FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD34 → Eda

Eda

By alpha_rat

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness372
Mood3903.36
Graphics4043.65
Theme4283.77
Audio4393.16
Innovation6892.88
Overall9262.82
Fun10512.20

Comments

aflatminerstudios 2015-12-15 15:19

Very peaceful. I feel like my screen is always beautiful once I'm done with my tree.

yamzho 2015-12-15 15:23

Interesting experience.

eemmbbeerr 2015-12-15 15:31

Very peaceful and captivating indeed!
Has caused some strange freezes though, and the dev build embedded threw a bunch of errors on a panel.

recursor 2015-12-15 15:32

Definitely a zen-like and relaxing game.

alpha_rat 2015-12-15 15:50

@eeemmbbeeerr : maybe you reaches a number of branches too important, which caused the bugs! I dind't limited the number of generated objects properly for this build. I hope it did not wasted your experience too mcuch :(

morseamalgam 2015-12-15 16:25

I ran into the same issue with getting a ton of errors in the console - a few null reference exception errors right at the start, and "argument out of range" errors for index whenever I snipped a branch. But if you close the console it stops bothering you. :)
The music is very soothing!

alpha_rat 2015-12-16 12:02

@MorseAmalgam : thanks for your feedback! There are indeed a few bugs I didn't took time to correct before the deadline, as they were not game-breaking ones ;) sorry for the inconvenience

edgeofcode 2015-12-16 12:05

Very relaxing. From the start it kept freezing - probably linked to the errors showing up in the console - but I still enjoyed it.

alpha_rat 2015-12-16 12:14

@edgeOfCode: what version were you playing? I wasn't able to test the OS/X build at all

guoboism 2015-12-16 23:58

Experience oriented game. Nice! Yet why I can't grow a beautiful one as screenshot...

lullaby 2015-12-17 00:07

Nice mood. The game is really relaxing.
But it's as hard to master as a real bonsai. Sometimes the branches grow far from the mouse cursor. Nice entry anyway!

drfallos 2015-12-17 13:03

Null reference exception and crash. Couldn't play to rate ;(

huvaakoodia 2015-12-17 13:13

For a relaxing procedural bonsai tree generator this is quite good.

However, right now there's nothing interesting to do after creating a pretty enough tree. Here are a few ways to make it more engaging, if you are up for that:

You could make it into a simulation by adding in elements like water and nutrient requirements; insects, both useful and harmful; and environmental changes such as humidity and temperature. This, in itself, would be compelling to watch for a while (similar to what Mountain did, sort of).

You could then make it into a game by giving the player tools to maintain and shape the tree while it grows. Using the right tool at the right time would differentiate between winning (having a resilient, beautiful tree) and losing (having a dying, pest ridden nightmare).

Technical issues:

- The hit boxes on the branches seem to be a bit off. It's quite hard to make specific smaller branches grow due to this.

- The web player still has console errors, as pointed out by others.

- The Data folder in the windows version has to be renamed in order to work, which is kind of a hassle. Even then it only works with the x86 exe, not the x64 exe.

alpha_rat 2015-12-17 13:30

@HuvaaKoodia : thanks for taking the time to give such complete feedback! I'll fix all these bugs as soon as possible.

pusty 2015-12-17 23:07

Not sure if I'm stupid but no matter the amount I clicked (and pressed other buttons) nothing happened (I even waited a while just to see if something is happening). I tested win64 and web build. Kinda sad ,looks promising

alpha_rat 2015-12-17 23:10

@Pusty: if you clicked just right away, the trunk might have no time to grow properly! You just need to wait a bit for it to grow and then branch out from it ;)

powerspark 2015-12-18 21:36

It seems like it would be fun but there were many errors with the Web version that almost made the game unplayable.

ruthiepee 2015-12-19 02:39

Great mood. I adore the music and the cool teal hues-- you definitely nailed a somber-yet-happy tone. I couldn't make a bonsai as pretty as your thumbnails but I had fun trying. Nice play on the theme, and I love the title.

euske 2015-12-19 02:44

Interesting concept. The control was a bit less obvious to me. I'd like the color of leaves to be a more yellow-greenish to my preference, as the blue tint isn't very realistic.

By the way, eda just means a branch in general, not necessarily limited to Bonsai.

uvwar 2015-12-19 02:57

I love bonsai games! I wasn't entire sure what/where I was growing, and it seemed to be locking up browser or something (I think I grew into infinity at some point) but otherwise really cool!

adsilcott 2015-12-19 03:14

Good use of the theme.

galvesmash 2015-12-19 04:00

This is interesting, beautiful and relaxing. I like it but I'm not sure I can call it a game.
This piece of art could be more like the real process of taking care of a bonsai.

Your entry have the same relaxing approach of mine! Nice job guys!

tjxx 2015-12-19 04:22

This game was a very peaceful experience. Nice work!

thebrickanator 2015-12-19 04:29

Is a very pretty game and the atmosphere is great

calciumtrice 2015-12-19 16:56

A pleasant, calm little experience with a very nice aesthetic.

Good job. :)

loxo 2015-12-19 17:02

Very calming game with an interesting concept. A full screen mode would be great. I played the web version in firefox and it was too slow for me.

lkfumagalli 2015-12-19 21:41

It's a bit hard to control growing the branches in a way I'd like. Aside from that, I like the concept, the graphics look nice and the music sounds good and fits the mood. If it were easier to influence how the branches split and in what direction, I'd enjoy it a lot more. Still, good work. I love that you did a bonzai growing game. I hope you'll continue to work on it!

mike-cullingham 2015-12-20 05:37

Like the graphical presentation. Would be nice to highlight the currently active branch. I had a similar idea but didn't implement it so I'm really glad to see a game like this. Nice job.

randomhuman 2015-12-20 22:46

Nice chilled out vibe. I would have liked a bit more control over which direction new branches headed in, but the results were pretty anyway.

farelle 2015-12-23 01:35

nice peaceful experience. Only thing that bugged me a little bit, is that growing new branches didn't always seem to add where I was clicking :/ so I had to check a few times to see if it's entirely random or not, but they were adding to the branch I clicked on, just seemed the Hitboxes were not clear.

publicidadeba 2015-12-23 16:55

With a feel tweaks this can be BIG! Awesome job guys

local-minimum 2015-12-25 16:09

Very well made visuals and fitting music. Really appreciated that there were different bowls to grow from. There were some interaction-issues though. One you did mention about clicking the stem too early. I would suggest adding a delay upon resetting the game during which the game doesn't respond to clicks to avoid the state where it looks like the game is stuck. Also I think that if you had left clicked something and then tried to left-click another branch. If you missed the second branch, you would grow again on the first branch. This could probably also be fixed with some minor adjustment. Finally, it did happen that I grew out of view. It would have been really nice if the camera enlarged its view when parts where starting to fall outside. In all though, a very nice experience.

franklins-ghost 2015-12-29 13:57

Really nicely done, calming experience. Liked the idea of growing and developing your own bonsai tree and think this worked well. The music helped set the mood and the slow pace enhanced the soothing experience.

Did have an issue with one of my replays where the bonsai grew extremely large before I actually did anything. So two branches in and I was out of the screen. Not sure how it happened though. I was playing with windows version on windows 10 if that helps.

freaknarf 2015-12-29 14:32

Cool and quiet concept, nice growing visuals ... sadly each time I try the Web version it everything freeze (with FireFox) quite soon, and nothing seems to grow with the windows x64 bugfixed version :/
Otherwise nice experiment !

mshopf 2016-01-05 00:13

Very interesting experiment, very zen-like. Didn't really catch me, though, guess the growing didn't feel naturally enough for me.

cilerba 2016-01-05 01:24

Gorgeous and relaxing! Takes a few tries to get a hold of the controls, but lots of fun to play with once you've done so.

Side note: I'd love to have this as a live wallpaper on Android, continuously watching it grow and split throughout the day.