Soul Gardener by taikinaaa


Harvest your enemies' souls to grow a beautiful garden in this action platformer! I tried to do something fun and unique that could still fit in to the theme.
| Itch | https://taikinaaa.itch.io/soul-gardener |
| Itch | https://taikinaaa.itch.io/soul-gardener |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/soul-gardener |
Ratings
| Overall | 438th | 3.462⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 359th | 3.444⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 545th | 3.075⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 459th | 3.63⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 477th | 3.454⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 441th | 2.804⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 550th | 2.522⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 572th | 3.14⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 90🗳️ | 87🗨️ |
I managed to grow two plants :)
A coyote timer could add a lot to the game as currently the platforming gets frustrating without it.
I really enjoyed seeing the plants grow each drip of a soul.
Some feedback:
- walking/movement sound a bit annoying over time, rather would leave it out
- having jump on "A" was weird for me, would've prefered it on :arrow_up:
- shooting feels really satisifying!
- background art would bring the games mood more up
- some levels I mostly just fell down directly, could be less vertical depth and more horizontal, especially since the player can only shoot left or right.
The retro feel is really nice, reminded me of Atari. Shooting is satisfying.
An idea would be to make the level start again from the start and you keep going until you grow all the plants.
Great entry.
One or two things :
* I prefer the up arrow or eventually the space bar for jumping.
* It can be annoying to miss a pot with the harvested soul and realize you poured it into the next pot where the flower was already fully grown.
* Some of the levels felt too big. I mean, as your design/art is really minimal, I felt like I was playing in really empty levels sometimes.
Nice execution on the mechanics though, it was very enjoyable jumping and shooting around. Congratulations!
Tending to this little garden between the platforming and fighting was kind of wholesome ^.^
Sound effects were solid and the action was nice and fast. I would have liked to shoot upwards/downwards though. Also some background ambient or music would have worked wonders for the mood that was now very quiet and plain.
I liked the graphic style, you could clearly see what is what and it reminds me of old times games. There could have been corner pieces in the tileset though - to make the floors/walls feel more complete.
I found myself wishing the difficulty would pick up a bit more so I could grab more souls, I wasn't getting hit on most of the first levels so it started relatively slow. I had fun throughout though, it was nice and short and the hook of trying to make as many flowers as I could kept me motivated.
Overall thought you did a good job, with some minor things to hash out!
The lack of background music + the harsh movement sounds were a bit hard on my ears, and I wish there was also a volume bar in the game too. I tried to open up a pause menu, which ended up exiting the game :(. The enemies were sometimes frustrating when they'd stop moving at a height level that I wouldn't be able to shoot them without having to do awkward jumping moves. However, I did enjoy the movement and how smooth it felt, as well as the camera. As some of the other comments suggested, a more horizontal focus would've been better since I found myself falling down straight to the door in some levels.
I'm soo bad at plateform games so with this keys it's nearly impossible for me.
Hard but fun anyway !
Had fun playing overall, and was able to complete the game :]
- It was pretty easy to just ignore the big red enemies and go for the door
- I'm not sure why the game told me every other level how the controls work
Here's the VoD so you can jump to your chapter and see it again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYvmJ8_8kww
I had fun, game felt incomplete after all levels, as there are still pots left without a grown flower. I managed to accidentally drop first two drops on ground, as I didn't realize right away, that it's not a fighting level anymore and I don't need to press `shoot` anymore.
I will echo previous comments also:
1. Controls are weird, at least leave `jump`/`action` to `z`/`x` buttons. Better yet map to `space` and/or `shift`/`control`
2. The movement felt too twitch'y, I had to adjust my position a lot, when pouring souls. And missed platforms/jump points a lot.
3. Sound effects are great, with exception of `running`. I would have spent extra two minutes sampling _Coin_ sounds from **bfrx**, cut the sound a to shorter version and played them more often. (Think `Super Mario Bros`)
Also I was hoping, that fully growing a flower would grant you a new power. e.g.: double/wall jump, faster shooting, spread fire shoots, dash..
Overall, great entry - keep it up :thumbsup: