Farm Flow by Szivacs

[raw]
made by Szivacs for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

https://szivacs.itch.io/farm-flow

Hi everyone!

This game is about planting crops and harvesting them. The twist is that you are restricted on what actions you can perform at certain times.

The game includes a description in the beginning, so you will be introduced in all important aspects.

P.S. I had a crazy weekend, I actually don't know how I finished this game. Since I only spent 20 hours on the development at max, I would expect that the game has some bugs, or unintended behaviour at times.

All art (sorry in advance, my artistic skills are basically zero), sound effects and gameplay was made by me and me only.

screenshot_1.png

screenshot_2.png

screenshot_3.png

Ratings

Overall 365th 3.553⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 345th 3.472⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 24th 4.184⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 16th 4.5⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 499th 3.417⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Audio 461th 2.667⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Humor 593th 2.382⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 710th 2.853⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Given 11🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

Igor Minenko
09. Jan 2023 · 21:08 UTC
Good idea realization, it's something unusual
Simple but sweety graphics, great work!
emil-akper
09. Jan 2023 · 21:16 UTC
I love games with simple warm graphics. Quite an interesting symbiosis of a farmer simulator and puzzles. Great job!
qqruzkin
10. Jan 2023 · 13:00 UTC
How much this guy loves his job that he's willing to stay on the field for weeks and months
magno chuntey
10. Jan 2023 · 13:02 UTC
good job! great puzzle mechanic, would have been nice to build the puzzle length/complexity up from just a few turns/pieces to ease the player in, but understand this would have been difficult given the time restraints
ScarpeX
10. Jan 2023 · 13:03 UTC
Nice game mechanics! Simple but fun and provide enough depth of strategies!
TheOtherSamP
10. Jan 2023 · 14:04 UTC
Really nice idea! I don't know whether this puzzle design is original, but I've not seen it before and I really like it. Great theme adherence, too!

Sometimes it gets a little frustrating when there isn't a clear way forward. I can't tell if it was hard, or if I'm just bad at it. I expect that carefully balancing which "pieces" get generated at what times could lead to a little more fun, but I had a great time with this.
Matt Rix
10. Jan 2023 · 21:30 UTC
Very clever game idea and well executed too!

If you want a bit of constructive feedback, I think there are too many options given to the player, it becomes a bit overwhelming, especially for 36 turns. Perhaps you could allow players fewer choices but give the ability to rotate the pieces instead?

The other thing is that the water doesn't really feel useful enough, especially when carrots die if you don't get back to them fast enough. Perhaps the water could make a field produce 2 carrots instead?
TildeCat
11. Jan 2023 · 07:40 UTC
Very interesting game mechanic! Sometimes, there were only limited direction due to available shapes, but maybe I just had bad luck. Overall, very nice game!
beardywombat
11. Jan 2023 · 07:49 UTC
Neat little mechanic, I can see a lot of potential. However once I got the hang of it I was frustrated with a lack of practical moves each turn, especially as carrots only lasted a round. With a bit of tweaking, I think it could be really fun
bartalomew
11. Jan 2023 · 09:45 UTC
really like the game mechanic, only wish there'd be a way to rotate the tiles or just have discard button to have new ones. other than that very nice idea, well put together! hajrá, sok sikert!
Plepletier
11. Jan 2023 · 17:08 UTC
I like the idea of the game but I had some problems to play. I couldn't place the pieces correctly and the way the pieces are placed was a little fluid.
Found Bow Tonight
12. Jan 2023 · 00:48 UTC
I like this game!Using blocks to plant, harvest, water or move is a really good idea!Cool!
pikkufighter
15. Jan 2023 · 07:13 UTC
Audio was very low, but I really enjoyed the concept. got stuck in the game twice!
Szieberth Adam
15. Jan 2023 · 10:08 UTC
Cute game.
![Farm_Flow screenshot.jpg](///raw/275/f/z/567a0.jpg)

Sok sikert!
TRSTHSTRS
16. Jan 2023 · 20:42 UTC
I like the mechanic a lot, but unfortunately i am not good at puzzle mechanics, but i was still enjoying it. managed to harvest 9 Carrots. :D Graphic is nice, had no bugs at all while playing. for 20 hours you spent working on this, its a pretty neat entry.
Lomby
17. Jan 2023 · 00:15 UTC
Thanks for your comments and feedback on my game, played yours on stream today if you wanted to watch initial thoughts and feedback, it starts here: youtu.be/a12mtQSnQ2o?t=5198

Really liked the idea of this, congrats on the fun puzzle!
Glaikunt
22. Jan 2023 · 20:46 UTC
This was awesome game/idea! It was so hard though, I don't think I did very well. I felt there wasn't enough diagonal tiles but that might have been luck... or I was using them all xD great job!

![farm_flow.png](///raw/2bb/43/z/56b9e.png)
Weirdybeardyman
23. Jan 2023 · 11:44 UTC
Great game! Very clever puzzle idea, looks good and I love the juice on the tile selection. You even added a tooltip to see how many days are left.
🎤 Szivacs
27. Jan 2023 · 11:31 UTC
Hi guys! Since we are nearing the end of the rating period, I just want to thank all of you for your feedback and ratings.

There are a few things that you guys pointed out that would have been great to implement:
* As @magno-chuntey, @theothersamp, @matt-rix and @lomby said, the balance and fluidity of the pieces were not that great. I felt that during the development, but since I had very limited time, I resorted to a fully randomly generated path system. Somehow adding some weights to the RNG in order to generate more relevant options when needed, or giving a higher chance to generate a path that leads towards crops would have been great
* To add more to the previous point, @matt-rix, @lomby (in his stream) and @bartalomew mentioned the ability to rotate the paths. Yes, that would have been amazing to have, but unfortunately the way I implemented the paths did not offer an easy way to achieve this. Actually, I didn't even think about this for some reason, maybe that's why.
* Nobody really mentioned the fact that the playing area was way bigger than it should have been. In many cases, I felt that maybe 10% of the screen is actually used for the gameplay. @lomby had a great idea where you would start with a very small area and then each year your farmland would get bigger. This could also solve the issue to ease the player in rather than just throwing them in the deep end. This is definitely something that I could have explored more.
* Thanks @weirdybeardyman for pointing out the animations that went into the tile selection. I tried to add something fun and interesting to this (let's be honest) very monotone and static game.

Thanks @igor-minenko, @emil-akper, @qqruzkin, @scarpex, @tildecat, @beardywombat, @plepletier, @found-bow-tonight, @pikkufighter, @szieberth-adam, @trsthstrs, @glaikunt and everyone else who rated the game and didn't comment. :) I will probably not continue with this idea since I don't really see it as a standalone, but who knows :D