Jar of Life by hunttis
Try to make the ecosystem inside the jar last as long as possible.
- Plants grow automatically, but produce no score.
- There is a lone carnivore that will need herbivores to eat.
- You can spawn herbivores by clicking.
- When all the creatures are dead, the game ends.
Code is done by me @hunttis (in Haxe, using HaxeFlixel)
Graphics are drawn by @Heini (using Photoshop)
And the beautiful song "Enchantment" made just for this is by Carl-Sofia Belzer (using magical music talent!)
About this LD: Had serious trouble with the theme. We had to restart the project once, because an idea we were working on, wasn't working out. For this project, the haxe html5 export produced a build that crashes in a minute or so (some weird tweening problem that doesn't occur on any other build), so that's why no html5 build (for now at least).
Build files:
http://hunttis.fsck.fi/ludumdare/ld38/jaroflife-mac64.zip
http://hunttis.fsck.fi/ludumdare/ld38/jaroflife-linux64.zip
http://hunttis.fsck.fi/ludumdare/ld38/jaroflife-win64.zip
Source code:
http://hunttis.fsck.fi/ludumdare/ld38/jaroflife-src.zip
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/jar-of-life |
Ratings
| Overall | 178th | 3.727⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 418th | 3.091⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 101th | 3.783⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 5th | 4.522⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 210th | 3.957⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 129th | 3.7⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 460th | 2.368⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 104th | 3.864⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 27🗳️ | 28🗨️ |
More control could be good (shake the jam to kill 50% of herbivores for exemple).
It wasn't clear for me that light bubles were herbivores.
Music was cool, but the loop was a bit short.
Add a bit more content and it will be great mobile game ! :thumbsup:
Our game : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/locker-c-18
@alexandr-rum : I think our help texts could've been better written :D So here goes another try :D
Help 2.0
You have plants in the jar, they grow on their own. You have one carnivore, who is starving. You add herbivores, who eat plants by clicking. They are prey to the carnivore. Carnivore brings most points while it's alive. Herbivores bring some points. Try to balance the amount of herbivores, so they don't eat all plants (and end up starving to death) and enough to keep the carnivore alive as long as possible.
@tuomo : Yeah, I implemented the scores and help texts in the last few hours of the jam, so I had to pick one and being a coder.. Well, if you have a graphical artist in the team, don't let the coder pick the font :D You got it exactly right, the nutrients are a timer of sorts to prevent the plants from completely overtaking the jar. The carnivore has a quite a short range, maybe we could've communicated that a bit better :) Cheers for the very in-depth analysis!
So it's ok to rate that one too :)
I had the feeling that my carnivore was not very good at finding herbivores and there was a limited amount I could do about it which spoils the fun a bit. Also I think it would be more fun if the game lasted longer or was more open ended. Also maybe if the player had more chance to interact with the system in more ways apart from just placing herbivores it might help the gameplay. Overall though its a fun experience, good job. Max score 2151
The system you found to make the gameplay interesting is very good and (I think) well balanced. The dynamics of each entity is quiet tricky to manage but I think that this is what make the game pleasant. I didn't hit more that 1980 but I hop it's a great score :D
Graphics are awesome, please keep your friend close to you for next Jams :P
Moreover you did a release for Linux and... I only have a Linux computer available for 3 months, so I think I will keep your game on it, maybe I will launch it again soon ;)