caerul 2018-08-15 05:06
Great concept and great interpretation of the theme. I couldn't figure out how to use the island repair kit after buying them :( Still had fun playing the game. Nicely done!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD42 → Blooming Heights
By jakupf
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 494 | 3.47 | 21 | |
| Fun | 410 | 3.41 | 20 | |
| Innovation | 99 | 3.83 | 20 | |
| Theme | 85 | 4.13 | 21 | |
| Graphics | 729 | 3.23 | 23 |
Great concept and great interpretation of the theme. I couldn't figure out how to use the island repair kit after buying them :( Still had fun playing the game. Nicely done!
It's a fun game.
There is a lot to read, maybe look at cutting down on the text in the shop, the clock is ticking even in easy it's difficult to read about everything before the game ends.
For example: "Kit containing everything that you could need in order to repair damage caused by landfalls, can also be used to expand your island, It will allow you to place 1 tile." It's flavorful but could be just, "Landfall repair kit - allows you to place 1 tile (click empty tiles to use)"
@caerul Thank you! In order to use Island repair kit you just need to click on any empty tile (Not red one.). Also sorry for very late response! I was away for some time but I hope I can get 20 ratings in a week!
@trevor-hayes Thanks for playing my game! I initially planned for time to stop when in shop but I thought you would be able to somehow abuse the system (Which propably doesn't matter.). It is going to be first thing in post jam version as it is very simple thing to do! You are completely right about text being to long in shop, instrucion is also very cluttered. It was getting really tired and that was last thing I did before uploading so I decided to just make wall of text as explanation. I will try to lessen the amount of text in shop and move the descriptions somewhere where you could read them without worring about time. Having in-game tutorial would be great but I don't know if I will be able to make it clear, at the very least I will split instrucion into multiple pages so it is easier to read! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Yeah good game you got there, liked it and the skill requiered was so fair with the difficulty modes. Liked it so much could play for a long trying to beat it. Well done dude!
@mcarrera Hey, thanks! Glad you liked it!
Was a really fun game. The difficulty between easy and normal quick big and normal was really hard to beat
Great game! Very cool and interesting! :D
I had a lot of fun with this! I was apprehensive at first about the giant wall of text, but the gameplay turned out to be quite accessible and exciting (and I completely understand that making a tutorial can be a huge effort). In my first playthrough on easy, I spent too long reading up on all of the seeds and died without planting anything, but after I got the hang of it, I managed to beat all three difficulties without too much trouble.
I thought the game was well-polished overall, with a clean, functional UI and helpful graphics and sound effects. There were a few very minor issues I had, which you might already be aware of, but for completeness I'll list them: - It would have been nice to not have the clock tick down while you're in the shop to let the player read the explanations (maybe just on easy mode?). - Like some people above, I also had trouble using the island repair kits at first (I was clicking on the red squares instead of the empty squares). - There were a few times I had to click the X multiple times to exit the shop. I'm not sure why that happened, but it did cause me to lose once when I had to buy a repair kit and place it in 10 seconds but couldn't stop shopping. - Speaking of exiting the shop, I would have liked a keyboard shortcut for doing that, as moving the mouse over to the X is surprisingly difficult when you're trying to do everything as fast as possible. Maybe also keyboard shortcuts for buying seeds. - (this is a tiny change, but for me would make the biggest difference) Multiple times when playing, I would click on a square to plant or harvest and it wouldn't work because I was too far away. I would have really liked a sound effect for this (or some indication of which squares you can currently interact with), as without feedback I would often click on the same square multiple times before realizing that I needed to move closer.
I would be really interested in playing a more fleshed out version of this game: right now, even in hard mode, I think some strategy like "econ as fast as you can until you have 10ish plants, then only buy repair kits" will always win, which doesn't require the player to worry about which specific squares are falling or run around much to tend to all the plants. I also ended up never using the crystal plant. To be clear, I think what you have is very good for 72 hours, but with some tweaks/additions you could force the player to e.g. strategize on the spot depending on where the land is falling, or plan out where they need to run to get things done, which I think would make for a more difficult but also more rewarding game.
Overall, this was an interesting, well-executed idea that I had fun playing, with a lot of potential for expansion as well. Keep it up!
@BBApps I didn't have time to send my game to friends before end of jam so I only balanced it around my experience with game. Still I hope you had fun, and thanks!
@cristihjk Thank you!
@qzqxq Woah, that's really long and constructive comment, I appreciate that you took your time to write it! Proper in-game tutorial as well as time stop in shop will be added first if I start working on post-jam version, so the first playtrough will be much less stressful. As for the issues:
1. As I said it is already planned to be added to propably all difficulities as I don't see reason why it shouldn't. 2. I would like to change red tiles into something less but I don't know what would work for "still a tile, but in danger". I couldn't think of anything that would also be possible for me to do so I just changed the colour. 3. That's strange, I have never experienced that bug myself. Game just checks if your mouse is over the X and if you pressed LMB, so I have no idea why that would bug out. 4. There technically already is shortcut for exiting shops, all you need to do is just to move your character and the menu will automatically close (And to be honest I used that all the time to exit the shop so you propably have the point). Shorcuts for buying seed is great idea tho! 5. Again, there is already something like that but I guess it wasn't telegraphed enough. When your cursor is out of range, it will turn opaque. It also turns red if you move your cursor over house or plant but that is pretty obvious so I think that red cursor would fit better for "out of range".
About crystal tulips, I think that is actually really interesting because in my successful hard playtrough I only used bushes and heathers but my friend took a completely different approach and used orchids and tulips only. I like that different people have different ways of solving problems. If I were to expand game in features, I would like to add different terrain types and random generation. Examples would be sand, only bushes can grow on it and it is more likely to fall during landfall than grass. Or for example water tile which boost growth of nearby plants but none of the plants will be able to grow on it (Unless I add some water plants).
I will say this again, I greatly appreciate your response, it has a lot of useful constructive criticism and I have now better idea what to focus on!
This game is amazing! It fits the theme perfectly and is so much fun to play. The difficulty levels are balanced perfectly, along with all the flowers and their various different properties. I think this is my favourite LD 42 game I have played so far! :smiley:
@yayiest Thank you so much for kind words!
This concept is so cool! I really enjoyed playing through it :) One thing I would have liked was if there were a way to quickly view the bars for each plant. I found myself constantly checking to see if tulips would be done soon (at least in the early game).
@pockyonastick Thanks for playing my game, glad you enjoyed it! While being able to see progress of every plant would be nice feature, this would require me to either completely change how the current progress bar works or figure something out. Still, pretty nice suggestion! I'll try to look into it.
Nice work @jakupf! I really like the classic pixel art style and this was a fun take on a gardening game. Certainly a nice use of the theme. Solid entry!
Thank you everybody for voting on my game!