Luxurious Panama Hats by RainFrogs

[raw]
made by RainFrogs for LD34 (JAM)
Luxurious Panama Hats is a game about growing a tree while fighting off Monty Python-esque hands with your thorns. Don't let them get all your leaves!
All art has been found on:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/
and is in public domain

CONTROLS:
Z: Descend left / Confirm selection
C: Descend Right / Cycle selection

The game mechanic is centered around a binary tree, meaning at each branch (starting at the main trunk) you can choose to travel either left(Z) or right(C).
If you travel into an empty space you will be prompted to choose a new branch (in gray) for that node, using C to cycle through them and Z to confirm. Once you have confirmed you will return to the root.
If you travel into a terminal node (leaf, thorn, twig) then pressing Z will return you to the root.

The hands will randomly target a leaf on the tree and reach down and try to pluck it. If the hand hits a thorn on its way to pluck the leaf, the thorn will fall off and the hand will retreat. If it reaches the leaf, however, it will pluck it and leave behind a twig which cannot be removed or built on.

The goal is to grow as many leaves as you can before the hands pluck all of them! Good luck!

Feedback

Alloyed
15. Dec 2015 · 02:31 UTC
+ Reminds me of World of Goo/other 2d boy games in a good way: it has that same visceral sense of growth and improvement when things are going well and panic when they aren't
- Controls are bad. This probably isn't a surprise, but it really does unnecessarily slow down the flow of the game
- I don't really understand the hand's behavior: sometimes they will go for the thorns, other times not, and I still don't know if they will go for a thorn you placed after they showed up on screen
Reggianito
15. Dec 2015 · 03:17 UTC
After a few attempts, I found some rhythm to the game. It's weird, but fun. Could greatly benefit from having some soft sfx and some old time music (hint: lots of public domain old timey music over at archive.org), but everything in the game is solid.
UntitledQ
15. Dec 2015 · 04:50 UTC
Confusing controls :/
intXparts
15. Dec 2015 · 23:21 UTC
Awesome concept! I really got into it after learning the controls. Fantastic job on the artwork and music, it felt like watching a turn-crank film.
VladRusu
16. Dec 2015 · 15:14 UTC
GJ for the art
cacciatc
20. Dec 2015 · 01:52 UTC
Definitely, the most unique entry I have played so far.