a plant called martha by Tetralogia
Take care of your plant and talk to it! The game is not quite finished and we'd like to improve it, so don't hesitate to give us some constructive criticism.
Ratings
| Overall | 1147th | 3.528⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1298th | 3.278⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1826th | 2.972⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 769th | 3.861⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1466th | 3.444⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 648th | 3.361⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 953th | 3.528⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 9🗳️ | 19🗨️ |


The dialog was very cute and kept me smiling, and I learned some neat plant facts! The general ambiance was extremely charming, and the music complemented that perfectly.
If you are going down the experience/interactive-fiction route I'd still like to have on impact on what actually happens. For a linear experience/story there are better alternatives than interactive media.
So, depending on how the plant is treated (i.e. what it is "fed" and how the discussions go) there could be multiple versions for the next growth stage pertaining to many visual attributes (height, width, leaf size, color, spiky, smooth/rough, flowery, etc). The personality should also be affected by the owner's choices, after all the plant doesn't get to talk to anyone else or even see the outside world.
Currently there isn't too much to this project. It works and fits the theme ok enough, that's fine for a jam.
*And why does the pot have the eyes and not the plant?*
Some areas of improvement
- The dialogue for the plant/options for talking felt very unnatural. I think it is mainly because it felt like I would never talk or say things in that way. Like it was supposed to be "me" but also it felt very not "me"? It also felt like I was clicking options just to progress than honestly wanting to talk to the plant. Perhaps spending more time here would help.
- I thought that the bars needed to be maxed out and not letting the value drop below the marker was the goal, but it seems we should keep it around the marker? Maybe having "danger" zones on the bars would be better indicators.
- I felt like I was spending a lot of time waiting for the bars to drop.
- Could be nice to be able to switch the music. There was research done that showed different music cause different growths with plants.
Overall great job.
Some idea for improvements
- Maybe a different font for dialogs, I felt like it was not fitting very well with the art style
- More indications about how to progress
Otherwise well executed idea !
I did not understand why the game ended for me. It was just like: Game Over. But I felt I had Martha pretty well fed, watered and entertained...
Also the pots perspective was a bit off?
Other than that a pretty nice and calming game. Thank you for the experience!