What a great entry!
I really enjoy the aesthetic and the concept of the game!

Some constructive criticism:
- you can farm and get "bookoo bucks" without playing pinball at all. more interplay would have been nice. like a "sun" mechanic that is only active while a ball is out (maybe the ball could be the sun? idk)
- pinball collisions are a bit sloppy, especially with the ball launcher. clean that up and the game will feel great!
- you should put the controls on the page so people don't have to smash their keyboard to figure out how to play :)

Combining pinball with farming is a neat idea. I really love the cute, hand-drawn aesthetic,and the chipper, upbeat music is very endearing. It all came together for a very relaxing experience. My one complaint is that I did run into a few physics problems. Most notably, the ball would occasionally get stuck in the launcher before getting to play, causing me to lose a ball and have to buy another. Those issues aside, I had a really good time playing this game. Nice work!

@Arden @superpokeunicorn GAH you're right, I forgot to put the controls somewhere! Nice catch! Thanks for the crit and nice comments, guys, much appreciated! I agree with cleaning up the collisions and ball launcher physics will help it play much better (a small amount of aim assistance wouldn't hurt, either).

Given more time, I'd have loved to add more mechanics to tie the pinball and farming games together - some ideas we had were weather effects triggered by lighting up all the lights on the board, gaining new plant types by launching the ball through the ramps on the sides, or increasing the amount of water and farm areas. If anyone has more ideas, I'm all ears! :)

It is a neat concept and I agree with what Arden said above. The game is super chill overall.

I love the cute graphic style a lot. And it's an interesting idea to combine farming with a pinball game! I had a lot fun when trying to hit the money and plant more things.
Problems may be that the ball seems to have collision problems sometimes, especially during the launching period, it once disappeared :p Also hoping to have instruction about the control.

The music, art style, and animations feel super fitting. The usage of pinball as a system with which to generate resources for farming is a neat approach, though I did figure out I can yield more cash by cycling through vegetables (balancing within jam time is hard so no worries there >_<). I definitely feel like this is one of those games that could find its own with some more time to hone it. Fantastic job!

Small devlog on some known issues and feature speculation beyond the game jam: https://kianamosser.itch.io/pinballgardener/devlog/31701/first-ludum-dare-we-did-it-known-issues-feature-speculation

Finally I can combine my two favorite pastimes!

Finally I can combine my two favorite pastimes! Hitting the left flipper, and hitting the right flipper!

Such an adorable little aesthetic to this game! and great use of the theme =)

So intresting idea and cute art. Very nice :3

it is soo good to see, that a little cute character can give so much life to a game :) The mechanics are also very enjoyable! One thin: how do I finish the game? I ran out of balls and had only a little money, still no game over?
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**Here is our game feel free to check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/jumpcard**

@pestodesign There is no “game over” condition currently, but theoretically it would be when you no longer have enough resources to farm yourself up to another life. The game over screen would tell you how well you did (total money made and crops harvested).

By the way, here’s a devlog with some bug fixes I’ve addressed that were pointed out by previous commenters:
https://kianamosser.itch.io/pinballgardener/devlog/31719/v002-patch-bug-fixes-and-instructions-page

Don't remember when I played a pinball game for the last time, this feels and look like a good one :thumbsup:

Love the art and audio, but the gameplay felt lacking. The pinball itself was very bare-bones and the gardening was lacking in things to do. No matter what you choose to buy you'll always wind up with less money, making nothing seem like a worthwhile investment. I wanted to like the game because the concept was really cool but it just didn't feel worth replaying after the second loss.

this is very fun but very hard to get money and i couldn't find any way to reset the game when i ran out of everything

Very nice art and music, and I really like the idea of the game. Feels like there's a lot of potential in making the machine more elaborate, and adding more content as well for a more fuller game.

One minor thing though, but I thought the ball was a bit too fast, and unfortunately felt too random at times when the ball was blazing around. If the general speed of the ball was slower I think I would have enjoyed this game that much more.

Anyway that's just polish stuff. In general great work on a fun little game!

Gorgeous graphics! The sound and music is relaxing and nice. The concept is cool, and definitely one of the most original blends I've played so far! I did find a small bug where if you pre-pull the spring, if it's not fully pulled back the ball will fall through it and you'll lose a life. other than that it seems really cool! At first I thought that the weeds / bushes in the pinball machine were going to directly impact the garden if I didn't hit them enough. That would be a cool mechanic to implement so that the two genres have more interplay between them. With some more work I think this could be a genuinely sellable game. This is definitely a good concept!

@roaderful Thanks! I haven't seen many 2D pinball games since the Gameboy era, and with good reason, I've found - they're hard to make! Super massive respect for the devs of games like Pokemon Pinball.

@Strato @le-american Originally you could make a net profit from farming (as you would normally expect from a farming simulator), but it was pointed out that you didn't have to play pinball at all to make money, so I lowered the gains and raised prices of things in the 0.0.2 patch - looks like I made the game too difficult, though, so I've rebalanced the monetary gains again. Thanks for the feedback!

There's no "game over" screen yet - I'm working on one that will only give you a game over if you don't have enough resources to farm yourself up to any more lives, but I've put a small "Back" button in the lower right of the screen as a hotfix until I have enough time to sit down and make it proper (I'm a student on the quarter system and work part-time). Please be careful, because you will lose your progress upon returning to the title screen!

@Potondo I agree the ball gets too fast at times - I've capped the speed and reduced the gravity a bit. I think it feels a bit better, but if it's still too fast feel free to let me know. Thanks!

@thebreakfast Thank you! We both enjoy pinball but we searched around and couldn't find anything quite like this so we figured it'd be a fun concept to make. :) The ball phasing though the launcher in specific circumstances is a known issue I'm looking into fixing. I've implemented a hotfix to this in the meantime: you no longer lose a life if the ball bugs through the launcher. I do think it'd be cool to implement some sort of weeds or pests that have an effect on the garden. Thanks for the suggestions! I'm glad to hear you think this game has potential.

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Devlog highlighting the fixes made that were addressed in this comment:

https://kianamosser.itch.io/pinballgardener/devlog/31882/version-003-hotfixes-and-balancing

Awesome graphics, audio and mood, but the game is clearly two games separately, not very well mixed. In pinball the ball goes a bit too crazy, and in farming you just make money so you can play pinball, so I'd say it doesn't work well.

@FabianLC Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate the honesty. Beyond potential mechanics I’ve mentioned previously, is there anything you think would help the two mesh together better?

well this is what I came up with: drop money in the pinball machine during the game, put the harvests in the pinball machine so you have to collect what you've been harvesting with the ball and trigger a game over once you run out of balls.

Very cute game, I would love to see an updated version of it.

@FabianLC Cool, thanks for the suggestions! :) We’re working on the “game over” and score tallying. By dropping money in the pinball machine during the game, do you mean that sometimes things will drop into the game that you can hit with the pinball for money?

Wow, what an amazing concept! If there was some feedback back to the pinball board, upgrading it with new things so you could have an even better farm and keep upgrading everything, this game could become an amazing mobile thing. Hope you go on with this project! Nice entry =)

Unexpected idea, and nice realisation! I'm so bad with the pinball part that I lose very quickly, giving that I earn less than a ball value. But it was fun to play, so : good job!

Note : I see that you didn't rate any entry. As it's your first LD, I don't know if you are aware of it, but you are supposed to test, rate, and maybe give feedback on the others's entries - make a game is just the half of a LD, rating part is the other half, and in my opinion this second part is as fun and teach as much as the make-a-game part. If you don't know where to start, I suggest you visits the games of the ones who tested and comment your game (and I don't say that for me, I see that you have a lot of games to test with the ones before me ;))

@ghust1995 Thanks! It would be cool to port to mobile considering the pinball machine is vertical.

@LeReveur Definitely planning on playing and rating other games when I get the chance! Lots of cool ideas out there. Thank you for the tip!

Nice! Great graphics, solid audio and I love the concept. Could use some balancing though, it seemed like farming wasn't worth it since it lost money so I just played pinball - which is what I wanted to do anyway :P That aspect was pretty fun though the physics & geometry were a bit funky - most shots either ended up hitting the bottom bumper (which led to a drain super fast most of the time), or if I tried shooting the orbits, a lot of the time it went up the inlane & down the outlane which was frustrating. Were the orbit shots supposed to give you water or seeds? Didn't seem to work for me but it would've been cool if so. Would've liked to see have a score metric in addition to just getting money in order to survive. Still pretty fun, nice work!

We made a pinball game too btw, great minds think alike! :D

Really great use of the theme. Loved the graphics and music. Solid game.

This was such a sweet little game!

I struggled a bit to completely understand how to farm, but I had a lot of fun trying! I wasn't entirely sure what the items did or how to use them, and no matter how much money I had I could never seem to use up or buy water? So I just ended up playing it for pinballs sake. Perhaps a brief explanation on how to water, plant and grow the plants and what the items/shpo menu do would be helpful :smiley:

Great entry :slight_smile:

Super cute graphics, and a really fun idea. Getting the ball up the side ramps felt really hard, and when I finally did it, I couldn't tell if they actually did anything.

The audio, the graphics carry this game for me but for the mechanics I mean they are solid and work very well but I just can see the lost possibiliety of these genres combined. If the pinball had just a little more function to the farming part. When I saw the water sign on it I thought I can get a refill but I didnt. Still solid but could be improbved on

@adhesion Yeah, we didn't have time to implement it during the Jam, but in an upcoming update the ramps will be used to give you resources to farm. I'm going to allow the ramps to give your ball a small boost through them as well, which will get the ball through the orbit more reliably. Still tweaking the physics and collisions to get something that feels nice, but I think it's improving. Score will be based on the total money you've earned, plants harvested, and perhaps other aspects. :) It's cool that you also made a pinball game! I don't see very many of them around nowadays. I'll have to give yours a play!

@goat-toaster-games Sure, an explanation can be added! I'll also explain briefly here: You can click an item from your inventory to select it, and a farm plot to plant the seed. You can click on the plant if you have enough water in order to grow it, and once it's fully grown, click again to harvest.

@bitjester-media The ramps don't do anything yet, but they'll give you resources in an upcoming update (which will also make it easier to get up the ramps).

@WERT Thanks! We're still working on the game post-Jam and will be adding that in an update. I've mentioned some planned features already in the devlog and comments section, but is there anything you feel would add to the pinball game? We're open to suggestions! :)

Cool game. I love video pinball so had to give this a try. The core concept is solid, though I feel the game play loop could do some tweaking as it just goes on forever. Maybe have target vegetables to grow per level or something like that. Nice overall aesthetic and the sound was very fitting.

Very nice entry. The connection between the two gameplay parts could be much deeper, but I enjoyed it a lot. I think Pokémon pinball could be a great inspiration if you want to work with the concept further, because I definitelly think there is potential.
Some designing details could be improved, like you could move the resources to the field with drag-and-drop function aswell.
As for the art, I can see it was created by a very skilled artist, and thats why it bugs me, that the pixel art is kinda rushed and not precise in some parts. I know it's a game jam, but it would boost the overall visual feeling of the game so so much!

Super cute overall aesthetics <3
It feels like a Super GameBoy game to me. Which is an awesome feat.
The game plays really well, too! I can definitely see the potential for long staying power here, should you add some more features!

Great work, have a fish <3 🐟

Nice look, great sound. Interesting concept, but the execution could use a little work. The two sides of the game are well built, but not connected enough. Though, to be honest, I don't have any specific ideas or critiques. But if you could figure out how, I would try to connect them more. Oh! You should make it so that if you are out of money and stuck, it game overs. Anyway, nice concept, and solid execution, design could just use some tinkering. Well done!

While the art is absolutely adorable, the game really well done (well to me it's almost a 5 in every category), there's one big problem that most surely couldn't be fixed during the jam: growing any vegetable costs you more money that you can get by selling it. In fact, each time I sold a carrot or tomato, that brought me 5$ less than what growing it costed. So I don't really see the point in planting any vegetable, since you'll lose 5$ each time. It looks like the best to do is just playing the pinball with the hope of hitting enough bumpers to win money so you can buy more balls. That is, unless I missed something in the pinball, only the bumpers seemed active, the side lanes didn't bring anything.

Some ideas:
- The extra balls are special vegetables: you have to plant them and water them. Because if you can just buy them, and only the flipper gives money, what's the point in gardening at all?
- In fact, maybe all vegetables can be used as balls? With different effects, both physical (imagine playing with a carrot!) and gameplay wise.
- The flipper could also bring water besides money.
- Make gardening a key point. Maybe the whole flipper is made of vegetables where you have to replace/enhance bumpers, shooter, add special hits, etc?

Of course, jam restrictions, hence my good notation because anyway, even though it needs a lot of balance, you got a very good concept, and the best use of the jam theme so far.

Adorable art and solid execution, though the UI / controls could have used some work. And the ball was insanely fast. :D But it looks like you've collected some great feedback here, and you did a fantastic job for your first jam! Wow!

This is so cute and way up my alley! I agree with what folks have said already about mechanical improvements, just wanted to add that it's charming as heck and I'm delighted that you brought it. Nice work!

I agree with the general consensus that, although the game is very well presented, the integration of farming sim into pinball wasn't fully realized. I think that Fabian guy had it right, where the crops should be placed on the pinball board and you water them by hitting them with the ball. Maybe even buying resources could be something you have to aim for. How about using the crops you produce to either get cash OR augment the board to give you more resources per hit?

Super cute game! The pinball section could a be a bit more juicy with more hit feedback and combo mechanics.

Really cool! Fun to bloop around with. The balance of prices and such seems a tad off and I was unable to get water from the pinball chute with the water label. Still, super rad work!

Very cute game. I think there is a need for highscores and more mechanics for the pinball and for the gardening part but well, it is a game jam so there is no problem and it deserves great ratings to me.

this is so great! i loooove the art, and the music is great too. I think the balance between gardening and pinball is very good, but i didn't feel like the pinball portion felt all that great to play. the physics are very strange, sometimes the ball shoots at mach 5 but sometimes at pretty normal speeds. sometimes the ball magically gains momentum in situations, and other times it feels like there's 100% friction on the ball and it just stops instantly. (my speculation is that there is friction on the ball but the ball rotates, but in a computer simulation this can be finicky so i'd suggest removing rotations and setting friction to 0%)
other than that it's a super solid game! nice job :smile:

Ouhaaaa I am really impressed by pixel art which is just awesome. the concept is also very well worked and balanced. Frankly a great job. And the rabbit is so cute.

So polished....I'm gonna have to follow your future games. 2 things I really loved about this game. First, there was only 1 screen to it, just a nice, complete UI to look at with a well designed interface. Secondly, I loved that the farming was actually connected to the pinball, not just a 1-way street like I've seen in these other games.

Just one thing, the whole idea of the LD is to give feedback to ppl making games, you should think about participating in that way too...

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

Just want to say thanks for all the nice comments and feedback everyone has left! I didn't get a chance to reply since I was busy with college but I really appreciate it and will consider all your suggestions!

P.S. I still plan on playing everyone's games during the summer and leaving some comments :)