falkreon 2023-01-09 12:46
Itch gives me a 404. Is the game not set to public?
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → Happy Tree Harvest
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 225 | 3.75 | 33 | |
| Fun | 335 | 3.48 | 34 | |
| Innovation | 62 | 3.98 | 34 | |
| Theme | 4 | 4.57 | 34 | |
| Graphics | 519 | 3.35 | 34 | |
| Audio | 215 | 3.60 | 34 | |
| Humor | 267 | 3.25 | 32 | |
| Mood | 165 | 3.85 | 34 |
Itch gives me a 404. Is the game not set to public?
Link is Broken, pls fix :)
@falkreon @ausstein oh, heheh, yeah i forgot to hit "publish". thanks for the heads up, fixed!
Fun game with some good variety of gameplay and a unexpected twist at the end. Great job :)
Fun game, the violin sound was awful and very annoying, especially for the tractor, but I mute it and the gameplay was cool, I didnt realise at first that you should leave some for the animals and it was cool at the end of the year when I saw they all suffered and I realised I'd made a mistake by taking everything. Art is cute too, with some nice little animations to make it feel alive. Overall pretty good I like it :)
@sid-fish @whalejam thank you so much for playing, that's just the kind of reaction I was hoping for! I agree about the fiddle, I just uploaded a fix to tame the fiddle sounds, and replaced them with a much less annoying sound in the tractor game.
Very fun, you supprised me with the different elements of the game!
Very casual game with excellent background music that makes me feel at ease.
Fantastic. Love the use of music for sound effects. Love the dark turn. I think an additional ending should be added for player like me that did the opposite of what the current end assumes we did :spy:
That was nice. The hitbox on the bucket when catching apples was very forgiving so thank you for that. There were times were I though I wouldn't catch the falling apple but I did! Thanks for sharing it, I had fun :)
I really enjoyed the gameplay and the twist when you just straight up take everything. The art is super cute and the music to match it. I just love the overall vibe of the game. Great work!
Like Khaotom said its a shame there arent different endings and the sound effects to be a little lower in volume compared to the music. Apart from that this is my favorite addition to the jam as of yet! I loved the rhymes, the graphics are simple yet good looking, the gameplay also simple but enjoyable, and the undertale like twist, i love it!!! :heart:
@miranda thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it!
@harmofish i'm glad you liked the music, i had to throw it together really fast at the end, i'm relieved it turned out alright!
@daitli yeah, i'm actually really proud of the bucket's gameplay feel; it's a very simple game that's been done to death, but there are the little details that make it feel good to play, or feel bad, and i'm happy with where i landed with that.
@tavevil yay, thank you!
@khaotom @kikiriki367 thank you for playing, but i have to say, this game does actually have 8 distinct endings depending on your choice of actions. i suspect that neither of you actually reached the **true end** of the game, just the *end-of-round score screen*. it takes about 3-4 rounds to reach the true end of the game, depending on how you're impacting the environment.
(sadly, if you leave nature and humanity at a "stable" level, the game will just continue forever, i didn't really have time to implement a force-ending", if i did, it probably would have been a scalar value that increases the strength of your actions on the environment until it soft-forces an end-game condition), but if nature/humanity consistently thrive or suffer, you should reach a new screen after the score screen.
that all being said, your comments reveal to me that i should have been more clear that playing more rounds will actually get you somewhere in the game, that i should have a stronger indication of progress, and not make the game seem like endless rounds.
maybe i should put a game ending in after completing 3 rounds, even if you haven't reached a **true end** game state, to at least show players that an ending is possible, besides the end-of-year score screen.
Yeah just add to the description of the game that there is 8 endings or something like that :)). But also can you give us some hints on what they are? Becasue, and im really sorry for this i know its bad....
I take back what I said before, now I've come back for more. Ten long years it has been, don't end this conversation with a seen...
10 years.png
I've just read the comments. Gonna replay the game again to see the ending. But even the first score screen made me realize how greedy I was. 😶
Here is my initial playtest:
https://youtu.be/0-tZmqRzLuA
@kikiriki367 oh my goodness, ten long years! i'm really surprised you made it that far without reaching an end state.
there are three conditions for ending the game: humanity goes extinct, nature becomes extinguished, or nature reaches a certain threshold of thriving.
if you keep playing without reaching one of those states, it means you are constantly taking more from nature than what would allow it to thrive, but taking less than what would diminish it to becoming extinguished. and, and the same time, you are taking enough for the human population to neither grow or shrink.
i'll go into some more details here, i'm not worried about spoilers because no one will likely read down this far before playing the game first.
humanity needs to harvest a certain amount of nature to maintain a stable population. this particular amount depends on how many humans there are. if humans suffered or thrived in the previous year, the next year will have more or less humans, resulting in a higher / lower need level. the need level is indicated by the bar on the left of the UI, and on the bottom left, you'll see exactly how many humans there are as you harvest, you'll see it go up.
when you see this meter filled completely, it means you have met the needs of the humans, and their population will remain stable. if you overfill it, then the human population will grow. if there are many humans, the need will be great, and the bar will fill rather slowly. indeed, it might be impossible to fill it completely, if there are too many humans, and/or nature is too unhealthy. in essence, your world state may become such that it is impossible to sate the need of humanity, and losses are certain.
nature, on the other hand, will become less healthy if it is over-harvested. you can roughly gauge the health of nature based on the bounty set before you in the mini games. if you see lots of apples, wheat, and trees, it means nature is healthy. if you see few, then nature is suffering. the amount nature thrives or suffers entirely depends on the percent you have taken from nature *for that year*. if you're harvesting about less than half of what is there, nature will be thriving. the less you harvest, the more nature thrives, becoming more bountiful in the next year.
now, it may be obvious that harvesting zero of everything will be the healthiest for nature, and that is true, except that will result in instant loss, because humanity, having nothing, will not survive the winter. if you harvest a tiny amount, then nature will dramatically increase in health, but the human population will likely suffer terrible losses. however, there being a bountiful harvest available in the next year, it should be no trouble to sate the need of your population going forward.
again, it should take about 3-4 rounds of nature thriving or suffering, or humanity reaching 0 population, to reach and end state. i'm very curious what your scoresheet is after 10 years!
@icxon wow, thanks for posting the video! good luck with getting to the end!
@kikiriki367 i've uploaded a patch that shows you exactly how close you are to ending the game in the score screen! i'm sure you're tired of my mini games at this point, heheh, but if you care to try to get to an ending, it should be a lot more clear how close your are now!
I see i came back here a few minutes too slow... Well i first came here to post a picture and then i read the comment! I played it again a bit with my friend and we really tried on getting the ending soooooooooooooooo....................... WE DID! I think we had around 32 population, 60 apples, 240 wheat 30 trees and it took us 15 days! So it takes a bit longer if youre guessing what youre doing but it is possible :)).. Having played the game for a few hours now tbh, dont judge we really liked it! Id say again its my favorite entry and i really loved it! And if i were you i would just add a hint in the description of the game that there is a true ending and thats it! Thank you for your amazing entry it really made our day, and ill for sure send it to a few more friends to check it out! :heart: Also tell me if i should edit this comment so i hide the spoilers. PS we did it before you posted the patch!
nature.png
@kikiriki367 wow, such dedication, i'm truly flattered! the picture is becoming clearer now, yeah, i'm not surprised it took so long while maintaining such a large population. this might be a brutal strategy, but i actually spend the first one or two rounds culling my population down to less than ten. that makes it much easier to pass each subsequent year with very low harvests, letting nature thrive at a very fast rate.
as long as you keep at least one human alive (yes, there are special ends for that), you can still win the game, so that's actually the easiest path heheh. trying to win the game with more than 20-30 is quite harder, as you found out! i never actually tried, myself. i should recognize that accomplishment with new endings.
Yeah my strategy was also to cull them down! But a friend wanted to try and save as many people and plants as she could. :)) Ultimately we succeeded in the end with this many people! And for the 1 human alive ending i was actually thinking of doing it, so cool that you thought of an extra ending for that aswell!(And who knows i might do it in a few days!) hahahahah
This was a fun and relaxing game! Reminded me of Mario Party a bit with the 3 mini games. I appreciate the attention to detail, like the sound of the text displaying, and the sound the tractor makes when it's slowing to a stop. The audio was great, controls and mechanics were good, and the graphics were okay. Great jam entry all around!
Man, I tried my best only to be ashamed at the destruction I caused. People barely have the time to create one game and here you come with 3 :) Also I really enjoyed the axe effect for chopping down the trees, you can tell you have some nice easing to give that weight. Overall, this was a great take on the theme. Great job!
Nice, three games in one and an environmental message at the end. I liked the music and the howling of the wind. One thing that could be improved is removing the unnecessary dialog when starting new rounds of the mini games.
i liked the game. at first i thought i had to collect all the apples, harvest all the wheat and cut down all the trees and was disappointed that i missed some. Then after two rounds, i got the idea of the game and tried to get nature back on track. I had to reduce my population. Since I only collected 2 out of 7 apples and 1 out of 3 trees, I always had to wait a long time to move on. A skip to the end of the task button would be beneficial. It is not necessary that the tasks are explained anew in each round. This was a bit annoying. Clicking away the text every time. I quit after 12 rounds. It would have been exciting to meet one of the 8 ends. Maybe the game will be refined a bit more? An interesting game with an exciting message.
First round I tried to take as much as I could, then felt bad after seeing the consequences to nature. Then I tried to conserve more, and most of my population died, going down to 3. Then it was easier to get enough food for my people and nature, and I got the preserve nature ending. Fun game, I love the theme of balance between people and nature, though it can get a little repetitive when you've played the same minigames for 7 rounds. Also, I would like a skip button for the wheat and deforestation minigames because sitting for thirty seconds when you want to preserve the forest isn't very fun.
@kikiriki367 cull them!!! that's cool that you really dedicated yourself to a "humanitarian run", it's probably a bit harder than it should be, ahh game jam balance.
@gizmolo thanks for the praise and for noticing all of the details! as i develop, i keep a running list of little touches to add after the core loop is done, and hope to get to as many of them as possible before submission hour. i think thats where the real fun of game jamming lies for me, putting the "author's touch" into the game.
@appoxgames ahh yes, the axe! i spent a lot of time getting the look, feel, and sound right. there is indeed easing in the movement for that real "thwack" feel. i layered the ugliest piano chord i could play with some metal clanking sound for the SFX.
@flying-dog-fish yay, i'm glad you liked the howling wind! i really wanted to take all the "life" out of that scene as you "progress". you're right about the repetitive text, i was sort of going for a children's book / nursery rhyme feel with the repetition, but after a few rounds, yeah it just becomes annoying. i should just show it all at once and have one button to skip/dismiss after one round.
@math1369 mm, yeah, a skip button would be a great quality of life feature, but maybe only appearing after the first round, to keep the twist a surprise. realizing your population is too high and needing to cull down is the intended experience, i'm glad you got that! however, yeah, 12 rounds is too much, i think you need to cull the humans really really aggressively in order to get to and ending in a reasonable amount of time. that's definitely something that should be improved in the game.
@lzxh yeah, that's exactly the experience i was going for! except needing to play or 7 rounds, i was hoping 3-4 before and ending would be the norm. did you get to a real ending after the 7 rounds? i agree, a skip button would be good, especially in the third mini game, where the idea is to make you feel really bad for cutting down even a single tree...
@sakura-magika I don't remember my exact round count, but it was definitely more than 5. I think it must of been because at first I made major damages to nature, before deciding to work in the opposite direction of preserving it. I did get an actual ending in the end.
A message difficult to hear: to increase their population, humans have to destroy nature and vise versa. A skip button when you want to not cut any trees of the forest could be a nice adding however.
Hah, fun game. The music was a highlight for me, especially on the first minigame, but the contrast to the 2nd minigame was very well done too. The minigames themselves were cute and well done. The axe one at the end was pretty distressing.
My 1st time around was a funny commentary on doing what you're told in games, and the message at the end made me laugh.
My 2nd time around I just let the humans die to see what would happen.
My 3rd time around I was trying to keep things stable and get something other than those 2 endings... the promised "the credits is not the end"... but after 9 years I ran out of time (for the evening) and honestly patience :-( I'm not sure what I was supposed to see? But something does need tweaking.
Well done! It's really nice to see a game with some meaning and actions having consequences. It's one of the few games (and not just game jam ones), that made me feel "I knew this was a bad idea (chopping down almost all the trees), but I did it anyway... and now I'm frogged, because of my own stupid / greedy actions!" :clap:
Being able to "skip to next minigame" would've been nice to speed things up when one doesn't want to collect too much, but other than that - very ncie!
Screenshot 2023-01-15 132525.png
Finally managed to find a balance! Love the concept, the rhymes, the sounds, the mechanics, everything. Maybe graphic could use a bit more cooking but so much was done in 3 days that it's easily overlook-able.
Maybe you can add a hint of the "1/3,1/3,1/3" rule (for people who are new to the concept) and/or a "End Harvest" button when you gathered enough (as some other comment suggested)
I'll definitely replay to find all the endings
Very good game
Bravo, this game is a little gem! I really enjoyed playing it, and it's one of my favourites so far this event.
I think I fell into all the little traps and subversions you could hope for in a player. I went in blind. First apple harvest, I was thinking "this completion bar is very forgiving, they could have balanced it a bit tighter". Then at the wheat harvest, I was just glad that this is not just an apple harvesting game. During the first woodcutting scene, I remember thinking "heh, these sound effects make this feel pretty dramatic. As if I was the bad guy here!" I had around a 95% harvest rate across the board.
And then the "oh dear, what did I do?" moment at the end of year one. Chef's kiss. Then the realization that the progress bars just show what you need. The game was a bit repetitive, but at that point I just wanted to play it out. It took me 11 years to recover from the upcoming famine, down to 5 people at one time. I finished with 29 people and a pristine nature.
It's also really cool that you've included a link to a real-world effort about preservation. I always wanted to make one of my jam games more educational, tie it to some real-world phenomenon and include knowledge links and resources like that (there's plenty in my little notebooks of game concepts and ideas), but I'm yet to get around to it. My tree-based game for LD46, with some references to tree biology, was the closest I've gotten so far.
Seems like you're just about to hit 20 ratings, but you deserve more. I'm glad I could add one, thanks for the game!
The game is really cool and amazing! The animation is very smooth! The apples move a little bit when the basket touch its edge, this is a cool detail to be honest.
Quite an interesting way to educate people about nature, greed and how we influence environment. Well done.
You know you are only supposed to release 1 game right? not 3 ;) But this is pretty good. Not at all what I was expecting. When I read happy tree, I figured it was that horror cartoon lol Happy Tree Friends is it?
But this is pretty fun. I played it a few times over :) nice work :)
@harmofish @khaotom @tavevil @kikiriki367 @flying-dog-fish @benk @gizmolo @theherborist @ditam
Thank you all for the compliments on the music/sound design. I've just published the OST here:
https://sakuramagika.bandcamp.com/album/happy-tree-harvest
Oh dear I destroyed the forest. I really enjoyed the music and sound integration. The mini games were fun and very engaging overall.
Hey i just wanna know how did you get in the jam by yourself? I thought if youre solo it puts you in compo?
@xedradryade that's about the shape of it! yes, the people have spoken, i definitely need a skip button. hoping to have time to do a QOL update soon.
@benk that was definitely the idea with the axe game. sorry you lost patience in round 3, it takes a long time for nature to reach a "pristine" level (game-win condition) if you are also trying to maintain a decently sized population. it's much easier if you cull down to under 10 humans in the beginning, heheh...
@pulni hahaha, "now i'm frogged", what a fun expression. skip button incoming!
@theherborist yeah, one-third is about right, good job on figuring that out! skip button request heard loud and clear!
@ditam thank you for such a lovely comment! "as if i was the bad guy here!" heheh, good intuition :3 i'm honestly really really happy that you noticed the progress bars at first, most people don't see them at all. and especially that you noticed them filling up "questionably" fast. and that you thought it was just a balance issue at first. spending 11 years to finish with 29 people and pristine nature is true dedication, thank you for playing so thoughtfully, and for caring about the real-world preservation messaging. it really just makes me so happy that someone experienced all the things i was hoping they would, and really appreciated the design and message! <3
@ntb896 thanks for playing, glad you appreciated the little animations
@tricky-fat-cat i've bee feeling pretty depressed about the state of the world, so i tried to channel that into actually doing something to try and help using the skills and interests that i have. thanks for playing!
@d3kryption heheh, i was wondering if anyone would bring up happy tree friends, i remember watching that many years ago. glad you enjoyed this subversive, yet far more wholesome happy tree game.
@epicgamefan shame the forest destroyer! shame!!! just kidding, thanks for playing, i'm glad that you appreciated my audio sensibilities :)
@jakubbala i did participate by myself, and self-make all the assets (except a couple field recordings), but i did so under the 72 hour timeframe instead of 48 hour, so i registered as a jam instead of a combo. i usually work alone, but 48 hours is just way too short for me, so i always register as a jam entry. you select which entry you register your submission at the bottom of the page, i don't think it's automatic.
thank you all so much for the feedback and compliments! all of my <3
I really like the message in this one and I like how the violin sounds dissonant while I'm chopping the trees down. It basically feels like I'm doing something wrong before I even get the final score and see the effect that I had on Nature, heh.
I can't believe you did this all. Great job! I love this game! =D :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Whoa, that took me by surprise. It started as what seemed like a harmless collection of mini games, but then it becomes a commentary on our natural inclination toward greed and feeding our own pride when playing games for high scores, which is an interesting allegory. Well done!
In the end, my conclusion: Thanos was right. =P
I love the concept! A game with a message :) Thank you for bringing these issues into your game!
On my first play, I fell into the trap of HARVESTING EVERYTHING. I learned my lesson. The next playthrough, I found a good balance between humans and nature. A few recommendations for improving gameplay the next time around: * The tutorial before each minigame probably weren't necessary after the first Year. I think the game would have moved more fluidly without repeating them. But the rhymes were very sweet :) * The sounds were a little repetitive in some places. Consider using variations of the same sound, and playing a random one each time! Also, some sounds needed to be quieter than others (such as the music that plays when a tree is chopped).
Hey there! Finally got around to play it. Gotta say, I missed that good old plague friend art style...
As with most people here, I also overharvested in the first year and was down to 4 people in the second year and STILL managed to finish it on the 12th year with 50 people and pristine nature. Afterwards I played through a second and a third run to see the "bad" endings with humans extinct and nature extinct respectively. The music stopping after you cut down the last tree and leaving only the howling wind was such a nice touch, sent chills down my spine.
Stellar music and audio design as always (the tractor sound slowing down and restarting! Just like time in plague friend, how do you do itttt?!), animations were SO endearing (the axe swinging was a highlight) and fun, solid gameplay all around. Apples felt amazing even after playing it a billion times, especially because if you were not trying to overharvest and had LOTS of apples falling you'd have to be careful about *avoiding* them instead of pickin em up. And I found it cool that the most optimal way to harvest everything in the wheat game was to drive a tractor through the field just like a tractor would in real life.
And most importantly, you went above and beyond and included a much, much needed message for everyone and tied it so well with the overall gameplay and feel. Even with the time restrictions and challenges of a jam, I honestly consider this one to be a "mature" game, moreso than so many other of the top jam entries that I've played so far.
Such an amazing little gem, I'm so glad to have shared this LD with you. All the best!
-DMC4EVERUCCI
This is such a cute and fun game with a surprising message and I am blown away by the amount of mini games you managed to make in this short time but then skimming some of the comments the sheer amount of effort you put into the endings and just the love put into the entire thing is mind blowing honestly amazing job!
@stephenwhoskins thanks for noticing the dissonant violin on the tree chopping! i definitely wanted to give the player some audio clues that they're being a horrible person before they see the score screen heheh.
@artsyomni yay, glad it had the intended impact with you!
@hawkin thanks for playing, and thanks for the feedback! i've uploaded a little QOL patch that compresses each mini game's opening text into one paragraph after one round has been completed. i agree about the sounds, some variations would have made them a lot less annoying; i probably could have at least squeezed in some programmatic volume variation for the harvesting SFX, but i was sadly creating and integrating the sound at the very last minute, and really rushed it :(
@better-half heheh, i'm glad you like the art style, seems like the basic circle brush with no feathering has become my signature style. excellent job on ending with a colony of 50, that takes real dedication! i'm so glad you liked the shift from music to whistling wind in the deforestation game, i'm very proud of that detail. yes, having to manually dodge apples when you're trying not to over-harvest was an intended detail. i tried to come up with ways to make the "not harvesting" path more interesting for the wheat game as well, but sadly i couldn't. for deforestation, i wanted to make a strong statement that "doing nothing is better than doing anything", even though it doesn't make for fun gameplay. to "dj scratch" audio in realtime, just start a coroutine that modulates the pitch properly of an audio source over time. webgl unity doesn't support negative pitch, which will ordinarily play audio in reverse (such a cool feature!), so i pre-rendered reversed versions of the bgm and hot-swap them (keeping their play-time in sync) when the pitch would have become negative. thank you for appreciating all the little details, and the environmental message. i think that's what i like most about game jams, is coming up with cute little touches here and there. glad to share with you as well!
@weefairyfabi thank you so much! i'm just so happy that the game had an impact and sparked good discussion with people!
Nice game! Everything about it is pretty good, no major issues. The art is nice.
Very good audio.
Nice theming and message.
I recorded my experience in this video, Happy Tree Harvest is at **00:15**: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4H5IBD97Rw
@alchemic wow, thank you so much for posting the video and leaving the commentary! it's really good for me to watch someone playing it and voicing their thoughts as they go. as for the endings, there is actually a good ending (a few variations of it in fact).
if keep at least one human alive, and only take what you need, then nature's health will increase. the more you leave for nature, the healthier nature becomes. when the meter on the bottom right fills up, nature is at "pristine" condition, and that's the good end.
the quickest way to get there is to harvest very little in the beginning of the game to cull your population down to less than 10, and then to harvest only enough to keep the population stable (this is indicated by the bar on the left during the mini games; when it fills up, that's exactly enough for the current population's needs).
the more you leave for nature, the healthier nature becomes at the end of the round, which, as you noted, influences the amount of available resources in the next year. the reverse is true as well, and as the cycle repeats, it can become a positive or negative feedback loop.
the simulation is set up this way to demonstrate that the more humans take, the more they thrive and need, and at the same time, the fewer available resources there will be. thus it quickly becomes impossible to sate humanity's need, and both nature and humanity suffer. if, on the other hand, a small group of humans take only what they need, then nature thrives. the more humans there are, the slower nature will thrive. it is possible, but difficult, to reach pristine nature with a larger population (some of the other players took 10+ years to reach pristine nature with around 30 townsfolk).
anyways, thanks again for playing! i liked watching your tractor driving skills :3