FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD50 → Extreme Plant Sitter

Extreme Plant Sitter

By suvi and jkyd

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1573.9970
Fun2623.7770
Innovation1153.9469
Theme2644.0269
Graphics1414.3870
Humor2213.8368
Mood4193.7363

Comments

the-captain-moo 2022-04-05 04:44

Awesome Game! I really like the gameplay and sound effects as well :D

jonathan-ray-pollard 2022-04-05 04:47

Love the premise! Actually is pretty funny and Humor is one of the tougher categories! Interesting premise, but fairly hard to manage everything. Could use a slower difficulty ramp up.

dunusoor 2022-04-05 04:49

The game was fun, i definitely enjoyed the physics and tossing everything around the room in a state of panic! haha

jkyd 2022-04-05 04:50

@jonathan-ray-pollard Thanks! Those plants definitely become a handful... :)

jkyd 2022-04-05 04:52

@dunusoor Love it! ...not gonna spill how many dev hours were lost to giggling at throwing pots around the room...

spladug 2022-04-05 04:52

This is super polished and I love the style. The difficulty really ramped up hard and I struggled to get past the third part. I'd love to play more of this.

gamedevalexandr 2022-04-05 04:54

I'm a bad gardener! I tried, but all the flowers died! The game is good!

therealmoebius 2022-04-05 04:55

Amazing entry! Simple but super fun!

sacredbacon 2022-04-05 04:56

I liked that the plants go flying after colliding with the watering can. Great artwork, the increasing complexity of plant care makes a good concept, and the plant report card at the end of each day is a nice way to breakup the pacing. Awesome game!

jkyd 2022-04-05 04:58

@spladug Thanks! Yeah, this game idea definitely wasn't fueled by any personal vendetta against a certain PEACE LILY that won't just BE HAPPY... ah... plants, right?

nardandas 2022-04-05 05:00

Really hectic little game! I didn't expect it to be so hard nor the conclusion so inevitable. I only wish the physics were a bit more consistent...

natpat 2022-04-05 05:00

I thought that was fantastic! The gameplay was frantic and very silly, I really loved the physics of the plants flying everywhere and frantically trying to take care of the plants, and I was giggling at all the different mechanics that were introduced.

I know the theme was delay the inevitable and it is supposed to get "impossible" at some point, but I would really love a version of this game that is a bit more playable and chill - I think it could be really fun!

jkyd 2022-04-05 05:02

@natpat Thank you so much! We would definitely love to make a more chill version of this :)

junklab 2022-04-05 05:03

Really fun little game, took me a while to figure out I had to hold RIGHT mouse to water the plants, spent at least 5 minutes just smacking the plants all over the room lots of fun. This is a great entry, well done :)

jkyd 2022-04-05 05:03

@gamedevalexandr Thanks! You and me both... :)

apaull0 2022-04-05 05:04

I love the art! I thought the concept was pretty funny. Flinging the objects around does make up the losses I've accumulated playing this game! :) I will play more once I figure out how the room temperature works!

jkyd 2022-04-05 05:04

@nardandas The inevitable is pretty sneaky sometimes

jkyd 2022-04-05 05:08

@junklab Thank you! Definitely sacrificed some (editor's note: "a significant amount of") time to throwing things around myself :)

jkyd 2022-04-05 05:11

@apaull0 Thank you! On the the object-flinging note: I concur. :)

doctor-zeus 2022-04-05 05:13

Super nice presentation, and fun exercise in plant-slinging! The goofy physics that resulted from my panicked watering / pesticiding made me laugh, and it made for a fun organizational challenge.

I started strategizing around pre-moving my plants to the left countertop to share sunlight and make it easier to address any shared needs in one fell swoop. Making sure I had the pesticide / mist sprayer nearby and dropping the watering can in the sink while dealing with other stuff helped keep everything alive.

I had some trouble fixing the dry air thing - at first I thought the little water spritzer didn't work, but I think I was just missing the plant's actual effective hitbox? Grabbing the watering can out of the sink sometimes felt difficult too, I guess because I couldn't click on the can's water symbol through the sink, had to aim for the little part of the exposed handle instead. The game had me hooked enough that I took a few extra plays to try to figure out what I was doing wrong, which was a nice sort of feeling to have.

I think the number of mechanics was appropriately scoped for a game jam, and the game felt like it hit a good level of complexity to me. I especially like how the game introduces the new mechanics one-by-one, I always have the problem of just throwing out a difficulty cliff on stuff I make.

I think it's possible to become stable in the endgame if you don't make mistakes - I kinda like the idea some kind of nonsense "ending" at the tenth level, just having the countertops filled with 10 plants or something to really lean into the humor of the whole thing.

Nice work, I definitely enjoyed playing!

nate-the-great 2022-04-05 05:15

I love everything about this game. The theme is original and funny, the gameplay is fun, the graphics are nice and the sound effects are good.

jkyd 2022-04-05 05:25

@doctor-zeus Thank you so much! We really appreciate the comments :D The hit-box's are a little funky sometimes -- try aiming for the pot rather than the plant (@suvi says he's sorry about this)! And the dry air is solved by the little grenade-looking spritzer (@jkyd is sorry about this). Love the idea of a non-sense, 10-plant overloaded ending :)

jkyd 2022-04-05 05:26

@nate-the-great Thanks! :)

boclow 2022-04-05 07:20

That was super fun! Art was lovely and whole idea was cool. I loved how hectic it turned out all of a sudden. I could not figure out what to do with the "dry air" warning but maybe that is why my own plants tend to mostly die XD. I especially liked the watering can sounds and mechanic. Pretty looking compact chaos. Loved it. (also liked the little touch of putting the first plant between the watering can and the sink so the player will right at the start realize what kind of impact it makes to hit the plants XD)

suvi 2022-04-05 07:24

@boclow The "granade" shaped mister needs to be used for the "dry air" warning, and it's our bad for not making that clear. Glad you liked it, thanks for the feedback!

timofei 2022-04-05 08:40

I like this game! It was a bit hard for me to keep track of all of the plants and i hit them too often :))

lunaxolotl 2022-04-05 10:01

I like the art style of the game. It is a really polished game. The fact that it is chaotic really makes you feel the challenge. I don't know if it was made as a part of the game, but the watering pot getting stuck by the faucet reduced my enjoyment of playing. Really nice game good job!!

otterfaelure 2022-04-05 10:25

Loved it!

My only gripe was that I kept managing to close the programme mid play so that I couldn't actually play the game for more than a few rounds (I even tried a cursor locker). =(

Oh, and sometimes right click just wouldn't work for me and I'd have to try a couple more times before I could get the water to pour or whatnot.

This was tons of fun though! Thank you. :D

finn-pickart 2022-04-05 12:36

I think this is a good game. I couldn't really play it because I can't water the plants. On the image it looks like you have to hold left and right click at the same time but that's not possible for me. I'm on a Macbook and a left click is done with one finger and a right click is done with 2. There is no left or right and I can't do both at once. Maybe make it that. the watering can waters automatically ones it's grabbed or over a plant

mopifish 2022-04-05 17:36

I love that we had super similar concepts but in the opposite direction!! Overall a horrible experience, I loved it, and will now never ever buy a houseplant

Great entry :)

jkyd 2022-04-05 17:44

@lunaxolotl Thank you! The sink does pull the watering can towards it when you release the can for refilling purposes, however you should be able to grab it right back anytime!

jkyd 2022-04-05 17:50

@otterfaelure Thanks so much! Unintentional, chaos-induced game quitting? Love it. For using the watering can, right click needs to be held down as opposed to the single click for using the other items -- that's on us for not making it clear :) Glad you enjoyed it!

jkyd 2022-04-05 17:55

@mopifish Thank you for understanding my qualms with houseplants. Although, I keep buying more...literally went +1 houseplant this weekend for "game research purposes" and "art inspiration"...

Glad you enjoyed the game!

jzucc12 2022-04-05 18:28

The stress I felt playing this accurately describes everytime I've ever plant-sat for friends. Good work!

jkyd 2022-04-05 18:36

@finn-pickart Good point -- we just put up a new build with SPACE as an alt for right click. Let us know how it plays! Thanks for the feedback :)

jkyd 2022-04-05 18:36

@jzucc12 Perfect. :) Thanks!

daniel-username 2022-04-06 03:26

Great graphics and concept! Who knew taking care of plants could be so stressful, haha? :)

vivyhasadream 2022-04-06 04:50

I love planting! I already like the game just by looking at the art and the theme.

Playing it, it feels so realistic (that how I killed my plants through the years). the control physics is adjusted so well and made it hard to do precise management, and successfully made me panic and failed. But in real life my mom won't be disappointed at me if I killed a plant, because she is also a plant killer :P

It was a little confusing how to play the game, but after reading the instruction, I got it.

I think it's a full piece demo. really good work!

jkyd 2022-04-06 05:00

@vivyhasadream Haha! Love it! Disclaimer: me and @suvius' mothers are both wonderfully lovely people... as well as avid plant killers.

Glad you liked our game and thanks for the comments!

sam-feng 2022-04-06 05:45

It's so silly and fun! Chaotic yet chanlleging controls, remind me of the zen garden in PVZ. Love the physics where you can casually throw all the plants around!

adamcyounis 2022-04-06 06:22

This was a great little concept, and very well executed. I loved the little writing touches and graphics. I thought the gameplay loop was good, but difficulty spike was a bit steep. At first, I also questioned the decision to give everything physics, but I appreciate the chaos it created and how that contributes to the experience.

Great entry! Thanks for the submission.

bottled-up-dark-peace 2022-04-06 16:24

I recorded myself playing, message me on the Jam’s discord @ Dark Peace and I’ll send it to you. I had no trouble going through the game until I decided that I wanted to have fun and use the poison or what I thought was an explosive. It was fun until I realised there was no checkpoint. Which I did not understand since you KNOW players are gonna want to do something bad for the fun. So WHY would you punish them by making them redo the whole thing ?? What is the point of the poison can ??

jkyd 2022-04-06 17:41

@bottled-up-dark-peace Yeah, a checkpoint system's a good idea. We initially intended for a new run of the game (after failing a run) to skip the "tutorial levels" and begin with all the items, but it got chopped last minute during the chaos of the last few jam hours :sob: ...and we're like, it's a rogue-like now! It came down to running out of time for a bunch of ideas we didn't implement -- that's the nature of Ludum Dare I guess!

The granade-looking spray bottle is for fixing "dry air" (my bad on the art, but it's kinda funny), and the poison spray bottle is to fix "infestation". They should flash when you need to use them.

Honestly, we didn't expect for many people to do multiple runs (esp. for LD) -- you kinda get the gist after a minute of playing. With that in mind, we intend to extend the game a bit (after a little break, cause boy that was an intense weekend) and implement our chopped ideas, better difficulty scaling, maybe an upgrade system, and other nice-to-haves.

Thanks for the feedback!

suvi 2022-04-06 17:52

Hey @adamcyounis, thanks for playing the game on stream, @jkyd and I had blast watching you play! Good point on the difficulty spike, the spray bottles should be introduced gradually, in a level with fewer plants and with a better explanation than "listen to the plants". We didn't leave enough time for proper balancing before submitting, and intend to make the game more replayable post LD given the positive reception so far.

Thanks for the feedback and the appreciation of chaos!

jkyd 2022-04-06 18:59

firstTime_PlantMeme.png

magic-mike 2022-04-06 19:10

Game's great, i made a run and managed to get pretty far but it might be to repetitive for me to give it a second try. It's polished as hell, it's beautifull, it's innovative, it's funny. S tier entry, well done!

I had a bug where the three pots were still there despite me loosing 2 times, then the two got black all of a sudden.

jkyd 2022-04-06 19:26

@magic-mike Thank you so much! Will look into the three pots/lives issue. It also could be that even if you got an 'F' on a plant, it might not be at zero health and the pot/lives on the report card will only go black if you've fully killed a plant to zero hp -- this should prob be made more clear where 'F' means the plant is at 0hp/dead. (Edit: this was fixed in the last update!)

Glad you enjoyed the game and thanks for the feedback!

dobryn 2022-04-06 19:27

the game manages to stay challenging despite the overwhelming stressful nature, even the theme is funny enough to keep me busy laughing.

Wonderful presentation, and oh the physics :laughing:

stoffe 2022-04-06 19:44

Liked the art style, fun game, was very easy and then suddenly it turned up to 11 on the difficulty when you had to fight infestation and dry air and everything :-D

nsadie 2022-04-07 08:57

I found it quite stressful and the game confirmed that I am not great at keeping plants alive! Really good presentation, I love the fun notes and writing and the art is cohesive and really nice overall. The gameplay was quite frenetic, but fun and I often caused the plants to accidentally fly off in all directions!

antoined73 2022-04-08 11:18

Really cute and funny game ! Graphics are really nice polished, nice mechanics and good SFX.

Some critics : - We played with my girlfriend and we where a bit disappointed that the game is so "quick". - We excpected to have time to react and take care of the plants. - It is also a bit annoying that what you grab is colliding with the pots and everything. - We struggled to take back the watering can from the sink

Overall a very nice game we have really enjoyed ! Thank you !

landberglife 2022-04-08 21:48

Welp I guess I'm just as bad at taking care of virtual plants as I am taking care of real ones! I can see by previous comments that there is a lot more content that I never got to experience due to my lack of ability to keep plants alive. It's a solid entry, great artwork, everything works, easy to understand but hard to execute. I know the theme is to delay the inevitable, and thus the game needs to end, I just wish it was a bit easier to delay it so that I got to see all the work you put into this wonderful project!

emmatw 2022-04-08 21:58

This game was a very fun challenge! Nice work on the art and sound effects as well!

anaxie-studio 2022-04-09 19:05

An accurate representation of why I can't seem to keep plants alive. Art style is great! The sounds are clean and impactful. The levels and menus feel really polished, and I like the silly plant physics lol. The gameplay was fun, although I felt like moving the watering can around was a bit clunky, it got "stuck" in the sink sometimes and other times I had to click it multiple times to pick it up. Overall a really polished and pleasant game to play! Only thing missing is some music.

marvis 2022-04-09 23:39

what a beautifull game!i like plants and concept!

suvi 2022-04-09 23:42

@jonathan-ray-pollard @spladug @doctor-zeus @adamcyounis @bottled-up-dark-peace @stoffe @boclow @landberglife @vivyhasadream @timofei @nardandas Finally managed to track down and fix the issue causing the sudden difficulty spike, the fix is up on Itch if anyone wants to give it another try. More on that here https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/extreme-plant-sitter/$292041 and here https://digitarium.itch.io/extreme-plant-sitter/devlog/367742/fixed-difficulty-spike-issue.

jacinto-mba 2022-04-10 01:44

Very original concept, nice job!

reronin 2022-04-10 07:22

Those are very demanding plants! WATER! SUN! TOO HOT! TOO DRY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA At least there's no penalty for knocking them over haha

Loved it, great take on the theme ;)

zwodahs 2022-04-10 08:27

Nice little management sim there. This reminds me of the various simulators out there.

For the first few rounds, I actually couldn't figure out how to water the plants (because I didn't read) but I still managed to pass.

Honestly, I think the game would have been better without the physics of pots flying around, but that's just me ;)

Good job on the submission.

noiyy 2022-04-10 11:00

This is really fun and challenging! :smile: I ended up knocking the flower more than I should, lol. The result screen is done really well, especially if you lose, with the "little disappointment" :laughing: Great game, good job! :smile:

gabriel-dias-oliveira-de-almeida 2022-04-10 19:20

The sounds with the artstyle looks really amazing, congrats for this connection and I love the humour of the game and the storyline!

ildenh 2022-04-10 19:33

I got a kinda funny combination of scores :D DAB.png Also fantastic game! Definetly expand on this and maybe even go as far as a published game! It is really hectic and fun to balance all the different tasks. The poison spray and the "too dry"-tool are never introduced in the tutorial which makes it a bit hard to understand what's going on with them, but i figured it out! As a side note: the ending of the game is pretty funny, but could problably use something more. Maybe an artwork?

jkyd 2022-04-10 19:37

@anaxie-studio @marvis @jacinto-mba @reronin @zwodahs @noiyy @gabriel-dias-oliveira-de-almeida Thank you so much for all feedback and lovely comments!

@anaxie-studio There's definitely a sink bug, and for the life of us, we can't figure it out :sob: And hopefully we'll make the time for music next LD -- @suvi is an amazing music composer, so it's very much a shame imo <3

@zwodahs We tested out the game without physics and personally didn't find it as much fun, HOWEVER, if we had more mechanics (and maybe an upgrade system) to play around with, turning off the physics would definitely be the right move towards a more serious management sim :)

@gabriel-dias-oliveira-de-almeida @anaxie-studio For my first foray into sound effects -- I'll take the compliments! Haha, thanks so much!

jkyd 2022-04-10 19:44

@ildenh Nice!! Thanks so much for the feedback and lovely comments! We were hoping to clean up the game a little bit after LD and implement some of our ideas that got chopped due to time -- hopefully you'll check it out! Oooh, I like the idea of more artwork on the end game report cards... maybe even a short animatic?

suvi 2022-04-10 19:51

@jkyd @anaxie-studio All programming no music makes Suvi a dull boy...

suvi 2022-04-10 19:57

@ildenh I think I will make the report card rearrange the plants to spell **BAD** if possible. Mom has to improve her subliminal messaging. :rofl:

brandon-js-lea 2022-04-10 22:52

First game that really made me laugh.

Reminds me of a story my nan told me. When my Dad was younger he tried growing weed when he was still living with her. Obviously, she was against this knowing what trouble this would get him into. Anyway, one day he asked her to water them for her whilst he was away, so she did, with bleach. He said when I was growing up that he never had green fingers and it wasn't until I heard that story that it all clicked.

filgru 2022-04-10 23:06

I enjoyed playing your game very much! Very nice graphics, simple and tasty :) After some time playing it, it was impossible to me to save any flowers...! It's really a challenging game. Great job!

yearningboo 2022-04-10 23:11

very fun game! i really liked how each level would implement more stuff. the score and dificulty really incentives the player to play this more than once. i thought it was funny how the watering can kept spinning and i still wouldnt lose any water. it fits the theme so well!

jkyd 2022-04-10 23:24

@brandon-js-lea Thanks for sharing that story -- your poor Dad and his sabotaged plants! Your nan seems to be a master of malicious compliance though :) "oops! Instructions unclear"

Glad you enjoyed the game and your comment really made our day!

jkyd 2022-04-10 23:26

@filgru @yearningboo Thanks so much for your comments and we're glad you enjoyed playing!

marc-antoine-girard 2022-04-10 23:33

At first I thought it would be a Plant vs Zombie game hahaha! The funniest part is that moving thing can knock down others so I had to be really careful when moving the water around. The tutorial was well integrated in the gameplay, the difficulty scaling felt fair and challenging, the art was awesome, I guess a soft background music would've fit well with the game, but I'm just being nit-picky! Great entry!

jkyd 2022-04-11 00:12

@marc-antoine-girard Thanks! You definitely got a point about the lack of background music, hopefully next LD ;)

amberfall92 2022-04-14 02:44

The link appears to be broken right now :( I can't play. Trying on chrome and it loads a blank page that says "error with your request"

suvi 2022-04-14 03:25

@amberfall92 The link appears to work for us: https://digitarium.itch.io/extreme-plant-sitter Can you open other itch links?

amberfall92 2022-04-14 16:17

@suvi yesterday I could still click on other links, but anyhow it seems to be working now! Will play and rate :)

amberfall92 2022-04-14 16:27

silly, fun, and well polished. The spinning on the objects was a little extreme, and their lack of mass, which made the game more difficult, but also was pretty funny.

jkyd 2022-04-14 20:09

@amberfall92 weird! Glad it ended up working and thanks! Yeah the physics would be a little wack for a serious management sim -- but they do make for some funny moments and occasional giggles :)