Grove Guardian

timo-strating 2020-04-20 21:38

First of all really nice game. Making a game on the Pico8 is one of the many things still on my todo list.

The game: The gameplay is a bit comfusing, but after a while I got the idea. I made a gameboy game during ludumdare so I may started playing it with the wrong assubtions. but the idea that you could walk out of the screen was not obvous to me. Many old schools consoles do not support this big size of a map, and specially not with just empty land. Old consoles also do not support changing the background or sprites that fast, so everything velt very modern and strange. But overall really nice game you have implemented a lot for this small amout of time.

galgris 2020-04-20 22:08

To be honest I don't really understand what to do. I guess I should give it some more time. Missing animations of course, but I saw you were prioritising gameplay and features.

I like the style, gfx, sound, gameplay. You have captured the retro rpg feeling. I Like! :thumbsup:

@timo-strating : Empty land could be just empty, you only have to store the objects. PICO-8 is limited in pixels, colors, sound and memory, but you have lots of computing and rendering power which is a bit wierd at first... Coding for PICO-8 truly is addictive! I had way too much fun creating my own entry... :sweat_smile:

james-joubert 2020-04-22 14:51

Interesting concept. Unfortunately I was a bit lost and didn't quite understand what I had to do. I kept dying, but the music and graphics are great.

colozz 2020-04-28 11:14

I really loved the art style and music but got myself a bit lost on what to do. I cut down some trees, gathered seeds and tried to plant salads but they seemed to bit instantly consumed. I don't know what the goal is but your game is cute :)

nabo369 2020-04-29 10:18

Cool idea for the game and I loved the artstyle and mood of the game but aside from gathering seeds to upgrade the forest I was a bit unsure what the overhanging purpose of the game was. It is still a neat game though!

blubberquark 2020-04-30 09:32

It took me a while to understand the game of life thing that was going on here! There was a lot going on and I only understood when I died.

samboyer276 2020-05-09 15:47

Hey great job with this! As someone who also made a PICO-8 game, I think you've done a really good job with all the limitations (especially on the music!) As mentioned above, working out what to do is a little difficult; maybe a couple of sentences explaining the various mechanics would be helpful after the starting screen, or in the game description? Aside from that, it's a really good submission :smile:

chaotikza 2020-05-09 15:58

Hey everyone, thanks for the great feedback!

@samboyer276 Good idea, I've added a hints section to the description above, maybe that will help people figure out what to do.

falzock 2020-05-09 16:52

I am sorry but unfortunately, I didn't understand the controls. The first problem was that I'm on en QWERTZ keyboard, so Z is swoop with Y. But the art and music are great.

igor-kingamer 2020-05-09 19:49

Nice game! At first, it was somewhat frustrating because I didn't understand many things (and also didn't read the hints here), but after I got it all, it was fun.

One problem was that I didn't know the size of the world and where the stump was, especially because too much trees had grown. It would be good to have a map or some indication of in which direction the stump is.

It's easy to miss the messages since they disappear after the next movement. I missed where orcs where coming from many times. Also, the number of trees (shown in the stump) isn't always updated.

All that being said, it's a great game! At some point, I noticed the way things changed was familiar... Great use of game of life =D Good job!

nihushu 2020-05-10 19:24

Really good art and music, also kudos for making game in PICO-8, the the game itself was really confusing.

matootsy 2020-05-11 03:47

I really like theses games made with Pico8. It remain me my amstrad CPC464. And show that it is possible to make interesting concepts with big limitations. The mood of your game is very nice. And the storyline is well in the theme. The growing land and seed system is very interesting. But yes, it's not easy to understand what to do and how to manage the inventory. Perhaps a more simple system of gameplay would be more adapted to the pixel art game style.