LudumData

Harvest of Life by schnodelfactory

[raw]
made by schnodelfactory for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

_Hi and thanks for checking out our game "Harvest of Life"!_

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant" - Robert Louis Stevenson

Gameplay: * Navigate trough the dialogues and live or die with the consequences * Not everything has an imidiate impact, but bad decission add up

Controls: * * Space * to progress and start dialog * * Return * to confirm decisions * * Arrow Keys * to navigate the options

Known Bugs: * Progressing the dialogue too quickly can cause text to stay on the screen * Sometimes dialogue pops up automatically, sometimes you need to hit Space first * The Good Ending is tedious and hard to obtain; there was not much time for balancing * The music of the Arbeitsamt never stops; an easy to fix bug but we never found it before the submission

Developing retrospective:

This was our first project as a team of 3. Brainstorming the ideas was a fun process as it always is.
New ideas popped up, others were cut.
As we are just getting started with game making we learned a lot about time managment and structure.
Remapping the controls and polishing the dialogue UI for example would have been a big time dump due to the unfortunate way the dialogue was programmed.
We used Gimp, GDevelop, Ableton and Pen and Paper for this project.

All code and graphics by SchnodelFactory. As always, special thanks to RickLazer for the music!

Play Harvest of Life here!

Screenshot1.png Screenshot2.png Screenshot3.png

Link https://schnodelfactory.itch.io/harvest-of-life
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/harvest-of-life

Ratings

Overall 618th 3.167⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Fun 687th 2.811⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 453th 3.222⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Theme 670th 3.167⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 261th 3.932⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Audio 161th 3.7⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Humor 319th 3.121⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Mood 215th 3.757⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 61🗨️

Feedback

🎤 schnodelfactory
07. Jan 2023 · 00:27 UTC
First time LD, first sketches done :)![IMG_20230107_012346793~2.jpg](///raw/54c/d4/z/53e0a.jpg)
LDJam user 251967
09. Jan 2023 · 20:02 UTC
Great game!
GomoStudios Jam
09. Jan 2023 · 20:08 UTC
The gameplay is a bit lacking, but the artstyle is pretty cool! Would be great to see a game with this style developed over more than a couple days! -Mike
takhomasac
09. Jan 2023 · 20:39 UTC
very cool art style and audio! a bit confusing at first, took me a second time around to even get to an ending. overall an interesting entry.
MKRaw
09. Jan 2023 · 22:21 UTC
this game is 10/10, I loved the art style the audio the jokes
Pusheeneiro
09. Jan 2023 · 23:02 UTC
Simple, but so moody art-style, and simple, but deep meaning gameplay. Great submission.
LaGerbe
10. Jan 2023 · 14:29 UTC
I love your hand-drawing artstyle, great game!
Miyukiew
10. Jan 2023 · 15:44 UTC
I like the message that is conveyed through the game. The mood is pretty good as well. The hand-drawn style gave off somewhat of a creepy vibe, so it actually made me more conscious of the decisions I was making.
TRUEchips
10. Jan 2023 · 16:03 UTC
I love that the game is so eerie! Definitely very unique! Good job!
ZacharyPinkham
10. Jan 2023 · 18:41 UTC
I'm a sucker for any kind of nontraditional art style, this was right up my alley. The music was great, though I'll say that I didn't love the other sound design, particularly in the living room. I also had some trouble figuring out how to finish the game, I tried out every option but it didn't seem like I was advancing, aside from the job interview popping up. I really enjoyed a different sort of take on theme though, overall nice work!
mvasko2
10. Jan 2023 · 20:22 UTC
I like the art style, the sound effects and your take on the theme.

There are a few things that could be improved, IMHO:
- The controls were a bit confusing for my brain, I always mistakenly hit space instead of enter and vice-versa. One button probably would have sufficed for this kind of game - although it's definitely something you can get used to. Also it wasn't always clear to me whether I could do something or whether I was supposed to wait for a cutscene to finish.
- Sometimes, if I hit spacebar/enter too soon, it appeared as if there were two dialogs at once, probably a bug?
- The gameplay felt a bit repetitive, although I understand it's kind of a design choice. Although maybe it just felt different because I couldn't get used to the controls.

Overall, nice idea and art style, although the game could use a bit of polish :slight_smile:
tessahardin
11. Jan 2023 · 00:03 UTC
Really enjoyed this, the art style is killer and playing made me smile. I thought I had explored all the options but I didn't get past school, home, candy store, and disco. I love games like this and would play a full version if the game is developed further!
Jajakeim
11. Jan 2023 · 00:08 UTC
The gameplay is rough on the edges, but i like the aesthetic a lot. Nice entry
Spicer Audio
11. Jan 2023 · 01:41 UTC
Very cute, I thought the art style was very unique. Loved the audio ("oohh yea"). I thought the humor was great, the fact that it came down to either going to school or a disco was hilarious. As the player I would have liked to have less ambiguity with the controls. You added them in the description, but it'd just be easier to have a little graphic of a spacebar in there for example, maybe flashing to indicate that's what you need to hit to continue. And maybe the dialogue box could come up right away? Anyway nice!
TPunisher33
11. Jan 2023 · 04:43 UTC
Fascinating game, love the hand drawn aesthetic.
ginathepotato
11. Jan 2023 · 05:30 UTC
I really liked the hand drawn aesthetic! I think it would have been more enjoyable to play if the choices seemed to have more of an impact. Like the job part, I chose to wait for a good job offer twice in a row and nothing happened, so I insulted the officiant, and nothing happened, so I left. Overall, I think it was a solid entry, and I really liked the voice-over bits!
chompdev
13. Jan 2023 · 03:32 UTC
My character got high at a club, failed out of school, botched his job interview, went to prison, died after insulting his cellmate, and then became a zombie. Looking forward to chapter 2! :)

Very cool art style! That's impressive that you got all the sketches, animations, writing, and transitions done in one jam weekend! There's a good amount of player choice here, and it's cool to see that you even added two different endings. Nice work on your game!

![score35.PNG](///raw/044/42/z/56555.png)
Yaen
14. Jan 2023 · 02:36 UTC
I liked how you interpreted the theme with this symbolic philosophical idea in mind. It just needs some more feedback as to how many more choices I get to make before something new will happen since a lot of it is repeated to the point where I felt like I HAD to make some bad choices to progress in any way. The UI selection code was also sadly quite buggy at times, like fonts would stay there longer than the frame, once I clicked one to the right, I couldn't go back to the left anymore and so on. In the end I am also not really sure how my specific actions affected the outcome. Most choices also feel pretty obvious to me. Like of course it's good to do well in school, not to steal, not to insult people and not to take drugs. But that makes the choices feel less meaningful because they're so obvious.

Like the drawing style by the way. It's something else and refreshing. But my favourite part was probably the audio design and music.
amarokczukay
14. Jan 2023 · 15:32 UTC
This was a very interesting take on the theme, very original and metaphysical.

the gameplay is not the best, but i really like the idea of the hand drawn scenes, it really brings something we rarely see in games imo. however, the choices are not very subtile, and we can be pretty sure of how they'll impact the future.

i really liked the atmosphere changing on each scene. very nice to see that entry!
Surfa
14. Jan 2023 · 16:40 UTC
Original take on the theme. Really like the hand-drawn art. Sounds very pretty good as well. Would have like a couple more options or interactions in the game. Like for stealing the candy maybe a short mini-game where you can win and not get caught. Or a dancing mini-game at the disco. Pretty interesting entry and I enjoyed my short time with it.
KeichiTS
14. Jan 2023 · 20:30 UTC
Very impressive graphics and sentimental game.

I think you managed to convey a lot of feelings here.

It's a very impressive for a 72h jam.

Congrats! I really enjoyed!
BoxedMeatRevolution
15. Jan 2023 · 20:59 UTC
The hand-drawn artwork was great, and I also loved the sounds/music. I made it to an ending where I died somewhat abruptly after insulting my cellmate. It's a nice change to play something with a more "high-concept" approach to the theme, although it felt like I didn't really have any control over what was happening. It didn't so much feel like I was reaping what I sowed, as much as just selecting dialogue options over and over, trying to progress to the next screen. Still, had a really cool vibe which made it worth playing all the same. Nice work!
Big Cyckos
16. Jan 2023 · 18:57 UTC
I did it! I got the good ending! I don't know how though, It's difficult to assume which activity and what amount of it is "righteous", and the game won't give any hints on that. The audiovisuals are OHH YEA. I really like the humour, laughed out loud when I got to the based house because I danced 4 times in a row, and even harder when I did nothing for 3 days and they let me out with the caption "time flies when you're having fun". Respect!
OadT
16. Jan 2023 · 19:39 UTC
Is the tombstone in sunshine the good ending? :sweat_smile: I have to say I absolutely adore this art style. The screenshots don't convey the fantastic mood that all the little animations and sound/music create! Also I found the transitions between scenes super cool.

Very funny situations you got me into. Of course I found the hospital and jail pretty fast, but unfortunately not the Arbeitsamt. Was for a while at the school to find it but didn't get there :slight_frown:

The navigation has to be improved a bit (using SPACE and ENTER feel a bit weird to me) and there are some bugs, but astonishing entry (especially for a first entry!) Great work!
xanderxq
19. Jan 2023 · 03:14 UTC
played multiple times to make sure i didnt miss anything. graphics are unique and could definitely be turned into an entire game
thomasward
20. Jan 2023 · 22:50 UTC
Nice graphics and sound. I didn't get the good ending, unfortunately, even though I played the game twice. I wish the story was a bit more coherent.
🎤 schnodelfactory
21. Jan 2023 · 12:17 UTC
Thank you so much everyone for your feedback! Our hearts melted reading most comments and we discuss every criticism received.
Special shoutouts to @big-cyckos and @oadt for making it to the good ending!
Thanks for playing, much love.<3
N0va
21. Jan 2023 · 13:51 UTC
Got some nice aesthetics. Mood fit the plot and the art.

Saw how ya tried to twist the theme which was creative, but was a bit vague.
Pope PAF
27. Jan 2023 · 15:33 UTC
Nice. Awesome Sounds!