Play game
Growth is Good's itch.io pageGame Title
Growth is Good
Developer Name
Team 2-Z
Short Promo Blurb
An incomplete prototype developed by Team 2-Z during Climate Jam 2024. Grow your tower by any means necessary!
Promo Image(s)
https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzE2NjUwNTg0LnBuZw==/347x500/joXXN6.png
Promo Video
https://youtu.be/JlYJCluM0aE?si=CYu7p7PO014Qd3qc
Artistic Statement / Use of Theme(s)
The vision of our project is to critique the desire to endlessly build and grow. Growth is not some fundamental good; it is a tool. What good does it accomplish? And what does it cost? When growth itself is the goal rather than a means to an end, when we adopt a robotic focus on maximization, we are detached from what our actions mean on a human level.
Development Summary
Neither of our game’s programmers had ever worked on a project of this size, and for one of us, it was also the first time programming a game in general. We knew there would be a gap between what we could imagine and what we could realistically make within five weeks, but it was difficult for us to judge our capabilities. We spent a good deal of our development time learning best practices and rewriting our code to be more manageable and scalable. Near the end of week 3, we began to realize that we weren't progressing at a fast enough rate to achieve our stated vision, so we switched our focus more on learning and executing at least some portion of our idea.
Release Plan
Although our project hasn’t fully achieved our original vision, throughout our development process, our team aimed to prioritize learning above anything—even if it resulted in slower implementation of ideas. Thus, although we have no plans to create a full-fledged game, we may still continue adding on to Growth is Good to continue learning the ins and outs of Unity (as well as game development in general).
If we were to continue working, we would want to give more explicit goals to the player, to add more progression, and to refine and expand on the “abilities” the player can use. Our vision would be to give the player goals to work towards, and then reward them with abilities that grow exponentially in power, encouraging them to grow until they consume everything.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
This game has a lot of potential just needs more time which isn't a bad thing with only having a month! I like the music and art style the game has going on. I think a clear narrative in game as for why the player is endlessly building would add a lot. I know you guys detailed that you have no plans to create a full-fledged game but if you did here I would be curious as to what you make of it!
Firstly, you guys did a great job with the time constraints and made a game that's perfect for this game jam! I love the art style and music. There's still some work to be done for this build, but I understand the game's intention and direction. The mechanics are engaging, and I can see a lot of potential in the gameplay. I hope you plan on continuing to work on this game and polish it even more!
I can't wait to see where this game goes post-launch! Some options confused me. Similarly to what another reviewer said, I wasn't sure what the purpose of the freeze function was. However, this is a wonderful game to continue expanding on.
This game has a lot of potential for growth, though right now it was a bit rough around the edges. There were a few options I didn't fully understand, namely destroying blocks and freezing them, and I wasn't sure why the blocks weren't autospawned since they weren't played until I pressed another button anyway. That said, the ambience was still really good, and I do really look forward to playing the game when the full idea is implemented!
I really like yall's themes and concept dealing with a growth mindset. For the gameplay, I didn't quite grasp how each block's traits played and impacted the tower's growth. Would it be possible for each block to have a unique effect that affects how the tower grows? I noticed that as I played, I first tried to keep everything organized, yet I got 'bored' in a sense and just started dropping blocks everywhere, and they began to fall all over the place. I liked the addition of the screen climbing feature, but I didn't understand what the destroy and freeze function was. I'm glad y'all focused on getting the base gameplay down and out in some way, and I think that with some more cooking, this would deeply embody the theme yall going for.
I like how you inplemented the theme, it fits pretty well with the gameplay. However, the gameplay isn't very smooth for now. I encountered a bug where the tutorial wouldn't show in the main menu, so I played it blind. I was not very sure about the mechanics and goal of this game, and there are some technical aspects you guys could definitely improve on:
Overall, great job! Congrats on completing the game!
Congrats on create as much of this game as you did! I started teaching myself how to program games 4 years ago, and I know how difficult it can be to teach yourself game programming. I really like the approach your team took with this project: learning first, quality second is the best attitude to have when learning to make games. It's always rough to have to cut features and deviate from your original vision because of time and experience constraints, but I'm glad your team took the entire project as a learning experience first and foremost. If you keep that attitude going into post-release development and going into your next projects, you'll be sure to do well in the future.
This is a good prototype especially for a team with novice game programmers! You guys should be proud of this game and I hope it was a good learning experience for everyone. The physics and artstyle are very clean, and even though all the game pieces aren't connected yet in this build, it's clear to me that this could be very fun in a complete state. I read through some of your ideation and prototyping documents to get a deeper understanding of the concept and I really like it, I would love for you guys to continue working on this project if you are able I think it would be a great game!
On the plus side, I really liked the direction and I had fun playing the game once I figured out what I was supposed to do. Making blocks and seeing them slot together was very satisfying. The art direction was consistent, and I liked the almost whimsical tone of the game. It helps ease the player into the more serious themes.
The playable demo was a bit buggy though. The music stopped after a certain point, and when my tower reached the area where the blocks had been spawning from, the spawned block caused my tower to fall down even before I released it. One block even started floating in space. I'd recommend having either a sensor to check when the tower has reached a certain height, so that the height in which the block spawns from can be adjusted accordingly. I also was unsure what was meant to be the fuel blocks and what was meant to be the natural blocks, as I felt that both types seem to be easily stackable.
All in all, a good twist on a fun game mechanic and I loved the art.
A wonderful yet simple twist on the classic TETRIS format, even though you have made very slight tweaks to the overall game loop, they are still fresh enough that it adds just the right amount of engagement. I would say keep going, see how far you can expand on this core format. also continue to expand on the artwork, the concept art you came up with would have certainly fit better with the theme.
You guys should be really proud of this. Game development is not easy and I think you guys did a really good job redefining your scope, to create a fun and playable experience by the deadline. I really liked your visual style and I sincerely encourage you guys to keep working on this.
This looks like it could be a really fun game with a little more work! It definitely isn't complete and the lack of a tutorial definitely impacted my enjoyment of it- the 'how to play' button doesn't work, so I couldn't figure out what the different types of blocks meant or what the meter at the bottom of the UI was meant to indicate. I understood the concept, but the truth is that I failed to understand how it related to the climate theme until I read the description on the itch page. The aesthetics are nice and I like the background music, but after I had played for a few minutes the music completely stopped. I hope that this game continues to be built upon, and I'd be very interested in seeing a finished, polished version of what seems to be a really good concept.