FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Plant (Panic)

Plant (Panic)

By ethebakesmith

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall8623.0226
Fun8262.8725
Innovation6173.1725
Theme974.1325
Graphics5353.4325
Audio2353.5225

Comments

alex-mulkerrin 2020-04-20 11:31

I've never seen a PixelVision8 game before, reminds me of the gameboy advance :smiley:

The music changing for the bug attack was neat and I liked the dinky pixel art used for everything. Simple but elegant :leaves:

goldenevolution 2020-04-20 12:10

Cute graphics and nice suiting sound effects. Simple gameplay, yet quite fun. I don't fully understand how the bug attacks work though, sometimes only two bugs attacked, and other times an entire swarm which would kill my plant instantly.

kirkami 2020-04-20 12:10

What to do when bugs attacks? It always feels like random insta game over

stefanie-leitch 2020-04-20 12:18

Cute game. The bugs were TOUGH and I died very quickly from them. Also, the music seemed to have this strange high pitched feedback every so often which was annoying. It'd be nice if you could mute the music.

blint6 2020-04-20 13:48

Love the retro style! The bugs feel a little unfair but I liked that the music change when they pop. Very cute game indeed!

ethebakesmith 2020-04-20 15:28

@blint6 I do agree that the bugs are too strong. but I'm glad you liked the music changes!

ethebakesmith 2020-04-20 15:29

@stefanie-leitch I think the high pitched feed back was actually part of the track, like an instrument I thought I got rid of them but apparently not. Sorry!

ethebakesmith 2020-04-20 15:31

@kirkami When the bugs attack you have to make sure that the rock is selected by pressing c and when the rock isn't grayed out, then you hold x :)

ethebakesmith 2020-04-20 15:35

@goldenevolution I'm glad you liked the graphics and sound! The bug attacks are definitely on the broken side for sure. not sure if I can change it, not only cause of the rules of the jam but also cause the code is just "yikes". haha :)

ethebakesmith 2020-04-20 15:37

@alex-mulkerrin I just found pixel vision last week! I used the jam to learn a new tool :smile: I really love PixelVision8. I'm glad you liked the graphics :)

wzqxrys 2020-04-20 17:31

Looks nice, audio is great love how it changes with the enemies appearing, simple and effective gameplay in tune with the them

yeti-kid 2020-04-22 20:31

Really enjoyed this game, love how different it is to the rest I have played. The audio is really strong too and helps gives audio clues. The graphics are great and simple that really add to a game that you can get stuck into straight away. Loved this and will check out your other stuff in the future!!!

blue-pin-studio 2020-04-22 20:32

Pretty cool game! The bugs are unforgiving, after their 3rd or 4th attack my plant didn't have enough health withstand the first 0.5s. Maybe let the plant regenerate health when it's at high water level? Had fun playing tho

eldar 2020-04-22 21:30

Has anyone managed to grow the plant to the end of the screen? :) Seems kinda impossible right now.

Is the optimal strategy just endlessly watering, and switching to rocks when the bugs appear? Or is there some penalty for overwatering / some relationship between watering and bugs appearance? I think you could introduce these mechanics to make choices more meaningful.

ethebakesmith 2020-04-23 02:03

@yeti-kid @blue-pin-studio @eldar @wzqxrys Thank you for all the feed back! :smile: I'm not sure if getting to the end of the screen is possible. after I got things working properly(meaning no graphical bugs) I ran out of energy and ideas. Also the code and ui systems are a mess haha :pensive:

randomnine 2020-04-24 23:04

Congrats on finishing your first ludum dare! I really like how the audio changes when the bugs attack. I found the attacks frustrating, though - it seemed like they'd always take some health off no matter what. All I could do was hope bugs didn't show up! I've been told this is similar to the real experience of raising plants. Good work.

god-colo 2020-04-25 13:06

I love the aesthetics of the game! And the music changes according to the game! Playing with 2 buttons like good old days is super fun! Greato Jobu! :smile:

congusbongus 2020-04-25 13:06

I love the variety of music added to this game, gives it a really comfy mood! The plant doesn't grow realistically but I love the amount of detail in the sprites.

mantou 2020-04-25 13:42

Such a cute game. I like it! But too many bugs can easily end the game.

kirbloid 2020-04-25 23:34

I love it when audio is mixed up with the gameplay. Really enjoy the style of it, and hope that this being your first LD was a great learning experience!

kaisean-games 2020-04-26 14:14

Hey, congratulations on your first game. It looks better than my first game, years ago :smile:

In any case, the things that could be improved:

* More explanation of what's going on. I still don't know what that other thing next to the water is. It looks like stones and it killed bugs, so I guess I found the purpose for it on my own. But otherwise, it was a bit confusing at first.

* The goal seem to be to let the plant grow large and to keep it alive, but there was no particular skill-involved challenge. When I'd see bugs, I'd quickly switch to _stones_ and then shower them with that until they're done. Then I'd go back to water and shower the plant with water.

* The numbers on the screen are a mystery. The second one seem to be the water level (?) but the first one confused me as it kept changing a lot. I still have no idea.

Anyhow, it's hard to gauge anything else because there's so many unknowns, but if improved a bit, this could be a proper fun game.

But definitely good entry for the first time.

Keep up the good work.

ethebakesmith 2020-04-26 18:59

@randomnine @god-colo @congusbongus @mantou @kirbloid @kaisean-games Thanks for all the feedback! I really had fun making it and I like seeing what people pick up on :smile: I think as far as the game play loop goes it could definitely use more. the second number is the water level, the first one is actually the update tic. this game has has a tic rate that updates everything about 2 times a second. Unfortunately I messed up some logic and the bugs became overpowered. while you are dropping stones the bugs are supposed to do way less damage. As for the numbers at the top left. I left the text draws in on accident. Just some debug code I put in for figuring out what was going on. I'm happy with all the feed back I'm getting, so thank you all very much! :smile:

yyam 2020-04-30 19:28

Congrats on finishing your first LD :) I had fun playing! The concept fits the theme very well and I really liked the graphics. I also liked how the music seemed to get more intense when the bugs spawned, that was a nice touch :)

Here's a few things that would have made it even better: - Some explanation/tutorial: I was a bit confused when it first started. - It would have been nice if there were more interesting choices to make during gameplay. Perhaps some items could have an additional negative effect that you have to blanance out. - This is super minor but I noticed that the current item only switches when the key is released, it would feel a lot more responsive if it switched when the key was pressed.

Good job all round especially since it's your first LD game!

catomag 2020-05-06 09:48

I really liked the change in music when the bugs come. It was kind of confusing understanding how the game worked though...