Skylands by huminaboz

Left click to walk/drop seeds. Right click to break tiles. Be careful some seeds can only be used once!
Sow the seeds of your construction! Guide Johnny Tileseed through the skies by growing and destroying tiles. Expand your small world to traverse the sky!
*Web Play here: * https://boz-float.itch.io/skylands
Team:
Art & Levels: Mark Usmiani https://mark-usmiani.tumblr.com/ https://twitter.com/MarkUsmianiArt
Animation: Connor Wilson https://twitter.com/tungstengroove
Music & SFX: Haberworks
Programming & Levels: Boz http://aesthgames.tumblr.com https://twitter.com/huminaboz
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/skylands |
Ratings
| Overall | 126th | 3.846⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 176th | 3.564⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 186th | 3.538⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 426th | 3.359⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 110th | 4.308⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 105th | 3.789⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 385th | 2.586⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 253th | 3.486⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 110🗳️ | 41🗨️ |
It's king of annoying that you can't see forward or zoom out.
The art is cute and the music is catchy, gameplay and puzzles are interesting and fun to play... In short, I spent a long time playing and and trying to explore this 'small world'.
Only 'problem' I experienced, was when I get stucked in an infinite loop between 2 sunflower tiles (fortunatly I was able to restart the level) . Also, maybe I wish a smoother movement between the tiles because the delay could be frustrating. Otherwise, what a nice experience!
Saw a lot of polish from the user-experience perspective. While I was able to comprehend most things, the things I struggled to discover were destroying tiles, and the sunflower tile ability (at least initially). For the former, some sort of right-click prompt on a specific tile, as well as the left-click to indicate how to create a tile, would have been nice. For the latter, it would have been nice to see that tile contrast with the normal tiles to make the distinction of what it does more clearly. Also, the lack of zoom-out to plan your course of action really dampers the experience, and it would have been nice to have a history of undos so you don't have to restart the level all the time.
I personally didn't like the mouse controls only allowing the player to move to tiles directly adjacent to the character. Path-finding to the proper location would have been a lot nicer. Arrow keys would work pretty well as well. Didn't have any problems, otherwise.
The fact that you can only move to directly adjacent tiles felt really, really clunky though and something I simply could not adjust to. As aforementioned, I would consider a pathfinding solution or moving the controls to arrow keys etc.
The way I had to keep picking up the tiles left behind me somehow added a lot to the experience, because it made the gameplay be a combination of resource management and puzzles. It's a pretty interesting combination, and it adds somewhat of an edge to the typical puzzle genre gameplay.
I think maybe using WASD or the arrow keys for movement, it felt a little bit awkward to move and interact with the two mouse buttons. More than once did I accidentally place something I didn't mean to place. Outside of that the controls felt very fluid and responsive.
The thing that really carries this game is the sense of completion though. It's clear you haven't neglected any aspect of the game, the difficulty, mechanics, graphics and audio all feels well fleshed out. Overall a nice and complete entry, well done!
Graphics and sound are amazing, I love the art style and the colours, and music is catchy.
As for gameplay, the puzzles seem well thought and the introduction of new seed types is nicely paced, but at first I had some problems understanding the core destroy/sow mechanic. Also, sometimes I found myself clicking further away from the adjacent tiles until I remembered that you can only move one tile each time.
One of the best entries I've played so far. Brilliant job!
Thanks for that game!
By the way it seems to me, that I have found a bug. When I used a sunflower to jump to another sunflower I sometimes stopped on the second one and could continue from there. And yet another question: is it intended, that you can finish the last level with only one ice-seed and the five sunflower-seeds (could be due to the mentioned bug)?
All in all a nice little puzzle-game and a great contribution! Thanks for your game!
Art: Fantastic. Very mobile app sort of style which suited the game well
Sound: Above average. Music was enjoyable and did not get annoying through out the game. Sound effects made sense and only added to the game
Theme: Above average. Recycling the tiles you've already been to makes the world seem very small at all times as you only have a few different places to move to at any given point.
Fun: Great. The puzzles felt well done, and if they were a bit more cruel (as in you have only exactly what you need to succeed) I could see this being an actual mobile app style game.
Overall: Fantastic! Loved this little game. While I didn't beat it, that is mainly due to me being the absolute worst at puzzle games. I could see someone as a fan of the genre really liking it though. Really reminds me of a game called Starseed Pilgrim which is all about seeds and a small world as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYiOXlTKNb0
A zoom-out feature/map would be nice to have but not required.
Graphics are great, flow too.
The only "negative" thing I can say is that it would be better if more of the map was visible at one time. It's hard to plan on some levels, and as you made it, every tile counts.
Well done! This one is really great.