jan5366x 2023-01-10 11:34
Well done, without tutorial text I was not able to figure it out, but after reading it, it makes a lot fun and works very well. :monkey:
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → Monkey Oolong Harvest Bop
By peachtreeoath, DoubleDragonBimmy and evedoll
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 45 | 4.13 | 43 | |
| Fun | 33 | 4.16 | 42 | |
| Innovation | 27 | 4.17 | 43 | |
| Theme | 348 | 3.79 | 43 | |
| Graphics | 109 | 4.28 | 43 | |
| Audio | 47 | 4.07 | 41 | |
| Mood | 65 | 4.12 | 42 |
Well done, without tutorial text I was not able to figure it out, but after reading it, it makes a lot fun and works very well. :monkey:
Absolutely love it!
This game makes me think of an ancient Chinese story "Monkeys Fish the Moon", play like a gold miner but can keep picking up or something like that, very interesting idea, I think I will give a very high Fun and Mood rating
I love the teamwork mechanic! I had a little trouble understanding when you gain energy, maybe some more feedback could help, like another counter for the tea leaves you got before the healing phase. Monkeys are very cute and the music is good, it fits well with the mood. Your game is really fun! Great job! :)
hii i came to find your game because i loved your game from last ludum dare! i really enjoyed this one as well :o the art style was super cute and the gameplay was quite addicting (and frustrating at times lol (': ). so far my high score is 7 leaves but imma keep trying. the only feedback i have is that i wish there was a restart button during the game since i realized that if you get a bad start your chances of beating your high score are pretty much over.
hii i came to find your game because i loved your game from last ludum dare! i really enjoyed this one as well :the art style was super cute and the gameplay was quite addicting (and frustrating at times lol (': ). so far my high score is 7 leaves but imma keep trying. the only feedback i have is that i wish there was a restart button during the game since i realized that if you get a bad start your chances of beating your high score are pretty much over.
This was so amazing! Everything felt good about this game: the art, music, gameplay and theme all fitted extremely well with each other. It was also a lot of fun to play, with a nice mix of strategy (where to place the monkeys on the tree) and skill (actually getting the monkeys where you want them). I mainly struggled with the latter :P I came here because I played your game 'study lady' from a previous ludum dare, but this game feels even better than that one in my opinion. Incredible job :D
I'm gonna tab back and give it another go in a second, but shame on you for making me feel so bad when I tossed my little monkey teammates out of the tree to their death :laughing: The little noises and facial expressions they make as they're flying and trying to grab onto something make it feel so real. I'm panicking at my keyboard trying desperately to grab onto the last branch, and the monkey on screen reflects my desperation with a look that knows he's about to die. The emotions during this run all the way from "oh nooo Nooo NOOOO!" to "hell yeah that was such a nice lineup!"
I loved the gameplay depth you all created here with a mechanic that seems so trivial on the surface. But every move had the consequence of where you'd end up. This made me feel extra rewarded once I'd spaced out my monkeys into strategic areas of the tree, I could put them on a line that they'd collect a leaf, get caught by another teammate, and toss them back to their original position to not mess up my spacing.
The zoom out mechanic was an excellent addition to let us plan out the throws. My favorite ones went up first, then fell through a line of two or three leaves and ugh it just felt magical to pull it off.
My best score so far, but I'll be back later in the rating period.
Screenshot 2023-01-11 184622.png
As always, love the art style that this team brings. It has a great artistic touch, yet it's still able to convey what everything is perfectly. Hats off to you, this was a ton of fun.
What a cute game! I'm melting at the sight of those monkeys blushing and shaking their tails! And the sounds they make when falling are great.
The game flow seemed really hard to grasp for me. Moments when I can and can not grab the tree feel a bit unintuitive. Also I couldn't get used to aiming when boosting off of other monkeys. Most of the time I was launching poor things straight into abyss.
But the music and the visuals make the whole experience very chill and addictive, despite the fact that I was really bad at the game :sweat_smile:
@joykangpae @wuppos @mhorth really happy you guys recognized the strategic element to the game. I too, don't think it's obvious at first play. But after a few rounds, learning about positioning really takes you to another level.
Took me a few tries to figure out how to play, with the tutorial, but once I did I really enjoyed it! Adorable little monkeys!
This is a beautiful jam entry! The art and design is adorable, with great music and sfx to match. The gameplay is extremely solid and you can quickly and intuitively get the hang of things. Put simply: this game is just a joy to explore!
I love the art style and the sound track. The atmosphere is super nice! I definitely struggled with getting the monkeys to go where I wanted them to go but that was more a me-problem than a game mechanic problem! Super fun!
Wonderful leaf picking game, and I actually by chance had a cup of oolong tea next to me while playing! The mechanics was simple to understand and satisfying each time I managed to toss them monkeys around in a smart way, but I wasn't very good at it...
Two things I thought about.
Because the first branches are a bit ways up in the tree getting well off the ground is actually one of the hardest parts of the game and where I spent a lot of the energy and it feels a bit odd to make the player face that right off the bat. So perhaps give the monkeys a bit of platform to start on or let them spread out in the bush from start...
Then the grab area for the tails could be a bit wider in the early phases of the game to make it more forgiving that way and shrink (possibly quite soon, like one or two leaf rounds) to the size it is now. That way we who are not that good get somewhere each time and makes you more invested to keep playing with a bit of sunk cost.
Great entry!
(The simple interactions might lend themselves to mobile :wink: )
@local-minimum I appreciate you playing even with the wrist issue, hopefully the controls helped with that lol. And I'm a fraud, I only had black tea around to drink while making the game myself haha. Great feedback, I'll definitely keep it in mind!
The monkeys are so cute and I love them. Definitely a fun game that takes a while to master, great work!
This feels really well scoped for a jam game. Easy to understand, fun concept and gameplay, nice music, art, and animation. Well done! Made it to 53 leaves :)
The art work for this game is great! The monkeys are sooo cute! The mechanics are straight forward, but still created a challenging gameplay
Really lovely art style on a simple but pleasant game! Was tough to get the hang of releasing monkeys at the right time, since they'll travel tangent to the spin, but it's satisfying when you get it right. It's also nice that it requires so few input types.
I can see this being fleshed out just a tiny bit to maybe have the ability to control how fast the monkey spins in order to modulate how far they're flung (within a reasonable maximum since you'd still want it to require teamwork among the monkeys).
Nice work!
I have been touched deeply by your artstyle and game theme. Good job, Guan Yu. Looking forward to your new game.
I got 18 tea leaves! I'm impressed with that considering I got 0 my first few attempts haha. I love the little monkeys, their art and animation is fantastic! Music was really good too and fit the game well. Thanks for making this!
This is a very unique choice of a crop xD Game is great! I like sounds and visuals, gameplay is a bit challenging, yet exciting!
i absolutely adore this game!!! i was initially drawn in by the art (which is lovely) and the tea premise (which is creative af), but the gameplay was super fun to get the hang of, and i will definitely be returning to play. i love playing as little monkeys collaborating together to pick up the tea leaves. the music was also a banger and enhanced my experience even more. overall, i really really enjoyed this and is definitely one of my favorite games in the jam. thanks so much for sharing <3
Nice game guys! Sound and visual is super cute. Gameplay is simple and difficult at the same time, as they say easy to learn, hard to master.
Great game, exactly what the jam format lends itself to in my opinion. It is challenging enough that you fail the first few times, but fair enough that you want to retry.
This game looks so cute! the art is amazing and the gameplay is simple and intuitive! I really loved this entry! Good Job!
Game with very interesting concept! The graphics are simple but functional. The sound is good (by the way, the sound effects of Donkey Kong Country matched the game very well haha).
The gameplay is very easy to learn. Good work!
I had a lot of trouble with the gameplay in this, and I think a big part of it had to do with the game's performance. I play on Chrome and for some reason, I was experiencing a lot of dropped frames and I think the controls had a bit of delay on them. Every time I launched my monkey, instead of it going in the direction it pointed in, it would get flung off to the side. Then I started launching off to the side and sometimes, I would make it up the tree. I did watch the gameplay video and it doesn't seem like that was supposed to be the case, like everything is supposed to be very smooth and when you launch when the arrow points up, it's supposed to go up.
That aside, I think the game, aesthetically, works pretty well. I like the blend of Chinese paintbrush style with the cutesy vector monkeys. I think the clouds they sit on help to connect these two art styles together. I also enjoyed the simplicity of the gameplay itself. It's one of those easy to understand and difficult to master mechanics and I love the added addition of being able to chain throws and plan how to launch the monkeys in advance.
I wasn't able to get more than 2 leaves and I do suspect it is mostly because of performance issues. But I think the game overall is simple but well executed.
Oof, I had trouble gauging when to hit space but it seemed to get a little better over time. Part of me expected that I had to hold down space and then let go in order to charge/throw the monkey. This is probably due to past experiences. It took a little while to shake that instinct.
I think I ran into a bug when I flung a monkey off a branch, picking up the tea leaf on the way off-screen. He respawned in his previous position, the leaf was gone, but the game didn't spawn new leaves. The situation happened again a little later, but then new leaves *did* spawn, so I unfortunately wasn't able to reproduce it.
The graphics are great for the vibe you're setting, and the monkeys are super cute. Part of me wanted more monkey animations, but it's a gamejam and *more* is usually not available. :D The music mixes traditional sounds and a solid drum groove well, a solid nice fusion.
All in all a fun monkeylauncher that I, unfortunately, am pretty bad at. :laughing:
Fun concept! It felt a bit disconnected where the tails would engage the tree.. something that made it feel hard to see that i was able to master it. I think having your sprites more precisely align with the collision boxes, and maybe some visual feedback would be helpful. The music is good, but also maybe a bit too strong, and could be a bit more background, or have a different loop to mix in for some variation.
Overall a great job!
Aww, it reminds me of the monkey mechanics in the SNES Lion King game, except you're the monkeys! Really cute visuals and as others have described, very good and intuitive game feel where outcomes felt fair. :)
@meep great catch, that was actually one of the games that inspired the gameplay. What a nightmare of a level lol
Enjoyed playing the game for a little while. Wish there was a way to modify the overall volume as it was a little loud initially for me. Found the longer throw (with help of additional monkey) a little awkward. It felt like it didn't quite line up with expectations. Very cute graphics and the music/sounds were very good. Initially I wasn't sure I could grab the lower trunk of the tree either, initially I thought it was branches only but that is my mistake.
What awesome presentation!
The monkeys were cute, and they stood out very clearly against the lovely painted look of the tree and misty-mountain background. The music and sound effects complemented each other well too, the instrumentation and way different parts layer on top of one another wouldn't feel out of place in a DKC game, which adds to that sort of nostalgic kick when you hear those distinctive monkey noises.
The design of the game felt solid to me too. Making it (more or less) a one-button game is awesome for playability in all sorts of contexts (maybe a build for mobile devices isn't far off?). Keeping the goal simple makes it easy to jump in and start exploring the mechanics directly, and a smooth restart after the game ended got me jumping back in again and again.
As I played, a certain elements of the design stood out to me:
1. **Speeding up the monkey's team throw with each successive catch was a really cool decision.** On top of positioning mattering in a straightforward "I want to be able to catch folks around here", I engaged with the extra layer of sequencing throws to make long leaps across the tree possible. It really opened up the styles of workable positions while also adding some natural increase in difficulty for players pursuing trickier strategies.
To illustrate, in my early attempts I tried distributing monkeys evenly around the tree to middling effectiveness. By the end I was comfortable keeping just one monkey high up and spreading a net of others down below - and there are almost certainly better ways to play it, my poor accuracy was generally my worst enemy.
2. **Slinging monkeys off of the tree didn't really have a downside, which was interesting.** It's definitely off-flavor (the sad monkey noises signal it's a bad move to send them flying down the mountain, who'd have thunk), but in gameplay terms missing the tree just sends the monkey back to its original position. In some cases, I think this is a more desirable - if I start with a monkey that's occupying a key position I can throw them around the tree to gather as much as I can then send them off-screen as they gather their last few leaves. I got some tricky leaves and they end up back in their key position - it's a win-win for everyone (aside from the monkey, presumably).
I don't know if making a miss more punishing in a straightforward way would be a good idea - controlling the monkeys is already pretty tough. It would probably hurt most for the people who aren't abusing the mechanic strategically while cutting out an odd bit of strategy. Maybe missing the tree keeps the monkey out of the game until they come back into the rotation? If they climb back to their old spot as their next turn begins it could be a potentially useful maneuver, but not one without consequence?
3. **When I picked up the game, I'd often lose track of which monkey's up next.** In retrospect, I can see it's following rainbow logic, red-orange-yellow-green-blue, but it wasn't something that I picked up on right away. If it doesn't clutter things up too much, having some kind of reminder might be nice to have (a rotating queue on the periphery of the screen when you zoom out, maybe?).
4. **Monkeys always swing one another clockwise - I'd be curious to see the difference in play if they could swing in either direction.** I do think it's a fine limitation (especially so we can keep simple controls) but it made some kinds of moves feel especially tricky to me.
Under clockwise-only rules, you can't do an overhand pitch to the left, for example, and a lob to the right has to be launched from around the 9 o'clock position. To keep the simplicity of one-button gameplay, maybe it could be based on the position and velocity of the monkey when the catch occurs? Get caught by a monkey on your left while moving upward and you naturally get swung counter-clockwise. I don't think it's the biggest deal, but I think it might the way we route throws across the tree more intuitive (and add an extra level of precision to aim for if folks are really into it.
Also, a couple of things I saw in the comments that I would like to echo: - A way to visualize the reach of the monkeys would be great. There were some times I thought they were within reach of each other but was wrong, and the difference between pulling off a great team throw and locking a monkey into a redundant position on the tree is definitely a painful. Alternatively, making their reach a little more forgiving might just "fix" the feel of it - Some kind of reset button would be nice to have. Restarting after a finished run is super duper smooth (which really helps with that "just one more try" feeling!) so having to refresh the page to retry mid-run feels clunky by comparison.
All in all, a very cool game! The game's scope is well-selected for a jam, and the intuitiveness of play makes it easy to discover and engage with the emergent strategy that springs from these straightforward mechanics. And like I said before, the presentation is awesome - what an inviting way to pull folks into some strategic monkey-slinging action.
Thanks for putting together a great submission for the jam.
@doctor-zeus you read a lot of my intents as well :)
#1 an interesting thing I've observed is how strategy and execution co-develop in a player. At first the game is execution heavy until the player starts realizing there is strategy to spreading out their monkeys in certain ways. But funnily enough, that is actually capped by the player's own ability to throw monkeys far - so their strategy can only be as complex as their execution.
#2 that is totally a viable strat and I use it depending on the situation. The real reason I didn't have a larger penalty was because I didn't have enough time to explain it to the player. The UX wasn't quite good enough to show it I thought. A tutorial stage would've been better. So ultimately I said screw it, I'll let the players get off easy on that one.
#4 I learned something new the other day, that in Tetris, depending on the version you play, you'll either want to leave an empty column on the left or right side of the well. This is completely due to the different rotation behaviors across different Tetris versions.
The correct answer does seem to simply have a rotation-switch button, but I think it could be interesting to see what positioning strats develop as a result of how the tosses work.
This was really unique! Launching the monkeys was really fun. I also loved the beautiful background. The performance was also great for me. Maybe @random-storykeeper you should try using Microsoft Edge instead?
That was loooovely! From the gif alrady i loved the little monkeys, they are so well animated and lively. Coming into the game i was so pleasantly surprised by the music. A lot of jam games can't find a great spot with the music, but yours is top notch even on the 20th loop. Fits so well and simply a great listen. The setting itself is great too, and it's amazing that this is rooted in real life - super interesting. Now this great setup is multiplied by having a great game mechanic. Plays very easily and is super fun, with a mix of strategy and skill. Of course i try to plan my monkeys around being able to catch each other, and it working out is very satisfying. The only irritation i had was that monkeys are launched differently when held by a monkey vs. when jumping on their own. I learned it quickly enough and can also see that a) this is the only way it makes sense and b) it is actually much more fun to have a more difficult launch when held by a monkey. I noticed being caught by a second monkey very much speeds up your rotation. I'd either tone this down or omit it completely - as a player it is the best feeling when you can do a combo, so i think it doesn't need to be "balanced away" but encouraged.
Top game i easily see in top 10 in more than one category! I don't remember when i gave the last 5 star rating, a very rare occurence - this is one :)
This is awesome! It's got great style really well-grounded in the mechanics and the music is so on point for pulling it all together and drawing me in.
The elements shuffle up well so that each situation requires some careful thought, which I really appreciated. I felt myself getting better as I played. One thing I really like is the wide, wide range of the effectiveness of a turn. The floor of a turn is utter failure, and it's common enough. But there are soaring highs on turns that I saw, and I can IMAGINE even much more. Nailing a buddy-toss into multiple pickups and then catching another monkey to spin back around and make ANOTHER pass, it's gold.
My first few attempts I was awful and lost a bunch of energy at the start, but then I learned "Don't be dumb, throw your first monkey halfway to their range so that it's easy to chain the next one!" And gradually I started getting better. I really don't know how that other commenter got fifty-three leaves?!?? I can't even get to twenty!
Since this game was so good, I want to point out a couple of ways that I felt like the game left a little something on the table:
- The ultimate high is chaining monkeys into many pickups and getting a LOT done with one turn (especially powerful after a few failed turns). But the wave-based spawning of leaves worked against this high, and sometimes left my rare great turn spinning with no next leaf to get, which was a downer.
- The z-zoom was of course valuable and necessary, but it was a splinter that I had to use it so much. I kept wishing for an arrow pointing toward offscreen leaves that somehow also indicated the distance, for example by scaling. I feel like if it exactly indicated both distance and direction, I could learn to play with much less of the inconvenient zooming. I also would have preferred the active-monkey be somehow indicated when I'm in Z mode.
And I wouldn't call it a problem, but I could probably have been more powerful if there was some minor graphical indication of what WOULD happen if I pressed space, for example the buddy monkey reaching out or seeing a little trail pointing the vector that I will launch at while spinning. Those things I learned by rote eventually, but there was an adjustment period where I kept being surprised to have grabbed the tree instead of my buddy.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this!
The art is also great, and had so many nice touches that made this feel really alive. The rolling fog, the subtle animation on the birds. Especially well-done was the tree: The leaves, which are decorative, blow in the window, but the branches, which are critical gameplay elements, are snapped stock-still. So smart. The monkeys and tea leaves also stood out really well against the background elements, with their relatively high saturation. And those face/tail animations! Monkeys had such great personality.
Really well done entry, hitting every element. Great job!
I managed to get 26 leaves! I love how you choose a very simple idea but executed it very well. That's a great scope for a game jam, and you nailed it. Good job, and a bonus point for the monkey sfxs ^^