FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD52 → Warden of the Woods

Warden of the Woods

By arzi, runicpixels, Danae, Frankuccino and Nekkohime

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2113.7839
Fun4023.3739
Innovation4353.2439
Theme2194.0039
Graphics1374.2139
Audio574.0437
Humor2553.2936
Mood1593.8737

Comments

kr0k 2023-01-09 21:45

Amazing visuals and great soundtrack! Was happy when I got my Happy Potion :)

ectucker1 2023-01-09 22:20

I love the environments in this! The music and art fit very well together. Planting weapons is a cool take on the theme, but it got a bit tedious having to restart the adventure to wait for swords to grow each day.

runicpixels 2023-01-09 22:26

Thanks @kr0k! Happy to hear you enjoyed crafting the Happy Potion!

@ectucker1 you can use the bed in the home area to speed up to the next day! :)

ectucker1 2023-01-09 22:37

@runicpixels I was using the bed - it was the walking back and forth between it and wherever I was exploring that felt slow to me. Maybe a portable tent or similar would solve the problem, though it might change the pacing from what you were intending.

plepletier 2023-01-09 23:45

This is a pretty big game for a ludum dare, I found the amount of detail amazing and the mechanics of combining elements to create weapons and advance in the game is perfect. Congratulations!!!

richard-vollebregt 2023-01-10 18:19

Nicely done in the time you had! Like the style of the game, and the music is very impressive.

jaj 2023-01-11 10:53

Very well done! I think this is amazing in the time you had, For improvements if you have more time, I would include faster movement, easier ways to skip time and more durable weapons, (maybe as an easy mode option). Since there is a lot of grinding which some people love but certainly isn't for everyone.

I would also love to be able to invest more resources to make weapons that can't break, maybe keep the breakable ones but make them stronger.

thiradil 2023-01-11 18:45

Alright, i came for the pixel art and the game is indeed really well done. There's some really good idea, using a fairy that fly allow you to avoid a painful animation and earn you some time on others assets. the flying dust really help to know where to go next, another really simple but good idea.

Overall an impressive game for a 72h game jam, congrats

runicpixels 2023-01-11 18:49

Thanks for all the kind comments @richard-vollebregt, @jaj and @thiradil. :)

sevenzik 2023-01-11 20:41

Looks interesting, but I got hard-lock when game asked me to plant seed the 2nd time, but I had already planted it on another place and then didn't find another one :c So I couldn't get to main gameplay part ;-;

Will check it later!

runicpixels 2023-01-11 21:03

@sevenzik more seeds can be found a little further to the right! I'll make a note to the team that that part of the tutorial wasn't very clear yet, thanks for sharing. If the spot is occupied you can use the bed to skip to the next day to farm it.

scidev 2023-01-11 21:57

This game is quite big and full of a lot of really cool looking and sounding artwork. Sfx were on point, vfx were a bit odd, the particles seemed a bit out of place, and I found the progression a bit slow but oh well lol.

All in all, nice work and good luck in judging!

fedora 2023-01-12 05:25

A bit slow-paced, but the art and music were really nice!

hulya 2023-01-12 11:49

Game pace and character movement are a bit slow. I enjoyed the atmosphere. It is a sweet game with smiling trees in a fairy land. Apparently, even the bosses in fairy lands aren't much different :smile:

arzi 2023-01-13 08:35

@scidev many of the particles were my placeholder coder art that we just never had time to replace, so that probably explains why they were a bit out of place :sweat_smile:

tildecat 2023-01-13 16:55

Very nice game! I like visual style and different game environments. Maybe level boundaries can be more exact. But overall very cool game!

xedradryade 2023-01-13 16:57

For a game jam made in 72h it's pretty impressive ! Nice work even if the fairy can't speed up a little bit :)

haotian-chen 2023-01-13 16:59

well, at first i thought the game was kind of unpolished, tons of detail can be improved, than i starting to impressed by how much it is complete as a game. a story, different enemies, crafting, even a hidden reward! although i still think there are lots of detail you can improve, such as it is hard to find normal nut in middle to late game, and the farming lands are to few and separated, but it is actually a good side! i mean, hey, there are a lot of details you can improve to make it even better! I'm glad i play it through, one of the best i played so far.

toosalty0000 2023-01-13 17:01

I don't know if I'm weird, but I felt the vibes of Zelda. I surprised to see a full package game here in a 72 hours game jam. I loved the gameplay and the art. I hoped the animations could be a bit more smoother, but in general, it was a well-made game. :thumbsup:

runicpixels 2023-01-13 17:48

@TildeCat Thank you! I agree it would be a nice improvement! Thanks for the kind words and feedback!

@xedradryade Thanks for the nice words! I agree that fairies can be fast and nimble too. :)

@haotian-chen Agreed, game jams are often a delicate balance between ambition and polish. Happy to hear you enjoyed it.

@toosalty0000 That's an absolute fair point, classic Zelda games were a huge inspiration for us going into the jam, so I'm happy you got these vibes. :)

deprecat 2023-01-13 22:03

Man you all managed to add so much! While there's room for polish in a few places, this game feels very fully formed in both the gameplay and overall identity.

I agree with the that the movement speed is just a bit slow which, in a game that focuses on more cozy things like potion crafting and harvesting I think is actually ok, but the combat is going to add a need for responsiveness that goes against the slow-moving atmosphere. Not to say those two things can't go together, but it definitely changes expectations in some aspects.

The environment design has a lot of personality that I really enjoy and everything feels very cohesive. The music is super impressive as well! I appreciate you sharing the SoundCloud as well because I could just vibe to it.

t90 2023-01-13 23:40

Wow, that's a lot of stuff you managed to get done! Great work!

Unfortunately I had a lot of problems with cross-map transitions — every time I tried to go from map A to map B I always get stuck in some limbo. So physically I'm on screen A while camera shows screen B (or other way around).

First 5-10 times I managed to get unstuck and continue game but at some point I'm getting stuck without any way out.

So, unfortunately, I couldn't finish (if there is a finale — I don't know yet :slight_smile: ) the game despite trying three times. Tried both Firefox and Chrome.

recyx 2023-01-14 22:15

Wow, great entry! I'm impressed with how much you were able to build in the short time. Really liked the dialog with the boss and the audio was great as well! Good job!

eranot 2023-01-14 22:37

Great job! It's a lot for a 72h jam for sure. Arts it awesome!

pulni 2023-01-15 13:26

Oh wow! The visuals and music are amazing! And there's also story, various maps, crafting, fighting, enemies... it's like a complete game, really! It's definitely the most complete one I've played in this (and perhaps any) game jam! Nicely done!

rocktavious 2023-01-15 14:29

Wow - I was continually impressed with this game at every turn. I figured it would be over in 5-10 mins but it kept going and going and I was impressed at ever step. The Dialogue was funny, the directions were clear for the most part, things made sense and the progression was consistent and forward the whole time. I was floored when I got the sword and then it opened up new maps. Amazing job! I will definitely be using your game as the stick i measure my future jams by.

zacharypinkham 2023-01-15 16:36

Really impressive work! I'm always amazed when people can put together things that can feel so complete and considered in the span of a jam. It was well-paced, the art and music were great, and the whole thing just had a really nice feel too it. Great work!

nardandas 2023-01-17 08:34

Really cool little world! I'm not sure if resources were meant to feel kind of finite but they did. I couldn't really tell any way to know whether a given little tree would give me a nut, which I needed for saplings for a lot of the crafting things. I didn't get held up on progression with this thankfully, but I wasn't able to make many health potions. I really liked the different areas (and their soundtracks). Great job with that.

The combat was a bit punishing. It'd be nice if enemies had a bit of wind-up or a collision box more well represented with art. A lot of it was just kind of feeling things out, which without a real punishment for dying was fine, but it's be nice!

Good job!

lenan 2023-01-18 22:24

Interesting game, controls could be spread a little more throughout the keyboard and some audio would be nice, but overall a nice game

chase-of-bass 2023-01-19 12:45

This was great! Surprising amount of depth to this game!

One small issue in case it's helpful: on day 2 the tutorial/goal wanted me to harvest honey but I had already harvested it so I couldn't move forward -was able to just go back to sleep and collect the honey and move it forward the next day though!

Anyway, I looved the art! The humor was great! Called the boss a lot xD - The music was also great and really worked with the mood! You all did amazing -fantastic work! :D

arzi 2023-01-19 21:14

@lenan There's full audio, I think you hit a bug. Reloading the page usually works + there's the audio on/off button on the bottom right.

koboldskeep 2023-01-23 05:16

Quite ambitious for a game jam game! I'd love to see what a full version of it looks like.

bwalter 2023-01-27 03:31

this is jam-packed! wow!