CROP NINJA by Bo Dangles

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

Screen Shot 2023-01-09 at 11.51.51 AM.png PUZZLE PLATFORMER.

Can you beat all 8 levels?

Harvest crops to gain one time use abilities.

CONTROLLER SUPPORT! play with controller recommended

Controls:

WASD to move including W to jump

SPACE to attack

N to use ability

M to switch abilities

ENTER to restart level

Pushed a bug fix that caused some devices to run at different frame rate

This game can be quite difficult. If you feel you need extra help heres a play though of the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XAJaShwZlU

Ratings

Overall 383th 3.527⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Fun 288th 3.568⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 389th 3.324⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Theme 534th 3.486⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 550th 3.284⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Audio 367th 3.139⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Given 37🗳️ 54🗨️

Feedback

sullycollins
09. Jan 2023 · 19:24 UTC
The concept of harvesting plants to gain new forms of movement is very fun and creative.

The addition of controller support was nice but I found when I was using my xbox controller the character would run on his own sometimes without me giving an input. Not sure if that issue was game related or my hardware being faulty as I don't have another controller to test it with but I thought I should share.

Overall very wonderful job.
aduermael
09. Jan 2023 · 19:28 UTC
Very good! 👏 I could spend a lot on time on this, though I'm really good at it... (couldn't go past level 3 😅)
Jumping with W is a bit counter intuitive for me, I'm always tempted to use space bar instead.
aevek
09. Jan 2023 · 19:46 UTC
Really cool idea. I like the disposable ability pickups idea a lot, I think there is a lot that could be done with this. I did have a lot of difficultly persuading my brain to use N for things I'm used to thinking of as jump actions like wall-jump and double-jump, but I don't think there is an alternative that still lets them be used deliberately. I didn't like that the attack bounced me off the wall, it gave me a little unintended movement when I incorrectly pressed space to jump or had to jump up to grab the plant off the top of a block and mis-timed it.
Coderah
10. Jan 2023 · 02:47 UTC
keyboard controls tricky to get used to especially with the very fast / tight jump, but love the play on the theme :)
bklolo
10. Jan 2023 · 04:35 UTC
Oh, man. I loved every second of this game. Amazing! I wasn't a fan of the controls at first, but the game was so good that I kept going. yooohhhh!!!
nymnymn
10. Jan 2023 · 06:26 UTC
It took me 852.6 seconds to beat. I got stuck on level 3 and almost gave up on level 4, but the other levels were kind of a breeze in comparison. Overall this was a very fun (yet frustrating) game. I would love to play it again if you decide to continue working on it.
LDJam user 276121
10. Jan 2023 · 16:58 UTC
An excellent idea but I felt like it was let down by the player controller (and the default keybinds). Movespeed and momentum-sliding were incompatible with the type of platforming being requested. The addition of a sprint button with a lower base speed would assist greatly.
🎤 Bo Dangles
10. Jan 2023 · 19:26 UTC
@hexyvexy There was a bug where the game was running at different speeds on different devices. I think that might have effected your gameplay. I pushed up a fix for that issue. I'd love it if you gave the game another try.
LDJam user 276121
10. Jan 2023 · 19:50 UTC
@bo-dangles Ah, that does indeed fix the speed!
zimny11
10. Jan 2023 · 21:18 UTC
Great use of really cool mechanics! Good graphics and music too! I wish the bounce from carrots was a bit higher, because it sometimes does not bounces you high enough. The game is quite hard for me, but it was a lot of fun to play it :) Good job with the game!
diesdas
10. Jan 2023 · 21:19 UTC
Solid mechanics, fits the theme and is fun to play. Especially liked the music. Not very innovative but 8 levels is a lot of content, gj!
zSharpFire
11. Jan 2023 · 19:13 UTC
Incredibly fun and engaging concept, the mechanics are awesome and the gameplay feels smooth and good to speedrun. The only thing i can complain about is the rasterized font, which is hard to read
Cygi
12. Jan 2023 · 09:59 UTC
Really solid entry, enjoyed a lot!
Cool audio and overall mechanics.
LDJam user 296412
12. Jan 2023 · 10:00 UTC
Really nice! and pretty hard.
Great job.
digital bacon
12. Jan 2023 · 10:02 UTC
Nice game. Liked the retro graphics and the woodwind music. Perhaps some hint as to what each plant's powers did? Did like the chop-the-rose-to-finish-the-level, fits nicely with the theme. Well done!
kodingnights
12. Jan 2023 · 10:03 UTC
Hard but fun. Could do with some sound and music. I like the graphics, but the controls take some time to get used to. EDIT: Never mind, I found out that the game actually had sound/music, it was turned off at my work computer :laughing:
Francois Dervaux
12. Jan 2023 · 10:03 UTC
Good game, the concept it's very cool, Congrats.
🎤 Bo Dangles
12. Jan 2023 · 10:05 UTC
@kodingnights there should have been sound effects and music, sorry if they didnt work on your end
SvenErik
12. Jan 2023 · 10:18 UTC
Lovely coffe-break game, Yihoo to death~ Game-play loop was solid and fun, though perhaps like the previous comments mentioned the controls could be fiddled with still. The Audio & sound effects were great and graphics overall good, besides the text, that was strangely blurry, but perhaps the crop ninja needs glasses, that's why it sees it blurry. Some polishing & maybe one or two additional features & some more random element and it would work really well as a standalone game~

Good work though, solo dev life is harsh!
Rulrite
12. Jan 2023 · 10:25 UTC
Hooray!

![Crop Ninja.PNG](///raw/3b5/b/z/563c7.png)

Some of those levels felt devilishly difficult - but they wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying to beat if they weren't. Some of the later levels really showed off the fluid movement mechanics, too, especially with the mixing of corn dashes and carrot bounces. I had an issue with both abilities being 'eaten' if I held the button down too long, but I think that could easily be fixed/adjusted.

You really nailed the concept of a puzzle-based precision platformer - congrats! (And the death sound effects were a great touch!)
Deamonus
12. Jan 2023 · 10:26 UTC
Okay, this i love! It takes the theme, and uses it in a quite interresting way, level 3 was a bit of a puzzle, thankfully you had the video up to help me solve it. Lovely all round.
I did seem to have a minor bug with my controller where even the lightest touch made the ninja run forward.
Fis
12. Jan 2023 · 10:31 UTC
Pretty hard game and a solid entry! I required 660 seconds to reach the end - there were some really challenging levels. The deathsound made continuing really easy :smile_cat:

One thing I noticed that ended up killing me was the consumption of two crops directy after using one if I was too slow lifting the N key - so some kind of cooldown or listening to the key up event to enable crop-usage would fixed this in my opinion.

I took the lower route on the last level - was it intentional that you can't collect the wall jump twice when collecting the regrown ones? It only worked to pick them up twice if they weren't picked up yet.
bartalomew
12. Jan 2023 · 10:43 UTC
my braindead self could not kill the istincts of smashing space so I did fall to death soo many times. wish I could try it with a controller. other than that it's a nicely done game, the mechanic is very creative
froissant
12. Jan 2023 · 11:37 UTC
Very challenging platformer! Integrating a timer / speedrun elements is a great idea.
Controls were a bit rough, as other have said, using "N" is not the most straightforward way to use abilities, but after some time you get used to it.
mr_lazy
12. Jan 2023 · 12:08 UTC
cool game yo...good game art ....sometimes i can't use the special abilty (N)...very smooth screening...

on every enter, game is restarting ....mention it somewhere...nice game ! goood work!
publicidadeba
12. Jan 2023 · 12:10 UTC
Interesting and fresh. The other said keybinding is the biggest issue.
bcmpinc
12. Jan 2023 · 13:30 UTC
Got stuck on the third level. I knew what I had to do, but whenever I used the first power up it also immediately used the second. I needed a controller to play as the keyboard scheme was too confusing for me.
noskro
12. Jan 2023 · 17:39 UTC
Wow. It took me some time to get used to it. But I think part of it was getting to know what the power ups do. Once I got the hang of it I still died a lot, but I couldn't stop before finishing it. It was a real crush to finish in the 3 digits... now it is: ![Unbenannt.PNG](///raw/60f/93/z/56455.png)

I'm not sure what you can improve. The levels are just the right amount of challenging and the controls felt really good. Only thing I could point out is that I quirte often used both power ups at the same time even if I tried to just press the button once. Not sure if that was intentional, but it felt like keeping the button pressed a bit too long used both. Maybe I would prefer to press the button twice to use both. But obviously I haven't tried how that feels for gameplay and I don't know your idea behin it.
Lomby
13. Jan 2023 · 02:57 UTC
Thanks for submitting your game on the stream!

Here’s the start of your game if you wanted to re-watch initial thoughts youtu.be/_eTFfxJO2YM?t=2409

Level design was great and the abilities were fun to combo together!

Came back to it and managed to get under 100s!
![crop-ninja.png](///raw/78a/24/z/5654b.png)
tttt
16. Jan 2023 · 23:21 UTC
Hey, the game is very nice. I found it very well executed! I'm not a very good at platform games and got stuck on level 3. Maybe I will try again.

Great work!