FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → The Wizard Gardener

The Wizard Gardener

By crazybot

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall17313.2726
Fun16743.1026
Innovation12273.2825
Theme7833.8526
Graphics7553.9326
Humor12382.8222
Mood19532.9125

Comments

matt-burton 2020-04-20 16:48

WOAH, your 3D art is spot on! I'm on a mac now, but hope to play this later on my PC. Good stuff!

katrin 2020-04-20 20:52

It's so pity that only for windows. Very nice graphics.

doodlebrisk 2020-04-20 21:04

Great game. My game is similarly about keeping your plants alive. I like the magical theme. I found a hard time getting through the tutorial before my plant died, and the physics bouncing object around made things significantly harder. I wish the character was a little taller, so I could look in the pot on the table. Anyway, great art, cool concept.

crazybot 2020-04-20 22:16

@doodlebrisk Thanks! the physics part was kind of on purpose, just to make it even more chaotic :)

johnjoemcbob 2020-04-21 06:59

Cool! Took me way too long to realise there was a sprint haha! I like the visuals of the glowing apples a lot :) Well done!

frankie-hobbins 2020-04-21 08:14

I couldn't make it past the tutorial, then after a while of trying when I was watering the seed it seemed to make the plant health go down so I gave up.

Having said that, it was pretty fun trying! Nice job

crazybot 2020-04-21 08:18

@frankie-hobbins No you just need to make sure the plant doesn't fall over and stays in the sun you can never damage it by watering it. Too bad you didn't get to the end, the plant gets angry :)

Well at least I hope you had fun!

ryzy27 2020-04-21 18:39

I like the art style a lot.

Although 500mb download might be a bit too much for some people. If I can advise, next time try to build your game for html5 to make sure it's convenient for players and to maximize playthroughs :) But I think that's how big UE4 builds usually are.

Back to the game! Starting with bad, the plant should be able to handle more. It's not a good sign that I loose the game during first 10 seconds while still figuring out controls and throwing stuff around. But other than that it is a solid game that could be very enjoyable if given more time to develop. What if instead of loosing game after the plant dies, you could just pick new seed from a box? And if the plant did not jump from "OK" state to "Im going to die in 5 seconds" I could be planting an orchard.

But I guess that was the intention and if given more time that's how you imagined this game to look like.

My suggestion would be to "patch" the game, by simply decreasing plant's time to die say 5 or even 10 times. It's not something you will spend 10 hours on and if it makes more people play your game till the end, in my view it's not against the rules.

I'll be honest, I did not play the game till the end because I got frustrated because the plant kept dying from being in the shadow for 3 seconds or not being watered constantly. But if you would make the bar decrease slowly, I'd love to come back and see the ending. It's better if it's too easy than too hard.

Stay safe! Cheers!

crazybot 2020-04-21 22:23

@ryzy27 Thanks so much! I actually have a patch with some better stuff like 3 difficulty settings and the ability to switch the mouse button functions around. I wanted, and could have finished it in time but me and my family had to go somewhere so I finished it today (didn't exceed the time limit of course) but I think the easier modes will make it more.. available :)

so there's now an easy, normal, and hard mode (original)

ryzy27 2020-04-22 14:20

I have tried it after adding easy mode and it is for sure more pleasant experience.

Thank you for that :)

Cheers!

crazybot 2020-04-22 19:33

@ryzy27 awesome I'm glad you liked it more!

curleyrach 2020-04-22 19:56

Like the 3D art and its cool that you've done difficulty options although its still a bit too hard for me. Nice concept, good job!

blue-pin-studio 2020-04-22 20:03

Loved it! Although i couldn't get the last three apples stuck in the tree. Aww well im sure i was just doing something wrong. I loved the glow the oranges had :D Great submission

sibi 2020-04-22 20:21

I like the magical approach to this! But it was very difficult to get started. Especially the left/right button confused me for a while since the tutorial was telling me the wrong one. It would be great if it was easier to hit the plant with the water or at least get some kind of indicator. Once I got the hang of it, it became much more enjoyable!

crazybot 2020-04-22 21:44

@sibi I'm glad you enjoyed it. The thing with the tutorial can leave people really confused and unable to play the game. That's why I'm considering it a game breaking bug and am patching it tomorrow :)

kent-reese 2020-04-23 01:04

Super thrilled by the ending of this game, it makes everything worth it. Nice job!

crazybot 2020-04-23 08:18

@kent-reese finally someone who made it to the end, I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

notpjriavs 2020-04-23 09:31

Fun, physics were wonky and I literally couldn’t play the game, but the physics were funny and I liked the art. Good job!

daniel-onstott 2020-04-23 09:31

Very charming art style, I might just be super bad but I couldn't get the poor plant to grow at all. Maybe the tutorial could use some work.

gelgavish 2020-04-23 10:45

This was a fun, yet difficult game. I love how polished the game is and the graphics are awesome! Great job on that one! :)

crazybot 2020-04-23 11:27

@daniel-onstott Yes I made an update to the game (see previous comment) and forgot to change the tutorial so now it's very confusing but since it's pretty game breaking I just fixed it :)

g-a-gamestudio 2020-04-24 04:13

@crazybot it is me. The 11 year old who made the game Movin' and Keepin' Alive. You are amazed I made my game when I am 11, but you are also just 14 or 15. Anyways your game looks great from the pictures, but sadly I can't play because it is a windows game and I have a Mac.

crazybot 2020-04-24 15:55

@g-a-gamestudio Next time I'm gonna try to make it for Windows, Linux and Mac :D

g-a-gamestudio 2020-04-24 20:12

Thank you so much @crazybot

g-a-gamestudio 2020-04-24 20:39

Actually, you should just made a web build / HTML build. It makes it so easy as there is no download required. So anyone can play on any device with any os.

crazybot 2020-04-24 21:40

@g-a-gamestudio I would if I could but the game is in 3D and too heavy to be calculated online without a download :/

g-a-gamestudio 2020-04-24 21:56

oh ok thats sad

g-a-gamestudio 2020-04-24 21:56

What you use to make game?

g-a-gamestudio 2020-04-24 21:57

Because I made a 3D game and it is a web build on gamejolt and I use unity.

crazybot 2020-04-25 20:58

@g-a-gamestudio UE4 it's 3D rendering features (for example realistic godrays) are in my opinion much more impressive than unity, unfortunately this also means the games are too heavy to play online...

g-a-gamestudio 2020-04-25 21:58

Oh ok. And hey don’t go bragging about Unreal Engine @crazybot. Unity has some capabilities unreal does not have.

crazybot 2020-05-11 15:36

@g-a-gamestudio sorry for responding so late but of course not, I'm just telling you why I chose UE4 instead of Unity.

I'm sure unity has it's strengths in my case the strengths of UE4 were just more useful for the kinds of games I make :D

honest-dan 2020-05-11 19:09

Thanks for letting me play your game Crazybot! I enjoyed the time I spent with it. I would say it was more of a challenge of following instructions - but had a bit of mystery about it too that made it interesting. Think about how a player can engage with your game without needing you to spell out step by step instructions - that will be a great place to improve next jam!

crazybot 2020-05-11 20:30

@honest-dan I'll try to make it so the tutorial isn't the size of a book next time :)

I just didn't realize I had to write such a lengthy tutorial untill I started writing them (which was at the very end) so I'll try to keep that in mind from the beginning next time!

elysiagriffin 2020-05-12 00:15

"Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615937007?t=9h11m59s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin"