This is an interesting idea! I'd love to see it with more audio cues/engineering and more robust graphics.

Concept is realy innovant! and mood is nice ;)

One of the best entries I've seen so far ! Very mysterious and relaxing ! Congrats

Reminds me of Prune, really enjoyed it! Love the atmosphere.

Very nice idea, the tree animation is beautiful and i was just about to end, and then i saw a squirrel. I kept going until past height 100, quite an addicting experience.

Cozy little game. Audio is a bit repetitive though

Wow, this is beautiful! I love this game. Very relaxing gameplay, though still a challenge enough to keep things interesting, wonderful art direction and soundtrack. I always appreciate a simple game with unique mechanics that is so well executed. I'll definitely be returning to this one again and again. Well done!

Lovely atmosphere and graphics. It might be interesting if there was some challenge in attending to lower segments of your tree (i.e. leaves start falling regardless of your growth, ...). Still, like it _a lot_.

Amazing little game! Fun to play and very calming. I felt like a pro Japanese bonsai artist. Easy and simple controls and very cool idea. Well done!

Nice calm game. I love the music and the mood, as wall as the gameplay. Good job!

For the moment this is the best idea I have seen during this game jam. The procedural generation of tree growth is well done! I had a small bug, a branch could cross a solid. But it didn't bother!!
Bravo 

wow thanks everyone for all your positive feedback <3

and @pronomicalartist thanks for the squirrel comment, we were unsure if players would identify the animals as milestones/incentive to keep going but it worked, yay!

Fruit ninja for gardeners!

Great work. The branch growing mechanic/animation is really satisfying and feels unique and the colours work great against the grey environment. Left feeling very peaceful. Just when I thought I had seen what the game had to offer, a squirrel appeared.

One of my favorites so far, what a relaxing game!
Also i think its very suitable for mobile

Very nice.

The relaxing & peaceful game for gardener & those who want to relax. Like the mechanic and the concept.

Love to chill with this game. The colors are amazing and the music is really good, also I'm terrible around plants so this is definitely a good way to redeem myself (kind of...) :two_hearts:

Nice relaxing game, I played until a height of 101. The squirrel was a nice touch as well. Though, I did notice that branches occasionally went through solid obstacles.

Great game, great style, music and mood. Really like it when I can just start playing and everything is intuitive.

Beautiful game. I got hooked and I couldn't stop playing until the end! Sorry I won't spoil you about the final boss. Amazing soundtrack too!

@ferestega well if true, you are the first to actually find that there is an ending!

Such an amzing concept! Beatiful idea, art, sounds and everything. Music is so ambient. Great job!

mesmerizing! the mantric soundtrack really fits into a relaxing atmosphere. Really nice and positive idea with a pinch of cuteness for this times we are living, let this grow game grow on you!

Creative idea! And so calming... 😌

What a fantastic idea. It's calming and stressful at the same time! The art style and music are so soothing, as well. Really great work!

Very relaxing and oddly satisfying,great presentation i like the game.

Nice! An interesting experience. Liked how the growth feels natural.

At some point, I wanted to quit, but yet it was beautiful to see the tree get over the next obstacle. Not my style, I thought it was a little slow paced, but then I realized it's perfect if you just want to relax (which is a good idea after a LD).

It feels a little weird that leaves in the shadow are "bad". Maybe it's just me, but avoiding them feels annoying rather than challenging. Maybe because it doesn't feel natural (it's normal for real trees) and something like avoiding fungi or shadowed branches growing slower or downward would fit better. Maybe it just doesn't fit the overall mood, don't know.

Lastly, the scroll of my touchpad got crazy and revealed more than I expected. :smirk: And sincerely it kept me motivated to get there! (Maybe this should be a feature :smile:) I was able to reproduce this behavior by configuring the mouse to scroll many lines at once.

Overall, I liked it. Congratulations! [edit] PS.: Nice touch in the opening after you've beaten the game!

Great job!
Love the style and the soundtrack :heart_eyes:
Definitely a good game to wind down and chill :two_hearts:

This is probably the most original and fun game i have played yet in this game jam. The gameplay is very satisfying, and the procedural generated branches is very well done! You werent kidding when u commented my game about how you love light mechanics, your game does it very well! Im gonna be shocked if you aren't in the top of the themes category, well done :)

Nice! Love the game, love the sound, love the mood. Very satisfying to play! Relaxing. Good job!

Amazing entry! I love the trimming mechanics and the shadow bits add some drama when you realise you need to prune your best branch so far (or, even worse, when you miss by a couple of pixels :sob:). Even so, watching leaves change colour makes up for it.

Graphics and music are lovely, and the whole experience feels very relaxing, even if I'm still striving to reach the highest possible height.

Congrats! :D

Here's my best tree so far:

Beautiful, relaxing and meditative game. Like it! Maybe it will be cool to see more positive background color; like, cyan? Dunno :)

This game is very calm, peaceful, and forgiving to the player, which is unique in itself. I grew my tree to about 50 feet and was enjoying it until I accidentally cut down a important supporting branch lol. Then I literally cut my tree at the trunk and it just grew back magnificently and then I made it all black with no sunlight, but instead of losing I still had a nice looking dead tree to look at (which I could cut down to restart). There is an excellent feeling of minimalism and beauty when playing this game. To me it is more of an interactive art piece than a "game" in the traditional sense. Inspiring piece of work, great job.

I've got to say this has been my favourite game so far. this game is so calm and peaceful, the music is perfect, the artwork is cute, the feel of the game is just lovely. 5*s

Amazing concept, one of the best I've played so far. You should expand it and turn this into a mobile gardening game, a touch screen would make it even better. *Great entry*

Quite addictive and relaxing, I got to height 117 before deciding it was enough. I think the growing speed could be increased slightly so there's less waiting time between cutting branches


I LOVED this game! Really satisfying to play and beautiful but simple visuals. I made it quite far up, then saw this little guy and had to keep going. Does he do anything? I was almost expecting him to jump on the tree and climb or something?
Can't really fault it to be honest. Everything comes together nicely.

I love it, it is really beautiful, zen like. The styling of the title is really clever, made me smile. The mechanics are very cool and innovative. The decision process to cut a bad branch or leave it so you can expand later was very engaging, feels really like sculpting a bonsai. Well done :)

absolutely beautifull and i really liked the simple polished mechanic. Really relaxing and fun!

wonderfully simple, addictive game

Amazing game

This is a very innovative idea very well executed that was already an incredible experience, I would love to play an extended version (more trees, flowers...). The art was very simple, but seeing the whole tree after a while with all the different colours is gorgeous. I got mad at my tree a couple of times when being stubborn to grow in a direction I didn't wanted, but hey, it's a tree, i understand we have comunication problems, specially when I'm hurting him for my own benefit. Apart from that moody music (that didn't loop very well and got a bit repetitive after a while) to wrap up one of my favorites ideas of the jam for now. Outstanding job!

Really great idea. Love the balance between growth, sunlight, and shade. You really captured the zen of trimming a tree to make it grow in this game. Thanks for making such a unique game!

This is a beautiful, relaxing game and I reached 204 before thinking I should probably play another game! The graphics are simple but beautiful with the variation in colour and how it stands out against the background. Really atmospheric and definitely addictive! Well done!

I got to around 103 before stopping. It's a very lovely game with a great concept. At one point my tree did grow through one of the circles, which made trimming it a bit odd but I did get through it so that was mostly fine. The only criticism I can see giving this is to perhaps "prettify" the background. There was a squirrel in there, maybe have it interact with the tree somehow, or scurry off, I don't know. You could also use actual trees to block light instead of misc. shapes, and maybe have us trim those to keep the tree alive. But even without those ideas, the game itself is great.

I really love the vibe of this game. It fits the theme perfectly, and it's so beautiful and relaxing. Amazing work.

What a calming game, great job ! If i'm not careful i can see myself playing this hours and hours haha. I think this could be a great commercial games if given a little more variations in environment and maybe some new mechanics related to lights. Nicely done

It feels slightly annoying when I feel I can't control my branches... But its mood is greater than that feeling. Amazing!

Mesmerizing! I loved the little touch of the squirrel. Stumbling on that made me excited to grow the tree further to see if there was anything else hidden further up! (I haven't found anything else yet, but I'll probably have another play later)

very mantric and relaxing. great soundtrack too

Wonderfull game, played that long that i reached the top :) I found the light at the end of the tunnel, yeah :)
Itx calming but at the same i scrolled the whole time to trim dead branches, carefully avoiding the one i needed.

@raomer Amazing, that's an accomplishment!

Oh my goodness, the tree growing looks so stunning! Along with the music very relaxing, very innovative! Nice work!

Oh my God! This game is very wonderful! The concept is perfect and the mecanic never make more sense! I could play this game for hours. Full rate for you and I'd like to have this game in my celphone.

Very meditative and relaxing, I spent like half an hour there growing my tree. I think I will play it every time when I need to do something positive and calm down.

WONDERFUL! I keep it! A mobil version could be surper nice!

Really interesting and unqiue idea, I like it :) Took me some minutes to check, what I was supposed to to and that i was able to scroll the map upwards.

Fantastic! I got into a complete zen state while playing this game. The music and mechanics are just so calming. Honestly the only thing I noticed was that the branches could grow inside the circles at about height 100, but otherwise Flawless. Amazing job!

Pleasent to play, overall it feels relaxing and enjoyable. Very distinctive but intuitive gameplay at the same time. Congrats!

best game I've played so far, quite unique idea, music is spot on. this should be developed further

I really enjoyed this one, its got an interesting mechanic, is well polished and is relaxing to play. The indirect control of the tree was very satisfying, and the sounds/graphics were simple but well executed. I can imagine this would make an excellent mobile game, so might be worth taking this one further - great entry!

I really loved this game, I can really see the potential, the soundtrack was nice(it really made me chill), the graphics were really cool and it was really innovative, a really well polished game, congratulations!!!

An outstanding implementation of a zen game. The way that the tree grows is fantastic and training it to avoid the shadows provides the perfect amount of engagement that kept me playing all the way to the top. I thought that the color changes that propagated all the way through the tree when branches started or stopped growing were a great touch. The only issue that I saw was that the tree could, and often did, grow through the black areas casting shadows, but for a game jam this game had extraordinary levels of polish. The inclusion of small creatures was great, it kept me looking up for more things to get to. The soundtrack fit well with the game, although it did get a bit repetitive after a while. Overall I think this was a great entry to the jam, well done!

Very fascinating little mood piece. I was a bit confused how the tree growing works, I first expected it to be like Prune but it was a different mechanic and I never quite figured out what exactly makes the tree go, but it didn't really matter either. Just lovely watching the tree grow. The squirrel should've jumped on my tree though, what a tease! :)

oh wow, the best concept ever! i hope u win! Fantastic game!

Amazing! You managed to set a great atmosphere with this game! This has so much potential :D I love the colors and the small effects (squirrel), though there could be more (blooming flowers sprouting at various points?).
One suggestion I would have is to highlight everything that would be cut-off when you drag and hold a cut. I accidentally cut of way too large portions in the beginning (at the bottom, after my tree was already fairly high).
Other than that, very addictive! Well done!

Great relaxing game.

this game is unique and really matching the same, thansk for sharing ;)

Great game! cool procedural generation. Very relaxing, the sound when you cut a branch is very pleasant. I liked the minimalistic style of everything. Really enjoyed this!

What a wonderful zen experience. I enjoyed it a lot.

I think there's a bug if you play it with your touchpad and try to scroll upwards, but I didn't mind and played until the end anyway.

Very solid, chill game with interesting mechanics and well done presentation. As another person above said, an indicatior for what is going to be cut would be nice, but otherwise good job!

Beautiful! I grew mine 120 and still growing! I trimed in from top only two times when it stopped growing and only when it stops i'm looking below what to cut first. Congratulation on this game!

Such a beautiful game. I love zen / chill entries. Great job!

Wow this is definitely one of the best games I've played so far this jam. What a fantastic concept and equally fantastic execution!

This game is so relaxing and nice. The graphics are simple but great. Great job.

Jo, this is lit... Sorry. But really, I greatly enjoyed this game. I feel like this theme birthed a lot of hectic games where you nee to work against the clock or something similar so a nice relaxing game like this one ís very welcome.
And it has such a neat mechanic where my developer mind can't stop thinking about how to recreate it. :smile:
So, great job in pretty much all regards.

@vulgaris @palsina on my top list for this game jam. a calming experience. got to 292. does it go beyond that? the little animals are a nice touch.

I spend way too much time playing this game. It was a great experience cutting parts of and watching it grow. Good job :)

Really enjoyed this! It was very relaxing to play!

Excellent work! After the complicated gameplay been packed, it becomes simple and easy to understand. The logic behind is also consistent with biological knowledge. Beautiful and relax

I really like this, a simple yet complex idea that fits very well with the theme without being to in your face about it. The art direction also seems to follow this same principle, which really pulls the game together. It is all pretty unique.

Keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing you in the next Ludum Dare!

Beautiful and relaxing game. I would've liked it to be a bit more challenging, or at least have a level structure where you have to reach height 100 on each to progress. That would free up the monotony of cutting branches at height 250. Bravo with this game!

Great work! Very pretty and chilled out. I wish there was some sort of gamification to it, other than "get as high as you can". Looks great too. I wish the music looped perfectly. Fantastic job!

I'm always a sucker for gardening games. Smooth soundtrack. Much needed relaxing experience. Keeping this one bookmarked. :)

wow cool concept.. i never a game play such as this unique gardening system and find that i really enjoyed this..
relaxing really build up the mood to the game. what an excellent work :thumbsup:

Very aesthetically pleasing and relaxing, well done :o)

Indeed very pleasant and relaxing. Good jam work!

The game was great, but it was repetitive and the music was not great.

Great game all around. I still don't understand how to sustain growth, seems like once leaves start falling off I have to restart, but it was still a lot of fun to grow.

A really pleasant game which we can keep playing, I reached 136 and could keep going xD

Its a really nice and calm game. Good job :muscle:

Maybe you could introduce difficulty levels, because I found it easy. But again it has to be easy for the game to be peaceful and calming

Loved this concept & the art!

Kept playing until the end and then spent a good 5 minutes trying to get higher than 292m., but it was the end of course.

I can't decide if I'd prefer a version of this in which the tree would have some weight to it (a single branch can grow to a ludicrous extent in the current form) or if that would either mess with the thematics or the gameplay too much.

I wonder what decides what 'route' the growing leaves take? Would it make it better or worse knowing that precisely while playing this game?

Wow, fantastic! This mechanic was amazing and the game design too! Really relaxing. I think this game may be even more beautiful in the future, with some shaders maybe. I started to follow you on itch.io and I want to see more of your projects! All the success in the world for you! :DD

if possible, play our game too it would be gratifying!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/kardiossomatic

@remco We took that into consideration, we wanted the player to nudge the tree to the desired path, not take direct control of it. The generator has some rules on better angles and number of subranches, but other than that is left to chance. Maybe there is a fantastic game with the another set of rules!

@francisco-lucas Thanks! Well you were front page of PCGamer, worth a try!

Interesting and quite different from the other games. Just seemed to get a bit tedious after a while but it is still very calming experience.

spent a couple days working on something else and came back to see this amount of positive feedback :hearts:

@charliegray finally, a 'lit' pun! wanted to write one myself while composing the description of the game but I thought it was too humorous for our title. glad you liked it!

@evert that is a great ux suggestion that would help everyone grasp the main mechanic of the game. thanks for your input, would love to implement that.

@pillitoka you made it! 292 is where the 'final boss' is :p

@artaupossum @mika-la-grand @kiln @kleinzach we did find this bug was happening in the HTML5 version only but it was time to submit and not a huge deal-breaker. we'll work soon on fixing it though

Whoa, that was an incredible experience!

Relaxing, chilling and very, very beautiful!

Even if it gets a bit repetitive over time, I still got into it for quite a while :)

Thank you for sharing this! I'd **root** for it getting the innovation and mood categories :wink:

Just an amazing experience overall, it might get a bit stale but the challenge ramps up so that doesn't matter too much, really really good in all categories, truly great job :)

Fantastic! Really clever core mechanic, and a great use of generative growth. Would love to see it expanded with more mechanics (dropping seeds for horizontal growth, maybe a way to destroy barriers to set up some little logic puzzles.)

It was super pretty, but I don't think I understand how to win.

Super innovative concept, fits very well with the theme. This is like a zen-like bonzai version of GIRP. One of the standouts of the jam.

I reached the top with the clearing and the animals. very cool.

Cool Entry! It's so Relaxing! The same feeling as cutting the tips of a bonsai! And the contrast between the grayscale background with the tree leaves like a painting is so good!
It's like a "colourful thunder" forking in the darkness!

Really one of the best entries I've seen! Really great idea, highly atmospheric, very well done. :) Played this for almost half an hour, which I usually try to avoid so I can test more games. But here it was really worth it.

Wow! Very original concept! Well implemented gameplay and super nice and relaxing vibe. Also, very beautiful to see how the tree organically grows.

Well done!!

Amazing, super addictive, managed to pick it up without reading the instructions, good job!

This is honestly one of my favorite jam games of all time. I saw a streamer playing it and had to check it out. Initially I thought I had to trim off the yellow/red leaves which obviously didn't go well. Maybe if you could make them slightly glow in and out to make them seem like they're not dead that would be good.
I really liked how I could clip the end of a static branch and get it to grow again.

Really cool! We really had similar ideas. I love your approach! ;)
Initially I also planned to give my game the goal of reaching as high as possible, but unfortunately had to scrab it midway. So cool to see you have done that. Really nice and relaxing gameplay, love the animations and style of your tree! Thank you for the experience!

Very nice relaxing game! Cutting down the branches and getting a healthier tree is satisfying, and the music and sound is great. The shadowed areas are a great twist.

I was so happy to reach the top! Very nice and relaxing game. I give it an excellent rating 🌳

Very nice game! I like the relaxing music and I also enjoyed the nice clipping sound.
It is very satisfying to see it grow, and to scroll back to see the beautiful shape it created. I wasn't sure how the branche growing exactly worked, but I managed to let it grow and grow and grow. :) I thought the game was a bit too long. The different colors of the leafs are very beautiful together. Congrats!

Really interesting idea. Super relaxing atmosphere which is a nice change.

Nice game, fits the theme perfectly.

We can stay easily taking care of this tree in this relaxing mood. Nice concept and beautiful execution. The colors feedback of the leaves and the branch are very clear. I speed good time taking care of this tree, helping it to grow up. A very good entry :)

I really like this game! Very unique approach to the theme.