Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Conor Galvin
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | The Plant Shop | jam | 987 | 3.58 | 3.36 | 3.19 | 4.06 | 3.91 | 3.03 |
Such a cute game! The art and atmosphere is extremely ethereal and makes you feel really relaxed as you move from spot to spot creating pretty flowers and trees. If I could offer one piece of critical feedback, I feel like some of the UI and the information provided to the user could be more refined, but nonetheless, you did a great job!
Wow, what a great little game! Immediately fell in love with the art style. A huge fan of the hand-drawn aesthetic, I think it works really well and adds a lot of charm.
I tried the pre-jam so forgive me if you have already made some of these changes!
I feel like there could definitely be some more cues for the player to tell them what they need to do, how they should go about doing it and what the actual goal is! Particularly at the start, just explaining what un-hoed (if that's the right word for it) ground looks like/hoed/watered, etc, What the days/season refers to in line with the plot of the game. I was slightly confused when suddenly the game stopped with gold and I thought it was over but actually the season had just ended. It would be great if that was explained beforehand so I knew what to expect once Summer was over! It would also be great if there were some hints to the life cycle of the plant - I kept trying to rake the wheat for example because I thought it was fully grown but then it grew further. Some more information would really help push this a long way!
Overall though, these are really small nit-picks. Fantastic entry :)
@kamekai that is definitely much more helpful! Nicely done :) Like I said, some explanation of the game cycle (going through seasons) and the end game goal (earn more money) also would be great! Sorry I played the pre-jam, I wanted to rate the original submission to be fair. Nice work though!
Wow, really well done. The art is simply fantastic. I'm slightly in awe because we created very similar styled games, though yours is so much more polished and entertaining! Massive fan of the theme and the game play. Don't really have many other comments, except well done to all those involved :)
Hey, nice game. I thought it was a pretty unique idea - though with the theme being Keep it Alive, I don't see how this game fits too much if I'm honest - seeing as you still behead the other souls, who are already dead...
But overall it was definitely fun to play, I loved the floating jump movement!
Really great entry. Love the atmosphere, the art, the audio. Really fun and engaging to play. If I could nit-pick, I found I could cheese the game by just spamming the attack button because it was more of a strafe/lunge + attack? If I'm honest, I don't see the point of the actual dash button because the attack seems to move the same amount of distance while also attacking. I felt like it made it much easier because I didn't have to be tactical, I could just keep zoomin' and slicin'. Also I can't unsee the fact that it looks like the protagonist is wearing his cape back to front - I think designing the torso/legs and having the cape open like it typically is would have looked better.
Regardless, really great work!
Fantastic work. Super fun idea, simple yet engaging gameplay that makes you want to keep trying again and again. The art and animations are also sublime. I was getting increasingly stressed as each of the little ducklings were being taken away and it broke my heart the first time I lost and saw the mother sit down and cry.... So i had to just try again!
If I could nitpick, I would say that I didn't really get "Keep it Alive" vibes while playing as there's no real explicit themes of life + death in this but more safety/protection/motherhood/hunting, but that may just be me being pedantic. Also really agree with what @shaolin-dave said about the mouse orientation. Really feel like this would have benefited from full 360 degree movement. Overall though, a fantastic entry. Really well done!
Wow really fantastic entry. The art is overwhelmingly amazing. It's incredible that you managed to make something like this in the time allotted, really great work.
If I could offer critique, I don't see a lot related to the theme Keep it Alive? Afaik through playing you can't die/fail, and you just solve the puzzles to continue. There were mentions of other npc's fire's fading but they never explained how? Unless there was a timer (which I don't think there was?) or other way for your fire to fade? I may have missed something. But unless there wasn't, I don't know what aspect of it was to do with the theme.
When playing it as well, I also got the sense that this was something taken from a much larger idea and made to fit this theme. I don't know if that is true, but was just the impression I got. Again, a mixture through the lack of the theme coming through, but also because it felt like a small piece of a game taken randomly from a much larger whole that there was a lot of context missing.
Overall though it was definitely enjoyable.
Wow... Definitely a unique entry! I don't even know how you came up with this, haha. Really great game with a ton of polish. Massive fan of the audio and art. If I could nit-pick, I think some form of tutorial or more information would have gone a long way. You're kinda just thrown into the game and there's no context. Took me a while to figure out what I should be doing and how.
Overall, though really great work :)
Fantastic game! The information screen at the start of the game is a fantastic way to provide players with all of the information they need in a single screen, but to play devil's advocate I will say that although it was an efficient way of doing it, it was a lot to take in. The theme is fantastic. Fire is always a great theme when talking about life that I don't think many people jump to. Overall a fun little platformer with enough challenges to keep you entertained and engaged! - Just so you aware, I did spawn in the middle of all of the stones and it took me a few jumps to then appear above ground where I think you're meant to spawn. Anyway, good job!
Wow, really great job. The amount of polish/work put into UI/audio/interaction with objects is just really great. Also stroke the right balance between fun/challenging. Had a blast playing!
Really great work - the flying baby made me laugh quite a lot. I will say the movement feels almost too fast but other than that, really fun to play
Hey! Really cool and fresh concept. I haven't seen any other Yeti-related games so well done on coming up with something unique! I have to say though, I struggled to play your game (I used the web version). - For one the aspect ratio cut off some of the UI and game window even when in fullscreen. - I also struggled to understand how to actually move/engage with the enemies. I clicked the knight and saw yellow squares which I assumed were spaces where I could move, but when I clicked two away, a red square only one appeared and then I couldn't do anything else.. I kept doing this and then suddenly I won but I honestly had no idea how.. - I think some form of tutorial or a clearer way of telling players what's happening would really help! - Lastly, having some form of background behind the intro text would be really beneficial to help make the text more readable - having red/blue on green background is really difficult to see because of the lack of contrast!
Sorry for the long post... Overall, I really appreciate the art and the theme and I'm always a fan of turn based movement. I just think there's definitely a bit of room for improvement. Good job anyway!
A super simple and fun game :) Love the art style, and theme. I will admit the concept is a little out there - a koala catching rain and poo to take care of a tree lol. If I could also mention some critique, it's not very clear what you're meant to do. Took me a few tries to understand, oh I need to keep jumping up and collecting rain then dropping it back off.. Overall though, a nice entry.
Screenshot 2020-04-23 at 18.45.50.png
Wow, nice work. First of all the art and narrative is fantastic. The level of detail in some of the assets and the overall scenes/houses look really great.
Some points though: - It's not very clear you're meant to interact with the text screens to continue (I thought it had broken until I started clicking trying to work out what happened) - If you click mid-text it finishes the sentence but then plays the rest of the clicking audio clip - the text is quite small and hard to read, especially with the font.. - I think there could be more direction given to players in the actual game. The small pieces of text at the start is great, but once that's gone it's kinda unclear what you're meant to be doing because no other indicators are given to you. - When I walked into someone's house they were just continually doing 360 spins until I walked up to them and got shot immediately
Overall though, a super fun and challenging little game. The different endings is also a sweet little bonus. Nice job!
Fantastic work. The voxel assets look really great and I'm in awe of how you made the mech it looks so sick. I also love the contrast between the somber music and the fact that a huge mech tank is wrecking havoc. Don't really have any other comments - just super impressed!
Great concept! Love the attack mechanic and thought it was pretty smart. The procedural rooms was also a bonus.
That being said, I did experience quite a few bugs straight off the bat. I went to speak to the blacksmith, and the wizard's profile appeared and started asking about spells. Then the blacksmith would appear but when I hit bye the wizard would say bye, etc. The inverse happened as well.
As I said, the attack mechanic is pretty fun, but slightly janky. It would at times go straight through the enemies and not register a hit. Also dragging the arrow back always hurt me because the enemy came straight back with it... Not sure if intended? I also got hurt everytime I entered a room because I would be instantiated straight on top of an enemy.
I feel like maybe it was overscoped very slightly, but nonetheless I had a blast playing it. Well done :)
Wow, really love the art style! It took me couple seconds to get the hang of the mechanics but once I did it was super fun and engaging. Congratulations!
Incredible work. The art, sound, gameplay, UI - all fantastic. Really well done!
Really nice entry :) I felt like it was almost too easy though? I managed to fully upgrade all of my weapons super quickly by just using the 4th weapon which slowed anything and then holding the left mouse button. I also don't know if the boss was meant to do anything because the super huge thing just stayed there and didn't move..
Overall though good work!
Great work! Love the theme, the sound effects, the art style. The way the text was displayed with the character frames really made the game feel nostalgic while also feeling really innovative with the linked movement and puzzle aspect. Nice job:)
Side note; was this made in Unity? I'm trying to make a similar tiled-based movement game and would love to chat about how you implemented this.
Such an interesting concept! I will admit it took me a while to figure out how to move and what I should control, but after that I felt it was pretty challenging and fun having to control both the toaster and the fridge! I did think the toaster/fridge movement could have been slightly more refined, but the anime face on the fridge over shadows any criticism. Good job! :)
Great idea! Loved the art and style of the game and felt that the idea was pretty fresh and unique! I do wish there was some more variety in the levels though. Overall though, really well done!
Thanks @no-grapes-games! I actually have all of the animation sprites created and ready but ran out of time... Will definitely be adding them in and cleaning some other aspects up eventually :)
@rodpraet thanks so much! Hope you enjoyed it :)
@beavergames thanks! I really appreciate it
@trexxak ah thanks so much! I know some people may think it's TOO simple but I really wanted to make sure I didn't overscope and end up not being able to finish. I focused my efforts into creating something that looked and felt light-hearted and fun - hopefully I achieved that!
@mykola thank you!! I would recommend finishing with different dead plant amounts to get the full effect of my forced comedy ;)
Completely agree with your feedback! There's definitely a lot more I could add to increase it's replayability and your ideas are really great. I think increasing the difficulty/providing more of a score would really help this game be more impactful. But anyway, I'm super glad you enjoyed playing, thanks again!
@adonisdevs thank you for the feedback! Some form of scoring was definitely planned for but ultimately didn't have enough time. I think something like that would definitely make it more replayable.. Thanks again!
@justine, @bohrmaschine2000 thank you so much for playing!
@strawberriesandcheese I hope this experience didn't ruin taking care of plants for you ;) And ignore the message, I think you did fantastic! Thank you for the lovely feedback and for playing :)
@tom-stroll thanks for playing! And thank you for the great feedback! Funnily enough, there's actually a higher chance of them needing water than food, haha. I agree, the theme of the game was maybe a bit too predictable, quite a few people have done plant-related games as I think when it comes to life, nature/plants/trees are synonymous. I will admit I did go for something I felt comfortable executing for my first jam. Thanks again, much appreciated :)
@sarahfrisk thank you so much! And don't worry, I wish I was as good at taking care of plants irl as i am in my game lol.
@max-louis thanks for the feedback! Haha I definitely think using a mouse is easier.. But maybe you just discovered a hidden hard mode? ;) Great ideas, i might have to steal them! Thanks again
@delunado Thank you for playing! Sorry you found it confusing to begin with - I tried to explain how to play in the panel on the right before hitting start. I'll admit an actual tutorial would have been more beneficial, but alas I ran out of time. Thanks again for the feedback!
@beng sorry you thought it was too sad! I guess because the theme was "Keeping it Alive", I may have focused too much on the death part... Oops... Thank you for the feedback and for playing!
@plopmenz thank you for the feedback! I opted out of the audio category because that was the only thing I didn't create from scratch - everything else I designed and made myself :) going for longer than 60 seconds is a really good idea, I did have plans to make it ongoing but unfortunately didn't have time to implement it properly... Just so you're aware, the panel on the right shows you how many plants are healthy, wilting, and dead. It's to help you keep track of how many you've kept alive! Thanks again
@god-colo you murderer :( It's ok - try and again and save all 12 and we'll both forget about the tragic deaths of the other two... ;) Thank you for playing!
@flipsy great feedback - I completely agree. I have an idea to allow you to get wilting plants back to being healthy by saving them. This would then allow you to rack up score instead of playing against the clock... Thanks for playing!
@kownur wow thank you for such nice feedback! The animations and high score is definitely something I'm planning on implementing at a later date. Thank you again!
@motley Thank you for playing! I opted out of audio because the music and sound effects were the only thing that I didn't create from scratch. The rest of the game I designed and developed myself :) Funny you say that, I actually planned to have a drag mechanic but ran out of time. Don't worry, I'm planning on implementing it at a later date! Thank you again
@sandra-martinez definitely working on adding more! Thanks for the feedback :)
@yolziii I'm vegan as well! That's why you need to work at keeping these plants alive, haha :) Thanks for the feedback
@kamekai thank you so much for detailed feedback! I completely agree with your comments and I'm currently in the process of updating the game to be a little jazzier as you say ;) The note about the cursor is really valid and I will be definitely looking into it! Thanks again :)
Thank you @leonardo-fraga for the feedback!