Botanica by FDK

made by FDK for Ludum Dare 48 (COMPO)

Botanica is a game about a botanist addicted to collecting rare plant specimens. To sustain his addiction he has no choice but to send his beloved son deeper and deeper into the jungle as he's not fit enough anymore to do so himself.

Normally the idea was to get the environment to be a jungle that gets more and more dense with the time but I didn't have the time to draw art (being a great artist as you'll notice) to make it obvious.

Please be kind, this is the first real game I ever made in my life ! I had fiddled with Unity for a bit but never did anything more than some movement in a test scene. It was the first time I used animations, UI, multiple scenes, sound, particles, builds, ...

Thanks a lot for this great jam and I'll make sure to make it for the next one with a lot more knowledge !

Also, it would be of great help if any of you Unity guru could give me some advice on the code maybe as I'm just starting out.. I had to cut a few corners at the end as well so that's why a lot of the collectible plant stuff is not DRY at all, but anyway, .. Thanks !

*Technologies Used : * - Unity 2021 - Aseprite for the ""Art"" - BeepBox for the ""Music"" - Vedett IPA for the ""Late Night Inspiration""

Link	https://fdk-games.itch.io/botanica
Link	https://gitlab.com/vandersteenmartin/botanica
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/botanica

Ratings

Overall	636^th	3.194⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Fun	554^th	3.167⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	737^th	2.686⭐	37🧑‍⚖️
Theme	793^th	2.853⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	610^th	3.153⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Audio	512^th	3.014⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Given		31🗳️	47🗨️

Feedback

Rouge_dragon

26. Apr 2021 · 08:45 UTC

I can't move the character. What are the controls for your game?

🎤 FDK

26. Apr 2021 · 08:52 UTC

Hey @rouge-dragon, I wrote it on the main menu, normally they're mapped to A (left) and D (right), is it not working for you ? Thanks for trying anyways !!

TomekS

26. Apr 2021 · 08:58 UTC

works fine here it's quite fun and coherent. The jump curve seems somehow off but can't put my finger why exactly. Good entry.

wiffled

26. Apr 2021 · 09:00 UTC

Good job! I'm a big fan of the death animation, especially how if you hit another enemy while dying you bounce again - made me giggle. I like the art style too, very twee.

Rouge_dragon

26. Apr 2021 · 09:05 UTC

@fdk Sorry, I didn't see it. It works, great job!!!

lokt02

26. Apr 2021 · 09:16 UTC

looks pretty good

Omid Ghavami

26. Apr 2021 · 09:20 UTC

Love the song, very catchy! :D Graphics are nice and quirky. I'm not particular fond of plattformers in general, but the gameplay was fun!

Esosek

26. Apr 2021 · 14:39 UTC

For a first game jam very well done! I like the music and the idea is interesting too. I would suggest making it easier because it was very hard to navigate through the floating balls :D Also I would like to get the camera from bigger distance to see what's where more clearly

nethead

26. Apr 2021 · 16:04 UTC

Great job for a first jam, the platforming feels good and you got a few different mechanics in :D Totally fits the theme. The player is super well drawn/animated. Could maybe be a bit more forgiving with the instant death for a jam game, but it was not overly challenging regardless (which is good!).

neonjeff

26. Apr 2021 · 17:13 UTC

Nice first game! I liked the character animations and art style! it looks great. The gameplay is a bit hard for me, but I feel like most platformers end up that way. I died a lot.

🎤 FDK

26. Apr 2021 · 17:20 UTC

Yeah, I was worried it would be a bit too easy and straightforward so I spiced it up, probably a bit too much. The plants throwing the projectiles are a bit too strong, I'll make sure to have a more progressive difficulty curve next time ! I didn't have enough time to do proper level design so I had to speed a bit through it.

And when I see other games that are WAY more beautiful and polished but just simpler, I think I'll go for that next time ! Great core mechanics and correct art is better than trying to do a bit of everything and not being good in much ahah.

In any case I did learn a TON of things doing this Jam, and by looking at other games it made me want to work a bit in learning the basics of Pixel Art in order to be able to create some more coherent visuals.

Thanks everyone who tested the game up so far ! I hope I'll get to 20 reviews, it would be pretty cool for a first time :)

Skye S

26. Apr 2021 · 17:23 UTC

While the connection to the theme is not the strongest, this game had me chuckling at a few points from the goofy death animation. The music is very repetitive, perhaps without the time to commit to a longer or more varied sound track this project may have been better served by no music at all. Overall, good job on your first jam!

CandleBird

26. Apr 2021 · 17:24 UTC

Had a lot of trouble getting past the jump on the second level (frogs and snakes). Overall, the game was nice, but I struggled with the controls (maybe the sideways movement was too slow or the gravity felt weird?). The player animations were great though!

PookiPoot

26. Apr 2021 · 17:39 UTC

I enjoyed the flopping death physics. Getting chucked by 3 snakes in a row was a pretty good time.

Kirbloid

26. Apr 2021 · 19:09 UTC

Death physics were such a nice touch. I enjoyed that as you got deeper into the forest, the mechanics and danger became deeper as well.

rhoff95

26. Apr 2021 · 19:18 UTC

Cool game. Sprites for enemies and player are really well done. I would have liked to see a mechanic related to the theme, not just a framing device. The concept that each level is deeper does not affect gameplay, and platformers are already very difficulty to make without some cool twist.

LDJam user 245471

26. Apr 2021 · 19:20 UTC

The controls are a bit slow, and instead of having the player face the mouse I think it should be the direction the player is going in. Also I think it's strange how touching those worm things instantly throw you into the air and kill you. It could be more related to the theme, and the graphics could be better, but I really like the font used on the title screen, and the music is good!

🎤 FDK

26. Apr 2021 · 19:25 UTC

Thanks a lot for your feedbacks guys, I'll make sure to keep throwing goofy death animations in my game !

@rhoff95 Yeah I wanted to include the theme a bit more in the overall atmosphere but turns out I vastly overevaluated my art skills and the time it would all take ahah. Huge thanks for your detailed feedback.

@mkmuffi thanks a lot for the feedback ! I agree that the controls are not polished enough and the animations don't go well enough together, I'll make sure to work on those core mechanics more next time. I had initial trouble making the player move and jump like I wanted so it took a while and I didn't want to spend a whole day on it. Next time I'll reduce my scope and make it more polished. Regarding the orientation of the player, it's meant to work well with the point where you get the Rifle so that you always aim at the mouse but I agree that it's off putting. Thanks for playing !!

goodwincek

26. Apr 2021 · 21:05 UTC

Funny that you omitted "Humor" from the ratings with the way your character dies in this game from a tiny snake!

🎤 FDK

26. Apr 2021 · 21:33 UTC

@goodwincek ahahah yeah you're right I thought it was about actual jokes and not just complete ridiculousness but I would have snatched some points there for sure

Madking

26. Apr 2021 · 21:34 UTC

Is rare to see ragdoll in pixel art keep up I'm interesting to see what you can do in the future

Spliddo

26. Apr 2021 · 21:51 UTC

Great approach on the ragdolls :o This is very good, simple yet detailed. Controls could see an improvement, but overall great!

Beepboop

26. Apr 2021 · 22:01 UTC

Game looks and feels pretty fun, honestly really good considering its your first one ever!

ThatmanRobin

26. Apr 2021 · 22:45 UTC

It was fun but I'm convinced frogs are inherently evil.

antonishig

27. Apr 2021 · 13:15 UTC

I love the music! It definitely has some exotic jungle vibe...
Death animations too, are really cool.
A bit hard maybe?

Great work!!

mactinite

28. Apr 2021 · 02:48 UTC

Nicely done, I really like the character animation, and the when the character gets bounced around a bunch when dying is very entertaining, lessens the blow of the MANY deaths I had as this game is pretty hard. Deeper and deeper into the forest :smiley:

Eduardo Yukio

30. Apr 2021 · 13:34 UTC

I loved the death animation haha

The music is decent, i just think that the loop is too short. It becomes a bit repetitive too quickly.

I didn't like the difficulty curve: on the last level many enemies come from out of the screen, so there is no time to react. If the machete were like a thing that I could reflect damage coming from anywhere it would be more useful in my opinion.

But for a first game, it's very good! Nice job!

Zettabit

04. May 2021 · 00:49 UTC

This is a nice game for a first jam/game. As others have said the death animation is pretty great, but there are a few gameplay issues. The third level difficulty spikes way too much. Also you can walk along the ground on the third level and fall out of the world, which seems to just leave you falling through the void forever. The death animation is a bit long if you end up dying a lot. It's easy to see that you learned a lot from all the different pieces you've brought together into this game. Nice work.

ryzy27

09. May 2021 · 11:26 UTC

Music and ragdoll physics are really fun, I enjoyed the game a lot :)

Later levels get difficult quite fast though, I wish I could use machete to attack enemies.

Cheers!

Pierce Brooks

12. May 2021 · 02:41 UTC

The tile set could have used a bit more love, but otherwise, your sprite sheets were clearly very well cared for :)

notanimposter

16. May 2021 · 04:45 UTC

Death animation 10/10