LudumData

herbarium by t-mw

[raw]
made by t-mw for LD 38 (COMPO)

| screen2.png | gif.gif | | --- | --- |

Bring your herbarium back to life..

Water your flowers so that they bloom simultaneously. Don't use too much water, or your flowers will die and soil will disintegrate.

Links

  • PLAY: https://itch.io/embed-upload/451557?color=333333 (HTML5)
  • SOURCE CODE: https://github.com/t-mw/herbarium/

Controls

  • arrow keys: move cursor
  • z/c: place earth at cursor
  • x/v: remove earth at cursor

Hold z + x or c + v to restart

Development

This is the first game jam I've used PICO-8 on - it was nice to be constrained a bit. I could afford to develop a system for loading / transitioning between levels; I normally stick to one-map games to avoid the hassle.

Writing the fluid simulation was a bit tricky: I quickly ran into performance issues, so had to reduce the speed of the fluid and split processing across frames. Besides that, at the moment water tends to flow towards the right, and tiles don't absorb water well when they're completely submerged; water needs to be flowing across them.

The tendency to flow to the right is particularly annoying for gameplay, but I couldn't work out a way of solving it that didn't affect performance. Maybe the maps should take more advantage of right-flowing fluid, instead of being symmetrical.

Hope you enjoy the game!

Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/herbarium

Ratings

Overall 220th 3.44⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 287th 3.12⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 92th 3.68⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 327th 3.24⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 175th 3.68⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 349th 2.429⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 431th 1.818⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 405th 2.739⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 9🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

Heinrix
01. May 2017 · 14:01 UTC
Really enjoyed this. I'm a sucker for any type of farming/growing game!

The graphics work really well with the mood of the game and I enjoyed the puzzle aspect very much. It must have taken a lot of effort to make the levels get progressively harder, so well done there, the game 'flows' very nicely ;)
palemachine
01. May 2017 · 14:55 UTC
Yeah, the water flow is kind of wonky, but it's understandable and honestly not that bad/does not affect your ability to progress. This is a very good puzzle game, in my opinion, and the difficulty curve is really fluid. Great overall audiovisual presentation as well, looks and feels very polished in a distinctly non-game-jam way.
smbe19
01. May 2017 · 14:58 UTC
Cool idea, the game looks really nice.

It's really annoying that you can't place earth when there is water at the current position. Like this it's really hard to build anything after the first few seconds as you can't even block the water flow.
codyhansen
01. May 2017 · 15:04 UTC
The water physics is what makes this game different and more of a thinker than it seems, despite the water being quite wonky and unpredictable at times.
I like the way this game has clear progression and even has a level introduction screen!
Part of me wishes my garden was this complicated.
theDoodleGuy
01. May 2017 · 15:04 UTC
Great idea, love the puzzle element. I failed hard lol. great game :-)
jin47
01. May 2017 · 15:05 UTC
Really great game idea and nice concept. the water "physic" is great and the game is really challenging ! Great job
theslate
01. May 2017 · 15:16 UTC
Great idea! Love to see cellular automata based puzzle games. I was also flummoxed by being unable to place blocks where water is. Water trending right made waterfall super hard. Really like it!
Lugdumdare Team
01. May 2017 · 15:31 UTC
Good puzzle game with a nice difficulty curve.
Graphics are nice. Sometimes the flow is quite confusing.

But overall nice job.
steve
01. May 2017 · 16:27 UTC
I enjoyed this, nice idea! As others have mentioned I found the water physics to be a little difficult to predict, and had the occasional flower that stubbornly refused to take any water regardless of how much was passing over it!
makenai
01. May 2017 · 19:46 UTC
Great aesthetic and nice level design! I like that it's possible to overwater a plant and kill it. Nice puzzle game.
daanvanyperen
01. May 2017 · 20:20 UTC
Love simulation games like this. Bravo on going for a challenge with PICO!
Wizcas
02. May 2017 · 02:23 UTC
A cool physics simulation game! It's impressive that you made so many levels in such a short time. And the level designs are strategic, which the water flow has to be managed dynamically in certain situations. Well done!
Ratbag
02. May 2017 · 04:11 UTC
@t-mw, Great game! Really cool take on the theme, the graphics look great, and you nailed the water behaviour. Great entry!
PeachTreeOath
02. May 2017 · 04:45 UTC
It was really cool how the water could naturally form waves. Very creative work.
impbox
02. May 2017 · 07:23 UTC
Cool idea, pity about the performance and bunching up of the water. I think if you continue work on it you could get it to be a nice puzzle game. I like the art. Needs some music.

http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2821 I used the same water mechanic on one of my jam pico8 games. It runs a lot faster and doesn't bunch up so much. Maybe take a look at the source.
Pecolyte
12. May 2017 · 16:08 UTC
That's nice graphics even with low pixels! Puzzle design is very creative, too. It's a great one!
paulhocker
12. May 2017 · 23:56 UTC
this was a really great idea and very well executed - the water was very slow which made for many moments of boredom - great entry
ooku
16. May 2017 · 09:23 UTC
Wow, very neat game, congrats!
Nothing more to say here :)
loveapplegames
19. May 2017 · 23:16 UTC
Great game, very original! I enjoyed playing a lot until I got stuck in the waterfall level. This game would benefit from being able to start at any level. You might be interested in my cellular automata game engine, where you can specify this kind of water physics with just a few lines of code. Check out my project [CellSpace](http://tmtg.net/cellspace.js/)