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A jam submission

TENDY: Robot Gardener (secret page)View game page

Take care of the intergalactic flora and fauna on a puzzling space station
Submitted by Too Much Tomato (@TooMuchTomato) — 4 hours, 5 minutes before the deadline

Play game

TENDY: Robot Gardener (secret page)'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Progress#54.2864.286
Innovation#74.0004.000
Graphics#74.4294.429
Overall#74.0484.048
Audio#104.0004.000
Polish#133.8573.857
Fun#153.7143.714

Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

(Optional) Changes made to your project since the start of the jam
As of this writing, I logged 3,606 minutes of work on this project during the game jam.

Summary of work:
- Implemented a tool selection menu that feeds into the levels
- Created a level goal system and player rewards
- Prototyped a title and level select screen
- created 6ish levels
- applied additional polish and effects where possible

(Optional) Devlog
https://toomuchtomato.itch.io/9xinfinity-demo/devlog/277230/marathon-jam-post-mortem-devlog

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Comments

Submitted

I really like the style and the art for it. The menus are very cool, and I love the level select menu with the icons for completing the objectives. It sounds like a lot of that was the thing you worked on this jam so great work!

Like a previous comment, I was a bit lost on Level 2. It took me a long time to realize I needed to fill up the 3x3 grid because the tooltips prevented me from clicking on the actions on the right. I was able to figure out that the level gives you three actions per turn and three turns in the level, so it seems you have determine ahead of time what sequence you need for each action, but when the game started the action order was not what I expected.

I know you probably have tutorials and story to fill in the details later, but it would be helpful if you could put short bit of text on the level start screen of any level with new mechanics as a temporary replacement until you finish the rest.

It would also be nice to be able to exit the level before the end. It made it harder for me to experiment a bit while trying to learn the mechanics.

There is clearly a lot already in this version of the game and I would love to see how you develop it. Keep up the good work!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Solid piece of work, nice to finally try it, after seeing you stream!

The visuals are awesome, and the idea looks very creative. Also, the menu where everything moves like this, is interesting to watch.

Now, for the remarks, that might be more interesting to you:

  1. I didn't feel that the shuffling mechanic was fair. Sure, gotta learn to find a solution to when something doesn't go as expected, but I'm not certain there even was an outcome, when the dustbunny on an isolated platform multiplied too much because of me not getting the water projectile on perfect time.
  2. Tutorial? Maybe, I don't know. I didn't need it, unless it teaches to fight against shuffling.
  3. I don't see the "return to main menu" button. Fortunately, you save the progress, so not a big issue when I try to exit the mission (after unlucky shuffle!) and exit to OS instead.
  4. I had a bug, I think, happen to me. It happened only once, and I couldn't replicate it. A turn once started with move 2. It wasn't very serious, because I just performed moves in 2-3-1 sequence.

A little disclaimer: I'm just giving my thoughts, but keep in mind, that I'm not really a target audience for games with "extravagant mechanics". In such cases, I usually prefer to just find bugs, but didn't find any in your game, except maybe #4.

Submitted(+1)

Nice work on this! I absolutely love the visual style; it's so pleasantly unique! To sum up my experience, I found that approaching this game more like an Into the Breach-style strategy game instead of the classic "find the solution" puzzle game made me enjoy it a lot more. 

While I didn't have many issues with the trial and error required to grasp the mechanics, I think a little bit of tutorialization explaining the randomization of the tool order would go a long way; I actually had to check your devlog to figure out why my carefully planned moves for 1-2 weren't panning out as I wished.

I agree that there is definitely a big design challenge in dealing with the randomness. I personally think that right now the RNG dictates too much of a level's outcome. Sometimes the "dud turn" issue is made multiple times worse because you are forced to move out of an advantageous position, causing you to waste the next one or two turns as well. Sometimes it can be fun to try and figure a way to accomplish something despite the setback these situations, but that depends on what kind of hand you're dealt.

At the moment, I can't say that I get your vision for this game quite yet, but I'm intrigued with where you will take it. I definitely can't deny the fun I had playing, nor the satisfaction I felt after clearing all the objectives in a level.  Kudos on all the work you've accomplished this month. Keep it up!

Deleted post
Submitted

Nice game. I'm going to make my usual Unity complaint about display scaling issues on alternative resolutions, here's a screenshot from my superultrawide. It is a really well polished game, otherwise.

Developer

OOF! I always forget to think of the ultrawide folks when doing a game jam. Hope it didn't disrupt the experience too much and thanks for playing!

Submitted (3 edits)

I manage to run it on my linux with wine (but did not get any sound :( ). Very nice and well executed game :) very unique and cute universe and relax feeling to play it. To identify flaws I would say that I would love a restart level button or command (I've got the impression that the game is a lot based on trial and errors ?). Apart from that I think the game needs a little more explanation of the actions and the order/logic of their execution. Maybe a slight ui work ? Great game :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing! I agree there could be some more clarity in the UI/UX. I do want it to be a trial & error sort of thing, but I want to make that process of discovery more fun and less frustrating.

Submitted

I think trial & error is good :)

Submitted

This is a great puzzle game, love the visuals. The random move selection also adds flavor and challenge to each puzzle. It also has high amount of polish.

Only complaint, is that it is hard to tell apart the different row and columns, so I might end up missing certain spots. Also, clicking the levels doesn't seem to work sometimes?

Developer

Thank you for playing and for the good feedback! I'll look into ways to make the rows and columns more clear.

Submitted

Super solid aesthetic puzzler with intriguing graphics and theme. I love the consistent art style. I think some things can be communicated to the player a little better. 

In the main menu, it took me a min to realize I had to double click to start the level.

In level 1-2, you're dropping too many new level design and mechanics on me (pre-game action selection per turn, water action, line of sight, careful planning for 3 turns, when do doors open?), and the mouse hover over the actions on the right has a bugged dialog box. I love the isometric level layouts, but this makes it impossible to tell where I need stand to shoot targets that are far away (level 1-3 especially).

Developer

Thanks for playing! I agree, the beginning is a little dense with no tutorialization. Level 2 especially drops a bit too much on the player.  I've grown quite accustomed to the isometric grid since I stare at them all day, but it's good to hear what your experience was like. I'll try to come up with a way of making that more clear, maybe with some slight coloration to the rows or light grid overlay surrounding the mouse cursors highlighted location

Submitted(+1)

oh right, alternate between 2 colors every  row like how a properly styled html table is