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Bonsai in the Sky's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Style | #1113 | 3.818 | 3.818 |
| Overall | #1295 | 3.561 | 3.561 |
| Creativity | #1361 | 3.636 | 3.636 |
| Enjoyment | #1825 | 3.227 | 3.227 |
Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
You scale a Bonsai tree that grows with every star you bring back. Your character's size also affects your ability to navigate the levels.
Development Time
96 hours
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
See description for full credits
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Comments
Wow that's a big team who worked on this game! Love the visuals, the music, and of course the round little guy. Couple things to point out, the character would feel much better to move around with if their acceleration increased significantly when trying to turn around. That's a common trick to prevent sluggish movement even if the character does technically "move fast". Also the spikes were sometimes hard to see against the ground tiles, but I do really appreciate that spikes don't reset the player. Great game overall!
Thank you so much for playing and for your feedback! I'll pass your tip about the movement onto the programming team :D
(The spikes were just the grass from the ground tiles, but flipped upside down and recoloured to save time. I agree they definitely could do with proper contrast and a more defined shape)
Cute game. I wish the danger sign was placed on the other side of the first level because I didn't realize they were spikes because I was so distracted as to what all those little globs were. I later realized that they were parts of me because I was on the spikes.
Thanks for taking the time to play and rate the game! Yeah you make a good point... Danger signs are usually supposed to be... before the danger... I think that was something that was overlooked in the uh... the process.
Very chill and captivating game. I really liked the chosen theme, the graphics, and the gameplay.
Thank you!!! So glad you enjoyed it!
Absolutely love it! The movement may be a bit over the top as of now, but the visuals are beautiful and the music is stunning. Especially how the music builds up after collecting a star feels really great. Also how the Character Scales with how much water they have left is a really nice idea. Last but not least I also enjoyed the storie/dialogues. it felt weirdly melancholic, which I liked.
Thank you so much!! It's so exciting to hear that you enjoyed the game!
Melancholic does feel like the right word. There is something bittersweet about it
That was a pretty nice game. I did struggle a bit with the movement (it was certainly more dramatic than I was anticipating), but the overall presentation and game concept were pretty darn good. Would try to give some more feedback, but I’m out of spoons rn, so tl;dr nice work!
"Dramatic" is definitely a good way to describe the movement, it is a little chaotic and mayyybe needs some tuning haha. But glad you enjoyed! Thank you so much for taking the time to play and rate our game despite the low spoon count- I hope you manage to get some rest after the jam!
WOW this game is absolutely gorgeous... I love the art direction and the sound design. Phenomenal visuals with an adorable storyline and gameplay. Great character designs that accompany the world that yall have developed! The only minor things I would suggest would be tuning the player controls a bit and explaining the damage/water droplet system. Otherwise, phenomenal game! Would love to see this developed further beyond the game jam :)
AAAH! Thank you so much! As one of the artists on the team, it means so much to hear such glowing feedback and I will absolutely be passing this on to the rest of the team! Definitely agree the player controls need some tuning and there are mechanics that need a better introduction though!
We have so much lore behind the scenes for this droplet it's not even funny...
AAA yay! I seriously can't emphasize enough how much I adore the art in this game <333 And omg lore drop WHEN!! I would love to hear more about the droplets, whether in a lore drop or an extended game :3
AAAAAA! Good news is that some of us do plan to keep working on the game slowly (Not nearly at the pace we were doing for the jam), which is super exciting! The lore was stuff that we came up with while we were working, and it went into who used to live at the place, how the tools came to life, and how they want to go to the stars because they want to reunite with the people who used to live there. It got strangely heartbreaking, but we love some bittersweet lore in our silly raindrop game.
Even if development doesn't go beyond fixing this build, I defo will probably doodle art and concepts featuring my interpretation of the lore and timeline.
WAH that's so exciting!! And MAN I'm a sucker for wholesome yet heartbreaking lore... Will definitely be following along for more content :D
Fun game with a nice art style altough the controls were pretty hard to use. Good job!
Thank you so much! Yeah the controls are something that definitely needed more time in the oven haha
I feel like the losing/gaining mass from damage/dash wasn't utilised to its full potential. I'd play a movement puzzle game with those mechanics. It's really fun even like this. Forget about the dash, the smallest form is absurdly light and fast and doesn't need it haha
I like that the timer encourages a speedy approach and the fact that you have to go back to the starting point. I had a little trouble with the controls initially, but I absolutely zipped through the levels once I figured them out. Also found a little bug where spamming jump and dash lets you fly lol. Either way there's potential for interesting movement tech.
As an audio person, I really liked the orchestral Ghibli/epic music. I sat around listening to the exit track, it was really good! But maybe a bit long for its purpose. All the water droplet sounds were lovely, especially the pick-up - it's like a water-coin hybrid of sorts. The garden tool dialogue incorporating sounds of the tools was a nice touch as well, though I wish there was more than the one audio sample.
Thank you so much for playing and taking the time to leave such detailed feedback! Yeah I agree our implementation of the mass changes has so much more potential than what we've put in, but still glad you had fun with the movement as-is (It is fun to just bounce around as a silly lil guy :D). We definitely wanted to see cool movement tech be found for this game, so really cool that you found that, even though it was uh.... not a planned movement option haha. (I will be testing that out for lvl 3)
We are SO proud of the audio team! They did an amazing job bringing the game to life! I'll be sure to pass on your compliments!
Ough man we never found the flying XD you do eventually stop being able to dash when you get small enough but yea hopefully if we continue this we will try stop unintentional flight :)
To be fair getting the droplet to fly is difficult lol. You have to hold the direction key, then absolutely spam Space->Shift->Space->Shift
This a really neat idea. Great use of the theme. GG
Thank you so much!
Cool concept! At some point, I think after I've finished 3 levels, I didn't see a way to progress further. Also, I didn't really understand the damage system.
Yeah we only got as far as making three levels within the time frame of the jam, and I do agree that we probably needed to introduce the damage system a bit, since the cost of taking too damage is eliminating your dash ability, rather than a health system. But thank you so much for taking the time to play!
Creative
Thank you so much for giving the game a go! We really appreciate it!
Really love the style! The art is super neat and well drawn out. The story is so sweet as well. Also actually really enjoyed the mechanic of growing/shrinking based on what you do
Thanks for giving the game a go :D
I’m glad we got the style right. I’ll let the others know that you enjoyed it.
Aah! Thank you so much for taking the time to play through and review our game! It's so reassuring to hear such great feedback after all this haha!