Plantus Infestantibus by WilloXs
You finally did it!
After all those years of research and failures you finally solved it! By bioengineering new fast growing crops ending world hunger is near.
There is just a tiny problem: The new species seem to be quite dangerous towards those trying to collect their crops...

How to play:
WASD to move. Harvest the plants by touching them. Harvest all plants in the level to proceed.
Dev Talk:
Made in Unity by two guys that didnt really know Unity. We used AIVA for the background music and therefore opted out for audio-ratings. All sprites are done in Aseprite.
We had to cut many features at the end of day two. But time got close anyway. Many tiny bugs and missing quality of life features are due to time shortage. Therefore some known bugs made it into the released versions...
Known Bugs:
Plant Pods are unshattered immediately after a plant spawns.
The shatter-sound gets distorted or cut off.
Objects are drawn on top or below one another unintentionally.
After Level 20 there is no victory screen. The Game just continues with no new plants spawning (you can leave at that point).
| Link | https://willoxs.itch.io/plantus-infestantibus |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/plantus-infestantibus |
Ratings
| Overall | 638th | 3.132⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 591th | 3⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 576th | 3⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 456th | 3.632⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 283th | 3.868⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 599th | 3.083⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
On top of that, lovely pixel art, nice sound. Fun!
Only criticism is that the camera is too zoomed in, it's hard to get an idea of where you're meant to be going next, also would like to run faster. Other than that, really great job, especially if you're new to Unity :)
I also like your interpretation of the theme, unique but very thematic.
I would suggest on checking coalitions on objects and randomize the pieces of the break gross sound effect.
Nice job!!
I think my main thought is that the game is way too hard. And I think there are a lot of factors into why it is hard, and I want to talk about some of them.
First and foremost is that there simply is no real way to know when a plant will shoot. The only way to tell is based on kind of gauging how long it's been since it last shot, but this is imprecise. More importantly, however, when staying a safe distance from the plants, there is actually very little time to close in on them for the kill between attacks. This is especially bad with the initial green plants, which in my opinion might be the most dangerous enemy in the game.
In particular, if there is a large group of plants, and their timers are not all in phase, there is essentially no actual period of time where it is safe to approach. The only strategy is to walk over and pray that any plant that does shoot will happen to shoot away from you.
For this reason, I actually think one huge improvement would be to simply make plants always shoot in a fixed direction. That way, when approaching a group of plants, you could simply pay attention to which areas were going to be dangerous, and route your way around them.
And, just to emphasize this point a little more: 2 of my reasonably good runs were ended by a green plant that shot me in the face. My best run was ended by a yellow plant that did the same thing. It's just so easy to misjudge when their next shot is, and if they happen to shoot in the wrong direction, it's game over.
One other important mechanic that I think contributes to the difficulty is the camera. In particular, it is actually not possible to see very much in the direction that you're moving... which makes it very difficult to know what plants are up ahead and when they are shooting. This is mitigated to some degree in the later game, because the direction of bullets flying past you indicates where the plant came from (especially with the blue plants, where the bullets triangulate it, maybe..?), but it is still somewhat frustrating. I find myself sort of walking in steps to let the camera catch up.
Now, despite all this difficulty, I did end up having a bit of fun in my best run. It is actually a really satisfying gameplay loop to try to kill enemies who can shoot at you just by touching them. It has those nice dodging moments from bullet hells, and I think it is more interesting to have to literally go up to the enemy than it is to just shoot at them back. I think that this core gameplay can be quite addicting, especially, perhaps, with fairer enemies.
Of course, the difficulty can be fun in this as well... I think part of the joy of reaching round 11 and doing relatively well throughout that run was that my previous best run was round 8. It is fun to excel at the game.
Another fun component is the random layout of enemies. Although this can result in unfair patterns, there is one additional fun component--trying to notice where enemies are spawning in, and then killing them right at the beginning of the round before they have a chance to attack, is satisfying, and provides a nice contrast to the more cautious approach that the rest of the game requires.
So, overall, I think you have a fun idea here -- a good twist on the bullet hell genre. It's just so difficult--and difficult in an RNG-way, rather than a skill-way, that it is hard (for me at least) to commit to the 20-round grind, especially starting from the beginning each time.
The visuals are cool too, I think you've really nailed the scientist's sprite!
Otherwise the game looks great and it all fits! I also love the plants vs zombies reference on the first plant.
A bit of polish and this could be really great. Well done!