Sacred Gardener by Hanamigi
Keep watering the flowers of the sacred tree, so that they can grow and ensure a GRAND spring!
If you are not careful the flowers will wither and die!
Enjoy some slightly frantic gardening time during this quarantene.
My first LD and my first compo! What a rush, I used only 2 afternoons but I did iiiiiiit!
100% made from scratch, and all sound effects are registered and edited by me. I like recording and using foley in jams!
Play without music for a better experience. I was determined to make a tune, and made a horrid one in 10 mintes while learning BoscaCeoil, forgive me (but vote ruthlessly).
Tools: - Construct 3 - GraphicsGale - GIMP - BoscaCeoil - Wavosaur - Cellphone (to record foley sounds)
Changelog:
- Fixed bug with walking speed depending on pc framerate.
- Game music can be toggled also in the title menu.
:arrowdown: ** Here is a *super secret walkthorugh* to make your gardening life easier.** :arrowdown:
:warning: * SPOILER - HOW TO WIN - SPOILER * :warning:
In this game, the two plants accumulate thirst over time, and when it reaches a certain treshold they start to wither. When they wither to their smallest stage (sapling), they die. If one plant dies, you lose the game.
A sure way to win is as follows:
1) Water both plants immediately, once each. They should both grow, because they are born without thirst. If the second plant that you watered does not grow, water it again: it has become thirsty in the meantime.
2) Choose one plant to focus on, and keep watering it. The second plant should be watered occasionally, but if it withers it MUST be watered as soon as possible. The taller the plant is, the more it can survive without water.
3) Keep doing this once the chosen plant has fully bloomed. At this point the plant will be able to survive without water, so feel free to focus on the one you have neglected.
4) The second plant will also bloom thanks to your care. Congratulations, you have won!
:warning: * SPOILER END * :warning:
Ratings
| Overall | 847th | 3.034⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1017th | 2.466⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 944th | 2.707⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 375th | 3.828⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 484th | 3.5⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 522th | 3.034⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 620th | 3.086⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 39🗳️ | 34🗨️ |
@njm-games Thank you! First ludum dare but not my first jam, been some years since I last joined one though.
**Things that I liked**
- music and sound effects really made the game, it added the right atmosphere (I would honestly play background music by default, without the need of turning it on by pressing M)
- simple but nice looking art
- comfy, idea fitted to Ludum Dare theme
**Things that could be improved**
- I didn't 100% get it what exactly are plants trying to tell me, if I should water constantly or wait for some condition or how to get to the next stage and win the game
- walking animation was smooth and pretty but I felt that bucket wasn't animated with it properly, it made animation look worse than it should
Overall very nice work in 48 hours :smile:
Might be missing some feedback indicator for the flowers..
God Job :D
Concerning the bucket, I added it later, it is literally a sprite that sticks to the character. I needed something to indicate that water had been picked up, but time was running low, so... here we are haha!
I agree that the objective is not very clear, and the positive feedback of watering the plants is also pretty weak. Should have added some more animations!
The original scope was bigger, but I had to cut a lot and basically retool the assets I made to create a slimmer, more minimalistic game that could be finished in time.
I will consider turning background music on at start of the game, keeping M for toggling it.
Thank you all for the feedback.
edit: fixed (or seems so).
The game took a little long, and at first, I had no idea if my watering was having an effect. It wasn't until later that I realized that I have to keep watering the same side over and over again to reduce walking time. When the tree smiled, I thought I had won, but I kept going out of curiosity - unknowing if I had won or not.
Thanks for making a game web based ;)
You are welcome, web based games are better for game jams imho :slight_smile:
@matt2728 Thanks for the kind words. Those steps were made by patting a bunch of clothes with my hand, the aim was exactly to have a softer sound :smile: There is indeed a bit of an issue with player feedback in the game. It might not be noticeable but the bucket can be emptied only near the plants, the idea was to show that yes, you emptied the bucket near the roots, so you gave them water. I will think of future enhancements!
I didn't relax tho, for some reason sometimes when I stop pressing the arrows I was still moving.
And also, I was kinda confused because I didn't knew if I watered the plants or if I missed so maybe a little sound would be nice.
Instructions were really neat.
Sprite design is fantastic.
Audio is great (even the repeating tune is perfect for the game).
Only complaint is: The plants need more feedback. On my first playthrough I watered both evenly and didn't see a change in either plant.
Well done :)
@tigerfinch Thanks! I always try to keep my games as text-free as possible to make them universally playable. Using symbols also forces me to distill the game rules to their essentials.
@masterpose Thank you! The walking bug never happened to me, but since you commented I did a small fix in movement for other reasons, I suspect that it will have resolved that as well. Please let me know if the bug persists! For watering, the bucket can be emptied only near the roots and has an animation and water noise, if you see no change in the plant it only means that it needs more water :)
@goblinkingmatt Glad that you enjoyed the game! You are not the first one to address the feedback problem. Originally I wanted to implement an easy and a hard mode, so that players could either relax and just have the plants grow very easily (so watering would give almost instant feedback), or have a more challenging experience where the player had to water plants very efficiently to see any progress. In the end I opted for a middle ground, mainly to keep it simple and to be on schedule for the compo.
Animations were great, and the sound (aside from the music :D) was solid. Good job!
One thing I think is that there should be more player feedback. Right now it takes a long time before anything happens, so there's no way to know if you're actually doing anything. I still don't actually know how close I have to stand to the plants to get them to grow.
And the other thing is I think there needs to be some kind of active obstacle in the game. The weeds suggestion you mentioned in your other comment might be a good way to do that.
Although, one strange idea I had about this game: the two things I mentioned, the lack of player feedback and the lack of active challenge, do actually create a somewhat interesting and unique experience. The player is not trying to overcome the mechanical difficulty of the game, but rather the challenge of staying focused on a project that is not necessarily engaging. That's probably not what you were going for, but it's definitely something you *could* go for. :smile:
The art design was nice, the colors worked with with the game, and in particular the walking animation felt nice (kind of round and fluid, fitting nicely with the comforting aesthetic)
The sounds were extremely well done-- there weren't too many, they weren't at all jarring, and they just sounded good. I played it without music and I think that helped give it the soothing tone you seemed to be going for-- just a bit of wind in the background would make it absolutely perfect.
This is kind of silly, but the movement speed was just right-- not too fast and not too slow
Areas for improvement:
The gameplay isn't particularly deep or rewarding, just walking back and forth. Someone else mentioned that it works to give the game a soothing, meditative quality, and I completely agree, but saying that up-front in the description would make it feel more intentional.
It felt a little too long, but that might also connect to the gameplay being sparse.
I'm certainly not the first to mention it, but more overt player feedback would be nice-- probably would help with the game feeling a little aimless.
This is really nit-picky, but outlines are typically supposed to be only 1 pixel thick when making pixel art. Here, it actually works pretty well with your other art, but it might be something to keep in mind going forward.
Check the start of this tutorial for more details http://samkeddy.com/pixel-art-outlines/
Overall:
This is an INCREDIBLE for a first game jam, particularly given that it sounds like you didn't spend the whole 48 hours working on it. It feels polished and completed, and that's a great place to start, since I'm sure you'll be able to expand in scope as you get more experienced and faster with coding. In the end, it's a game about watering plants, and I felt like you really captured the meditative sense of caring for something even if there might not be immediate results.
I think that I would need better sound design and some other changes to convey the feeling better, because based on the feeback I am getting the players do not play the game with the expectation of an experience to be taken slowly and methodically, so I have to set them up. I purposefully avoided any text explanation because it would defeat the purpose of the experience, which is also why I tried to keep the instructions as text free as possible. My idea is that such a game would be playable with as little text as possible, but with mechanics, graphics and sound setting up the player's expectations.