Necromancer's Garden by animawish
So there's good news, bad news, more good news, and more bad news.
Good news: You finally found the perfect plot of land for a garden.
Bad news: It's a cemetery.
Good news: You managed to get a job as a grave digger.
Bad news: People in town are dying way more frequently than you expected.
What's a budding necromancer with a green thumb to do? Well, make lemonade out of lemons, of course! Or, more aptly, pumpkins out of cadavers. Exploit magical and botanical synergies as you manage your graveyard garden to complete a dark ritual while avoiding being overrun by the dearly departed!
CONTROLS: - Mouse1: Everything - Mouse2: Return held card to hand - M: Toggle Mute - Space: Toggle garden plot overlay



Ratings
| Overall | 248th | 3.722⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 337th | 3.481⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 86th | 3.875⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 185th | 4.054⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 552th | 3.278⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 245th | 3.537⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 166th | 3.5⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 104th | 4⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 33🗳️ | 38🗨️ |
But there I find few issues:
1. It was not clear for me, that you can take as many spells even if you don't have the mana right now to cast it. As a result I took ~10x **Rot** cards at the start of the game only to try to get rid of them over next ~20 turns.
2. I could not figure out the rules of how many coffins you get each day. It seemed to scale with number of mana I have? As after reducing my mana from ~50 -> ~3 in two turns I got ~1 coffin from constant 4 every day. As a result, most of the later game, once I had **Forbidden Fruit** I had to spend all time/mana budget to only deal with the coffins I get. Maybe it also scales with money I have (as I was having 130+, as I didn't really need anything from the shop)?
3. Then the money - I didn't really have what to spend money on after buying **Forbidden Fruit**. Thus it started to just accumulate over time.
4. Not being able to pass turns when when I don't have anything more to do. Well, technically I had ~30 mana, several **Rewind** spells, **coffins** and **Crescendo** (I got from the **Purple Cap**) in hand. (and very similar in the deck) My only options were to waste mana by rewinding, getting hand full of coffins, and finally I was forced to use **Crescendo** failing my run.
5. No way to thin out your deck than actually using the cards. And I am not talking about coffins.
6. I am pretty sure this was deliberate decisions, but it really annoyed me. That the **Growth** accelerated rot by 2 days, but full rot cycle is 3 days, so you cannot do **Rot** -> **Growth** -> **Rewind** in some dire situations, even though I am wasting lots of mana just to save one plant.
7. Organ chime while thematically in place it stood out a lot (maybe audio levels/loudness?) and I found it a bit annoying. Glad you can mute the sounds, though other sounds to well placed.
Other than late(r) game chore of not getting overrun by coffins I find the game pretty enjoyable experience. :thumbsup:
Regarding points 1 and 5, you can remove cards from your deck in the seed or spell screens by clicking on the cards in the wheelbarrow, and it even refunds the coins for seeds. It's mentioned in the tutorial but it's not super emphasized so I can understand missing it. Something for me to think about as far as in-game discoverability goes...
I tried to build some different strategies, and was fairly successful until I ran into the 20-unburied-coffin end :smile:
Initially, I did not get how the spells worked, and flooded my deck with some unnecessary spells. Might need some limits there to protect people from accidents!
The card placement and style was well done. Game with potential!
Good work!
My strategy (spoilers ahead):
Rot coffins for money, buy Bluecaps for mana. Mystery to get Forbidden Fruit. Plant coffins to keep your deck empty. With ~40 mana on the final turn, empty your deck except ritual spells, Think, and Rewind.
I enjoyed how consistent the art style was t made me feel nosalgic for ms paint.
I'm bad and always died because I have more than 20 unburied coffins, tried different strats, pretty sure using pumpkins is the worst idea haha
Sound matches and is efficient creating the mood,
Loved it, well done!
I did have a couple of issues, though they are fairly minor.
- The sound on the planting screen specifically was too busy for me. I think it was just too many sounds layered all at a fairly similar volume. Other screens where fine, though.
- A lot of the font on the cards was fuzzy, even in the small window.
Great entry here, i love the coin/mana balance with some flower that bring you money but remove mana.
I mainly use Rot that clear some coffin, i don't really understand some of the spell.
But overall a good entry, good job !