Emily Morrison's Garden by Ludipe
"Emily Morrison's Garden" is a game about growing plants in an alien-like planet while seasons pass. The center of the disc works like a sundial, announcing the beginning of each new day and when the different plants bloom or die.
This planet is dying and you share its fate, how long will you endure?
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Quick note from the devs.:
"Emily Morrison's Garden" is supposed to be a hard game, requiring you to plan the best strategy while running from one point to the other to complete your tasks in time. It may take two-three plays to fully understand all the mechanics, use the "help interface"! (pressing H while in-game)
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Instructions.:
Best played on fullscreen. Highly recommended to download the desktop versions(web version might take a while to load sounds and music) and press "H" while playing your first game (that will trigger the help interface).
Move around with the arrow keys, plant seeds with "X" and switch your selected plant with "Z".
The planet is dying slowly and everytime you plant a new seed it regenerates. Plants bloom and die on a given season, collect fruits once they have bloomed to get more seeds.
Pay attention to the interface, as it'll let you know when each plant will bloom or die.
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Credits.:
@celer_gut - music and sound design
@Ludipe - design and code
@ruben_oluwa - art and animation
This planet is dying and you share its fate, how long will you endure?
---
Quick note from the devs.:
"Emily Morrison's Garden" is supposed to be a hard game, requiring you to plan the best strategy while running from one point to the other to complete your tasks in time. It may take two-three plays to fully understand all the mechanics, use the "help interface"! (pressing H while in-game)
---
Instructions.:
Best played on fullscreen. Highly recommended to download the desktop versions(web version might take a while to load sounds and music) and press "H" while playing your first game (that will trigger the help interface).
Move around with the arrow keys, plant seeds with "X" and switch your selected plant with "Z".
The planet is dying slowly and everytime you plant a new seed it regenerates. Plants bloom and die on a given season, collect fruits once they have bloomed to get more seeds.
Pay attention to the interface, as it'll let you know when each plant will bloom or die.
---
Credits.:
@celer_gut - music and sound design
@Ludipe - design and code
@ruben_oluwa - art and animation
Like ratly, it took me some tries to understand the gameplay I only survived up until day 122, but it's a really challenging and fun game.
I wrote a short post-mortem in case anybody is interested
http://ludumdare.com/compo/2016/09/01/emily-morrisons-garden-post-mortem/
I like it's unique art-style and quality implementation.
The background music is charming.
Overall, it's one of the best games I've played this LD.
Perfect done, guys!
At the moment it is pretty much impossible to survive for more than 180 days. The culprit? The planet only regenerates when seeds are planted and the regeneration amount is minuscule. Even with 20+ seeds, constantly planting new trees, I couldn't keep up with the rate of deterioration!
Here are a few suggestions:
- Increase the amount of regeneration per plant (tricky, as too much regeneration makes the challenge trivial)
- Decrease the deterioration rate of the planet (similar balance problems here, also makes the playtime longer)
- Base the well being of the planet on something else than just planting, for instance, planting and blooming, the total number of trees alive at the moment, the total lifetime of the trees, etc.
Simply put, the challenge should come from deciding on which seeds to plant at any given time, not from inevitable attrition. One potential mechanic is randomizing the available seeds every 5-10 seasons or so. The seeds would still have to make sense though.
Talking of making sense, how on earth do you use Anemone Capensis? It takes ages to grow, but cannot be planted before the blooming season or it'll just die!
Apart from these problems, good job!
The game itself looks and feel amaizing. Mechanics are very cool. When I have more free time I will definetely play this game again.
Great job!