Midday Garden by Dustyroom
Protect the garden!
In this simple auto-shooting game you plant seeds that produce fruits and veggies, which are used as projectiles!
Controls: WASD/Arrows to move. Shooting is automatic.
This page contains the Jam version of the game, everything was made in 72 hours.
The itch.io page below has the post-jam version with more waves and small improvements.


| Post-jam | https://dustyroom.itch.io/midday-garden |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/midday-garden |
Ratings
| Overall | 77th | 4⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 57th | 4.041⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 426th | 3.25⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 455th | 3.635⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 163th | 4.162⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 161th | 3.7⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 483th | 2.69⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 290th | 3.643⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 34🗳️ | 2🗨️ |
I have seen a few "bug" : pumpkin isn't giving any seed , apple tend to randomly stop whenever it want and the aiming is all over the place. I don't know if it's a bug but the sunflower does a knock back effect the apple and corn doesn't
Now i have a few gameplay opinions :
1/ having a auto-shooter is a choice but the randomly selecting target take from what you can do with your placement
2/ The ammo producing plant is a cool idea but since you don't have an increase in shooting rate one or two plant is WAY more than enough to have all the plant you need
3/ the upgrade proposition are all over the place sometimes giving you 3 health when you are full sometimes giving you three new plant or upgrade. Having a dead weight pumpkin isn't helping either.
Having a manually control could have been a good idea with a decrease in ammo production and enemy making you choose to shoot a gameplay choice !
As for the upgrade either a reroll option or fixed slot , like left is for new plant middle is for upgrade and right is for health.
But all in all i enjoyed the game played a few session and won !

This game is great lots of potential - day/night cycle changes, dynamic events like seasons etc.
Really chill vibe - love the power feeling after a while like wave 15+ ish

So i think if you could balance the mob types and movement styles it would be much more interesting and fun. Alternatively you could have a limit number of mobs per wave so they slowly disapate and you can get around to picking up the coins - then it becomes a puzzle to not kill everything but still pickup your coins.
Pair that with a few interesting movement choices like a dash with a cooldown or a teleport back to a set location and you open up to the player a large number of interesting choices to make keeping the game engaging.
Also in the beginning all you do is plant corn to ensure you have enough ammo. That makes the upgrade system feel like you don't have interesting choices initially.
The art style and ambient music/sound a great though. With just a few tweaks and a few more interesting choices this would have been one of the better entries in the jam. Great work!
nice entry.
All that said there were a few pain points for me:
- Like some others have mentioned enemies dropping coins that you have to go backwards to get doesn't really make much sense and doesn't make for super fun gameplay. If those coins went straight into my account it might be an improvement??? I'm not sure this is very subjective but I don't think the current system is working.
- Also like Rocktavius above me ^ has mentioned I would've liked to see some form of dash or something to make escaping enemies more about skill and less about luck, and also to give you an out if accidently mess up. As right now running into anything causes the mob to just instantly consume you, and a lot of times it's not a reflection of skill.
- I was confused at first if I needed to defend my corn plants, if they would get attacked. I think it would have added depth if you had to lead them away from the plants, but I also understand a jam is a tight time limit.
- I thought the corn plants were a little expensive for how much you require them early on (I played the post jam version)
- Again something I've seen a lot in the comments so sorry to repeat it, but I would've liked to see the targeting system take some sort of input from the player or just target the closest enemy as the current system isn't ideal.
Despite all of that I still really enjoyed my time with it! I think it was super unique and I just have a soft spot for that type of end of the round upgrade system thing, though I know it is a hallmark of survival shooters. I would've liked to see more depth to the gameplay but provided it was so short it never outstayed its welcome. And again I really appreciated the pastel colours and little particle effects.
Great entry!
Here’s the start of your game if you wanted to re-watch initial thoughts youtu.be/a12mtQSnQ2o?t=13919
Loved the zen vibes of this, really nice game, congrats!
Some temporary invulnerability after taking damage might've been nice to have, as if you slip up, sometimes it means instant death, even against a single enemy.
One thing this game needs is the reroll from Brotato. I was collecting so many coins that I had hundreds left over after each round. I could have become even more overpowered with a reroll.
Really great game. Awesome job!
By the way, I found this one through chompdev's post of recommendations.
The art-style works perfectly, the upgrades were well thought out and the some of the subtle touches like the bit of knockback on the enemies when hit were much appreciated.
The gameplay itself is truly satisfying! It's terribly hard to balance a game like this and I think it's a bit too easy. There's a point where you're able to turn from being hunted to being a hunter, where the enemies can't spawn fast enough. But I still enjoyed every second of it. I would have loved an endless hardcore mode with a score in the end though.
Anyhow, thanks for the great game!