Leafed Behind by melomel
Live your dream of keeping a houseplant alive!!
Welcome to my first game jam game, Stencyl project, and pixel art experience! I hope you like it! Play time is about 5min
Screenshot
| Youtube | https://mundanevelocity.itch.io/leafed-behind |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/leafed-behind |
Ratings
| Overall | 1878th | 3.207⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1774th | 3.052⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 2054th | 2.828⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 304th | 4.121⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1993th | 2.931⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1058th | 3.19⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1235th | 2.827⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1493th | 3.241⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 31🗨️ |
i kept overwatering though :'(
some feedback. the music is kinda hypnotizing and the controls could have been clearer. i was moving my water can to the flies and trying to click but nothing happens! (who the heck uses a water can to kill flies anyway!)
I like how the music sounds like it's building up as the plant grows bigger; it makes me more excited to see what the plant grows into. It would have been neat if the layers were actually added as the plant grew bigger instead of just being tied to the single track, but overall, it synced up pretty well with my successful playthrough. The sound effects for the flies were kind of strange - the sound of them crunching upon death was satisfying but also uncomfortable, like I'm popping them into my mouth or something. :joy:
I like the small details of the water stream running in the window. Graphics wise, the palette looked nice, though I found it a little strange that the watering can had a black outline but the plant pot didn't, even though the watering can wasn't black coloured. It's a small nitpick, but I think the black outline on just the watering can makes it look like it's not completely part of the game.
The fly swatting mechanic was quite finicky sometimes, like it felt like the game required a very precise lock onto the flies in order to kill them and I wish the hitbox detection for the swatter were a bit more generous. I wasn't a huge fan of the plant moving around, personally. I think it adds an interesting depth of challenge, but it also lends itself to a huge degree of uncontrollable uncertainty. Especially when it gets to the later days, it's not fun to try spend time defending the plant from flies when it's in one area only to have the plant suddenly move to the other end on its own. It also doesn't really make sense in game. It could, however, be interesting if the player also had control over the plant and could move it by clicking and dragging with the mouse. A couple of my failed attempts had to do with the plant moving itself into a crowd of flies when I was already defending it from another crowd of flies, and I can see that hindering the experience for a lot of players.
Overall, I enjoyed what I got out of it - there were some fine ideas that fit together nicely. :sunflower:
It was surprisingly challenging to remember what days to water the plant on, while also killing flies. I managed to take care of the plant though!
It would be cool and useful if view out the window changed to better indicate the time of day. It's animating as it is, but I can't tell if it's supposed to be tied to the day cycle or not.
The music was great too, and had a bit of an Ocarina of Time Forest Temple vibe.
Great job!
Great little entry!
Good music, multiple layers did a good job keeping it from becoming repetitive. Most sounds were ok, though fly squashing and plant hurting were a bit weird.
Nice touch with out of window view animation. Graphics are ok, but feel a bit inconsistent - lifecount, flies, plant and watering can all seem to have different resolutions.
Would be nice if there was some health indication - browning leaves or something.
The start and mid levels were a bit slow. Felt it could have been more challenging earlier, ramped up difficulty quicker, and ended after 4 weeks.
Plant suiciding into flies is a bit brutal. Sometimes flies spawn really close to the plant, and its suicidal tendencies don't help at all.
To make it more fair and consistent, might have helped to spawn flies outside of screen, or keep spawn points at the top half of the screen. Then could have increased their speed or number to balance the difficulty. Fair challenge feels better than easy game with random losses.
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Overall, it was quite fun - I was proud to have managed to save grandma's plant, mostly from itself.
Also, I'm glad you are able to take the comments in good stride - I feel like I might have been a bit too harsh. If so, I would like to say that I comment with the goal to provide as much valuable feedback for improvement as I can, while I rate much more leniently, keeping in mind it is a weekend's work, not a year's.