Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → H.I.V.E - Highly Involuntary Vain Effort
By xparker, lea251, math1369, Wolfhead, Rentem, pentaworks and Cnaits
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 741 | 2.85 | 30 | |
| Fun | 781 | 2.41 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 657 | 2.83 | 30 | |
| Theme | 421 | 3.69 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 697 | 2.60 | 30 | |
| Audio | 478 | 2.51 | 29 | |
| Humor | 633 | 2.18 | 27 | |
| Mood | 746 | 2.67 | 28 |
Cool Idea to bring genetics into a game, but it is way to tedious and slow to do anything. Everything is too expensive and plants grow very slow. I could probably find them a better biome, but i don't have money for that and don't know which one is good because I don't have the money to analyze them. And I don't have money because the plants take forever to grow. I really want to play around with it but it just takes to long to do anything.
@schlock Thanks for playing. "As Jimmy Eat World" sing in "The Middle".. "it just takes some time" :wink:
On a serious note: A good start is to buy only the farm, 1 tile and a plant from the store. the maize is not all that great.
Cool game, The high-poly models slowed the game down quite a bit but the crossbreeding system was very in-depth. Although I felt that in-practice my experience was purchasing the most valuable seed and just finding the tile that would grow it the best was the 'optimal strat'. It seemed like the cap of the value was 50 and I couldn't find a way to crossbreed it higher. In short- interesting mechanics but it didn't feel like I had any reason to make interesting crossbreeds other than if I wanted to. One critique, is that a hotkey to close menus would be very nice and making the camera zoom faster.
edit, didn't figure out the hotkey lol, sry
@ghastlymicrowave off-hand I dont know the max value of the plants, I can look it up if desired. But there are a few plants that are.. "better".. than others. Hotkey to close some menus is "Esc".
Awesome game! I like the cross breeding and analyzing the plants and fields! It's a pretty cool idea to play with these. The best game that I've tried on this game jam for now. :slight_smile:
The main thing that I think can be improved is the UX. I'd like to be able to harvest and replant with a single button, without opening a menu. Or I'd like it to be more like an idle game, where I can say "hey, this field harvests and replants automatically", and then I can play with the cool stuff, and not have to constantly go click on things to make more moneyz.
@pulni Thanks for the feedback. The Harvest & Replant button is available in our updated test version. It will not automatically harvest and replant, but it makes it a lot easier nonetheless by just being able to one-click harvest and replant the same crops.
I liked the idea but it was a bit too slow for a Ludum Dare game, would have needed to spend a couple of hours to reach my imagined goals :sweat_smile:
A very interesting game! It was very in depth and a lot of thought went into the design and plant mixing. Quite an interesting take. Also I loved the day & night cycle. Yet I have to agree, the start is kinda rough and stuff is quite expensive :(
Ok, took a while to figure out how to get started - starting money is low and price is high. Perhaps the farm should be already established or at least free to place - seems brutal to spend 2,400 of 3,000 before you can begin to buy one piece of land and start. Once sussed out (5 game restarts later) it was a pain to find the Shop in 3D, especially in the dark and I'd often end up off-map looking for it. +1 for combinations to simulate genetics though, but I'd be looking to add some UI elements to help reach the shop / farm / lab buildings.
It was a bit difficult for me to understand but i think it could be a good game!
@tiseno It is quite slow, that is for sure. But if you get the right plant / biome combination, it really takes off.. some plants are broken :wink:
@tosmaster Thanks for playing. the D&N-Cycle was a late night thing that I implemented when I actually should have gone to bed :smile: But really helps setting the mood.
@picttarge Hotkeys are on the ToDo list.. but.. the damn time, it's always the time.
@icalm Thanks for playing.
Pretty good game, it takes some time to get used to controls tho.
@hayricakir thanks.
True. I usually use WASD or Arrow keys.
I was pleasantly surprised by this game as it exceeded my expectations and matched the theme perfectly. It was exactly the game I imagined it would be, but I never would have thought of it until I played it. At first glance, it looked like an interesting game that could be fun, but in the end it fell short. The audio quality in the game was not good, and it would have been better if it was skipped. The graphics in the game are average and could be improved. Despite these shortcomings, I enjoyed the game and look forward to seeing how it develops in the future.
@hadik Thanks for the feedback. Any specific area that you disliked about the audio (ambience, background or effects)?
The highlight for me was the sound/music...I appreciated the car driving by and the pig, it added to the environment honestly. I think the depth is quite impressive as well, the amount of different combinations was nice. The biggest thing I want changed is a cleaner interface, less buttons and more consistency in layout. But again, we all only had so much time to make things.
nice idea with crossing plants. If the plants were growing faster, I would definitely try more combinations.
@mira thanks for your feedback. Growth speed is dependant on biome / plant matchup as well as the tile's values (random in range of biome). E.g. maize does really well on the very light green (grasslands) biome.
Wow this was a complex and incredibly ambitious game! Genetics? Research? Plant preferences? Day and night cycle? Save system? So many layers and so much complexity, but I am happy to say I think you managed to pull it off. There's a lot to unpack here so... I'll just start with some pain points: - The zoom was a bit awkward, instead of... changing the field of view? I would've liked to have the camera just move closer - You did a good job of showing me my money everywhere that it was necessary for me to know, however I still would've liked some form of UI on the screen at all times showing me my money (and maybe even the change?) so I could plan things without having to open a menu - This is very subjective so feel free to ignore me here, but I would've liked to still be able to move the camera while in menus. Or even, I would've liked to see the menus not take up the entire screen, perhaps a popup above the tile so I could plant things more efficiently. - After reading the description I planted the sissy basil in the desert hoping something interesting would happen haha... It just grew really slow. - Lighting during the day felt really flat and at night the lights were too harsh/overexposed. - Personally not a huge fan of the hard lines between biomes, but I get you maybe wanted to improve that and game jams are always tight
That being said this was still incredibly impressive! I love the little jokes/insults.. ('Slacker!') Also I loved seeing the different states as the plants grew and different models for the 'grown' plants depending on what was on the tile. The visuals were not the greatest, but they didn't detract from the experience, mostly the lighting needs to be improved. Other than that I didn't notice any bugs and this game has incredible depth to the gameplay. I agree with others that it might be a bit slow but I think that's ok and that is just the type of genre. Should the UI be cleaned up I could easily see myself buying this type of farm management game on Steam :sweat_smile: Great entry!
@sharks Thanks for the very, very detailed feedback.
Zoom is about to be changed to height rather than fov, of course, that should never be taken into rating-considerations.
Displaying, or rather not to, was on purpose. I do understand where you come from though, as I also would prefer to see it at all stages.
I think I mentioned this before, the lighting was a "rather late addition" (not towards the end, just late at night). Improving it was not within the time limits, sadly.
I had trouble getting started in this game. I bought the farm, got a couple plots of land, couldn't figure out how to plant the seeds.
It would've been worthwhile having a guided introduction to the mechanics, because I was a bit lost. It's a shame too because, I could tell there was supposed to be a lot underneath the surface.
Got a bit lost here, bought the farm,land and plantet a bunch of plants but how do you sell them? Did i overlook something? I love that there are lots of combination and plants but i would love to play more, just need to find out how to sell them...
@shiny-elster
Thanks for playing.
The plant you can sell in the shop. As of now, the seeds cannot be sold though..