steelfeathers 2023-01-09 08:55
Using Space to interact doesn't seem to work for planting seeds... I can interact with the door (which just puts me right back outside), but I can't do anything else except water dirt and swing by scythe.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → Harvest Timing
By pennycook
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 676 | 3.05 | 21 | |
| Fun | 729 | 2.63 | 20 | |
| Innovation | 605 | 2.94 | 20 | |
| Theme | 198 | 4.02 | 20 | |
| Humor | 441 | 2.79 | 19 | |
| Mood | 599 | 3.08 | 20 |
Using Space to interact doesn't seem to work for planting seeds... I can interact with the door (which just puts me right back outside), but I can't do anything else except water dirt and swing by scythe.
The watering idea could work, but I forgot immediately what seeds I planted and where. Maybe the dirt color could be different for each plant
@steelfeathers: Ah, sorry that's not very clear. The seeds count as "a tool" so you have to use C to plant them. There's no animation, but you should see a hole get covered over with dirt when a seed is planted in it.
@antsa: Thanks for the suggestion! I deliberately made this quite hard (too hard), but introducing colored soil would be a good way to (optionally) decrease the difficulty.
Reporting from the nudist colony:
Cute graphics and very stardew-feel (as you've described!). It is quite difficult and the movement may be a bit slow for impatient gamers, but for those willing to calm down a bit, the idea can be quite rewarding.
Thanks for also being very thoughtful/helpful with your comments on my game :blush:
good harvest game :)
So for that you effectively put little time into it, it turned out well. I like the pixel art which triggers the nostalgia in me and a very chilling game as well as familiar gameplay.
A few finishing touches would have been nice though, for example, a visualization of what you've already watered and also a bit of a game challenge in general.
Yes, I know the short time was of course an obstacle and that's why I'm sure there's more to it.
But very nice work, keep it up :)
@jaonewguy: You're very welcome! Thanks for returning the favor. :smile:
@ra-sio: Thanks for playing!
@melektaus: The lack of visualization for what's been watered is perhaps my biggest regret, and I completely agree with you. I thought it would be an easy thing to add, so I foolishly left it until the very end... When I tried to implement it, I realized the way I'd structured things made it really hard to get the information to the soil sprite, and then I ran out of time. If I keep working on this, it'll be the first thing I fix!
Honestly, not a bad farm sim. It's real slow, I recommend turning up the speed of the gameplay a bit and it would be a lot more enjoyable. Other than that, great game!
It's not easy in such a short period of time. Congratulations on finishing this project. Maybe distinguishing between dry and wet land will be easier, as I always forget which seeds haven't been watered.
Very cute, cohesive design thats right on theme. Good job!
@triangle-point: Thank you for playing! I'll definitely take a look at the player speed.
@harmofish: Thanks. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to finish, but I got there just in time. :cold_sweat:
@torban: Thank you! I spent quite a while trying to make sure everything fit together, so I'm glad to hear that's appreciated. :grin:
I enjoyed the concept of this game a lot. I think it works great as an educational game, especially for younger children learning about numbers and number patterns. The names were quite fun to decipher and I spent an embarrassing amount of time refreshing my memory on what the sequences were and what days to water.
What I enjoyed: - The choice of graphics paired with the music work to create a very comforting and inviting experience. The music track has that hint of Stardew Valley in it that works in favour of the mood (however, it is a bit on the soft side). - Native gamepad support is much appreciated! - Being able to harvest a day earlier for a lesser amount of points was an interesting and welcome touch. - The incorporation of the instructions and controls as part of a note that works as a preface to the story. I enjoyed the humour in this, too. I guess this explains why the character is just one colour, although I don't know how many nude people out there have hair that matches exactly the colour of their skin. I guess the character could be bald, but the bump makes it seem like they have hair. :thinking:
What I had some issues with: - While I agree that player movement is on the slow side, I don't find it as tedious since the playing area is kept very small so there's less need to move around a lot. That being said, the actual playing area being smaller than the game window screen gave a slight sense of claustrophobia, being so limited in where you could actually go and do. - The game could definitely use more player input feedback. The watering can sound effect was a good start, but the lack of other sound effects did lead to a rough start when beginning the game as it was hard to tell when I was actually planting things. Plus sound / a visual effect would help give that satisfaction from a successful harvest. - I do think the game could have made it more obvious as to what seeds were planted, but there also isn't really an incentive to plant other seeds. Most of the time, I just planted all of one seed and watered all spots as I thought were needed. - A visual indicator as to what spots were watered that day would have been more beneficial to the gameplay experience. It felt like the main bulk of the puzzle is focused around figuring out which days to water on and adding a watering "memory" puzzle on top of that - right at the start - does seem unnecessary. I think it would work if the game had more progression in terms of how it introduces mechanics or for a hard mode. However, it wasn't a huge issue since I just planted all of one plant in later runs and systematically watered everything in one go. Still, visual indicators would be real nice for watering. - The Interact and Use Tool button are basically the same function that are completely location dependent. If the Interact button is just used to sleep, then I think it would have made more sense, player-wise, to have just one action button for executing the tool and going to sleep, which is triggered based on what tool you've selected or where you use the action button. - When they are two separate buttons, it gives the implication that the Interact button can be used elsewhere. I thought it would be used in front of plants to provide a text box of what was planted, but such was not the case.
Lastly, I felt like I was having some trouble understanding the watering system and the numbers for some of the plants. The carrots were straightforward and I was able to harvest them no problem. I also was able to grow the turnips. However, the corn (which I assume is supposed to be watered evenly) seemed to give me trouble. It's days after planting and not the numbers of the days, right? Well, I planted it on day 5, watered on day 6, left unwatered on day 7 and then on day 8 it died. This was weird to me since the name implies it's to be watered every even day, but I'm not sure why my corn died unless it was supposed to be watered on the first day.
@random-storykeeper: Wow, thanks for taking the time to write up such detailed and thoughtful feedback!
I'm glad to hear that the gamepad worked! Out of curiosity, which kind did you use/which prompts did you see?
On to your issues: - I agree about the claustrophobia. My original thinking was that if I gave the player too big an area or too many plants to care for, the days might take too long. But I could have made better use of the screen space and introduced some other things to do.
- Good suggestions, thank you! Adding a harvest sound in particular should be pretty straightforward.
- The original plan was to have the mechanics ramp up over time, with new seeds arriving in the mail as you played. You'd start with the carrots, and once you'd mastered those you'd get some corn, etc.
- I did want the interact button to do more (e.g. getting seeds out of the mail, checking the status of plants). This is good feedback; I could have easily combined the buttons when I realized I wouldn't have time to implement those mechanics, and I probably should have.
- My wife and I argued a lot about how the days should be counted, so I appreciate how confusing this mechanic ended up being... :laughing: I really wanted to include sequences with a 0 in them, which ended up meaning that the day you plant something is Day 0, the day after planting is Day 1, and so on. So if you planted Corn on Day 5, the watering days should have been [7, 9, 11, 13].
Combining your suggestions about the interaction button and the day counting, I probably should have added a way to check how many days old a plant was. That would still require people to work out the sequences and stuff, but without requiring them to memorize so much information.
@pennycook I used a wired Logitech gamepad F310. It was joystick to move the player, A to interact and X to use tools. My prompt screen looked like this:
Harvest Timing 03.png
Oh, I see about the corn; it died because I watered it on the day after, which was 1 day instead of waiting for 2 days. May I also ask - the cauliflower, that means the exponent is 2, right? Like 1^2, 2^2, 3^2 instead of 2^1, 2^2, 2^3, etc.
In either case, I'm not sure how this sequence allows for the full 4 waterings needed. If it's base to the power of 2, then you would only be able to get like 2 waterings in at most. With incrementing bases to the power of 2...
- Plant on day 1 - Water on day 2 (1 day after, 1^2) - Water on day 6 (4 days after, 2^2)
Then the next day, 9 days after (3^2) would be day 15, which is not within the 14 day range. But if it's 2 base and incrementing exponents...
- Plant on day 1 - Water on day 3 (2 days after, 2^1) - Water on day 7 (4 days after, 2^2)
Waiting 8 days after to water (2^3) would mean watering on day 15, which is again one day outside the 14 day range. Am I thinking about this incorrectly? It doesn't seem like this plant can be watered 4 times within the range of days given in-game.
@random-storykeeper: Awesome, thank you for sharing that. I had only tested with a Steam Controller, so I wasn't sure what prompts would show up!
I hadn't realized that there was ambiguity in "days after", but I can see where the confusion is coming from. The sequence is supposed to describe the number of days after _planting_ on which you are supposed to water, not the number of days after you last watered. "Powers of 2" was supposed to mean 2^n for n >= 0, so the Cauliflower sequence looks like this:
- Plant on Day 0 - Water on Day 1 (2^0) - Water on Day 2 (2^1) - Water on Day 4 (2^2) - Water on Day 8 (2^3)
Interesting idea. I enjoyed the art and music.
Definitely not bad for 9 hours of work. Music was the highlight for me...honestly reminds me of a SNES music track.
Not a bad entry for the short amount of time! I found the visual indicators to be lacking (when to harvest, was it watered, etc), but otherwise good. I also found that the carrot was the only thing that grew, everything else just stayed the same sprite (over many days and water each day) and ultimately gave me no points for harvesting
Keep on making games!
@frozenfire92: That's a feature, not a bug. The plants have to be watered on different days. The reason they all had the same sprite and gave no points is that you'd killed everything except the carrots!
I'll see what I can do in a post-jam release to make that more obvious.