Moth Magic by Impalpable

[raw]
made by Impalpable for Ludum Dare 55 (COMPO)

Eat the flowers to heal, plant the seeds on the lawn, summon more moths! Repeat!

Use Arrow Keys to move left, right, up an down.
Use X to plant flowers.

A game about cute moths and ecologies made in Pico-8. First LD Jam! Happy for critical feedback, I will be developing and iterating on the prototype in the future.

Thank you to SpaceCat at YouTube for all the Pico-8 tutorials!

Ratings

Overall 289th 3⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Fun 293th 2.862⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 181th 3.306⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 285th 2.968⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 159th 3.565⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Audio 235th 2.767⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Mood 184th 3.274⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Given 35🗳️ 43🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 5243
15. Apr 2024 · 07:31 UTC
Nice little pico8 game! The pollen (?) became too much quite quickly. It almost covered my screen and I couldn't make out the wind directions anymore. Nice entry though :)
🎤 Impalpable
15. Apr 2024 · 10:00 UTC
Thank you for playing! So much pollen! It's a pollen-hell! XD
sirJupitron
15. Apr 2024 · 11:57 UTC
Hi! Really cool game, amazing mood and style. Love old school games, they are like time portals. Thank you so much.
epb9000
15. Apr 2024 · 14:48 UTC
Hehehe, you can overfill the bar. (not really) UNLIMITED POWAAAAA. Excellent mood and addictive game loop.

![unlimited-power.png](///raw/00e/e/z/61cc7.png)

We are legion. We are many.

![we-are-more-legion.png](///raw/00e/e/z/61cc5.png)

An accessibility thing to note here. Color shouldn't be the only visual differentiator for the player character. You can barely see the player character here, but if you're insensitive to red or green the visual distinction is even more muted:

![insensitive-to-red.png](///raw/00e/e/z/61ce8.png)

Two suggestions would be:

* Control placement of subordinate moths so they can't overlap the player character and make the player moth slightly larger than the others.
* OR allow for collection by any of the moths, and when planting select any valid subordinate location if the one the player is hovering over is occupied.
🎤 Impalpable
15. Apr 2024 · 15:04 UTC
@epb9000 - very good point about accessibility! Thank you for playing, and the feedback! 🦋🌙

![moth-many.gif](///raw/c7e/d5/z/61d33.gif)
LDJam user 238500
15. Apr 2024 · 16:34 UTC
Nice game. As others have said, pollen was a bit much :)
Flowers seemed a bit hard to collect at times, collision box seemed very small.
It gets really laggy after a while. This might explain why, but I did beat the game I guess :)
![mothmagic.png](///raw/4a3/a3/z/61e1f.png)

Good art and music!
I would have kept playing, would have been nice to see a big field of flowers.
DzejPi
15. Apr 2024 · 17:55 UTC
Great artstyle, I love Pico games! Polen effect is nice, but a little bit too much, like everyone else already said, so, I am not bringing anything new here. I think it would be great to describe how to play this game a little bit more in the description, because it took me way longer to figure out that I am willing to admit that you have to wait a little bit on the flower, but maybe it's leftover sleep deprivation from the weekend. :)
wo_ri_gou_le
16. Apr 2024 · 08:33 UTC
The flower generation is too limited, many times I found it hard to get one in the entire map... so many particles here, nice feeling, but a bit distracting, idk if this engine supports, but it will be better to be in background and have a dimmer color. the tiny followers on the ground is confusing in the beginning.

but, the idea and touch is really unique, I really like the vivied feeling on such limited pixels
LDJam user 384191
16. Apr 2024 · 10:43 UTC
Nice cartridge! As others have said, the particles are a bit much, but the fetching/planting loop is interesting. I had some trouble finding the flower, so would suggest having some kind of indicator/arrow hinting at where the flower is. But all in all it's a cool game, and the art style is lovely!
RPGWanderer
16. Apr 2024 · 11:25 UTC
I planted many flowers with moths fellows and we pretty much gave pollen allergies to half a billion persons doing so :D The game gets more difficult as the moths covers the one you control, it's an interesting way to increase difficulty :) I had fun :)


PS: I was on my way to plant flowers all over the world when the game suddenly froze (after collecting three more flowers after filling the bellow bar). The engine also seems to slow down every time you get a new moth in your crew.
MaggardJosh
16. Apr 2024 · 16:11 UTC
Cool game, as others have said the particles were way too much :smile: I would limit the number of particles that can exist and once it hits that number start reusing them, I had to stop playing at a certain point because it got too laggy. Enjoyed the gameplay loop of finding flowers and planting them to get more moths. Good work!
PieRo_PBeS_studio
16. Apr 2024 · 20:51 UTC
Art style is cool and i think you could put more pollen, particules and more screenshakes but at certain times to emphasize game actions.
tunagoo
16. Apr 2024 · 21:09 UTC
Fun game! I think I agree with the others here, a bit too many particles :) Great job!
🎤 Impalpable
16. Apr 2024 · 21:21 UTC
@piero-pbes-studio yes, finally, thank you - more pollen is what was needed! What we were all thinking. XD
Kirass
16. Apr 2024 · 22:58 UTC
I like this game! You guys are great!
Inidal Dev
18. Apr 2024 · 19:00 UTC
Nice art style and cool gameplay premise, I think some things could be adjusted but otherwise it's a really fun game!
jnw
19. Apr 2024 · 19:22 UTC
Nice game. I liked the art. I didn't really get what was causing the pollen to appear, though.
jdah
20. Apr 2024 · 18:45 UTC
Great art style!! lots of pollen as others said, plus it was a little hard to figure out what to do
zirconcode
22. Apr 2024 · 19:56 UTC
Was lovely to play a pico game, you really captured the retro feel =) the collision on the flowers sometimes took a bit of wiggling, I think it would be cool if having many moths caused some kindof fun thing to happen, like for any moth to be able to capture a flower but you get hungrier, or something like that, well done!
Flightless
02. May 2024 · 18:20 UTC
Beautiful - it captures the stressful lives of butterflies :smile: