https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s02n5hXDCok

First things first: itchio page

This was kind of weird game jam for me. For starters, I made most of this game on tablet while travelling from place to place, so that's a first (for me, anyway). Secondly, I feel oddly fulfilled. Usually after LD my mind races to find new ways to expand the entry into a more complete game, but this time I really don't have anything to add. It's done. Maybe some bug fixes and difficulty tweaking if players feel that way but that's about it.

Well... I have a pretty strong idea for a sequel to this game. But that's later. Sleep now.

The Genre Thing

Couple of commenters were wondering what kind of genre this game represents, and honestly? I have no idea either. I started from "me hating this theme with passion" mashed with "me really wanting to do Ludum Dare for a change" and ended up here. Seriously, I think you all are great and I love you to bits, but clearly we have WAY different ideas on how to do creative work. I never start planning from a genre. Maybe a central mechanic, rest of the game built around it and if it turns out to be of certain ilk, then that is what's happening.

This time I chose gardening, probably mostly because of the hot season we're having around these parts. Caring for a plant from seed to maturity felt like something I could do in a scarce time that I had available. Originally I wanted to do something without any violence, but yeah. When you can proverbially kill two slugs with one burst of white energy (how to get seeds & what is the threat that plants need protecting against) then you really have no choice, given the extra short timeframe.

The Ear Juice

I really felt pretty hopeless in the last few hours of the jam. Gameplay was as done as it was going to be, but it didn't feel that good. Luckily, I found some great audio from Freesound. It's a wonder what the tiniest things can do - I slapped some appropriate sound effects and ambiance at their place in less than 90 minutes and it really made the difference. What seemed kinda lifeless and clinical on the screen became lively with sounds recorded from the nature.

I always feel little sorry for those Ludum Darers (Darists?) who don't have time to implement any kind of sound to their entries. It's usually the difference between playing the game for a minute just to give some sort of rating or actually seeing it through.

The Last Bit

Well, that's enough of my rambling. Itch is the post-jam version, if you want to toss a couple of ratings my way the entry page is over here. Comments would really be appreciated, I was tuning the length and difficulty of a playthrough for ages and I'm still not sure if I even remotely nailed it.

Oh, right. The patch notes: - fixes to pretty much everything - one new plant - some plants now wither - water plants are less dumb - expanded ending sequence - more mouth sounds - a surprise