Fickle Forest by n00begon

[raw]
made by n00begon for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

Create a stable ecosystem by choosing what creatures will live in the fickle forest. Try and get a high score in Fickle Forest mode or explore the system with the Sandbox. Created for Ludum Dare 49 in 72 Hours.

Art by BlueheadViking and Joshrl

Gameplay by jaberwocky33 stbelousov and n00begon

Made in Godot

Ratings

Overall 1386th 2.925⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1446th 2.575⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 747th 3.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 508th 3.8⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 897th 3.45⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1118th 2.289⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1311th 2.725⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 7🗳️ 14🗨️

Feedback

KreGames
04. Oct 2021 · 21:25 UTC
Great concept! Some sound would be great, and some animation on the movement of the animals. These ecosystems get out of hands pretty quickly! I liked it! It was fun and challenging! Cool entry, with nice atrwork! Loved the cartoony style.
toketsupuurin
04. Oct 2021 · 21:33 UTC
You have a solid start here, I think. Even in sandbox the mechanics of who eats what, and how to score feel obscure. You might want to consider rearranging the menu of animals so that they're organized in a way that suggests to the player which animal they might want to add to the forest next (so first the plants, then the rabbits, then rabit predators, etc.)

the ability to slow down and speed up time would be nice so I can watch what's going on to really see what a particular animal does. (but once I understand the system running the game on slow would probably be dull.) An effect that plays when an animal breeds or dies might help with that too.
Cookie_CHR
05. Oct 2021 · 19:39 UTC
Great game, fits well into the theme! Really hard to keep this forest from falling apart!
nardandas
06. Oct 2021 · 06:25 UTC
Really polished-looking game. Sadly, I don't think there was quite enough feedback to give the player what they needed to succeed. As well, the super small click limit kind of limits the experimentation you can do in one run. It'd be nice if something was changed there so it was easier to figure out the game.
🎤 n00begon
06. Oct 2021 · 19:39 UTC
hi @nardandas, yeah it could have used more play testing and polish to get the experience better. The 'Sandbox' mode takes away the click limit so you can try out all the interactions.
PanWezio
06. Oct 2021 · 20:21 UTC
It was kinda hard to understand the scoring system. Would love to see more feedback from the game. It was a bit hard to understand what I did wrong and what I did right.
BinaryPrinciple
08. Oct 2021 · 00:23 UTC
Nice concept and I like that I can experiment to try to get a balanced environment.
I would add small challenges like, create a biome just for prey, or ensure that there's at least on predator all the time. I liked it.
Feesh
09. Oct 2021 · 03:38 UTC
Really well made concept and graphics! Overall the idea was well made and fit the theme well but it was hard to understand the game and how to go about reaching the goal. I would personally suggest starting with just a couple options so that it's simple and then allowing the game to ramp up to as many animals as it has now to stop the player from being overloaded.
GuessImLuna
09. Oct 2021 · 09:48 UTC
This is a cool idea, could have used better explanations like others have mentioned, but it's neat to look at and I enjoyed the sandbox
Sibi
09. Oct 2021 · 10:11 UTC
Really cool idea for a sandbox game and cute graphics! Unfortunately it was quite difficult to understand the systems and scoring system. It would have been great to slowly introduce the different species and their effects. In general the game could benefit from slowing everything down a bit. Right now everything spirals out of control a bit quickly. Do you have any tips on how to get the system to stabilize?
sanojian
10. Oct 2021 · 12:31 UTC
The creatures never seem to get full. They just eat and eat. So one fox would just eat all rabbits. Also, how do you control if you get trees or grass? Seems random. Cool concept, a little more work could be a very cool game.
rubenwardy
15. Oct 2021 · 21:09 UTC
It lags quite a lot - you should consider smooth interpolation between simulation updates. It would also be cool to see graphs of the amounts of prey/predator/plants. Can't play anymore as Itch has gone down :(