This is a very fun little game, and I love the idea for the game. Both the graphics and music is cute and pretty great. The introduction to the game mechanics is okay, but could have been a bit better. But overall is this a super great LD game. Well done.

@jk5000 Thanks! About the introduction, do you have a particular mechanic in mind or just the whole introduction in general?

I had a hard time learning that a could move the water and the seed.

@jk5000 I see, if only I managed to get that sprite glow shader up it would have been a whole lot easier to notice the seed & the water can :(

As someone who often struggles with gardening, this game speaks to me. So many enemies hurting my crops! A simple and friendly little game, with music and graphics that fit the mood. I didn't get very far on my first three tries, so maybe it could have been made a little bit easier for the first couple of rounds?

Oh nuts. Can't get past the second round (three-level plant). Either it dries, or worms eat it.

I like the idea (if it was about futility of struggle with forces of nature - even more :P ) and the execution. Has a nice, surrealistic vibe to it, and the shovel mechanic is something I never came across before.

What could make it better: glow around interactable objects, or some other indication (I know it's hard, I struggled with it in my game with pickups :) ) - always create affordance that is clear to the player. And maybe difficulty setting? It could really cut us some slack in the beginning ;)

All that said, good job. You made a fun game!

@picapica & @Takusan thank you 2 for playing!

Difficulty balancing is always my problem. I seems to fail at finding the sweet spot between "ridiculously hard" and "utterly boring" T_T

Difficulty setting is a good idea, we could have that in the game as well, should only take 5 minutes or so. Lesson learned.

I do agree with the prior suggestions that there could be a glow around interactable objects. Apart from that, this game is very enjoyable. Difficult as hell, but definitely enjoyable. Also, you have no idea how much I love the bug roaming around to the bottom right of the plant.

Nice work! :)

Cute little game ! It's true that it's a little bit too hard though. I got completely overwhelmed by caterpillars : )

This is such a cute game. I love the art and the music. When I saw that this was another growing a plant game, of which I've seen dozens in LD, I thought it would just be the same. However, the cuteness and difficulty were overwhelming.

Great job!

I really liked the mechanics. Graphics overall looks good but the style of the artwork could have been more consistent. Thank you for creating this game!

Congratz on finishing your first ludum dare, I'm impressed!

Your game made me smile :D

The graphics are nice and the characters are really cute!

The gameplay idea is cool and feels fresh, I like how you have to manage multiple things at once. There's something very satisfying about moving the water thing and letting it fill. The music fits well, and the sound effects are good.

If you keep working on this, I'd love to play it again!

Keep up the good work!

@avavt haha, I understand the struggle with difficulty balancing completely :) Took me loads of time to get my game to the state where it didn't feel overwhelming or underwhelming for me, yet still players' opinions vary *greatly*. There's just so much factors to take into account, and it really shows only through playtesting.

Well, that's why most of us plan a post-jam update after all :)

Cheers!

Thanks everyone for playing the game!


@AlexHoratio: haha he's a roach actually, the Johi thing and the whole ending is kinda a bad pun.

@Takusan: I'm taking difficulty problem into account seriously because I plan to make games for children (4+ and 10+) in the near future, and if a game is too hard for *adult* it's probably off the roof for children T_T

@PixzleOne: Our music/sfx guy would love to hear your comment! He has always been good with the guitar but this is the first time he show his composition publicly. Thanks!

hey great game you guys made! i really enjoyed it. im impressed with the amount of gameplay you were able to implement in 72hrs. i was pleasantly surprised by a boss battle once you grew the plant! the animations were really good and i liked the music as well, especially the song in the credits. one note i have is that it would be nice if you could pull as well as push objects. more combat options would be cool as well, but keeping it simple is the name of the game in LD so i get it. oh i also loved the little bug that frantically paces back and forth hahaha. and hes so overwhelmed all he can manage to mutter is JOHI!!! xD this is one of the best games i have tested so far, bravo!

I HATE GARDENING!...and this game demonstrates why - because it's an exercise in futility!

I can't really add more to what has been said above:

* Took me a while to realise I could interact with the seed
* Tried to pull objects but could only push
* Second stage was a little too hard

However, I think it's a great game that really fits the theme very well. Great work!

This is really nice game! I really liked how you had to juggle between keeping the worms from eating your plant and getting water. The boss battle was really hard.

The graphics are a nice, but a bit inconsistent. I love the cute falling animation.

One thing I found a bit irritating is that before I dug the hole, I couldn't interact with water and the seed, which confused me a bit, since it seemed the obvious thing to do (didn't realise you could move right).

I enjoyed this a lot, first time through I failed because of water management but the second tiem through it was a breeze, 90% plant health, so I can see why it was hard to balance. I also had a minute wondering what to do after digging the hole, but it wasn't too bad.

Controls felt really tight! teh attack was spot on, and juggling a lot of caterpillars felt really good, in this small format I really liked it, tough if you were to expand it it'd probably become too stressful for me, multitasking is not my forte.

I was surprised you implemented a boss fight, tough it was pretty basic, it was a nice reward, also the final cutscene was quite funny so props for that.

Really cool entry!

Most of what I was going to say has already been said far better above :slight_smile: so I'll just leave you with this: I really quite liked the jump animation, so goofy!

I had an enjoyable time playing this! I like that it even had a boss fight.

The music is pretty good. My problem with the graphics is the inconsistency, especially with proportion. For example, the friendly bug (when a baby) looks kinda squashed, and the different stroke sizes (I assume you draw them all at the same size and resize the sprites) make it kind of unappealing, but otherwise it's quite cute.

Definitely +1 to the not knowing what to do after digging the hole, because I thought the objects in the first screen were part of the background.

Finally I think the interaction with the water beaker can be more forgiving, usually when I push it I spend like a couple seconds attacking instead, which is frustrating.

Overall it was a good game! Good job :)

The difficulty felt pretty good, except at the end, I couldn't really figure out how to do damage after the fight started.

Overall though, the game was cute, interesting, and had some depth to it. I had fun playing :)

@undefinist @firewill Thanks for your comment. The boss fight was only implemented 6-8 hours before the deadline. At first we thought it was not possible cause we got some struggle at the first day but we tried to make the game feel completed so we worked very hard and got that result :D .

@sheep42 Yes, when we did the test another member didn't know where to hit the bird so we decided to make the first hit free :D

@Remco Thanks, the animation guy would happy to hear that. We got a hard time on him :D

Whoa a boss fight?! Nicely done! The difficulty seemed pretty balanced, I had no difficulty figuring out how damage the boss. I don't have any real criticism, just needed a bit more polish, like tightening up the controls a bit and the graphics seemed a little inconsistent. Other than that this is a really solid game! I had a lot of fun playing. Sweet ending animation btw! :)

This game is really cute and overall very charming! i had alot fun playing it too. I really do not have any good criticism, other than more polishing and try to be more consistent with your artwork. Hope you have a nice day :)

My poor plant!

That's a challenging game for time/resource management, with a steep learning curve.

Great graphics and overall aesthetic!

I wasn't sure what I would think of this game going in but boy was I surprised! The game actually controls really well and has a nice hectic nature to it! Great job!

I had fun playing your game. Your introduction is easy to understand. Throwing the caterpillars off the plant and watering it was quite fun and the animation was cute. The controls feel good for the most part, but I kept pressing SPACE trying to jump (but that's just my own fault). I think the game would benefit from being a little less difficult (I could not make it past the three-level plant). Maybe make the caterpillars do less damage? Or let the plant dry out a little slower?

Overall, a cute idea within the theme.

Great little game from start to finish. love the sound, art and gameplay.

Simple yet complex. I've played worse boss fights in AAA games.

Great work team

I have now also rated your game.

I've also rated this game now :)

Thanks @jk5000 !

I have also rated everyone's games.

@picapica @Takusan @alexhoratio @xxdoombox @move127 @mrerdalural @pixzleone @richard-michael-smith @navot @firewill @remco @undefinist @sheep42 @maggardjosh @simonhutchinson @drazil100 @heinrix

Rating done <3 (commented on your game a few days ago)

Sorry... multiple post.

Rating done <3 (commented on your game a few days ago)

Rating done <3 (commented on your game a few days ago)

Rating done <3 (commented on your game a few days ago)

Since voting is up, I left you a rating in addition to earlier feedback. Cheers!

I left you a rating. Good luck!

Rated well by me, thank you for your rating @AVANT

Really nice concept!! I had fun playing your game. It's nice that you add some intruductuion and game control explanation. Your artwork looks pretty good. Game probably need some balancing but still is fun to play.

Cute! And fun. I got to the :tomato: but the :bird: was much too difficult for me. In some ways a very true reflection about how it is to garden. In fact it was rather hard to swap around the different tasks in general, but in a good way. At first, I was a little confused about how the game worked. Maybe simply expanding the areas a bit where digging and pushing stuff is triggered and make the keyboard button icon a bit more visible / attention grabbing. In general, the difficulty progression worked really well and I was having really fun jumping around attending to the plant. Great work!

Very nice game, well rounded. I quickly figured out what to do. But this game gets hard fast. The collision detection for the attacks seemed a bit off.

love the animations! buggers got me on what I think was day 3 two times in a row, I need a bigger spoon! haha - nice work! a lot here in such a short time, congrats.

Cute game! It's easy to get into and appropriately picks up in difficulty as you progress. The bird boss reminded me a bit of Donkey Kong Country for some reason :thinking:

I think the most confusing part is the beginning of the game. It took me a little to figure out that I needed to push the seed into the hole, but in the end it was intuitive enough so I could get the job done. After that, I was shoveling away bugs like it was nobody's business!

The flute samples for the opening song are a little hard to listen to, so I'm glad there's a mute button. I enjoyed the end credits ditty though. The compositions are simple, but not horrible. However, the quality of the samples could use some work.

The animations are nice, and the graphics have a fun organic feel to them. Nice work for the time you were given!

Fun and cute game! It kinda surprised me actually! You guys did quite a bit.

I couldn't beat the bird after growing my tomato plant. Its mini cyclones kept getting me! Oh well.

I laughed upon first interacting with Little Strong.

The second time I needed to get water I ended up losing because I didn't expect the water glass to not be back at the beginning area like it was when it was first tutorialized.

Great game! Great job!

Didn't manage to beat the boss, its whirlwinds are unavoidable :D Would be nice to see bird health at least, to know how far you are. But the game itself is fun and interesting, controls feel natural, graphics is cute, good work!

@gleb-mineev jump above the whirlwinds is an easier way to beat it :D

Some people have demonstrated sliding in between the whirlwinds for me but I myself can't do that.

I loved this! It passed a simple, but crucial task of being FUN, and this was honestly FUN (something that some other games don't always manage to accomplish, strangely enough). The introduction was fine in my opinion, and it was an interesting puzzle to solve at the beginning of the game, as well as teaching the basic mechanics, in fact, it's one of the better introductions I've seen. I enjoyed the juggling sort of gameplay, and the shovel reminded me of... well Shovel Knight (I think that's pretty obvious?). My only complaint was the final boss fight, where it was a bit confusing when you were hitting the bird (also, a health bar would have been nice). Overall, I loved this. Great job!

This is super fun, which I think it was aiming for. Did not expect a boss fight in this hahah.
The difficulty curve is a bit high, particularly for the water balancing - and I personally think it's because how the pushing works - I forget to keep the X pressed, or press it when I'm not in place, and feels a bit un-intuitive since I move so fast. Minor complaints though, great work overall!

Really cool mood.
I work hard to have my tomato, but allways failed to scare the "boss" (bird)...
Just one thing: I tried a lot to pull water instead of push it, that wasn't clear for me that I just could push...

For some reason i can't see the plant itself. I was wondering why do those worms fly in the air until i saw screenshots.

I loved this game! The mood was great, I had a great time!
Like above, I had some hard time understanding how to push objects at first, but after that it was all good
Pretty impressive you managed to do a boss in a LD entry!
I had trouble figuring out how to beat it, but thanksfully, I had no gameOver against him :)
Nice entry, well done !

@caryoscelus can you tell me more? Which version were you playing? If WebGl then which browser, if executable then which OS?

That was fun! Just enough things to manage to still feel engaged without being overwhelmed. Nice sense of progression too and even a boss fight.

This is really good. The art and sound are fantastic. I agree with other posters about making it more clear that you can push objects but besides that great game!

Nice work! Took a bit to figure out pushing (would keep walking past), but got it after a few tries. It's a good balance between watering the plant and keeping bugs off the plant. The brown bug on the bottom was pretty funny, at first I thought it was sad because I was killing the other bugs? But it ended helping me out haha. The boss fight was good though it was pretty easy to hit the bird when it was diving. At first I wasn't sure what to do because it was just there and I had it hit it to start the fight sequence. Overall the animations and art are pretty cute and communicate well. Nice job!

Very fun, although the worm swarms were a little overwhelming.

I quite liked it, the gameplay was smooth and pretty enjoyable. My biggest issue was the audio; the victory tune was quite abrasive, took me by surprise- also not sure why the sound effects were all panned hard to the right.
I liked the mechanics, simple and easy to understand, with clear initial instruction. The character design and animation is pretty cute as well. I thought it was a solid game, good job!

I really loved this entry, playing it was so much fun. The controls felt tight, the animations felt pretty good, the ending was hilarious, the sound was pretty decent, you guys won my General 5 stars, innovation wasn't that big but gameplay definitely had variety. By the way, I'm the Sucker Munch's artist, you can toggle sound in the esc key menu :)

Good concept, but you really need to polish it up and give it at least better controls. maybe z for interaction ad x for attack. and also, there is a need to intuitively know, what you have to do. but overall, nice entry

That is an original entry! Props for this game! :)

It was a nice idea to manage the water and to fight the bugs at the same time.
As some others already said it, I think improving the controls, like to hit the enemies would improve the experience, but at least it does the job for this game. ^^

And the animations, like when an enemy dies or when digging, are a nice plus!

Congrats for your first LD :)

:grinning: ooh cool reminds me of old classic PSSST of spectrum,

very well done

your students can be proud for sure

Well polished game, it works wonderfully! Graphics were cute but somewhat inconsistent, but perhaps that's a part of the art - it worked in setting the mood of the game.

Some solid good gameplay, loved that you put in a boss fight as well, and a satisfying comical cutscene ending.

Minimalistic controls which suits a LD good, everything was straight forward - no need for a tutorial, X is all you need. Great job!

@avavt , firefox 52.0.2 (could've been just 52 when i actually played it) on debian gnu/linux.

This is a pretty cute concept. Hitting the worms was a bit _hit and miss_ (see what I did there?), sometimes I'd be right on one and swatting at them did nothing. The game explained itself pretty well, but on two occasions I didn't immediately notice the X button icon. A brief glow/shine effect and an audio cue would have helped, but I am nitpicking here.

The graphics is a bit of a mix of styles. None of them bad, but it didn't all go together smoothly. The music suites the game, but the sound effect when you successfully complete a level is very shrill and I am very glad I wasn't wearing headphones for this one. ;)

Cute graphics (awesome jump animations and yes, cool sun rays) for a fun little game, I felt bad hitting the bird the first time, cause it looked so peaceful. I loved the ending, I was intrigued by the cockroach. Great job, very good first entry.

Fun graphics and a nice game! My plant always dries out at the second level, don't know if there is another one after it.

This game is the Dark Souls of tomato farming.

Wonderfull, one of my favorite game !

Excellent concept, intuitive gameplay, simple HUD, great art, about nature, friend who grow up while game.

Long life to Small Joe with his spoon !

One of my favorite game !

Excellent concept, intuitive gameplay, simple HUD, great art, about nature, friend who grow up while game.

Long life to Small Joe with his spoon.

Super cute, fun game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRPh1GNGnP0