Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → The Last Guardian
By civmaniac and fabula-rasa
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 571 | 3.77 | 179 | |
| Fun | 595 | 3.63 | 180 | |
| Innovation | 571 | 3.62 | 176 | |
| Theme | 426 | 4.04 | 179 | |
| Graphics | 852 | 3.87 | 181 | |
| Humor | 947 | 3.08 | 162 | |
| Mood | 972 | 3.51 | 175 |
Great concept and different to a lot of the ones out there which is nice. Graphics are adorable and the game looks and feels very polished. Definitely has the potentioal for more features to be added and expanded if you wanted to!
Hey pal, your MacOS Build doesn't work :3 I just tried to play your game while sitting on the couch with my macbook, I will check it later on when I'm at my PC again :) lazy vibes! ^^(I don't know why, but I also expirienced this before - it seems to be impossible to build a functioning macOS build on a PC.. :( Your game looks nice :) edit: if you're not reliant on realtime GI, might I suggest you make a Webbuild as well? :) Will get you more clicks I think - you know how lazy people are ;) Sadly I frist have to do a lightbake to make one for our game :3
Hey @fatpenguin! Thanks for your feedback. It is a shame about the mac build. We indeed have no way of testing it, so we just made it and put it out there. Does it throw you any specific error or it just refuses to run at all? And yes, we know all about lazy ;)! So we are working on a web build (or rather, my husband is working on it - I am playing the LD games and calling it "promotional activity" ;))!
I hope you'll get to play our game later, we're quite proud of this one :)
Great game ! It was not so clear to me that we also had to invoke rain on the tree, but now I see it's in the description. It's satisfying to play with the rain/plant mechanics, it works very well ! FYI, I used the Linux build and didn't encounter issue (and thanks for having provided one :) ).
The game really feels polished and complete. Really enjoyed playing it. The art really stands out. Great idea to call the clouds for help.
@fatpenguin, thank you for suggestions. I've added Web-build to itch.io.
@bellatrion, you are welcome! Developed on Linux, btw :)
Cute art style! Also interesting to hear it was developed on Linux. I've got a soft spot for Linux dev so it's great to see an entry here.
Cool game idea and game mechanics. I liked the story behind it too. Great game!
Nice game!
Loved the concept and graphics. The music is a bit repetitive but the amount of time spent in the game is okay. I lost first time because I didn't get the idea, but at the second try I got myself enjoying the game!
I really love this game..It was really fun running around and planting cacti and calling the clouds for help..Also the sound effect for summoning the clouds was really cool. I had a ton of fun playing this gamee.. Kudos man!
@fpgames I'm very glad you enjoyed the game! And that sound effect was originally just me humming :smile:
Good art style and music. The gameplay is interesting but movement feels a little bit slow. I really liked your monster-punching cacti :cactus:
Great entry, keep up the good work !
The game runs smoothly and the gameplay is very engaging! The music is nice, but looping such a short and simplistic track over and over becomes repetitive quite fast; the other sound effects (including the humming), however, work really nice for the game. I found myself wanting to play more of it, so that's a big plus...
Very cool art style! I like how the music matches the artwork and the flow of he game is very steady. A great idea executed well in a weekend :) x
This is a good game! It feels finished and not rushed. I like that there are several mechanics that all work really well. Not sure if I like that you can only attack sideways, makes it harder to dodge while attacking the suns. Are you planning on making this into a full game? Cause I would want to play it. I like the upbeat and brightness of the game. There are plenty of dark dungeony games, it would be nice to have something like this to play.
Good game with potential. I really liked the graphics!
Hey, @melomel. Thanks for playing our game! We really appreciate all the feedback you guys give us. I'm glad to hear you liked it. As to your question, we don't have any further plans for this game for now. But we are currently on a hunt for good game ideas, so it is surely not off the table.
really solid game, i like how new enemies start coming in too, also your main character sounds like the wololo guy
@keyo @nablaz You might be surprised to know that the track we have chosen there is actually 2:13 long :grin:
@teto @zerohbeat @zesix @keyo @ponypen @fougereble I feel really elated by your appreciation of the graphics! Thank you! It is so great to hear :smile:
@fatpenguin, we've uploaded a new repacked version for macOS (in a dmg container). Credits for fixing it goes to @shaolin-dave :) Seemed to be some problems with executable bits in files inside .app. Anyways, it should work now! If you are still interested in trying out our game, we would appreciate if you let us know how it went!
@fatpenguin - and please let me know if it works for you. I've tried packing the game into a .dmg instead of a .zip to keep it from being corrupted, but it needs to be tested on more machines to confirm.
awww that game was so sweet! :D Also loved the storymode and also that you thoretically would be able to skip it (for replaying purposes etc) The artstyle is really cute :) the whole thing has a "don't starve" vibe, which I really enjoyed. the controls were pretty smooth but a bit too much to remember at first, (but I'm also super bad at that ^^) so if you keep working on this game maybe sort of subtle show them all the time, or create a tutorial to gradually introduce the player to all those functions or maybe make a tiny button icon appear as soon as there are certain actions to be done? :) like when there's a plant the option to water etc. All in all a sweet and cute game, amazing what you 2 ppl managed to accomplish in 72 hours <3
Just played! very nice! Probably I will tweet about this in the next day on this page https://twitter.com/Free_IndieGames !
@shaolin-dave will do after work! :) If I don't return to you with a report, please remind me! :3
@bongooo Glad you enjoyed the game. And it's very cool of you to tweet - we've never been tweeted before :)
Nice one!
A fun little game to play, I liked the music and the idea of "summoning" cacti. It feels well polished!
@fabula-rasa Thank you for taking the time to answer my comment! I didn't mean to belittle your choice of the track, in fact, I actually liked it. I just thought that it became repetitive after a while beacuse it has few sounds and is pretty flat in terms of dynamics. Basically, I think it's better suited for a menu / title screen than actual gameplay. Anyway, good work! Cheers
@bongooo Thank you :) @nablaz Thank you for your feedback!
@nablaz Oh, I didn't feel like you belittled the choice :). And I really appreciated the feedback! Especially when it comes to audio, as - I will tell you a secret - an elephant stepped on my ear and I can sometimes chose stuff that doesn't go over all that well with others or not really appreciate the nuances.
Hello there :), loved your game. I appreciate game where you have to defend a place (remind me of old warcraft 3 mod X Heroes siege :)). The mechanics are really well thoughts, you have to choose when to attack and when to defend. My first play I didn't realize we could grow more cactus, but on my second play, I made sure to have an army of cactus ^^. Nicely done :)
Very nice game! Loved the aesthetics and the overall concept. I beat my game with my cactus army :D
Good job! :D
@multiplexor Who doesn't love a nice cacti army ;)! Glad you enjoyed the game!
Nice game, I played it to the end (after a first try ending in a death) and liked it very much The art style is clean and nice and the mechanics interact well with each other. Though I feel like the attack move is useless as it's more efficient to summon cacti and let them fight instead.
The music is cool but too repetitive considering the length of one playthrough. The midgame was a little boring with few enemy to fight but then it spiked before the end which wasn't an issue because I prepared with tons of summoning beforehand but could be an issue for someone who summoned less and spend his time fihgting
Overall, excellent work !
I think the move speed could be a little bit higher - it takes some time to get back to the tree when its under attack.
Aside from that i liked the looks and the audio the gameplay is unique (if a bit repetitive). I'm still a bit conflicted about the number of clouds. Assuming its a barren land as the lore has it there shouldn't be that many of them - but then gameplay would be too hard so you had to hit a balance there
The art style is very pleasant, although I think the designs of the enemies could have been slightly more varied. It's a lot more efficient to just summon as many cacti as you can than to actually use your staff, which is a bit of a shame because it promotes lazy gameplay. Overall very polished and enjoyable, congratulations!
I love the art! Like some people are saying, the movements are too slow, but i really like the game.. Good job!
Positive message! Good looking graphics and niec sounds. Loved the rain chant and the different uses for the clouds. Excellent work!
Nice and somehow... relaxing. Maybe it's the chill music?
Cute and fun little game. I liked the graphics, especially the background world with the ground and foliage, as that is something i often struggle with. The only real issue i had with the game was that i felt that it was a bit unclear what the objective was, but all in all it was a great submission!
I like the music, you are in the mood right away. The art is really cool and the concept interesting. Well done.
It's a nice juggling of mechanics, mostly related to the clouds. The attack sound effect was a bit too low-pass and hurt the ears when too many or too frequent attacks occurred. The cloud-summoning song could have stood to have been more obvious, and the tree being in danger of wilting could have used a sound effect to clue you in while you were busy fighting monsters, but all in all it came together well enough.
Cute, but boring game... dont make me fun.
Unskippable intro without controller, at least by the controls that you described. I think ESC key worked but it wasn't documented anywhere. The audio seemed to stutter on my machine (but that could be only my machine that's the problem) along with the occasional bit of game lag at times. At times I felt like the cloud summoning or the movement in the game just felt slow, for something that felt like it should be a faster paced game it seemed to trudge along at times. That being said I played for a while to see how the game was, after a while I just stopped as there wasn't anything new to see. I think with some polish this could be a decent little game.
@pushkan Sorry you didn't have fun! But thank you for your feedback :)
@kjscott Hey kj :). Through the whole duration of the intro there is a prompt in the top right corner that you can press ESC or B on a controller to skip. You must have missed it.
Screenshot_1.png
And thank you for your feedback! It definitely will help us improve our projects in the future :)
About to rate - can I ask.... How was the tasks split on your project? Who did which? Both devs or one dev and an artist/sound or something different? :smile:
@fabula-rasa , now you mention it like that, yes it's clear but when I first read it I took it as "To ESCcape press B to skip" which is why I didn't think of pressing ESC key
@purpledartfrog We planned the game together, the features and so on. The idea itself was civmaniac's. I did the art and the sounds. We both were doing the animations. Civmaniac did the all the coding. I only know enough coding to somewhat understand what I am looking at :laughing:
Adorable game with consistent art style and clear gameplay! It was very enjoyable to keep my Tree strong and healthy, and even the enemies didn't evoke hate. Positive vibes all the way through!
@shess I am very happy to hear that! We wanted the game to exactly give off some positive vibes. We could all use some nowadays :smile:
Woow, what an incredible and well-executed idea! I kind of wish you couldn't attack in this game at all so that your whole purpose was controlling the nature, not physically harming enemies. Maybe clouds could extinguish these fire foes? :)
@fabula-rasa Now I got to the actually review - what an impressive entry ... big :thumbsup_tone1: Very well polished - although a little low on content perhaps... but in general I would say that polish is more important. I liked the graphics, the sound, the theme(audio) and the way things "played into eachother"
One of my favorites this far :smile:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
@khud0 Clouds actually do that, to an extent. If you lure a fire guy under the rainy cloud, you'll see :wink:
Also, I am very glad you enjoyed the game!
@purpledartfrog Thank you so much! Makes me very happy to hear all this! I am very glad to have the froggy seal of approval :smile:
And we did indeed decide that polishing existing content is more important than adding more. We developed a workflow of "alrighty, this works well now, let's add the next thing" - rinse and repeat until we ran out of time.
I really like the concept. The mechanics are simple but pair very well together, and the graphics are cute and consistent, which ties the game up very nicely. Well done!
I really liked your game and it's a nice take on the theme. Graphics and animations are really good. Good job!
@rodrigo-denubila @thebaecun Thank you! Very glad you enjoyed the game!
So cute and funny! The concept is really nice
@kjscott, thank you for your feedback! Indeed, maybe we needed to be more clear there with the message. Something like "Press ESC(B) to skip" maybe. I'm wondering about the performance issues you've encountered. Could you tell me, on which platform build did you play and if it's a web build, which browser did you use?
Man such a wholesome game! It was a really relaxing expirience!
The game is nice, the graphism are really good and the music is cool :) Maybe you should give more feedback to the player when hitting/getting hit, because the sound effects are low compared to the music, so when you hit/get hit it doesn't feel that impacting ;)
@finnhax Thank you! Also: can I reserve the right to use a quote from your review as advertisement - it's just purely awesome and so quotable. I can already see it "on the box" :laughing:
I've gathered 12 Acrons and won! (Actually died when played for the first time.) This game was satisfying to play. Nice graphics and animations! I liked the story line. I guess some kind of cactus seeds would be cool, if you would like to make this game "bigger" in the future. Also, the music stutters when changing scenes. Besides that, nice submission!
@civmaniac, windows 10, web build, chrome v81
@dodormeur, now that you point it out, I very much agree. We have a stagger animation, but it's very short - somewhere around 0.2 seconds. I didn't want player to be "stun-locked" so I kept it short. Maybe we could use also some different cue, like character sprites blinking for a short duration after being hit. Or just a different animation. Thanks for feedback!
stagger_animation.gif
@sandra-jasionowska, stutters, hmm... That's probably because I was lazy and didn't load scenes asynchronously :) On my machine, transitions are very smooth and practically instant, but I have a high-spec hardware. Well, that's good to know for future. Thank you!
Nice music, good graphics and polished gameplay loop. Very good job.
Maybe a little too easy since you can just stand in a puddle while constantly luring clouds to spawn masses of cacti. But still a fun little game.
great entry a lot of content for such a short jam. Keep it up :)
I enjoyed that! I love the font and the style. Cactuses felt a little out-of-place. Got very attached to my tree. Great choice of font too.
@beng Thank you for your feedback! I love that font as well, discovered it like half a year ago and fell in love immediately. It is, in my humble opinion, the best modern serif created in recent years!
I don't know if it is about me or not but html5 version is not loading the game
Loved this little game. The web version worked great. I always appreciate seeing the web version as that is a quick way for people to try your game!
Loved the art and sounds, as well as the gameplay. You guys did a great job with this! keep up the good work!!
Cant wait to see the next ludum dare entry from you!
@despdair Oh, that is sad to hear! It loads fine for us here and nobody else reported problems. What browser are you on? Maybe you have some script blocker that interferes with itch.io (like uBlock or something along those lines)?
@fabula-rasa It worked now, great game
@chambre19 Thank you for all the appreciation. It's truly great to hear that you liked it and had fun :)
Cool game I love the music !! My cactus died so quickly :( poor guy :'( I let the music play while i was drinking some tea ^^
This is one of my favourites so far! Cool graphics and addicting gameplay
HI! I like the art and the mood and the music is on point as well. I understand that the time was short, but it would have been very nice to illustrate the intro. Think about it for a future release :) The game itself is enjoyable, good job!
@giulia I'm glad you enjoyed the game and thank you for feedback! You raise a very good point. Illustrating the intro was actually on the short list of things to do but we ran out of time before I could do it.
@giulia, we actually had a discussion recently on how to do illustrative cutscenes fast for jams and if its worth the time spent. If we can do it in an hour timeframe, maybe its worth it. Thank you!
@sofy35 and @alexey-kuzovkov, I'm glad you liked our entry! Thank you for your feedback!
very beautiful game. Great job!
Great fun @civmaniac , Love the alternative style you've created here. Not your typical Wizard game or Plant survival game. :) It's tough, but I can see the path to improving my success rate. The tree looks perfectly whimsical. Great premise. I would shorten the intro by 25%. Maybe consolidate the text or cut out the fat? or speed up some of the less-important frames of text?
Addictive indeed. I even interrupted myself writing comments to play it again. HA!!
Also, the mandolin & stereo acoustic guitars for that American Roots feel creates a really nice environment. The sfx being louder in the mix would raise the stakes a bit, I think. Might be nice to have some looming drones to make it a bit more scary/eerie from time to time...maybe as the tree wilts?
Thanks, @tom-stroll, some great feedback there! I was thinking on shortening the intro, maybe adding some art to go with it. Thanks, again!
What a fun game! The music really stands out. I'm not sure what I can add that others haven't already covered, but the only thing I felt missing while playing it was an obvious reaction when I get hit by and enemy. Some stager or camera shake, perhaps. This was a really nice entry, and I can't praise the music enough. What a joy to play!
1. Points for a Godot game 1. What a different mix of concepts and possibilities. I always liked the "save the tree" or "the trees can save" motif, but this one goes in a different direction, adding the sorcery like creatures. 1. Are the character animations 2D skeletons?
looking good. I like the music and choice of instruments. It took a while to figure out what we're meant to do, so a tutorial stage might be nice to include. some of the movements could so with some extra animations, particularly walking in different directions, and maybe a few enemy designs but for what you have created in such a short time it's difficult to fault! good work.
@splitpainter Only the Cactus is a skeleton. The "ball shaped" enemies are fully separate sprites and both the druid and the flying skull are just combined from separate parts and those parts are animated without bones. When we started this project, I didn't know how to rig a bone character in Godot, so I just thrown them together how I knew with an intention to learn later and change it. And only Cactus got the skeletal treatment, there was no time for the rest.
@splitpainter, one of the ideas that got cut was procedurally animated tree. I wanted it to be fully rigged with bones and change color, maybe loose leaves gradually, but well... We ran out of time.
Good game! not much to complain really. I liked the mechanics, how you ad to juggle the clouds the to keep the tree alive, but also having enough puddles to grow your friends in. The fighting mechanics were rudimentary but worked. If anything, the game felt pretty slow. Fighting wise, as well as movement wise. The tune in background was catchy and added to the mood. I played for some time until I got bored, so I guess there is no winning condition? Also, I didn't really get, what the cones were for. I collected them, but didn't use them in any way. I guess I missed something in the title crawl or some key to throw them.
I really liked the game, won it in my second try, and in my third try I found out an easy way to make cactii and by summoning cloud to one pool of water and keeping on planting cactus seeds. Found out the thunder feature too, good job on the hidden features and a subtle remark of it in the description. Are there more :thinking: xD
Overall I liked playing the game a lot, but wanted more since I was able to finish it fast; Maybe in the post jam version you can have more levels with different waves of enemies, more difficuly etc, and harder to grow cactus maybe
Good job for a game jam game :muscle: I liked the sounds, and art and the mood too, it was fun playing it
(I saw one cactus glitching near the tree for some reason, dont know why xD)
Here's a screenshot of my gameplay :p :) the-last-guardian.png
Good Entry!
@duke I think the winning condition is collecting 12 sacred acorns. I won twice that way
@joamd Thank you for such detailed feedback! Also: yes, there are more. Well, there is one more :)
This is a very nice little game! It felt polished, and the mechanics were interesting - loved the fact that you could plant cacti to help out out defend the tree and fight against the monsters. It added an extra element that was tied to protecting the tree - closing the core game loop.
Overall, it was fun and relaxing to play - the music probably helped to create that mood. Great entry!
Nice to see Godot developers as many in the jam develop with Unity!The game is well polished and very challenging. Think about porting it to mobile it would be great!
@savvu Thanks for the feedback! We are considering developing it further (undecided as of yet but maybe, maybe). I didn't even think of porting it to mobile but it is indeed a good concept. Thank you for that!
Wow, very original idea. I had a lot of fun playing!
Very creative, intriguing gameplay! Loved to balance out whether watering my cacti or the tree was the way to go. Artstyle and sound design enhance the enjoyment too!
I love the artstyle. It looks like an educational show for children from Sweden.
@kosmik123 That literally made me laugh out loud :)! I didn't know that my chosen style is so Swedish - I love it!
Glad to see that Godot is not only for pixel art games! :smile: I like how the controls were easy to execute! I really loved the music! Greato Jobu ! :smile:
This one is really nice. Took me a while to figure out, that I also needed to water the big acorn, but as then it was great fun! The environment is great, the characters look nice and the gameplay is hectic but fair.
Really well done!
fun game. It feels really satisfying to beat up the sun.
Sometimes I game over but don't know why. I think a more visible indication of when the tree is dying would help with that.
First time my Tree of Life died, second time it was me, but third time was the charm!
It's really a nice amount of mechanics you packed into this. Several kinds of enemies, clouds that water the tree, puddles and call down lightning (although I never used that on purpose since they move so slowly), puddles that grow cacti, cacti that fight for you, acorns to collect and apples to restore health for when you fight yourself - that's quite a lot of systems. And while the fighting itself is a bit weak it in my opinion, everything works well together and that makes more than up for it.
Add to that the pleasent art style and the nice theme of the game. Great job, you two!
I love the exploratory aspect of figuring out how to use the clouds. It was a great feeling making your army of cacti! Would have loved to unlock some more powers over time or have some other more direct way of fighting of the hordes.
@god-colo @zubspace @feingehacktes @tobiasw @sibi Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to give us feedback! It is really appreciated :)
Fighting mechanic is indeed a bit tacked on. Maybe with further development we would either get rid of it completely (and give more nature spells instead) or develop it into something actually worth while. But for the moment, you are an old druid. So you can smash stuff with your staff in a pinch, but it's not recommended, you may break a hip :wink:
@fabula-rasa That's fair. Somehow I always assume that if a character *can* fight in a game, it can fight well, but your reasoning makes sense ;)
Very satisfying to hit monsters :smile: (I think the sound effect does it for me!). This may well have been suggested before, but I would have perhaps liked an indicator of the tree's health! Overall it was quite addictive, trying to figure out the win condition. Well done! :tada:!
I loved the art, mood and the music in the game. The game idea was very nice. I actually don't have anything to point out, because I really enjoyed the gameplay.
Really nice art style, and gameplay was a lot of fun! I like the attention to detail - the different enemy types weren't as straightforward as simply having different healths or speeds, but there are different strategies to beating them also. I like that clouds have more than one use, and there's a trade-off in deciding where you want them at any given time. It's also fun to build up your own wrecking crew that don't need to be told what to do - they just fight to the bitter end!
If there was to be a post-LD version, it would be really neat if you could grow more than one kind of plant, and different plant types grew in different conditions, incentivizing map exploration. By no means is this a complaint though, the amount of content in this for an LD game is great.
Thanks for the game!
Lots of polish, cute game. I planted lots of cacti but some of them never grew into big cacti, maybe I just didn't know what I was doing. Gamepad controls worked very well.
@cheesepencil Thank you for taking the time to leave feedabak! The cacti do not grow if the puddle of water they are in is small. You need to summon rain clouds to make the puddle bigger. The bigger the puddle - the faster the cacti grow.
Cool game. Nice balance between managing the clouds/cacti and keeping the tree alive.
This was pretty much developed the farest from all the games I played so far. Very well done! The magician needs special skills! And there need to twin cactuses OR some that can spawn new ones OR ones, that can grow without water but are not as stable...or or or :D My mind explodes. Loved to play it :-)
Game looks awesome. Gameplay was a bit slow, you could have sped it up a bit (movement).
Introduction looks amazing and the whole game is nicely polished. Nice idea to have minions to fight along with you :)
Cheers!
Amazing, entertaining game, and a very good balance. You literally feel how the game becomes harder, and if you didn't pick up a right strategy, you would eventually get screwed. Thanks for the game, it was fun ! And great music !
@kittyfeeda Thank you for your feedback and valuable suggestions! We are actually brainstorming in what way the game could be developed, and various typed of "friends" to grow is definitely on the short list :smile: Very happy you enjoyed the game.
Guardin' the Garden.
cute graphics
Why? >< I was alive... T.T My tree was not under attack and the rain was falling over it.
Died.png
Análise...
1 - Mecânicas, Aprendizado e Fluxo: Achei interessante ter de cuidar da árvore enquanto hordas e mais hordas de criaturas vinham combater minhas tropas. Hahahahahah. Joguei algumas partidas até aprender a "plantar um cacto". Eu notei de primeira que a poça aumentava com a chuva e que depois diminuía com o tempo, mas demorou até eu sacar que precisava interagir com a poça para iniciar o crescimento de um cacto. As diferentes inteligências dos diferentes inimigos também chamaram minha atenção e me deixaram curioso. Eu pretendo tentar mais uma vez (ver se foi um bug ou se realmente deu sinal de derrota mesmo estando "bem"). Aprender a jogar foi de boa, com o passar do tempo fui acumulando práticas e adaptando contra novas unidades e quantidades de inimigos. Especialmente bater com o cajado, que tem o passo correto para ser funcional em algumas unidades inimigas. A sequência de explicações ajudou um pouco a aprender, mas muito longa, creio que uma aproximação mais visual, ou um tutorial em jogo poderiam ajudar com isso (teria que ser testado). O fluxo de jogo pareceu difícil a priori, mas depois fui entendendo melhor a escalada de desafio e (agora) consigo enxergar como mais balanceado do que parecia inicialmente.
2 - Gráficos, Áudio e Narrativa: A arte gráfica ficou bacana para o tempo de Ludum Dare. Com maior tempo seria possível polir a arte. O áudio está confortável, não tenho certeza, mas senti que não tem perfeita sincronia em termos de looping. Os efeitos sonoros foram suficientes e ficaram bons para o tempo de game jam. A narrativa é interessante, daria para repartir em diferentes estágios/desafios (caso o interesse da equipe seja a continuidade do projeto).
3 - Cultura: O jogo me faz lembrar personagens de mitos religiosos, além de jogos de "defenda a base", além da narrativa (ao menos inicial) de Legend of Mana e de Legend of Legaia. Creio que seria possível partir desses nichos e avançar sobre outros envolvendo cuidado com plantas e outros mais combativos. Assim seria possível tanto identificar público, quanto fazer do jogo (em caso de continuidade e polimento) uma peça que viria a agregar todo esse conjunto.
4 - Monetização: Creio que caberia ao jogo quebra em diversos estágios. Com maior apelo narrativo (mundo, personagem e roteiro geral). Além de permitir o desenvolvimento de diferentes projetos de nível. Dessa forma (e levando em consideração os nichos culturais e de consumo), creio que o jogo poderia vender em stores como itch.io ou mesmo Steam.
Analysis...
1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow: I found it interesting to have to look after the tree while hordes and more hordes of creatures came to fight my troops. Hahahahahah. I played a few games until I learned to "plant a cactus". I noticed at first that the puddle increased with rain and then decreased with time, but it took me a while to figure out that I needed to interact with the puddle to start growing a cactus. The different intelligences of the different enemies also caught my attention and made me curious. I intend to try it again (see if it was a bug or if it really showed signs of defeat even though it was "fine"). Learning to play was good, as time went on accumulating practices and adapting against new units and quantities of enemies. Especially hit with the staff, which has the correct step to be functional in some enemy units. The sequence of explanations helped a little to learn, but very long, I believe that a more visual approach, or a tutorial in game could help with that (it would have to be tested). The game flow seemed difficult a priori, but then I started to understand the challenge climb better and (now) I can see it as more balanced than it initially seemed.
2 - Graphics, Audio and Narrative: Graphic art was cool for Ludum Dare's time. With more time it would be possible to polish the art. The audio is comfortable, I'm not sure, but I felt that it doesn't have perfect sync in terms of looping. The sound effects were sufficient and were good for the game jam time. The narrative is interesting, it could be shared in different stages / challenges (if the team is interested in the continuity of the project).
3 - Culture: The game reminds me of characters from religious myths, as well as games of "defend the base", in addition to the (at least initial) narrative of Legend of Mana and Legend of Legaia. I believe it would be possible to start from these niches and move on to others involving care with plants and others that are more combative. Thus it would be possible to both identify the public and make the game (in case of continuity and polishing) a piece that would add this whole set.
4 - Monetization: I think it would be up to the game to break down at various stages. With greater narrative appeal (world, character and general script). In addition to allowing the development of different level projects. Thus (and taking into account the cultural and consumer niches), I believe that the game could sell in stores like itch.io or even Steam.
Interesting concept, well executed with nice graphics and design. If I would give one constructive comment I would say that the sound effects perhaps could be more prominent and interesting.
Other than that, well done!!
Creating cactus army was totally fun. I liked lightning and thunders.
The cut paper art style is very nice. And the game completely in the theme. The intro puts us well in the mood, and even if there's many buttons, it's easy to take control of the guardian. I like to see how the tree is getting better (I have done the same kind of evolution in my game) and very cool to see the cactus helping the guardian. And I like the fact that we must "ask" for the clouds to come to give water. The game is not so easy (Perhaps more feedback and precision would be required to understand when the enemies touch us and we touch them). I had fun to test this little cute game. Thanks and congratulation you two :)
Great entry! The art is solid and very appealing. Loved the cacti and the clouds to some degree (felt they were too slow). Direct combat isn't so great but works alright with everything else. I wish there was an indicative of tree's HP besides the your own. Awesome work overall ^-^
@gustavo-christino, @marcusnystrand, @vugars, @matootsy, @nathalia-hohl Thank you for feedback! We truly appreciate it!
The lack of UI indicator for tree health was actually intentional. We didn't want to show tree HP as some abstract value, instead we opted to change its visuals when it goes from happy-and-wet to dry-and-dead. I still think that tree health indicator probably is an overkill in this case, but the visual representation could certainly be improved. And thanks to feedback, I realized that we could certainly use some cues like a sound effect to announce change in tree state. Maybe if the tree gets dangerously close to dying, druid could show a speech bubble with a graphic of dying tree, thus notifying player of his worry and approaching defeat.
The game runs very well. Cute animations! The rain clouds moved a bit too slow for me and I keep failing to keep the tree alive, but as the resident Lich King, I am okay with this. :grin:
really cool, I want a thousand warrior cacti.
That's a really cute game!! I love the artwork and the music. The mechanics are nice and simple and the way the clouds come by the tree when you attract them is kind of soothing, even if there are dozen monsters nearby hahaha. Really great work, although I felt a bit defenseless with just the single attack and no dodging or blocking mechanic. The stun does the trick, but I could've used a little more combat-wise. Great entry!!
Liked the art in this, thought it worked well with the story and gameplay. Would be nice if the intro was a little shorter and allowed you to get into the gameplay quicker. Managing the tree and everything around it was nicely done and building an army of cacti was a lot of fun.
The graphics and music are great I had fun playing which is the most important thing in a game very good job!
The mechanichs are pretty interesting, i had a lot o fun playing this game, keep the hard work :D
good game! everything is well polished and it is fun. I especially like the music.
I really liked the games, the mechanics feel very polished, and the graphics are really good too. The music also fits the theme of the game really well
Fun game with nice graphics. However, in my opinion, it is a bit too slow-paced and can get a bit repetitive. Some more variety would be great. Overall good entry!
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Thank you, everybody, for your invaluable feedback and appreciation! You rock!
Thanks to you, we decided to develop "The Last Guardian" into a **full-blown game**. It will need a new name before it is done, as the current name is trademarked (who knew :wink: ?!). If you are interested, you can stay updated about our progress at itch.io https://limboofwonders.itch.io/the-last-guardian-full-game or on our newly-created twitter http://twitter.com/limboofwonders.
And now, with only 5 days left on LD46, we want to focus on getting as much valuable community feedback as possible. So, back to playing/rating and talking about games. See you there :smile:
Unfortunately it did not pick up my microphone. (This was my first time recording something like this) So you have some uncommented gameplay :( https://youtu.be/inyLpQLUFXQ
I liked the game a lot the only negative i mentioned was that I would have liked slightly faster movement speed. I played with a gamepad!
The art is nice and great music choice! I really like how summoning clouds effects the tree, the growing of cactuses and the enemies. Though, the acorn amount doesn't decrease when you place a cactus. It's also a bit weird that cactuses grow from acorns. After a while I started to wonder when the game was gonna end, since progress towards the end goal isn't shown. I guess you just have to survive for a certain amount of time, because the game ended quite suddenly.
@ausstein Thanks for playing! Actually, this is the first time we see someone else playing the game! BTW, you almost made it to the end!
@mika-la-grand Thank you for your feedback! We wanted to do cactus seeds, but it was cut by the end. Acorns are a sign of your progress and it's, basically, your score. And you just have infinite seeds :) If you finish the game, you are shown how many acorns you've collected. I'll tell you a secret... Acorns are a number of waves that are coming to take your tree down ;) With each wave you get one, and when you defeat the last one, you win!
Thanks for submitting to our P&R Stream! I just played it and you know what I think about it so short hand: Nice game, cool concept, nice artstyle and the soudn was very nice too. Nothing to complain, we did not encounter any bugs.
Cute game with lovely graphics! Nice choice of music and friendly font. I enjoyed playing it, and that I could use my controller. :) I quite enjoyed the summoning of the clouds (and how the clouds turn darker), and I liked that it looks as if the cacti are doing the same, with their arms up all the time. :smile: :cactus: During playing I didn't really have an indication of how far I was in the game. When I won after a a couple of tries, the end came as a surprise.
@papaver, thank you for your feedback! Game ends after 12 acorns. We kept it short (under 10 minutes), so we could test and iterate on it in our limited time. Basically, you win after you defeat all the hordes (12 waves total). However, now I think acorns should probably fall after you defeat monsters.
@civmaniac: Ah ok, it would be nice to have some visual feedback to see my progress in the game, to get a sense of how I am doing and how close I am to winning.
Also, I really like the animations of the cacti!
Very neat-- I played your game on my stream also if you're interested in the VOD:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/614615339
(Also thanks for playing ours)
@weeping-rupee Thank you a ton for the video! It was very cool to watch and listen to the commentary :)
really nice love the Art and graphics. Nice entry. Keep it up. :v:
Wow incredible contribution to the jam! The graphics and controls are really tight, awesome gameplay loop, great variation with the enemies and their attacks. Top notch!
Very nice game! I really loved the Idea. It's nice that you don't have direct controlls to defend the tree.
It was a bit to easy and I only needed one Water pool...
But overall, a very nice game :)
Nice game! I enjoyed it a lot - I especially liked the tension between maintaining the tree and growing cacti. I think my biggest gripe is that it was a bit confusing, I had to re-read the instructions a few times to figure out what I was doing.
I love this game! The art is great, very pleasant, the song is relaxing and the simplistic gameplay keeps your engaged. Nice job man, I really liked the I played to the end :D
Great game, well balanced, good art, good challenge and you saw me play it on stream so you already know my thoughts. lol
@teto @fatpenguin @bellatrion @zerohbeat @zesix @debuggerpls @hasan-vurucu @keyo @fpgames @evanaellio @nablaz @ponypen @melomel @fougereble @beats @shaolin-dave @bongooo @emcio969 @desertmaw @tripl3m @multiplexor @adinimys @willoxs @iasper @colan @macdoom @arzi @invixel @julienlussiez @ketura @kjscott @purpledartfrog @shess @khud0 @thebaecun @rodrigo-denubila @alex-karev @finnhax @dodormeur @sandra-jasionowska @taddl @pilarius @beng @despdair @chambre19 @sofy35 @alexey-kuzovkov @giulia @grtodaro @tom-stroll @hwaet @splitpainter @jamesolivermusic @duke @joamd @kate90 @sndr @savvu @nachodlv @trexxak @kosmik123 @god-colo @zubspace @feingehacktes @tobiasw @sibi @evert @euforia-games @skyeward @cheesepencil @krammetje @kittyfeeda @ryzy27 @other-wb @tarnes @nahual @gustavo-christino @marcusnystrand @vugars @matootsy @nathalia-hohl @vex @akitl @jdk2209 @franklins-ghost @gameovermexico @elio @turritom @divadyugi @rewzu @ausstein @mika-la-grand @firesplash-entertainment @papaver @weeping-rupee @lazzydev72 @stolen-biscuit @tunahead @adamv @leonardo-fraga
Thank you, everyone, for your feedback and suggestions! We've released a 1.1 post-jam version of the game. Please mind, that you should still use version 1.0 for rating, if you haven't already! If you liked our entry you can check our post-jam version on our itch.io. Web build is still 1.0 for the sake of rating, so you need to download native build. Main changes are: gardening cacti requires seeds now, optional harder difficulty level available, increased player movement speed, cutscene got illustrations and more. You can see full list in the description. At least I think it is full, since I was compiling it late last night ;) Thank you for playing our game!
Hey, thanks for posting the game for my stream!
I like the layered art style, and your mechanics are fun, too. I always find it a bit difficult to remember all the things I can do in Jam games (since I don't play them very long and move from one game to the next it often gets confusing~) so I didn't do very well here at first, but now that I know how to build my Cactus army, it works a lot better!
The game looks really good, you have probably put a ton of effort into it. The graphics are astounding and the soundtrack is also well fit (though 3rd party, but nah). I hope to see a full version released for sale!
@clipper Thanks for your feedback and the compliments as well :smile:! We already started planning out features of the full version and will start properly working on it after the jam ends. You can follow our progress on itch or twitter, if you wish (links are in the description above)!
wow, there is only few games that makes me to lost track of time... this is one of the game... Sounds are very nice and game mechanics are pretty good. GJ
I really liked this game. I felt like there could have been some extra visual feedback on the cloud summoning. Perhaps a bar filling up or something similar. Gameplay was fun and I liked the management between summoning a cactus and keeping the tree alive. Good job!
Again wonderful art style and a very nice game. I felt that the clouds could move a little faster and the first time I played it and not instantly focused on growing friends (wonderful way of describing it, btw!) really felt that the game was overly punishing. Also enjoyed the variety in enemy design and behavior. :) Here's my latest stream featuring the game, by the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP012VKTPV8
This was really fun! I didn't quite manage to get to the end but I had like 17 acorns (I didn't really figure out what they did but they seem to at least be an indicator of progress) so I feel like I was very close. For me the difficulty was too easy at first and then too hard too fast later when monsters suddenly overwhelmed my army of cacti that I build up during the easier parts. The variety of monsters and ways to fight them are quite impressive for a LD game and just make for a fun game in general that keeps the balance between actual fighting and management. Great job!
And of course bonus points for making the game in Godot!
I won! Saved 12 sacred acorns! It seemed a bit to easy, it was easy enough to summon a ton of cacti, and it never seemed like I was in any actual danger. Still, its fun to play and it works really well, nicely done! :smiley:
This game is fantastic! Really peaceful, and it had a backstory at the start that I actually wanted to read. Upon starting the game, I knew exactly what I had to do; I needed to give this game 5 stars for audio! (I see that it is someone else's work, but you chose the perfect song!) Oh yes, the tutorial was also well made, concise, easy to understand, and with pictures! The gameplay itself is fun with a diverse range of enemies and great mechanics. These mechanics are all well balanced (as in the must all be tended to equally)! I could feel the quality and attention to detail of the polish especially when I planted a cactus. The player's animation worked seamlessly with the movement slowing action to make it feel like your wizard really was getting down and planting it!
Some improvements could be made in the realm of audio during the gameplay. The song was wonderful at the start, but can overwhelm the rest of the game and its gameplay sounds. The movement felt great, but was a bit slow and heavy. The combat system, while great, could be touched up so it's appears more obvious what you're going to hit. But that's it for improvements really, you've done an amazing job!
The player needed to multitask and tend to the combat, planting, harvesting acorns, and watering the tree in the most unique way, which is great! It is fun to play and is an all round enjoyable experience. It is quite unique and has a great visual style! Spectaucular job and well done! I'm really happy to see an already high-quality game is going to become fully fledged! All the best with finding a name and with the game overall!
The intro/backstory was really nice, but afterwards I was met with a wall of instructions. It might have been nice to ease the player into the experience with each action; watering, picking up, etc. Maybe I'm just too thick to memorise 4 things. :joy: All of this is understandable for a jam game though!
After I understood what I was doing, I really enjoyed the mechanics, and managing everything at once. I felt that the clouds were really slow moving though, and that frustrated me, and made me feel _a bit_ like I was playing the game wrong -- "should I have been prioritising attacking enemies in that moment?" for example. It was enjoyable to see the water/rain effect one of the enemies, totally by accident, because of some moments like that. I didn't find a good way to defeat that particular enemy using my player attack though, could you intercept its dashes perhaps?
All-round good entry. I have given your new Twitter a follow. :slight_smile:
@gwinnell, you could try to intercept a dash with an attack, but it is hard. Better either to lure him into a stormy cloud, or to predict where he will stop and get there by the time he stops and lock him with a sequence of your attacks. Attacks interrupt his actions.
Neat game! I liked how reactive and simple the feedbacks were, like when I hit an enemy there is a instant visible animation and it feels great
Other than that the mood is great and it is cute overall
Well done!
Neat game with nice visuals. Reminded of mine experience in Diablo 2 with necromancer (not the druid, but that's mine association). It has its dominant strategy, I think, that's why I thought of necomancer :). I think there should be more opportunities to play other styles than good old summoner. But other aspects are great.
@gwinnell Thank you for a detailed feedback! And thank you even more for subscribing to our almost-virgin twitter :smile: We will definitely be tweeting about our progress with the game!
@bredian, you're absolutely right! Unfortunately, there is a dominant strategy here. We have tamed it a little in a post-jam version by introducing cactus seeds, that player needs to plant cacti. But I think it's just lack of better alternatives for now, that keeps it still dominant. In future versions we are planning on introducing some other powers/activities for the druid, as well as more interactive map features. Thank you for your feedback!
**For those who didn't played this game *please* don't read this comment. If you read this before you play this game it may ruin your experience. Go try the game first - it is with your attention**
@civmaniac Thanks for your response. I checked v. 1.1.1. to compare. The summoning is still imba, sure, but there is are some tools to fix that. First, in v 1.1.1 you can just tweak cacti seed spawn rate, just it is to be more rare, so you have not to make an army, but to make few allies that will help you. Right now the spawn rate is so high that there is no difference between spawning them and not spawning, if you use this strategy. Second, is nearest puddle placement. It is too close to the tree right now, you can run to tree and back with no time, in addition, you also see the condition of the tree and you react fast. Futhermore, clouds usually go near the tree and water it before they get to the puddle, doing two jobs simultaneously. If it was further there would be some options for decision making: go away to summon a cactus, risking with tree's "hp", or be closer to protect it, but do it without a cactus. I believe that will help balance your game.
@bredian I'll have a look into it and try out your suggestions. I think maybe +50% time needed for a seed to drop, but would have to be tested if it's not too overwhelming. And yeah those pools are kind of randomly placed ;) Thanks, man, this is really helpful!
Comment based on @SYRAPTOR gameplay. The art immediately catches my eye. Great music, it reminded me Bastion, but dont know if it fits REALLY well to the game. Loved the HMMM that the guardian does, hahah. Very good feelling controling the clouds for the cactus to grow. And the enemys that die with the rain are brilliant. Great work!
Here is the VOD of me playing your game on stream:
Jam Version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey7V3fBVIDM
At timecode:
27:15
Post Jam Version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhXLQHA-5Z4
At timecode:
2:23:30
Really cool game, your graphic style reminded me of South Park, which is a good thing for me, since I like a lot this series ! :)
The concept is quite nice, however, I found that we can spam easily the cactus, so it decreased a lot the difficulity of the game.
Apart from that, overall good work !
Great job!
I liked the coherent art style, and really dig your music choice. The controls are well explained and feels nice.
I loved the "raining clouds" mechaninc, but feel like it could work a bit faster. The cactus might be a bit too strong also?
Thanks for the game!
@doot Thank you for feedback! The awesome power of the cactus has indeed been nerfed in a post-jam version :grin: And in the full version we will be working on, everything will definitely need rebalancing.
It's very interesting to summon clouds (and even the thunder)!
New post-jam version 1.1.2 released, featuring better overall game balance, optional easy difficulty level and support for ultra-wide aspect ratios. Please use original 1.0 submission for rating purposes (Web version is still 1.0 until rating window is closed).
Wow! I had a lot of fun playing this one! Nice touch having the clouds also hurt enemies. The only thing I really needed was healthbars for everything so I have a better grasp of how much health something has left and can prioritize better. Other than that it was great!
I don't know what can be said that hasn't already been said (sooo many comments xd). Genuinely interesting gameplay tho, and unique ideas. Enemy and cacti AI were solid. Art style too was refreshing amongst all the other jam games. From the game mechanics, I liked the clouds the most, although they were all really solid. If I had to complain about something, it would probably be the music (which started to sound quite repetitive after a while) and maybe the movement speed could be a little faster?
Really enjoyable and well made game, and as you guys are seemingly planning to continue the development further, I hope you the best of luck with that!
Cool game. The graphics look nic. You got quite a few gameplay mechanics in for such a short time. Nice job!
Great mood with this one, everything looked nice, sounded nice and felt very smooth and fluid. Lots of nice little effects that ofc take a lot of time to add in (like creatures being knocked back and all the smooth animation). Good work!
Beautiful game - nice and consistent art style, a lot of content - different enemies, terrain, plants, pickups, clouds. Very interesting cloud summoning mechanic, was fun to play with it.
So I think what makes your game interesting is the cloud mechanic. Definitely should design your game with that as the core. Maybe different type of cloud, another type of interaction with the environment, powerup for the cloud (like spawning wall of plant wherever the cloud rains on for certain duration). The fact that player couldn't directly control them is something that fun to explore.
Another thing to note in the current version is that the other trees kind of distracting me at first, because I thought there is something that I can do to them.
Also please add some kind of feedback whenever our Tree is attacked. Minimap might be nice to have but I don't know if it fits your game.
Overall this is a nice entry to the jam~
@bluilisht Thank you for your feedback and ideas! Very inventive - we will definitely consider more cloud types and effects!
Tree feedback we already added in post-jam version. Druid now let's you know when the Tree is not doing well.
Nice game! I like the idea. It's a little hard to understand what to do first but it's fun to play. The art is cool and i really enjoy the music ! Well done!
Such a cute game, nice graphics and matches the theme really well too. Good Job all round.
A very advanced game which was fun and looked very nice. But a tutorial would've been nicer than having to remember all the controls. Still a cool game.