Pot Life by chuckeles
Play in the browser! 🎮
Pot Life has an HTML5 version available on itch.io, go play the game there and you don't have to download anything. Just make sure to use Chrome browser and not Safari, for some reason the magnifying glass is not displayed on Safari.
About
Manage your tiny pot ecosystem! 🌱
I barely got any interactions into the game... Your goal is to maintain and grow the ecosystem in your little pot. There are helpful creatures which grow your plants, and hostile creatures which eat everything. Find them, watch them interact with each other, and kill the unwanted ones.
The whole game is controlled by mouse only. Use the left mouse button to focus the sun and create a small fire, killing everything it touches. 🔥
I wanted to focus on sounds and music this time. While sound effects are there and they are a ton of fun, I did not find the time nor courage to make any music for the game. Oh well, perhaps next time.
Known problems
- Fires can be created outside of the pot
- It seems that creatures tend to focus on one single plant, grouping around it, and making it grow huuuge
- When a plant is being interacted with by multiple creatures and one of them stops, it breaks the animation
Screenshots
| Link | https://github.com/martindzejky/pot-life |
| Itch | https://martindzejky.itch.io/pot-life |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/pot-life |
Ratings
| Overall | 143th | 3.581⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 204th | 3.226⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 34th | 4.016⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 11th | 4.387⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 157th | 3.565⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 214th | 2.85⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 149th | 3.086⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 142th | 3.45⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
This is SUPER cute and so adorably charming. I loved just watching them walk around in the magnifying glass, and the little footstep sounds are just perfect. :ok_hand: Even the little touches of the tiniest critters moving around and seeing the plants move to indicate one of them is there. So many great little details.
There is something oddly satisfying about using the magnifying glass to burn. (Even if the sound effect was a tad loud imo :stuck_out_tongue:).
I think if you fleshed this out further... maybe have multiple categories of things for the player to choose how they want to interact? Some positive and some destructive? I can see a lot of progression or upgrades. Or being able to check some meaningful stats... then give them items they need, such as water etc. There is a lot of potential here. But making it more 'sim'-like might be fun. The critter design is SO cute.
I actually had a lot of guilt burning that many bugs over time. LOL
But wow, this is one of my fav entries so far!! It's so good!
Art is great, SFX are also great!
Are the 2 bugs doing what I think they are doing? :laughing:
Great job!
Plus, using Godot is always a win!
One thing I would note is that after a while I started to think that maybe not all pink creatures are evil, only the angry ones... but suspiciously I never saw any angry blue creatures, so I just kept my assumption and killed all pink creatures! :D Nice entry, keep up the good work!
I guess this is what gardening is like :sweat_smile:
The game could use some veeery quiet background music though. That would make it perfect in my opinion
Here is my attempt:
https://youtu.be/aukB3GG9vHs
If I kill only the red bugs, the pot becomes overgrown and the framerate drops.
It would seem the winning strategy here is to kill all bugs indiscriminately :P.
> Just out of curiosity, what interactions would you guys like in the game?
I'd like some way to more precisely control where the plants grow, so I could spell out a word or something. Maybe a way to direct the spawn location of bug eggs, or a way to seed new plants on empty dirt?
The magnifying glass mechanic is super unique and the art is lovely, very well done!
- Would have liked to see more... Of anything? The interaction is one-button shoot a flame to kill things. There's only really one thing you want to kill, and that's it.
- When I realised what the magnifying glass does, I went "oh no" :p I would very much like an alternative wat of dealing with or interacting with things.
- Feels like there's such potential for an ecosystem that has multiple points of interaction. For example, you got a little skull that's left behind - dead bugs fertilise plants, that's a whole thing, and could easily be represented in your ecosystem.
- The fire apearing and the damage on the bug feels a little delayed, maybe the damage effect can also be a bit more obvious, like flashing the sprite white for example.
- On the same line of thought as the more interaction thing - the fire really should have more interaction with other things, like with plants, with skulls, other stuff. Or at least give the player more interactions.
Lol @dmitrygalias that's a ton of skulls you got there. :joy:
@dgspitzer lovely flower!
I would be very interested to see the continuation of this sandbox game.
According to my feelings:
1. The sound in the game can be made softer to keep a relaxing atmosphere. Right now, the sound is most out of the gameplay.
2. There is not enough opportunity to look through the foliage, which blocks the view to find the reds.
3. It would be interesting to develop the game towards more interactions. Add, for example, the ability to feed creatures, plant new plants. It would be interesting to see new plants with their own growth conditions.
In general, I really liked this game. 10 blue creatures out of 10.
I enjoy this kind of gameplay of going from a macro management view, and then focusing on the micro. For the relaxing atmosphere and the happy vibes it works perfectly, tho I did end up encountering an audio glitch after clicking out of the game and then back in, I think audio sources were playing several times over, but it's not big deal.
All and all, I think the nice polish and cute art and sounds go nicely with the simplicity of the game, and it does feel nice when the garden does eventually become self sustainable, my only real wish was that the bugs' silhouettes were visible through the flowers.
-Boat