aaaw! Super cute. I really like the art and music!

At first I thought it was a puzzle game so I kept restarting. I didn't realize you make a new you when you run out of life.

Very fun and cute, good job!

The music was great and the art was also great! :D

I made it to the end in 6 lives the first time and the second time I did the "you are too heavy for the clouds" thing.

I noticed that the plants seemed a bit glitchy when I was eating them. I would see 2 sprouts, one in the ground, and one floating above the other one.

The thing where you get to continue after you've died was a bit confusing at first, you might want to mention that somewhere.

Anyway, this was a great entry! I had a lot of fun playing it. :smile:

This game is very good! The art style is great and the gameplay is interesting.

At first, I was able to reach the clouds, but I didn't know how to stay there. It was only by reading the comments here that I discovered you could die and reborn. At last, the solution doesn't requires you to eat any plant at all. Maybe the first half of the game should demand you to eat to jump higher, so all the mechanics of the game would be used.

rest in peace the 50 doggos it took me to get up there. ;-;

Awnn. The game is cute, i found it hard to understand the game at first view. I liked a lot. Well Done.

The atmosphere you create is really special. It's a melancholy game about life and death portrayed through the eyes of a dog and its ability to be reborn to reach the heavens. Really good stuff. Graphics and music tie it all together really well. The short texts of the other dogs give the game even more character.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to finish the game. I reached the top after sacrificing two lives to get the maximum jump height, but then it told me I was too heavy to stay in heaven. Not sure what to do. I tried shedding more tears in order to maybe get lighter, but since I also lose jump height that way, I don't seem to be able to reach the sky like that. Also the plants on top die off faster than I can regrow them, which made me give up feeling frustrated a bit.

When it comes to room for improvement, I would say the watering, eating and withering mechanics could use some tweaking. Maybe I was just not good enough, but I felt that part was a bit unbalanced. Giving better visual indicators that help guide the player while at the same time integrating well with the aesthetics as not to break them is probably a tough nut to crack but I feel the game would benefit from a little more work in that direction.

All in all a very charming entry with some unique mechanics. Great job!

Thanks for the comments everyone! Some notes:

@CMLSC most plant growing bugs have been fixed in the post-compo version. Thanks for taking note!

@eric-florio that solution is something I'd like the player to figure out, this is intended. Though I did try clarifying the message of restarting as another doggo in the post-compo. Thanks!

@cerno-b Part of the point is not being good enough, but the solution there I agree can be frustrating. Having better visual indicators would probably help though! I did add some minor audio and visual tweaks in the post-compo version, but this is something I'll probably keep thinking about. Thanks!

The cute graphics and the mellow background music were very good :)

The twist in how to achieve the game goal was great :)

Pretty cute little game with interesting, evolving puzzle mechanics. Good job!

The music and art direction really helped set the mood for the game. It was also interesting to see crying implemented as a self-sacrificing, life-giving mechanic. Overall, I really enjoyed it.

One issue I noticed (which may have already been fixed in the post-compo version) was that holding down the crying button appears to be more "life efficient" than tapping the crying button repeatedly. Not sure if this behavior is intentional or not.

I love that you put so much small details in the game especially the bouncing plants!
The background music and the pixel art are great and give a good mood.
Great job! :)

Nice! Lovely art style. Music is good too. And just my idea but maybe instead of cry i like to see him take pee or something like that.

Really cute and funny game.

At my first attempt i didnt make it to the second platform.. I always thought: "Why should i damage myself?"
Afterwards i realized i have to loose "life" to jump higher. My second thought was "Why should i even 'cry'?"
And the last jump. Right in front of Heaven. Told me a lesson. If you are too fat, or you cried too less on earth. You won't make it.
Short but cute little platformer (:

Very sweet and kind of sad. I liked the pleasant music and the colourful art style, felt sad for the little creatures below. I ended up losing 12 in order to get back to heaven. :(

Thanks for the comments! notes part 2:

@lot9s That behavior is intentional, as the plants can shrink back down if you don't water them. As to if the plants have to shrink... I'll think about that.

@mitus Thanks! That would change the mood of the game for me, but thanks for the suggestion.

@lipsch Thanks! I would generalize it to be more about selfishness vs self-sacrifice, if you were leaning in that direction.

Super polished with great controls. You're obviously no stranger to pixel-platformers ;) Lots of original stuff going on here, too!

Sadly, the give/take mechanic just didn't click with me. I always felt that the best (frequently, only) way forward was to cry myself to death and respawn.

Wow, this is great! I really enjoyed it from the start and the art style and music are fantastic! Unfortunately, it ended up getting pretty difficult pretty quickly and I wasn't able to figure out the right combination to advance more than halfway up.

This is adorable, and kind of sad. Like some of the others have mentioned, I was confused at first and didn't realize that once I ran out of life I would spawn a new dog. Once I figured that out though I didn't have any issues. Really interesting mood on this entry, nice work!

This game is so beautiful. I love the sacrificial theme and the mood.

I love the little details like how the leaves rustle when interacted, or the white smoke emitting from the doggo.

I didn't have much to add from above commenters, backing the idea that reincarnation should be somehow explained to be acceptable to the player. Although it is fine as it is now too, I did figure it out after all.

Overall a wonderful game. I love it.

Nice pixel art ! This game is really beautiful, great job !

Not entirely sure I got it... The way I won, eventually, after throwing strategy out the window, was to just give give give. Was that the point?

Not all that fun, but everything was executed well. The music was the main selling point for me. I don't know why but it reminded me of the Companions of Xanth game.

Nice graphic, music and innovation. The core design seems like a bunch of moral options. Do i have to sacrifice or eat the plants to improve myself? Or i can sacrifice the turn to power up my successor, or i sacrifices whole every turns to finish the game? I love whole of the details of the game, each time i sacrifice myself, the graphic turn into white slowly and i felt of the holy flesh during the color transformation. Well done bro. Once of my highest rate game.

Ouch, that was a punch in the stomach...

What I get is: if you can't by yourself then sacrifice for the others, if you succeed is just because other sacrificed themselves for your sake.

Greatly polished, simple to control but a bit tricky to understand how to get to the top, and with a deep moral lesson too!

I didn't expect that much from a Ludum Dare submission.

Amazing job!

Beautiful concept and very well done. I love the art and how polished it is. There's something to be learned here, and that's amazing. Congratulations on this entry and wish you the best :) Great job!

It was really cute, innovative and thoughtful! I really enjoyed the game and the deep idea in it. Thank you!

Very cute, really shocked me. Like jaw dropped. I don't know why but it just took me by surprise after trying absolutely everything else (probably for too long). Art and music is so great as well. Fantastic!

This was really cute! (maybe "moody" would be a better word, since this wasn't really happy, and I usually associate cute things to happy things... well, regardless)

I really liked the idea, of the game of either trying to succeed alone or having to sacrifice yourself for others.

After way too many tries, I succeeded at being a really selfish doggo:


Don't know if intended, but that can be done by exploiting jump off the plant on the frame (or almost) it withers.

On my first playthrough, I finished with the help of 6 other selves. :)

Thanks for comments!

@ryte2byte That's the intention! I'm willing to sort of take the hit for that since it relies on the assumption that people will try to do both or to first take because it's easier. I wanted to make the initial choices seem pretty arbitrary until the player starts thinking about the consequences about them.

@clegamecoop Thanks for trying! That's also part of the game...!

@jejoll yep. I tend to focus more on engagement vs fun, at least for this game.

@matita That's certainly a takeaway I was thinking about, thanks!

@gfm Oo, nice. I'll have to look into that haha. Thanks for taking the time!

Welp, after trying the take method, I gave up life and just tried to make really easy platforms for myself. Ended up sacrificing 9 lives. It's an interesting trend to see yet another self-sacrifice game from you.

I think compared to the "You are the monster" game, this stood out more visually and the decision making was more clear. That said, the added simplicity also makes it easy to make lazy decisions like I did. In that sense, I question whether that diminishes the impact of the game. I just felt like lives were so cheap in this game to not have the sense of sacrifice.

@omiya-games That's great feedback, thanks! I think the game relies heavily on the player making the assumption they can do it with just one life or few lifes or alternating between give and taking, which increases the value of the lives when they are used. But if someone were to approach it more analytically the lives' worth definitely aren't as impactful. I'll continue thinking about this.

great game, nice concept! Moreover it's cool to see people using haxe too :)

The jam version of the game on itch.io straight up refused to load up for me and I tried Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Probably just my computer having issues with flash though. Got the post jam build working as a standalone swf.

Totally adorable graphics and rock solid audio as well. Controls felt perfect. PS4 controller on OSX had the same button mappings as you described for the 360 controller.

So all in all, nothing to bark at.

Really interesting concept! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLywFLMDPJc