Astonishing!!!

Absolutely stunning! Beautiful graphics, perfectly eerie sounds, interesting gameplay (though a bit hard but so these things tend to be)

Full points, I linked this to my non-LD friends too!

Very beautiful art and pretty hard(but still fun). Great game.

Wow! It's great to know it :heart_eyes: @iorena
Thanks a lot!

Thank you @1studio
Nice to know you had fun :smiley:

Graphics is amazing!!

Great game with great graphics! Beautifully done.

Very flavorful narrative, beautiful art, immersive sounds. The whole package sets up a wonderful mood.

First few tries it was not very clear which resource was which - could have used same or at least similar icons/art for them.

Also it seems that around midgame you start to just take damage for existing, or there are invisible bugs running around gnawing on me. Felt a bit confusing at first.

These nitpicks might turn off a few players from getting into the game, but they can be overcome after becoming familiar with the game.
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Gameplay is challenging and interesting, however felt a bit difficult to control. Using one mouse button for everything might help with mobile port, but current implementation feels kind of painful.

Scrolling feels very slow, especially since it keeps the only controller busy.

Also kept ordering a root to move near another instead of selecting - mouse-over highlight/indicator might have helped (or just right-click for orders).

I feel that both of these would not have been big issues if the game didn't push you to madly rush while managing multiple roots.
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Balance wise, seems like the best strategy is to never make any additional roots and just do a mad dash down. Was having trouble because satisfying sounds encouraged to consume and make roots (especially satisfying!), but apparently it was all a bait :)

Also, the game doesn't stop when you reach the end, so you end up dying while reading the victory text... Or winning, then dying before victory text even loads...
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Overall, very immersive experience, enjoyed it a lot despite some mildly frustrating parts. Let me know if you patch it so I can read the win text :)

Very hard, but rewarding upon completion.

Thank you very much for the detailed feedback @nonumbersgames o/

I'm glad you liked it @wizard-sino o/

@nonumbersgames Your notes were so detailed that I could see your play through, and it seemed like you really put a huge effort on it, and we all are very grateful for that!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the assets, we are going to try to make some arrangements to help the player identify each resource better. We are, also, gonna check about the collision with the bugs to see if their behavior is out of intended.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your feedback about the controls was a treasure trove! We will optimize the controls in a way to not jeopardize the player's experience!
I liked a lot this idea of highlighting when hovering the cursor over a root and use the two mouse buttons to prevent some minor misclicks.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We got your point, and we will work on the game's balance to keep things smooth and fair to the player. The same will be done towards the games' end, so the beautiful artwork of our artist could be appreciated by all S2!
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We are deeply sorry that so many things hindered your experience, but on top of that we are even happier that you did your best to enjoy the game and pinpoint all this small things to help us improve the game.

Big cheers, matey!!!

P.S.: we will make sure to let you know when the changes were made!

A beautiful and eerie game. I love it! Scrolling felt a bit clunky but otherwise the gameplay was excellent.

great game, is fun , but but the ants get in the way, because even though you are away from the vineyards, he can sometimes go to the vineyards kk

Regarding the resource assets, you could combine the two styles, so that the in game resources would have an icon at their core. Or color code the icons in the HUD. Or make the in-game resource the shape of the icons.

Also, you don't need to apologize - it is a jam game, it is not possible or expected to be perfect. And the fact that I wrote so much stuff was because I really enjoyed the experience despite the nitpicks.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much I devised a strategy to reach the end with enough health so I have time to read the end game text before death screen overrides it. It involves only making one additional root, moving along middle, and always moving - if the root has time to slurp up the whole resource, then it is staying in place too much!

That worked, but even better strategy was to go near the bottom, and then wait until you have only a few health left - then issue the final move down command while dying. Root continues to move after death, triggering the victory and overriding the death screen...

So yeah, I'm still enjoying the heck out of this game, thank you for making it :)

Cheers to you too!

P.S.: Thank you, I also followed on itch.io so I should get a notification for any updates

The art is stunning! Cool concept. Scrolling should be on the mousewheel and maybe make the click "hitboxes" a little bit larger. I first made the mistake that I took only one node and traversed down. The next attempt I tried to have most of the nodes moving at the same time. Good game, keep it up!

@thearchitect Thanks a lot, brudda! Our artist, @caiolima, rocks!
Cheers lad!

@appix We appreciate that you liked! We tried to deliver our best!

Best wishes to you!

@christian-jallas Yeah man, those ants can be quite bugging (pun intended), jokes aside, try to keep your water supply always filled, this way you can recover in no time! Also, thanks for the feedback, we appreciate it!

Cheers, man!

@pfeyffer Thanks for sharing! And thanks too for the feedback, we are changing some of the game to improve the controls, be sure to keep an eye on it!

Cheers, dude!

@rhewid Many players pointed that, so we are currently changing the camera movement control and the roots clicking mechanics to reduce this sort of thing, so keep an eye for the update! This is a tricky strategy, remember to keep your stats filled!

Cheers, friend-o!

Like most have said, the art for this game is really well done! A very fun resource management game. The only thing that felt a bit off was how slow the scrolling up and down was. Good stuff all around!

@nonumbersgames New Build is available, have a try! We hope you enjoy this version more than the previous one!

Have fun, Matey!!!

@maxwell3000 Thanks for your feedback, on behalf of the team, i would like to thank you for playing, and also, am happy that you enjoyed the art!! If you haven't tried our new build, we strongly suggest you to do such, we've made some QOL changes to make your experience better, but if you already have tried it, it is even better!

Cheers lad!

Not bad, a bit lore heavy but looked cool.

Thank you @death-is-cold! We've just went deeper and deeper in the lore during the proccess haha o/

This was unnerving in a good kind of way, the audio really set the mood. Well done, very unique!

It's a beauty and artistical view of the theme!

@cambosouph Thank you! We're also glad that you enjoyed the music and sound effects! Setting the mood was really our goal! o/

@marcionix Thank you! We are glad that you enjoyed the experience!

The new build is great - controls feel so much better!

Combined resource art looks great too.

Slower roots leave more time to manage and direct others while they are on the way, which encourages more roots.
That along with reduced bug damage rate makes the experience less hectic and more methodical, while more roots still provide challenge to manage everything.

Of course, having experienced and overcome the intense hectic rush of previous version, this now feels bit too easy :D But at this point I'm not a typical player and should be disregarded as an outlier, so the difficulty might be just right for new players.

All in all, you not only managed to make a great game, but released it early enough to get feedback and update before the deadline. Great job, and thank you for your patience and hard work!

P.S. The Itch page lists the old control scheme, might benefit from an update.

@nonumbersgames You sure one helluva player, you were able to overcome the previous build and now have experienced this new one fully, you deserve all the credits to beat this game in all of its instances! And thanks for the head`s up, we will change the control list on the itch.io page!

We wish you all the best, matey!!

Thank you, all the best to you too!

The art is gorgeous, plus with the music and the intro it really creates a creepy mood, I liked it a lot!
I struggled a little bit getting used to the controls (since it mostly uses the mouse, I kept trying to use my scroll wheel to move the view instead of W/S - force of habit!) but once I got the hang of it, I enjoyed it - it's nice watching the roots grow out where you've clicked them to. Really cool use of the theme too, the mechanics suit it well! :smiley:

@voidfishing Thank you for the feedback! We are glad that you liked it and have found a way to play it despite the initial barrier of inputs!

The fact that it has tutorial and increasing difficulty shows it is very well thought. I liked the experience overall, even though it was a bit hard sometimes. Didn't like as much the menu song as the in game sounds and effects, but this is taste option. Congrats to the devs!

Overall very good, both the graphics and sound fit very well and the whole game has a good atmosphere. I agree that using the scroll wheel for control is a good idea, but otherwise nothing to complain about.

beautiful game in every aspect! kinda hard to grap in the beggining, need to play a couple times to get it

Beatuiful game with cool music and great graphics! Love the idea and the game is such a great blend of beauty and also mild creepiness and being unsettling. Lots of fun!

WOW ! What an idea ! Amazing ! I find it hard but what a game ! damn ! Congratulation !

I really enjoyed the underground survival mechanism ; the game felt like a mix of resource management, STR-like micromanagement with a touch of Tower "Offense". Pretty unique experience, plus got to learn a ton about mandragoras :)

Strenghts :
- Strong root-based core mechanic
- The balance keep you on your toes
- Cool sound effects

Possible Improvements :
- Making the roots faster would increase the dynamism ; altough then you would ose the planning aspect of your game which I quite loved, so it's more of a design decision than an obvious improvement.

Congrats !

@villanelle Thanks for sharing your opinion about the game! It is all right, when I was doing the music, personally, I felt that the victory music was a little off when it comes to the ambience, but we are really happy that you enjoyed the game nonetheless!

Cheers!!!

@romanempire It is such an honor to receive the opinion from the Roman Empire itself hahaha. Jokes aside, we did consider using the scroll wheel to move the camera, but the programmer said a valid opinion, that if the player accidentally move the mouse outside the game screen, he would be scrolling the webpage instead of the game's camera, so we choose the keyboard to prevent that instead. But we truly appreciate your idea!

Cheers and long live to the Roman Empire!!

@tinoko we are glad to read that! And we also want to congratulate you for being able to overcome your initial adversity and enjoyed the game!

Big cheers to you and your effort!!

@sequoiadolce Yeah, we tried our best to create a balance between the game's mythical aesthetic and making the player feel some sort of tension due to the threats of the underground!

Cheers friend!!

@tieffeline Thanks pal! We hope that it wasn't hard enough to hinder your experience and affected your enjoyment!

Cheers pal!!!

@jlv It is a great pleasure to receive the thought of a ludum dare's veteran! To be honest, we tried to implement some sort of speed boost by passing inside of tunnels made by a new worm entity, but in the end we could not do it on time to deliver, sadly.


P.S. i loved the term tower offense and one day I promise to make a game totally focused on that!!

Cheers matey!!!

Stellar work! Loved the whole mystical theme, crazy how people can make art like this in three days.

Really like the concept, it's very unique. Very interesting take on a management type game. I don't know if I just suck, but it was really hard to keep track of everything that was going on, especially when the more roots there were the more things I had to click, and I also didn't really get what those underground creatures actually did, if they cut the roots or the chords...

The screeching at the end was a bit much xD

Overall, nice work!

Interesting mechanics! I really have fun to play this game! Cool atmosphere! Thank you) And so adorable graphic and sounds) Great job!

Nice game, really liked the graphics! Mechanics are kinda fun but it's so hard to focus on all roots at some points haha! Good job :D !

There are some really great visuals in this and i really think you guys did a great job. Keep up the good work and i hope to see you next ludum dare!

Wonderful art! the scream is really earie!!! Nice concept

Nice graphics! The Game Over sound destroyed my ear drums tho...

@crow-seeds Hey man! Thanks for playing the game. Even ourselves got impressed by how things ended up like that in the end!

Cheers my dude!!

@mateusboga Que nada, pá! A lot of people had trouble with the game's difficulty. We are sorry that the obstacles weren't clear enough on what would happen with the player if they ended up colliding with them, so lemme try to explain: The ants attack the nearest root for 2 seconds, after that they go their merry way; if your root clash with a rock, the root gets permanently stuck, and you can't get away from that space; and last, but not least, if your root touches a broken "chávena", that root got burned, and you lose it!

I hope the game is a little more clear with that quick explanation.

Big cheers, lad!!!

P.S. Teus projetos são bué fixe!!!

@alina-baybulatova That is so nice of you! We are all flattered that you enjoyed our little game!

We wish you all the best!!!

@tyrannas Hey friend, yeah dude, we tried to create a "push your luck" of sorts that the player must have to choose whether he wanted a safer round with few roots but fewer stats, or want to go full crazy resorting to 8 roots and trynna control all of them while avoiding all the threats of the underground. But we are happy that you enjoyed it despite the hardship!

Cheers dude!!!

@chambre19 It melts our hearts to read this sort of message S2, we will definitely to be present on the next one, and if we do, you will be the first one that will know about our new game!! We also wish to see you again on the next one, huh?.

Big cheers, my friend!!!!

@marcovalekaz Hey brudda, we are glad that you liked it! It is so satisfying to see people like you enjoying our project!

Cheers, pal!!!

@sadsmile Hey dude, maybe when I was trying to pass the idea of high-pitched scream, just maybe, I forgot to decrease the volume, and sorry about that, I will remember on the next one. But I am glad that you liked!

Cheers pal!!!!

It took a while to understand the mechanics, it's really unusual implementation. Also it's quite difficult to dodge insects.
I liked the art of the girl-mandrake, but it seems that the roots do not quite match the overall visual because of straight lines. Thanks for your game, great job~

This might be my favorite this jam. It reminds me of games made by studio Barnaque. It took a few tried by I beat the game. I had to micro so many roots. The enemies weren't too hard to avoid once I understood how they worked.

This one was really cool! Graphics and sounds were solid, and while the rules of the game (what the different resources do) took a while to become clear, I had fun with it. Great job guys!

Really like this game, the Art and the Sound Design ! It's a great idea that uses smart game design choices and this is a polished game ! Good job !

Hi! I really liked the oniric/fairy-tale visuals, with a good choice in color palette. Really good job!

very cool, slightly unsettling, very good mood. Nice entry! Only gripe is that it would be fun to step up the time scale a bit to make a bit faster

Beautiful. Would have loved an animation on the scream :smile: very nice congratulations on the executions.

The concept is great, I really like the visual style and sound. The controls were a bit offputting for me, I think the game could benefit from simplifying them to one left mouse click. But after all it's one of that weird surreal strangely awesome games, that don't actually need a gameplay. It's more about art and conveying emotions. And this's something you've managed to achieve. Congratulations!

@euphelys Hey brudda, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, and we appreciate that you liked it! Yeah, the roots ended up being made the programmer, our artist enjoyed so much doing the mandrake that when he noticed, our time was almost up hahaha.

Cheers, brudda!!!

@apos hey dude, that is no small feat! If IGN would rate this game, they might have said too "much ants" hahaha, just kidding! And thanks for the tip about Barnaque studios, we weren't familiar with it.

Big cheers, dude!!!

@lectvs Thanks a lot Hayden, my pal! I enjoyed so much watching you playing the game yesterday on twitch, I took some notes on whether improve future games to make it clearer, so the players get the grip of it easily

Big shoutout, man!!!!

@shin0nome We all are flattered by your words, amigo! We tried our best to exceed on our roles, and we are thankful that you enjoyed the final product!!!

Cheers friend-o!!!!

@juanj7 Thanks a lot, pal, work with this sort of fantastic Gothic"esque" theme is not easy we are glad that you enjoyed!

Big cheers Juan!!!

@nikolaj Thanks for your feedback! Many people agree with you, and so do us. After lots of playing we noticed that the camera was at a slower pace while the game is kinda fast-paced. We plan to improve that in the future!

Cheers pal!!!

@mdotedot Yeah man, we would love to have the mandrake animated yawning and waking suddenly and screaming, it would be so sick, huh? For the next project we will try to organize ourselves to implement more things in that time!

Cheers man!!!

@bereg Hey pal, thanks for sharing with us your opinion! At first, we had the mouse left click button to both select and move the roots, but we noticed, after a lot of feedback, that this way, all the players had a lot of misclicks, so we decided to distribute the actions among the two buttons, this way we managed to reduce drastically the misclicks! But we also wanted to thank you for playing our game and, on top of that, enjoyed it!

Big cheers to you, brudda!

Congratulations on the game, very fun game, at first I didn't understand it very well, but then I started to practice, the game's ambience was very good, I appreciate the opportunity to play your game, a big hug to everyone, and I await your evaluations regarding the my game.

Thank you very much for the feedback @etrealjunior o/ I'm going to check your entry too!

Nice game!
I gave some feedbacks to Cabelinho!
Good luck!

Kreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

In other words, excellent game concept with a really cool vibe. Reminds me of a 1999 or so PC game. Really unsettling and the audio direction was excellent and worked fantastically with the visuals.

Very cool, I like the lore/world-building included in the game's premise. The art style is amazing as well. Great work!

Thank you for the feedback @lucas-de-carvalho-lorena o/

@squidly We are glad that you appreciated the game concept and audio design, It was really our goal!

@amerigo-gazaway So nice to read your interest about the game's inner lore! Thank you so much!

Cool take on the theme! The art and audio made for a very immersive experience. The game was tough!

I'll agree with some of the other commenters, in that the different resources and stats could have been communicated more clearly. I would have also cut down the scream volume by about half - it was very jarring the first time I heard it.

Good work!

The visuals on this were next level, just gorgeous. And I love that you took the time to establish the setting and the mandrake lore a bit with the opening scene (though the text itself could do with some fixing :wink:). The sounds also did a great job of establishing the tone. It was a sensory feast.

It took me a while to get a feel for the gameplay, and as others have mentioned, the various resource stats could have been clearer. I saw the symbols, but somehow it was still a bit obscure, and sometimes the low stat warnings had a very low threshold before death.

The hazards were also a bit vague. At first I thought the ants would actually sever root offshoots (which could have been fun, and made the calcium stat more useful) but I presume they were just causing damage of some kind (though again, this wasn't super clear).

However, once I figured out that I should be growing strategically, rather than just propagating all over the place, it was a very different experience. Seeing that hand lifting up from the pool at the bottom was also a great motivator to get to the end, and I enjoyed the experience immensely. Lovely use of the theme too! So very good work all round!

I could easily see it expanding even further to flesh out the world (that text intro really got its hooks into my mind :smile:) and further root puzzles of advancing difficulty.

@andrewkennedy Hey dude, thanks for the feedback! I agree that the interface came out a tad confusing, both this and a better tutorial are noted to give a better work on the next game (and if I work with any other screams I will lower the volume this time, sorry about that hahaha), also, we are glad that you enjoyed our game !!!

Cheers dude!!!

@vesper Hey matey, thanks for the tips, the text was done very quickly to make the transition between the menu screen and game screen more immersive, but you bet on the next one I will give more attention to be visually pleasing (and I will keep an eye on grammar typos and minor errors in general :P). You are, also, totally right about the HUD elements, it was a little confusing to get a grip at first sight, we thought that it became clearer to notice with the second version of the tutorial, the previous one looked like a board game rule book, so we made things a little less tiresome for the player notice, check it out:

I like a lot that idea to give calcium another function, it would be awesome if we increase the game's scope and create more levels and difficulties, and, if we do so, you're gonna be the first one to know about the news!!!! We really appreciate all the positive comments, and much more the feedback that you brought to us, matey!!!!!

We wish you all the best!!!

beautiful, I enjoyed learning about the lore and the beautiful art!

I could reminded of Mandrake scream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnm3qzbZf_A

@oco Hey dude, So great to read that you enjoyed our game! And, oh boy! What an interesting and funny scene you selected hahahahahah, maybe our mandrake was a distant cousin of that one, there is lots of underground and mandrakes out there, I am wondering on how this crossover would end if they meet for a scream competition!

Hope you are doing great, dude!
Cheers!!!

Very nice, I've seen a few roots digging for water games in this LD, and this is one of the nicer ones. The mandrake is a nice twist to that theme. Good work, congrats!

Thank you very much for the comment @pat-cleaver o/