Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → When The Wheat Grows
By better-half
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 579 | 3.23 | 28 | |
| Fun | 670 | 2.84 | 28 | |
| Innovation | 437 | 3.24 | 27 | |
| Theme | 467 | 3.61 | 28 | |
| Graphics | 471 | 3.46 | 28 | |
| Audio | 300 | 3.36 | 27 | |
| Humor | 465 | 2.73 | 25 | |
| Mood | 371 | 3.50 | 26 |
I knew something was building up from the start! And the ending was still unexpected. I love characters art and story. But I didn't know that I can read Nives' letter. Apparently it contained important information. Anyways, good job!
i'd really like to play this game, is it possible to build for HTML (or mac?)
Did not quite expect the ending to be so grim! Great art and fantastic music, only a few minor issues stopping this from being a really strong entry. At one point the map background got stuck as the blacksmiths and there was no way to read the letter or get anymore details from items in my bag which made things a little confusing.
The what filling up mechanic wasn't fully explained and this meant most of my early conversations were spent experimenting and trying to figure this out, rather than picking the best dialog option. I know there was a hint to how this works with the leader's conversation at the start, but I think this should be explicitly spelled out, perhaps up above on the game page?
The art was also a little inconsistent in style, sometimes very pixelated, sometimes less so. Consistent scaling of assets would bring this up to a 5.
Characters were well-written and interesting, although I did manage to offend almost everyone :shrug: Great job!
This game was kind of weird. And the story is a bit unclear. That being said it was fun. And the atmosphere was heavy. The music was fucking epic. It slapped. I hope to be able to make something as nice music wise next jam
The mood in this game is top notch, and I adore the character designs. Very nice job!
@sakura-magika Hey there! We just managed to build an HTML version for the game, now you'll be able to play it right here. I'm extremely curious to hear your thoughts on it~
(By the way, I just received the email notification for the Happy Tree Harvest OST release on your bandcamp. Can't wait to play and rate your game as soon as I'm able to!)
-DMC4EVERUCCI ;)
@animawish @adrien-tremblay Thank you so much for your comments! (and you made our composer blush pretty hard!)
@n-feofentov @fizzbark Unfortunately we weren't able to implement the item descriptions in time, or any other kind of tutorial for that matter. Also about 70% of the Leader dialogue had to get cut which made the story and ending even MORE confusing. We're hoping to implement the actual, proper ending after the jam is over together with all the features that didn't make it in. Regarding the inconsistent scaling we learned the hard way that the asset's resolutions should be properly planned out beforehand :sweat_smile: we'll be much better prepared for it next time.
Thank you so much for all your thoughts, feedback and nice words!! They're really appreciated
quite an unexpected ending! it was a nice visual novels, i think you really pictured this rural italian vibe and the role of church within these people then and still now. i think the game lacks some info, for example i'd like to be able to see what are the items in my inventory, otherwise i just go from npc to npc to see which one has unlocked its new dialog line.
however, very interesting game and mood!
@amarokczukay Thank you for your comment! We planned to have the items' descriptions show up when you picked them up and/or clicked on them in the inventory but couldn't finish that feature in time unfortunately. Hopefully we can add that after the jam.
Really cool game. Rare to see a fully fledged point and click adventure with branching dialogue in a jam. Great writing and visuals (particularly the characters). Some elements of the game are a little cryptic, but honestly, that might even add to the overall atmosphere. Also, very unique setting. Cool stuff.
! ! ! SPOILERS AHEAD ! ! ! (I'll try to keep things cryptic as well :D)
On the ending:
I was expecting something like that due to the phrasing of the initial task. Still worked great as an ending! Out of curiosity, did you paint over the, uh, "elements", for "censorship" reasons / to tone down the intensity? Seemed a little off. Also, would have been cool to have the amount (and "likeness") of "elements" correlate to the amount of people you managed to convince.
Really cool entry. Well executed and unique in more ways than one. Congrats!
wow! That ending went dark. Really fun take on the theme. I like the more text based game style and its a game jam so obviously some features such as inventory and more information would be cool but all in all one of the cooler games I've played so fargame.
@hoichael Thank you so much for the kind words! We're really glad you enjoyed it. About the ending: well the... "censorship" was actually applied for lack of time. Way faster to do it that way than to have a detailed, more "graphic" thing going on. Next time we'll plan things out way better to avoid using shortcuts like that. And yea, the original idea was to have different endings based on which and how many people you were able to convince, but that also had to get cut unfortunately. We're planning to add the proper ending post-jam!
@sheree Thank you for your comment and for playing! There's also other super cool text-based games in this jam thankfully that we had a blast playing. We'll gladly play yours as well!
Cool game. The game looks good, sounds nice, and plays well. Nice work!
thanks for making the web version, @better-half
i like the art style, it reminds me of games in-between the pixel and HD era, where artists wanted to draw cartoon-stylized graphics, but still had to be mindful of the resolution they were drawing at. like curse of monkey island.
it's great that you made a point and click adventure game! again, monkey island comes to mind. it really takes me back. i noticed you added some variations to the bgm depending on the location, that's a good touch.
i recommend using multiple scenes to avoid the bugs you noted with clicking randomly in the background, seems like your click hotspots are still active even after location transitions.
for the gameplay, by biggest critique is that the "special" dialogue with each character based on the items you have should remain locked until you've conversed with them sufficiently to learn about whatever their motive / secret is. otherwise, if you just travel to each location and grab the item, then talk to them for the very first time, you can dive straight into their "special" dialogue without having to do any investigation, and narratively it doesn't make sense for you to start talking about the special item when you don't know a thing about the person.
as for the narrative itself, i must say i'm pretty disappointed. i was initially quite interested when the game was premised as during the church's takeover of the world, but before indigenous religions of europe had been eradicated by them. i was looking forward to an exploration of the existence of a pagan religion in italy as it contends with the new and devastating power of the church.
[SPOILERS AHEAD] however, right off the bat, the worst possible ending, in my opinion, was foreshadowed by the beginning conversation with the cult leader. you're here to do murder. and not only do you murder, but you basically spend the entire game stealing, lying, and blackmailing people, before leading them to be murdered. i really must say, shame on you. non-christian religions, especially pagan religions, are misunderstood and misrepresented enough as is. if this game is to be taken at face value, then it must be a good thing that the church is conquering the world and annihilating these "ancient traditions" that abuse people with lying, thieving, and murdering.
i'm not in-general against games where you play as the villain, or games that hide a dark purpose behind the players actions, i think can be really cool. context is of utmost importance, and in this context, i think its harmful to portray this cult, which is presented a european pagan religion upholding ancient traditions, as villainous murderers, and that the people would likely be better off if the church continues its conquest.
What a story! The interactions you wrote were very engaging, and the artwork really brought it all to life! I did lose the map background at one point, but all the destinations were still available, so it didn't stop me! I couldn't figure out how to get everyone to the festival, and I absolutely failed the nun haha! But I still enjoyed the game a lot. Thank you for sharing this!
And now, I'll just enjoy the sunset with my friends at this totally awesome festival :) I'm glad they could _stick_ around!
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Lovely game, really enoyoed theming and writing. Character art was great as well as the interactions!
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