Root Deeper by BrielleY
Root Deeper is a tree growing survival simulator. You can play it on the web.
I've changed my entry from Compo to Jam to add ambience sound, root art, bug fixes, etc. License file of the third party assets I used is included in the Windows build zip.
Thank you for all your feedbacks that have helped me in improving the game so far. And please feel free to leave comments if you have anything you'd like to share. All responces are appreciated. :)
- How to Play -
- The goal is to make your tree alive and grow.
- Make sure your energy and water is above the daily use before clicking Next Day button to survive. Generate Energy button will change your water and CO2 into energy.
- After certain days of survival, the tree will grow, which means you can get more CO2 everyday, and at the same time, you'll have to use more water and energy to survive. The tree can grow four times in total.
- You can root or root deeper at most three times everyday to improve your daily water get. Root button cost 1 energy, while Root Deeper button cost 2-3 energy depending on how far your root reaches, and the reward of Root Deeper is higher, as well as the its risk.
- The weather is changing everyday randomly. In sunny days you get more CO2 and less water, while in rainy days you get more water and less CO2, and in cloudy days everything is just in-between. There's chance of forest fire in the sunny days, which will make your tree lose large amount of water.
- Post Jam Bugfixes -
- Now the roots image can show properly when maximized the roots. (Fixed on Apr 27. Thanks @risk4bisk for bringing the issue to my attention).
- Now the WebGL build's default resolution is changed into 540p to match the itch.io page layout. Please feel free to download the Windows build if you prefer 1080p and better sound quality. (Fixed on Apr 27, v1.0.2.2).
- Add "How to Play" instruction on the web page and in the Windows build zip file as readme.txt. Thank y'all for the feedbacks about it. (Added on May 3, without changing the game).
| Link | https://brielley.itch.io/root-deeper |
| Link | https://brielley.itch.io/root-deeper |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/root-deeper |
Ratings
| Overall | 1007th | 3.468⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1360th | 3.043⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 347th | 3.739⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 783th | 3.745⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1072th | 3.372⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 51🗳️ | 60🗨️ |
Good job overall!
I guess is it you accidentally pressed the Generate Energy button and your CO2 is around 11 so it just used out immediately?
I had following situation:
Technically I could just go to "Next Day" and it should be fine (I had enough water and energy for one day)... but I clicked "Generate Energy" and it generated 10 energy and cosumed 10 water units. I left with 6 water and died :)
Maybe the "Generate Energy" should work in a bit different way? It wasn't obvious for me that 10 water units will be used. Or maybe having 2 separate buttons would be better (to generate +1 or +10 energy)?
wait...it's my first time attending game jam, am I allowed to fix it after the submitting hour?
- Having the water cost of roots displayed would help a lot to understand what you are doing
- The events can really blind side you but that might be by design and meant to force players to plan ahead
@gibss Thank you for your feedback. Yeah, I just let the energy number and daily get water number changed when root or root deeper, and it's not that straightforward, I should have a ui to show the cost and reward of roots clearly.
@risk4bisk Congratulations! And thank you so much for this feedback, because it should have a large root image when maximized the roots! There seems to have a bug, I'll find it out and fix it later.
And also thank you for the suggestion about CO2, yea, when there's one rainy day after another and the CO2 is very limited, there's not much space left for decision making. I just didn't find the balance point between the emotion that sometimes life just doesn't give you choices all you can do is just wait for the sun to rise again, and the fun that you made the right decision to save you from horrible situations. Thank you for point it out, and I think that's what I should improve after the Jam.
@mighty-mufflon-games Thank you for your feedback. Yea, I should make a tutorial at the beginning next time!
Спасибо за симулятор дерева! ^_^
@gargantus You must be very lucky to have wonderful weathers and rare fire. Just as in real life, the lucky ones are always feel bored with simply being alive, while the unfortunate ones are struggling hard to survive until the last day of their lives, and the average are carefully planning their life to resist the next hard time.
@mariszin Thank you for your feedback. Yeah, in the first 3 days when the tree is very small, survive is largely depend on what you met instead of what you did. Feel free to restart if your tree meet horrible weathers in the first few days.
@xpoho (I used a machine translator, hope the translation is correct)"It is quite difficult to preserve a tree when nature strives to destroy you. But the tree will stand!" I love your words. It's really so touching and heartwarming. Yea, the tree will stand. :deciduous_tree:
@boxedmeatrevolution Thank you for your feedback. Yeah I do need to make a clearer instruction at the beginning of the game. And thank you so much for your patience. I'm glad you enjoy it at last!
Otherwise, that's a cool concept and I spent more time on it that I should tell to my boss, so congrats =p !
Some remarks:
1. Game lacks of pricing indication. Expectation: game shows prices for generating energy and roots with icons and numbers.
2. Sometimes game unexpectedly converts too much resources into energy. Especially when you already prepare to buy resources multiple times in a row. Expectation: game converts same amount of resources each time using same button and for converting more resources you can use a separate button.
3. You can root deeper and get -2 energy on the first day. Expectation: game checks current value of energy and prevents spending it when it is less than required.
Good entry!
However, the third is just one of the game machenics. When you "root", there's a "risk control system" to check the current value of energy and prevent you from "root" when you don't have enough energy to survive after "root". But when you "root deeper", the higher reward of everyday water requires not only a higher cost of energy, but also a higher risk which means there's no "risk control system" any more and you need to calculate and control the "root deeper"'s risk yourself. And thank you for your feedback, it's really something I should write in the first day's instructions next time!
I also didn't really understand what the fire did? Maybe I played too fast?
It's still a very nice game, and I loved being a tree for a while!
Beautiful graphics!
As some comments above, it would be nice to know how much root or depper root will cost.
@marcionix I played your game just now! Yeah, our ideas are so similar, and I really enjoy your approach that I have the autonomy to control where to root and see the consequence of that! And also thank you for your feedback, yea I really should write clearer instructions next time!
My LP :slight_smile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yRNuvGmCSE
@maniulo Yeah, it's kinda like a management sim, though the goal is not to become the next big thing but to survive as long as one can. And thank you for your suggestion about UI, I'm the kind of person that will be attracted by numbers especially changing numbers at first sight, so I just didn't aware that they may not be noticed at the very beginning of the game. Thank you so much, I should make the important informations more attractive next time!
@ddrkirbyisq Yeah, as a gamer, I found myself strangely addict to RNG-based mechanics very easily as well. Maybe it's because it's kinda like life. We don't know what we'll meet, no matter how we planed, there're always surprises, as if everything happens randomly, and we just love life, love it for what it is. And thank you for your feecback about UI, I'd make it more intuitive next time!
@majadroid I'm sorry, the roots graph will only be shown after maximizing the root. If time permitted, I wanna make every root and root deeper visualized as well. And thank you for your feedback, it just occurs to me that I can make a branch of roots visualized after "digging" several times, and then another branch, if the branch number is not too large then the work won't be too much and I can finish it in a game jam. And that would largely improve the game experience. I just didn't think it out during the jam, and thank you so much I'll keep it in mind next time.
By the way, when you click on "root deeper" before "root", it results in this funny visual where the first tile is completely skipped. :D