't notice). This didn't feel that satisfactory but I don't know how to prevent this.
Final level was not easy :)
It could help to have more information about animals in the game, for example, you learn that lions needs two animals but while playing did not say that. As my english is not very good, I always forgot which drawing represent "bushes", etc. Maybe by hoovering the cursor over the grass you could see "grass", etc. But they are just details. Congratulations for the game!
The tutorial levels could have been interspersed with the levels as you built up tools to make the different small ecosystems. For example, a tutorial for giraffe, then level for one giraffe, then two giraffes then maybe three giraffes, then tutorial for monkey, then level for monkey, level for two monkeys, and a level for monkey + giraffe, tutorial for leopard, then level with leopard and monkey, leopard and giraffe, leopard, monkey and giraffe.
Adding the new animals as the difficulty increased in the levels. I think it would have helped - your on screen clues were very helpful to remind me of the tutorial lesson I had a while back.
The mouse clicking didn't always work for selecting an animal, but couldn't figure out why to give you insight if it were a bug, or just how I used my mouse. :)
This one is easier to control though, and therefore much faster to finish, not all the delay stuff.
I feel like this game is probably better due to the ease of controls, except on the sound part.
Great game!
A solid game, finished level 10!
Sometimes it was a little confusing as to why animals weren't happy, my game had the same issue.
When two animals are sharing a plant one is unhappy. Took me a while to figure out that animals were unhappy on desert tiles.
I think the tutorial is unnecessary, just introduce each new animal with a level and let the player figure it out, maybe add a little text and perhaps there are too many animals to keep track of, some seem quite similar. Allow clicking on a background tile to see what it is.
It would be nice to be able to use either just the mouse or just the keyboard, having to switch between both is annoying.
Also add a bit more time after you complete the level successfully so you have time to see WHY you won the level sometimes you move something about and suddenly complete the level but you don't get time to see why.
Great work on your game!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iJfrvw7wWA