Farmer Joe

travh98 2023-01-10 02:06

Fun game! It starts in full screen though so with an ultra wide monitor I can't seen any menu items, I had to bring it to a second smaller monitor to play. I ended with $300 on my first 5min try, I like the option to set a time between 5 and 10 mins. It seems like growing the $30 crop is the smartest move? I didn't hear any audio in the game, that would be nice to have.

If you do expand on this, I would definitely try to come up with some reason to come up with the money, like maybe you can buy a house and furniture with the money. Also a reason as to why you have a time limit would be good to have, like maybe something happens after 5/10 minutes that prevents you from farming more, like a flood or something. I love the art style! Having to cycle through tools using the TAB key one at a time adds a level of frenzy to the game combined with the time limit, its like "whoops I missed the tool I was looking for, better keep switching"

oddang 2023-01-10 02:23

Nice work! It would be more nice to have a brief description of the seeds in the game so players can make a plan. I love the animation and I love the feeling of plants growing. Good job!

dramonsa 2023-01-10 03:06

Nice game ! simple plan but well executed, the animation is beautiful and the gameplay is pretty good, nothing wrong in the first try i would love a larger eyeview but that's all. Nice work !

joe-eric 2023-01-10 03:12

I love the mechanics of time pressure and the item scrolling. With the time counting down, I keep missing the item that I need to plow, water, and plant. But the art has a nice touch to it. But I didn't hear any background music form the main menu and from the game. Adding a sound or bgm would have a nice effect on it. Good job! I really enjoyed the game.Farmer Joe.png

2023-01-10 03:26

@oddang yeah that’s a good description. I was going to add that but I was way to tired. I will add that tho as I am continuing developing it

elmoeinstein 2023-01-10 03:28

@joe-eric yeah the lack of music is because we both lack the skills to make it lol

elmoeinstein 2023-01-10 03:29

@travh98 thanks for the long and detailed review!

chrispy977 2023-01-10 03:40

Seems like we had similar concepts starting out. You definitely executed on the planting and harvesting side way better than my team did, but I think one thing you could borrow from our concept to add incentivization to keep growing plants and to min max is creating a leaderboard. You don't have to go as far as a live service like ours, but something to that nature would help to give people a reason to keep going. I do like the time limit, adds a lot to the temporary nature, you know it isn't going to go forever. Especially with a jam like this helps with rating a ton, lets me know exactly how long you want me to play your game for a standard experience. Overall a decent amount of fun, good graphics (though the tutorial is a bit hard to read), and concise experience. Great entry.

auros 2023-01-10 04:02

The instructions text in-game might be a bit hard to read for some people, but overall, the gameplay loop is entertaining. This is a great base to refine into a stronger game. The art is very cute.

stephenwhoskins 2023-01-11 23:34

I love the pixel-y art style. :heart_eyes:

I also like the direction that you decided to take with your theme. Good game choice overall actually. =)

leggy 2023-01-12 22:36

Interesting implementation, quite intuitive and simple. I had a bad problem with the camera since it was cropped at least top and bottom! farmer_jones.png maybe its because I have an ultrawide monitor :thinking: btw I appreciated a lot your pixel art and the implementation looked seamless, nice job

porcus-pie 2023-01-13 00:53

I enjoyed this! Honestly for two year 8 students it makes me feel bad looking back at what I did in high school :sweat_smile:

Seriously though I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of depth this game has under a very simple premise. I found myself really developing systems and almost creating my own gameplay loop that I found effective. By the end of the 10 minute game I had over $1200 with some garlic still growing, I found it to be the easiest. The graphics are simple but easily readable, I didn't have too much of that awkward farming game "is this crop ready" type of vibe. I think like others have pointed out, maybe some audio, maybe some particles, having a little bit more polish would have been great but this is also a jam game so I can look past it. I did want a bit more from it as well, I think if you were to expand the game adding maybe more crops, lifestock, upgrades, maybe some autofarming? I think it's a great start for something if you do want to expand!

I will say however I did come across one little glitch, I planted some garlic and it just formed like a tiny sprite and refused to grow? I couldn't harvest it or anything.

FarmerJoeGlitch.PNG

Overall though nice work, this was fun.

asilvers 2023-01-13 01:40

Love the art and gameplay, could definitely use some background music though. The start can be a bit slow but once you get enough seeds the time seemed to almost pass too quickly.

elmoeinstein 2023-01-13 02:53

@porcus-pie oh yeah srry i spotted that the morning after i submitted. I just had to change some settings in unity. And also it wont grow bc its dead. srry

jitspoe 2023-01-13 04:02

Got 980 on my first run. Not sure if my tomato strategy was the best. Would be interesting to see if there's one must-do strategy to maximize profits, or if there are different techniques.

digital-bacon 2023-01-13 13:48

Nice game. Liked the way different plants grew differently (with most being one-shots, but the tomatoes growing repeatedly). Good graphics, easy gameplay. Good job.

matt-rix 2023-01-13 23:10

Quite compelling! I played the 5-minute game twice and managed to end with 810 coins on my second playthrough.

nullval 2023-01-20 12:08

Is weirdly hectic :D nice and easy controls, and easy to understand mechanics. I got 740$ on my first 5 minute farming.

hawkin 2023-01-22 03:33

I'd say you made a satisfying game! It's simple, but the loop was addictive. I want to plant moooore.

I didn't really understand the controls well enough from the instructions, but after my first attempt and going back to read, I eventually figured it out. The font you used is a little too unreadable. I got there in the end, but it took more effort than I'd like to read important text. Otherwise, the artwork was very nice!

My first playthrough (5 min), I got $670 by experimenting with various crops.

My second playthrough, I thought "Carrots all the way! Fastest grow, 2x profit. No brainer." By the end of it, I had planted 40 seeds (which should have gotten me $1600), but I didn't keep track of the water and only harvested $760 worth of it. Not much of an improvement. @jitspoe can confirm, don't go all-in on carrots :( OR if you do, don't plant more than you can get to.

Screenshot 2023-01-21 213301.png

elmoeinstein 2023-01-22 04:29

@hawkin thanks for the review! that wasnt bad for a 5 min playthrough btw. I was watching jitopoes stream and he did a ten minute run. Anyways thanks for the nice reviews