Harvest Hewn by bwalter

Why Hello There! Welcome to the Harvest, where you'll have to hunt veggies at night to sell during the day! Be safe out there!



| Link | https://bwalter.itch.io/harvest-hewn |
| Link | https://bwalter.itch.io/harvest-hewn |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/harvest-hewn |
Ratings
| Overall | 32th | 4.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 66th | 4⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 212th | 3.6⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 157th | 4.1⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 96th | 4.31⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 103th | 3.85⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 227th | 3.35⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 285th | 3.65⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 10🗳️ | 7🗨️ |

Also, I originally had keyboard but people had different assumptions for what direction should be what on the isometric grid, so I scrapped it.

The art and music style were bursting with personality. I loved all the little UI bounces and movements. The combat was really simple, but it was a very satisfying game loop to kill some veggies, buy some gear, and repeat until you're a tiny death machine clad in god-mail.
I will say the movement upgrades are way more important early on than everything else. My first run I picked up armor first, then died to carrots. My second run I picked up the basic boots and did much better.
I liked the variety of equipment, particularly the weapons, which are often not strictly better but have strengths and weaknesses (of course the shotgun was definitely the standout pick once you're upgraded enough).
Fifteen days did feel a touch long, since I was fully upgraded since round 10 or so. A nice feature could have been one-time use items in the shop so you could still do things with your money the last few turns.
I loved the visual, audio, and mood change between the day and night cycles.
Great work on this!
And as for gameplay, it's pretty fun and challenging. I didn't expect ranged combat to change the way I play completely, from sitting in one place hitting all the enemies I can, to constantly jumping around and trying to spot the things that can hurt me and shoot them quick enough. It was a good choice to make some veggies unable to pierce the best armor, otherwise I'd be screwed. :)
Here's the playthrough video if you want to witness this:
https://youtu.be/98m9st0Gumw
You did a great job! I enjoyed upgrading to deal more damage. Gives me flash vibes.
The music is very calming.
nice job :)
- First I was not sure what to do exactly, but once found out, it was easy to play but hard to master. Just how I like it
- The gnome is cute haha
- I found an issue where the text would be partially behind the gnome. Not a big issue, but I thought I would mention it
- The music is very well done.
The core loop is fun and juicy, the sounds, music and art are great.
Clearly you only had a little bit of time do this, but I could TOTALLY see this game in an rpg/adventure form, where you explore caves and terrain in this manner.
Great work!

Anyway, the artstyle was cute, the music fit the overall atmosphere, and the sound effects were nice (though, when getting hit by multiple enemies, I think it would be better to just make like 1 or 2 sounds play, not all of them since it got very loud at one point, but that's a very minor issue). Another thing I liked was the shop, which had a bunch of different items... incredible that you managed to add a lot of items like that. But what's the most satisfying part of the game was when you've collected so much veggies, and then the price per veggie was high... *chef's kiss*
Overall a very solid entry! Great job!
Aaaaanyway. Really fun game though! Quite polished overall, and a fun loop. Good little dialogue and everything. It took me a bit long to get money for the first upgrades in the shop (3 days), but i think i might have been unlucky in what the shops had in store. Also it wasnt quite clear when the veggies could attack.
Well done! :star:
GG !