Harvest Rune by TheMonsterFromTheDeep

[raw]
made by TheMonsterFromTheDeep for LD 41 (JAM)

* Please read the first few paragraphs of this description! They contain very important information! *

A combination of an RPG and a farming simulator.

Most of the game is explained through the tutorial, but there are a few points that are not very clear:

* First, and most importantly, the number and quality of drops you get is dependent on how many enemies you spawn in at once. The more enemies you have spawned in, the better and more items you get. *

Second, each kind of enemy drops some kind of item whose name is in purple text, and when you walk up to the Scientist those items are removed from your inventory and the bar behind the Scientist fills up a bit. Once the bar is filled, some text saying "You Win" should appear. ~~However, the actual text part is untested.~~ It took me about 20 minutes to win, farming Spiders.

That, sadly, is the extent of a win condition that this game has.

A few other clarifications, based on the people I've seen play my game: - The only place you can grow is the fenced in area to the left of the house with the slightly lighter-colored grass. If the grass doesn't change to dirt when you walk on it, you can't grow there. - When the tutorial says "This is your health," it outlines the left half of the orb in the bottom left corner of the screen in red. This is kind of hard to notice, but hopefully was self-explanatory enough. - In general, the inventory mechanics are similar to Minecraft. - When you walk up to the Scientist, you can buy things by clicking on them. They simply automatically go into your inventory. The number on the far left is the gold in your inventory, and the number under each item is its price. If your gold doesn't decrease, you didn't buy the item. - You have to hoe a grass tile twice to be able to plant on it. - Plants will not grow unless the tile they are on is wet. - If you can't advance in the tutorial, it's probably because you aren't completing the actions it wants you to complete. It's possible there's a bug of some sort, but I somewhat doubt it. - "Talking to the scientist" simply means walking up to him until your inventory changes to the "buy" screen. - If you absolutely hate the music, and want to try playing without it, delete the file "music.wav" from the "snd" folder before running the executable. Still feel free to rate 1 stars for audio. 😉

Known glitches: - The Wooden Club does not show up on the ground visibly, but can be picked up. It's dropped by Zombies. - The Scientist slowly moves to the right, and can eventually get past the right fence, so you won't be able to talk to him. (However, this shouldn't happen in any game of reasonable length). - Going to bed resets all your plants, even when they are in grown state. This means you can just sleep instead of clipping your plants to enable them to re-grow.

Ratings

Overall 399th 3.611⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Fun 381th 3.5⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 540th 3.407⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Theme 520th 3.685⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 667th 3.352⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Audio 625th 2.811⭐ 55🧑‍⚖️
Humor 461th 3.093⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Mood 549th 3.333⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Given 63🗳️ 88🗨️

Feedback

towerofnix
24. Apr 2018 · 02:32 UTC
I had a reeeeeeal review written but I pressed ctrl-W and Ludum Dare Jam Site Dot Com decided to decimate it *without warning me that I was leaving the page* so here is my low quality short review that gets to my most important point, which was on humor/mood:

This game is funny! I like it. I liked the tutorial because had style, personality, mostly in its humor - it has cute, nice jokes, and they sort of contrast/compliment the medievally font of the text. And the same type of humor goes on in the item descriptions, which is good, because those are the main thing you read once you've completed the tutorial.

The sound and visuals also really help add to the whole. The whole thing has a bit of a homey feel that you get from any good harvest moon game, and the simple music, sound, and art help that. (So does the humor, by the way - there are different ways to tell jokes, and the jokes in this game feel sort of calm and non-intrusive - homey.)

At first I didn't expect much from this; I expected a rather bare clone of the game of its types. But realizing I was growing monsters was a hilarious surprise, and the rest of the game's cute, calm, homey mood really characterizes it.
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
24. Apr 2018 · 03:29 UTC
@towerofnix : Thanks for all the kind words. I'm glad that the jokes went over well--I wasn't entirely sure if they might simply become tiring, given that there's something of a joke under every single item.

As it were, I didn't intend for the tutorial to be humorous at all, really, but I guess some of the parts, especially the parts I wrote closer to the end of the jam, would probably match the inventory descriptions closer.

In any case, I was definitely going for something of a Harvest Moon feel based off of the single Harvest Moon game I've played--I tried to match music but especially some sound effects, and if it at least felt similar I'm pretty happy about that.
Frodewin
24. Apr 2018 · 06:36 UTC
This game has nice graphics and the gameplay is incredibly complex! Did not expect this from a game made in three days, now I know why you worked on it until end of the jam!
The sound is a bit repetitive, but fitting to a farmer's life :-)
I first thought I can play the game without the tutorial, although having read the description on the game page I had no idea what to do. The tutorial enlightened me then. Took me some time to figure out that I have to use the hoe twice on a patch. This is an awesome game, however the Windows version had some technical issues on my system (Win10, 4K screen, 250% scaling): 1. the game started with a too small screen window, but after rescaling the window I could see everything. 2. the game crashed once after I clipped some plants.
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
24. Apr 2018 · 13:35 UTC
@Frodewin : I guess that's another clarification I can add to the description. :P

I honestly have no idea what might cause it to crash. The only issue I'm aware of in the code is some alignment issues, but I believe that if they affected your platform the game would crash almost immediately.
lightblub
24. Apr 2018 · 17:17 UTC
Ran on Linux via WINE - works great, except audio doesn't work. From what I hear, it's good :musical_note:

The graphics are neat and, although I'm not much of a harvest moon fan, is surprisingly fun! Growing monsters is a cool idea and I definitely see potential for expansion in that department. Speaking of, I feel the game is lacking polish in some places; namely when fighting. For examples, knockback on enemies would be nice (it was hard to tell if I was actually hitting an enemy). Regardless, the game is very well developed considering it was made in only the time LD gives you, so I'll cut ya some slack ;)

Oh, and I love the nighttime colours.
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
24. Apr 2018 · 17:20 UTC
@lightblub : I mean to make a Linux build at somepoint, especially now that I have WSL, but I'm afraid I haven't gotten around to it yet. (Incidentally, I would also love to try to port it to Emscripten). And I definitely agree with respect to polish--I would love to have knockback on enemies and the like.
AllesKapaul
24. Apr 2018 · 18:35 UTC
I am amazed about the game complexity! The audio I didn't like so much, it got repetitive quite fast. Nice entry though, good job!
Kalavecy
24. Apr 2018 · 18:58 UTC
Except the audio that is a little bit too repetitive, the game is pretty fun.
But I have got a question.... maybe I didn't understand everything but I got stuck because I had no more golds. I mean, I had like 5 swords and 2 daggers but no more gold. Is there a way to sell it at the shop ?
Excy
24. Apr 2018 · 19:00 UTC
Oh man what a cute fun little game, loved it. Surprised with how much you got done in the jam, good job!
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
24. Apr 2018 · 19:57 UTC
@Kalavecy : I'm afraid I didn't have time to implement any sort of selling functionality. So, yes, you kind of just collect swords until you decide to quit.
Kalavecy
24. Apr 2018 · 20:47 UTC
@TheMonsterFromTheDeep No problem, I thought I missed something !
Flameo326
26. Apr 2018 · 01:22 UTC
Wow. This does not feel like a game jam entry. This feels like an almost complete game. You should really keep working on this and polishing it. Its a really awesome concept, tons of fun and really well done. The art is amazing, sounds are good, music is nice and not too distracting. Animations are really well done.

This is honestly an amazing game. Good job!
comenoha
26. Apr 2018 · 01:25 UTC
I loved it!!! The gameplay of this specific game is my favorite I have seen thusfar. As soon as I realized what the monster-growing mechanic was I spent a moment thinking about how jealous I was that you came up with that AMAZING idea. Great work!
ZaneDD
26. Apr 2018 · 01:25 UTC
Love it! Amazing for a 72-hour jam game. Cute graphics, fun gameplay, and most importantly, a very innovative idea.
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
26. Apr 2018 · 01:26 UTC
@Flameo326 : Thank you for all the kind words. I have certainly considered doing future work on this game, however I have a bad habit of abandoning my Ludum Dare games. :P
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
26. Apr 2018 · 01:28 UTC
@comenoha : Glad you liked that mechanic. I didn't want to do it at first, because it didn't seem like it would go too well with the Theme, but I decided to just go ahead because it seemed a lot more fun than the other ideas I had.

@ZaneDD : I wouldn't necessarily call it innovative, but I'm glad you found it that way. :slight_smile:
Yirggzmb
26. Apr 2018 · 01:33 UTC
Really enjoyed this. Would love to see it expanded on, such as getting selling in place. I ran out of gold pretty quickly. But I can totally see something like this becoming a fully fleshed out game.
Cornel
26. Apr 2018 · 10:32 UTC
It's really great game! Would like to play "full" version.
Graphics are easy and nice. Core gameplay made well but I didn't manage to fulfill the task 'cause it takes too long (is there even anything after that? :smile:).
Idea was great but I'm not sure if it fits theme well.
Played a while and had fun so thanks and good job! ;)
Evil Brain
26. Apr 2018 · 17:11 UTC
Great entry! Huge potential as a fully realized game - hope you continue developing this idea :)
DrSkort
26. Apr 2018 · 17:20 UTC
Great Game, Great Combo ;) It was fun to plant my enemies :D
Articulated9
26. Apr 2018 · 18:29 UTC
This was a neat game, and there are a lot of working mechanics packed in here - really impressive from a technical point of view!

I think I picked up a bug however - in the 'Play with Tutorial' section I could not get the tutorial text to scroll or disappear no matter what I did.

Still! The graphics were good and the text was funny. The gameplay worked well and fit the theme neatly. Nice game! :smile:
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
26. Apr 2018 · 18:43 UTC
@Articulated9 : I should have made that clear -- certain parts of the tutorial won't advance unless you complete the actions that they want you to complete.

Later, it goes back to using the space.

Sorry about that.
Linus
27. Apr 2018 · 12:34 UTC
Well you managed to create Stardew Valley in 48 hours. :grin:

I liked all the mechanics and the game felt quite polished. The amount of content was impressive. The use of the theme was really cool. Some things were not very clear in the game but I read the description of your game which definitely helped.

I didn't understand how to interact with the scientist though. I assume the tutorial was complete because no text was displayed and I went to bed. The game said I had to talk to the scientist but I could only purchase things from him, maybe that's all I had to do.

Also having some way to set the volume of the music would be nice.

Overall really cool game and had fun playing around with all the mechanics. Great job! :smiley:
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
27. Apr 2018 · 13:27 UTC
@linus: Yep, "talking to the scientist" means walking up to him. I'll add that to the description.
Alex13
28. Apr 2018 · 18:05 UTC
this game much better than other of this types , I had a lot of fan since palying. But very short , I want continue .
Critic : Music is wrong to my mind.
Alex13
28. Apr 2018 · 18:05 UTC
this game much better than other of this types , I had a lot of fan since palying. But very short , I want continue .
Critic : Music is wrong to my mind.
arche-san
28. Apr 2018 · 19:01 UTC
Wow! This is pretty solid, more especially if we considered game made with sdl/glfw only. Good job!
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
28. Apr 2018 · 19:11 UTC
@Alex13 : Yeah, there's probably improvements I could make to the music. I think it sort of fits the "Harvest Moon" feel, but I also feel like the bell notes are a bit off-key, which is weird, because they were very purposefully written on-key.
Sokuaisushi
28. Apr 2018 · 19:18 UTC
Other than the music I really enjoyed this game! (Music should have been mutable, longer and quieter.)
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
28. Apr 2018 · 19:22 UTC
@Sokuaisushi : Thanks for some details on what I could do to improve the music. If you do want to play without it, it turns out you can simply delete the file "music.wav" from the "snd" folder. ;)
Lost Dutchman Software
28. Apr 2018 · 20:00 UTC
This game was a lot of fun, I think having more of a delay between planting and monsters being ready to 'harvest' would be best but otherwise I've played a lot of farming games in my day but none where you have to fight the crops. Its a lot of fun and worthy of continued development.
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
28. Apr 2018 · 20:09 UTC
@Lost Dutchman Software : I certainly considered having a longer delay, but I believe fast iteration is good for a Ludum Dare game, which people want to play relatively quickly.
Cheesey Bob
28. Apr 2018 · 22:53 UTC
Good take on the theme. Every element of this game was implemented really well and feels really good. I was particularly impressed by the smooth fading indoor/outdoor transition.

Also, I thought the audio was fine.
nardandas
29. Apr 2018 · 02:36 UTC
The game felt really well polished aside from one thing. I didn't feel as though I got any feedback on when things damaged me or what caused it. I felt like slimes could jump on me without any damage - sometimes. It was odd, but that's my only complaint. As people have already said, the transition from inside to outside is awesome!
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
29. Apr 2018 · 03:40 UTC
@nardandas : Yeah, the slime damage condition is really weird. For some reason I couldn't get it to work quite right, and I also didn't have time to implement particle effects or knockback, so there definitely is not enough feedback with respect to combat.
Wizcas
29. Apr 2018 · 04:46 UTC
A pretty fun game. I love the graphics and all the details and effects in game. And wow you even made a complet tutorial! That must be tons of work. I can sense your ambition about this game and hope to see a more complete version. Congrats and well done!
Remi Gourrierec
29. Apr 2018 · 20:38 UTC
It's a bigger game than I expected. Nothing astonishing with graphics or music but everything blend well.

Good work !
patvanmackelberg
29. Apr 2018 · 20:38 UTC
I like it! This feels like it could be a neat little app or something. I wound up running out of money and seeds but it's a great game for the jam :)
Shellfish Games
01. May 2018 · 08:12 UTC
Very well done, a cool game we got here. With day-night-cycle and everything. I actually found the music alright, repetitive yes, but it didn't really bother me. The tutorial was helpful, and the mechanics are very well put together. More enemy types would be nice, but honestly, for a weekend projects the 4 existing ones with different animations and behaviours are already very impressive.

The project was obviously very ambitious with all its content and mechanics and even interactive inventory and tutorial. Yet you managed to deliver a playable and enjoyable game that doesn't feel unfinished in any way. Great work, and I hope to see more of your games in the future!

(by the way, you might think about adding a screenshot to the description above)
Hare Software
01. May 2018 · 11:44 UTC
Great game, actually played it for more time than I had planned, so that's a good sign I am sure ;)
afendar
01. May 2018 · 15:24 UTC
The game is nice, it's a good base to build something. Good work.
Utho
01. May 2018 · 19:38 UTC
Hehehe, adorable little game dude! :D
Well... I say little but there was actually a surprising amount of content, so.. Good job!
cristiano.m.garcia
02. May 2018 · 16:38 UTC
Good job! Cool game!

I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.

I hope you continue with the project.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape
🎤 TheMonsterFromTheDeep
02. May 2018 · 16:41 UTC
@cristiano.m.garcia : I do eventually rate the game of everybody who leaves a comment on my game, although generally I prefer to have received some constructive feedback. :)
Diego Manarim
03. May 2018 · 17:48 UTC
Very interesting the concept of this game, in the beginning I was in doubt as to what each thing was, but soon everything was falling into place!

Congratulations for the game!

If possible, check out my entry at this link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/type-hero-adventures
gamedevbynight
03. May 2018 · 18:21 UTC
Wow this game is great. So much content in such a short time. I like the music and the graphics. the idea is also really great to mix harvest moon with a rpg. I found the magic wand and the game got easier. The spiders where the most dangerous monsters! :)
Great work. Looking forward for your next jam entry
machrom
05. May 2018 · 11:08 UTC
Very fun and interesting. A lot of things implemented and great idea. Love the music and the graphics. Good job :)