Pot Life

hacksawunit 2024-10-07 06:07

What a cool little entry! The magnifying glass mechanic is really awesome, and really brings forward the feeling of the creatures being, well, tiny! It's also cool to be able to move the magnifier over to peek at the entire pot, then go back to surveying. Watching to see who the trouble makers were was really fun, as was seeing all the general antics. The graphics are simple but very fun- the little angry faces cracked me up. I could see some sort of fleshed out deduction or resource management game being really awesome like this, or maybe a "peek into a world" sandbox-toy thing. Great work!

chuckeles 2024-10-07 07:28

@hacksawunit thanks a lot for playing! Yeah, the "peek into a world" sandbox-toy thing was exactly what I was going for with this. I wanted to add a ton more ways to interact with the world but I run out of time and energy. 🥲

hacksawunit 2024-10-07 08:37

@chuckeles That's how it goes with game jams, eh? The vision is definitely there!!

turquoise-moon 2024-10-07 16:42

The magnifying glass effect is so cool! I'm curious how you made it. I think the game is very cute. I loved watching the little guys.

chuckeles 2024-10-07 18:35

@turquoise-moon thanks for playing. Check out the source code to see how it's done, it took me a while to figure out.

hubol 2024-10-08 02:58

My favorite touch is the sound of the critters being the loudest when they are under the magnifying glass. Cute!

sviborg 2024-10-08 06:41

🔍 What a great idea! I really like the magnifying glass effect - it really makes you feel like you're watching the tiny creatures 🐛. It's fun to watch them interact and "track" the naughty ones. The simple but fun graphics add to the charm of the game, especially those angry faces 😄. It would be great to see more interaction mechanics, but for a jam game it's great! 👏

chuckeles 2024-10-08 10:10

Just out of curiosity, what interactions would you guys like in the game? I was thinking about this game as a "manage the ecosystem", so some way to feed the creatures and plants would be nice. Some mechanic to hurt and kill them (something better than the random fire there is right now...). Maybe giving the creatures more types of resources so they could have more complex behaviour. :thinking:

scrapmetal 2024-10-08 19:58

Nothing like watching a cute little creature hatch from an egg and then... BURN IT. :fire: :flushed: :eyes:

This is SUPER cute and so adorably charming. I loved just watching them walk around in the magnifying glass, and the little footstep sounds are just perfect. :ok_hand: Even the little touches of the tiniest critters moving around and seeing the plants move to indicate one of them is there. So many great little details.

There is something oddly satisfying about using the magnifying glass to burn. (Even if the sound effect was a tad loud imo :stuck_out_tongue:).

I think if you fleshed this out further... maybe have multiple categories of things for the player to choose how they want to interact? Some positive and some destructive? I can see a lot of progression or upgrades. Or being able to check some meaningful stats... then give them items they need, such as water etc. There is a lot of potential here. But making it more 'sim'-like might be fun. The critter design is SO cute.

I actually had a lot of guilt burning that many bugs over time. LOL

But wow, this is one of my fav entries so far!! It's so good!

chuckeles 2024-10-08 20:38

@scrapmetal oh, thanks a lot for the feedback! :heart_eyes:

scrapmetal 2024-10-08 21:28

@chuckeles thanks for sharing your progress in discord too! It was fun watching this one come together. I was looking forward to playing this one first thing :smile:

kultuk 2024-10-09 07:49

Funny! Made me say "Oh no" out loud when I realized what I'm supposed to do :sweat_smile:

Art is great, SFX are also great!

Are the 2 bugs doing what I think they are doing? :laughing:

Great job!

Plus, using Godot is always a win!

rsheepdv 2024-10-09 07:53

Love the arson >:). I want to see this as a whole game! I hope you continue this after the jam!!

human-writes-code 2024-10-09 08:04

I really love this idea, it suits the theme perfectly. The art and animations are really nice. It kind of gives me Sokpop Collective vibes (which is a good thing). I have to admit, I killed a lot of good guys before I realised my mistake... such is pot life, I guess. Good one!

chuckeles 2024-10-09 08:20

Such is pot life :joy: ! Haha, thanks a lot for playing everyone @kultuk @rsheepdv @human-writes-code

tudvari 2024-10-09 09:49

Very cool entry, I really enjoyed it! At first the magnifying glass mechanic felt a bit clunky, but then I started to like it, it really made it immersive! :) At first I wanted some highscore system in the game, but then I realised that it's more relaxing this way.

One thing I would note is that after a while I started to think that maybe not all pink creatures are evil, only the angry ones... but suspiciously I never saw any angry blue creatures, so I just kept my assumption and killed all pink creatures! :D Nice entry, keep up the good work!

wouter52 2024-10-09 18:49

What a fun game this is! I enjoyed it! It's cute and simple to learn. But men, its damn hard to master haha I guess this is what gardening is like :sweat_smile:

The game could use some veeery quiet background music though. That would make it perfect in my opinion

chuckeles 2024-10-09 21:13

@wouter52 thanks! Oh the background music would be fantastic. I had high hopes for making music this time but once again I failed. :grimacing:

icxon 2024-10-10 08:33

Hard to see who is bad or good but it makes the game more spicy; :fire:

Here is my attempt:

https://youtu.be/aukB3GG9vHs

chuckeles 2024-10-10 08:48

@icxon lol, looks like you went on a rampage and killed everyone :joy: . Thanks a lot for playing and making a video!

henk 2024-10-12 21:06

If I let the game play out without interfering, the red bugs kill all the plants. If I kill only the red bugs, the pot becomes overgrown and the framerate drops. It would seem the winning strategy here is to kill all bugs indiscriminately :P.

> Just out of curiosity, what interactions would you guys like in the game?

I'd like some way to more precisely control where the plants grow, so I could spell out a word or something. Maybe a way to direct the spawn location of bug eggs, or a way to seed new plants on empty dirt?

orbitaldot 2024-10-14 13:12

Can't tell if this game is cute or sadistic... I guess it can be both :D The magnifying glass mechanic is super unique and the art is lovely, very well done!

tuism 2024-10-14 13:23

Man, what a fun little toy :) The magnifying glass that does double duty is a great touch. However... - Would have liked to see more... Of anything? The interaction is one-button shoot a flame to kill things. There's only really one thing you want to kill, and that's it. - When I realised what the magnifying glass does, I went "oh no" :p I would very much like an alternative wat of dealing with or interacting with things. - Feels like there's such potential for an ecosystem that has multiple points of interaction. For example, you got a little skull that's left behind - dead bugs fertilise plants, that's a whole thing, and could easily be represented in your ecosystem. - The fire apearing and the damage on the bug feels a little delayed, maybe the damage effect can also be a bit more obvious, like flashing the sprite white for example. - On the same line of thought as the more interaction thing - the fire really should have more interaction with other things, like with plants, with skulls, other stuff. Or at least give the player more interactions.

damdoshi 2024-10-14 13:30

It is a nice idea - and the fact we have to manage instead of controlling is cool. Good work.

dgspitzer 2024-10-14 13:36

Got a super huge flower in the end! These creatures are so cute!! 20241014-093628.jpg

hakimallazi 2024-10-14 14:42

The innovation and theme for this entry is at the best! this is how UIless game can be implemented properly.

dmitrygalias 2024-10-14 16:31

Nice game! It was really fun to watch them move, reproduce and eat. The gameplay fits the theme perfectly. At the end it's become too laggy.Screenshot_8.jpg

bestjess 2024-10-14 17:04

Very cute concept! It was both relaxing AND stressful to play -- I was not good at protecting my flowers haha. I could see this having some Tower Defense-like gameplay features -- waves of increasingly pesky bugs, defenses you can set up to deter them, etc. But even as-is I spent way longer playing it than I expected. Nicely done!

shoppncart 2024-10-14 18:47

Nice concept! Works pretty well, and it was neat seeing the magnifying glass work and watching the creatures mill about and live for generations. As a suggestion, a timer to show how long the game has been going long for (either in real time or "in-game" time if you want to say several days are passing) and some ambient backing music would be nice. Also, some more variety in the creature colors or designs. An effective little concept and interesting flow to watch regardless, so nice job.

chuckeles 2024-10-14 20:35

Thanks everyone for playing and for your lovely feedback! :heart: I agree with everything you wrote and I'd love to add more interactions into the game. I'll see whether I will have time and motivation to work on this after the jam.

Lol @dmitrygalias that's a ton of skulls you got there. :joy: @dgspitzer lovely flower!

pacelin 2024-10-14 23:27

A very interesting idea! I liked the idea of feuding little creatures who grow plants. A very cute and small game that is very well implemented. I would be very interested to see the continuation of this sandbox game. According to my feelings: 1. The sound in the game can be made softer to keep a relaxing atmosphere. Right now, the sound is most out of the gameplay. 2. There is not enough opportunity to look through the foliage, which blocks the view to find the reds. 3. It would be interesting to develop the game towards more interactions. Add, for example, the ability to feed creatures, plant new plants. It would be interesting to see new plants with their own growth conditions.

In general, I really liked this game. 10 blue creatures out of 10.

chuckeles 2024-10-15 05:50

@pacelin thanks! Those are some great ideas.

island-jam-2-group-3 2024-10-15 21:03

Missed some more mechanics but I liked how the magnifying glass one was implemented :-) Cute tiny creatures!

sasa-2010 2024-10-19 09:35

Wow! The game is so wonderful! Keep making games!

swanboat 2024-10-23 06:47

I personally really enjoyed the cute lil critters walking around and getting burnt, however they activated Swan's entomophobia which I still think is a compliment of sorts to the graphics.

I enjoy this kind of gameplay of going from a macro management view, and then focusing on the micro. For the relaxing atmosphere and the happy vibes it works perfectly, tho I did end up encountering an audio glitch after clicking out of the game and then back in, I think audio sources were playing several times over, but it's not big deal.

All and all, I think the nice polish and cute art and sounds go nicely with the simplicity of the game, and it does feel nice when the garden does eventually become self sustainable, my only real wish was that the bugs' silhouettes were visible through the flowers.

-Boat