eHarr West err...

antti-haavikko 2023-01-10 18:22

Umm, okay...

Screenshot 2023-01-10 at 20.06.08.png

Had to play the post-jam version as that was the only mac version provided. Guess it doesn't really matter that much though. The game started with a completely black screen. I guess it's not supposed to do that? Then after clicking randomly I was greeted with this.

Screenshot 2023-01-10 at 20.02.17.png

And after clicking some more, some UI elements appeared too.

Screenshot 2023-01-10 at 20.02.21.png

But yeah, it was still very cryptic. I guess you could do some major low rez pixel art here.

Screenshot 2023-01-10 at 20.02.47.png

So managed to actually start the game after all this major league artistry. The pixel art looked pretty nice. But I did not like the color choices on mainly the player character. I guess everything else looked just fine. The info texts were weirdly offset from the center too. Oh yeah now that I think about it the "inventory" was on the other side. 🤔

The character controls could have been snappier. I felt like the acceleration and slowing down was unnecessary. And probably should setup the colliders kinda like this so you could walk behind the objects and it would make more sense.

Screenshot 2023-01-10 at 20.12.34.png

The main "point and click game loop" here was pretty simple. It felt unnecessary to be that tight in the order of things like having to do the watering can thing before you could even interact with the bucket. And none of the things really made any sense either. I guess the machines could have hinted a bit more on what they needed if interacting with them without the required thing. And of course getting rid of that rigid order and adding in more stuff to interact with (as maybe like red herrings) would have made it more interesting.

The ticking sound for the footsteps got irritating quite quick. Didn't really help that it along with the interaction beep were the only sounds in the game. Music definitely would have helped drown em out and some variety (and more sounds overall) would have really been the correct thing to do in my opinion.

Anyways, good job! 👍

arqsenpai 2023-01-11 12:01

Kinda enjoy the little experience your game provided, the pixel art is cute and it's chill. It lacks a bit of sound design and music to embrace the atmosphere. I think a bit more of complexity on the paths to complete objective would've been nice. Otherwise, Good job!

hexyvexy 2023-01-11 12:01

The black screen on boot was very concerning, and then going in to the plant design was also a little baffling. Most of the issues noted above are valid but I do want to highlight that the little animations were lovely, especially the ducks!

bloodycoin 2023-01-11 12:57

Wow @antti-haavikko thank you so much for playing our game and such a detailed feedback (You even provided screenshots :heart:).

Regarding versions: Sorry, for inconvenience, but after uploading the first (windows) build and playing it, we noticed it's really not playable/completable. So I wanted to fix it as soon as possible. Unfortunately, because of this I don't have the state of the project as it was used for jam upload to make proper Mac build of that version.

`I guess it’s not supposed to do that?` That is intentional. We wanted to make this a bit more cryptic exploration title. In the first place, we had idea to go a bit more meta - just make a minimalistic pixel editor, and then save the created image. Thus **we** as _game creators_ could harvest art done by other players :joy: But then we realized this might not be recognized as a proper game by the community.

`I guess you could do some major low rez pixel art here` That was the idea. Not sure if you noticed, the pixel art you created is put under the glass on the pot in the center of the room.

`The info texts were weirdly offset from the center too` - Good point, I wanted to cram everything in with as little UI as possible, but now that you mention it, and looking back a couple days after the jam, the off-centered text does look weird :joy:

`The character controls could have been snappier` That is true, the speed/friction values are the ones I had setup initially, and forgot to coma back later to to tweak them :joy: Thank you for noticing :thumbsup:

`you could walk behind the objects and it would make more sense` That is what I wanted to initially do as well. This might sound like an excuse, but unfortunately due to some circumstances, we could only create art at the last day of the jam, and due to my lack of experience with Godot I would have to re-setup all maps again to support going behind objects. But I totally agree with you on that point.

Regarding the story - yes, we aimed to keep the story as simple as possible, to fit in the gamejam scope, but in the end this might look too simple or rushed (as it was rushed). We considered going into **Extra** category, to have more extensive story with more possible interactions, branching/multiple choice options and proper sounds, but in the end decided it's more worth for us be rated with even a bit incomplete game, rather than having more complete game, but with less feedback. Again, I agree with your point on the story.

Though I didn't expect the footstep sounds to be that irritating. Thank you for point this out. Still I think it's better to have at least those two sounds than none at all. And yes, proper audio effects and soundtrack would have been great, but that is sadly enough something we couldn't fit into this jam time.

Again, thank you detailed feedback, it really helps. Just wanted to give some background explanations on some decisions we had to take. :sweat_drops:

P.S. The `low-rez art` you created should have been saved to the folder the game is in (Not sure if this works correctly on Mac). Added that just in case players want to share their artwork :slight_smile:

antti-haavikko 2023-01-11 13:03

Oh yeah the art thing makes sense. Totally missed the fact that my "artwork" was the final goal of the game. That's pretty cool and quite meta indeed. 👍 But I guess the screen being fully black first wasn't supposed to happen? And I think the UI and start could lean more towards helping understand what is going on there which would probably help players notice their art in the case too. Could even start the "actual game" then by zooming out from the case so that it's more focused. 🤷‍♀️

glaupe-cabral 2023-01-11 16:19

Hey, I don't know if it just happened to me, but I couldn't play the game properly. I tried to download the most updated versions, but it didn't work. I'll try to download the first version to see if it runs correctly. Oh, if you have a little time, enter our game and give your review too: https://ldj.am/$318266. I advise you to play the downloaded version, because the Ludum one is not adapting the window correctly!

glaupe-cabral 2023-01-11 16:24

I managed to get into the game, I thought the art was pretty cool, the objects too, amazing sound effect. But I couldn't understand what the point of the game was or how to interact with them. I even managed to click E and read some information, but I didn't know what to do with it.

hmrpf 2023-01-11 16:28

I'm not sure I understood everything but I completed the 2 hours post jam version. I see you already got some in depth feedback so I'm just gonna concentrate on what looks good to me ! The art is nice and I love the mix between humor and weird vibe like this. Makes me want to go back to the first Monkey Island :) Good job for completing the jam !

zluca 2023-01-11 16:30

I really liked the start of the game, screen black and i was just clicking to create the plant and start playing. In general it was a fun little exploration game, with nice text prompts and a cool idea. Very well done, good job :thumbsup:

yamzho 2023-01-11 16:48

It was a nice little point and click experience without the pointing and the clicking ! ;)

I was, like most people I guess, a bit lost with the black title screen, but I think I understood that we had to design what we want to harvest. As the result of my clicking at start was nothing, I harvested... nothing ! Haha !

But it was a cute game, with some issues (You read the long feedback of our fellow jammer already and there's nothing I'd like to add !).

Well done to you anyways !

mistagiggles 2023-01-11 17:53

Fun little adventure. Was initially confused by the drawing thing as I though "Quit" was "Quit game". Enjoyed the adventure after that, cute little sprites and some nice backgrounds

alchemic 2023-01-12 07:09

Cute little game. Also got a bit confused by the beginning. I like the cow.

I recorded my gameplay, you can watch it here (14:27): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihro-C1lbJM

bloodycoin 2023-01-12 13:40

Thank you all for playing our game.

@glaupe-cabral Glad you were able to open the game in the end. This is little exploration/adventure game. So you have to find the correct sequence to grow what you drew at the start of the game. @alchemic recently posted a very nice playthrough video

@hmrpf Glad you liked our weird jokes :smile: I feel honored, that this game reminded you of Monkey Island.

@zluca Thank you for confirming totally black screen was not wasteful :joy:

@yamzho Did you try to quit game at the black screen at the start? Or did press `Reset` and then `Quit`? I am just wondering if there is another way to get blank plant?

@mistagiggles and @yamzho Fun fact - initial idea had no `Quit` button. So you would try to draw something, get lose hope, try to quit game, and then voila you are actually in the game with the thing you drew. But later on decided to add the button. Though you can still try to exit game with `alt-F4` and put into the game. Not sure how well this works for other platforms. That is also main reason why we didn't upload webgl build :upside_down:

@alchemic Thank you for sharing gameplay video. It's always worth a lot more to see how other plays the game, than just read the comments. For example just noticed, that the plant dialogue with water being delivered is shown too early (It should change to malnutrition only after delivering water). And I agree with what you said in the video. Again, thank you for sharing gameplay :) Glad you liked it.

Oh one more thing, since @alchemic mentioned lack of feedback, there was supposed to be lines going out from each apparatus to the flower and some to the closed door. So once you power up the first apparatus, it becomes clear, that you can interact with the door. Sadly enough time constrains :joy:

aznz 2023-01-12 17:23

great game, love that art work specially the :cow: the game was easily understood without much content (maybe just me with a gamer instinct) only issue I'm having for the game was short but overall really good game. the animation with every machine is smooth but the :duck: was really adorable as hell.

plepletier 2023-01-12 17:43

Sem título.png

heeheh i draw a carrot but I couldn't get very far in the game. I put the battery in and then I couldn't understand where it had to go. Interesting idea of ​​drawing what you have to collect first!

torban 2023-01-13 01:26

Very cute art! The outdoor scenes were really well done. Good job!

taikinaaa 2023-01-13 12:53

Great game!

mickxe 2023-01-13 18:36

Good job! I spent longer than I'd like to admit "painting" in the start menu. :D

deadgoodnik 2023-01-13 18:38

Was a little confused at first but then when I got into it it was fun and enjoyable and the Graphics are great

infecsean 2023-01-13 18:50

Very cute and unique opening and artstyle. The space cow is mmmmmh very nice. But the game could use more sound design and music to enhance the atmosphere. Great game overall!

taxol 2023-01-14 05:07

I like your machines, they look beautiful.(your color palette is really pleasing) By the way, I draw a cute dog at the start of the game lol.

angiemon 2023-01-15 13:43

Finally came around to trying this!

What a lovely idea to have me craft my own item! Absolutely loved this! However, I didn't get it at all and had to read the game page (never forget to assume that players are the absolute worst dummies, I learned this during my last jam :)) So, either add this to the game page, or ideally into the game (like underneath somethin like "make a pixel art image of a crop" or something :))

The game was absolutely lovely and the controls felt good :) the texts are cute too, I like the walking sound it could just be a tad bit less loud, but that's nit picky :)

I know time in gamejams are sooo scarce, but I think in your case it would have be so awesome if you would have added some royality free song for the background :) or space ambience from either freesound.org or search royality free music on youtube :)

LDScreenshot1.jpg

Great entry guys!!

animawish 2023-01-17 03:57

Very cute game! Some great messages (laughed out loud at "can't equip space suit and swim suit at the same time"), and I absolutely adore the space cow. Nice job!

dekajoo 2023-01-23 10:35

Cool game and cute graphisms (I love pixelart) congratz :)

bloodycoin 2023-01-24 08:29

First of all thank you all for playing our game! Glad to see you like it :bow:

@aznz Thank you for the praise, we are trying to improve :slight_smile: I agree with the lack of content, but everything had to had their own mechanic/art implemented. Hopefully we will manage to come back to the project post-jam.

@plepletier Sorry, for the late reply. Once, you put in the battery, the door to the North can be opened by interacting with it. Sadly we couldn't fit explanatory lines in time.

@torban :heart:

@taikinaaa Thank you

@mickxe Glad to hear first half of the Saturday coding didn't go to waste :D

@deadgoodnik Thank you. Glad you figured it out. Do you mind sharing what was confusing for you (if you still remember :laughing: )

@infecsean Thank you, I agree, but sadly enough sound design got crushed by other timeline sections this time :/

@taxol Nice, thank you for your kind words :heart:

@angiemon awww :heart: Yes, that is true, but then again, we didn't want create any predetermination with specific hints. At the same time wanted to create some kind of `aha` moment for players. You, for example, did very well by creating a heart, and not a generic vegetable ;)

Thank you for noting footstep sounds, will try to go over some normalization steps next time. Royality free music is also a nice idea :thumbsup:

@animawish Glad we could raise your happiness meter :laughing:

@dekajoo Thank you been trying to up our a bit game lately