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My Alchemist's Garden's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Playability | #258 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Cleverness | #282 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme | #600 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Artistic Style | #893 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- This is a really satisfying gardening game that uses the shadow portion of the theme well. I found it challenging to initially juggle shooting the garden pests, planting, filling orders, and keeping myself shaded. I think the alchemy theme could be better implemented other than just in the overall narrative that sets up the game. I think I was initially unclear that the plants were finished growing when they were. Perhaps you could add something to indicate that plants are at their full size more noticeably, and that could allow for you to have plants with slower or more complex growth. Or, a short tutorial at the beginning might help make that clearer.
- This was really funny and cute. The idea were pretty fun, though I wish there was a funny little lemonade like stand to make pots to sell as well for the mixing and creation part of alchemy. Other then that the game was very fun and silly. Even with bugs it just made me laugh that I was shooting slugs.
Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes
Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes
Tell us about your game!
My Alchemist’s Garden follows our player as they try to bolster their boss’s alchemy business. The player must plant and harvest ingredients to fill customer orders. The player earns money for each order all the while trying to keep cool from the blistering heat of the sun and destructive garden pests.
Controls
Keyboard
Tab - Swap between umbrella and rifle
Space - Fire rifle when rifle is equipped
Mouse Cursor - Used to aim the rifle
Mouse Left-Click - Interact/Click and drag to plant plants
Esc - Pause
Gameplay
- Click and drag plants from the bottom center seed bar to an empty farm patch to grow plants.
- When a plant is fully grown a green checkmark will appear above, and you can click on the plant to harvest it and add it to your inventory (the inventory is displayed to the left of the seed bar).
- Pests will spawn randomly and attempt to eat your plants. You can press TAB to swap to the rifle to shoot (SPACE bar) them.
- When holding the rifle you will be exposed to the heat of the sun, and if exposed for too long you will pass out from heat exhaustion.
- You will have to manage your time spent in the shade of the umbrella and holding the rifle to defend against pests.
- Occasionally an order will need to be filled and will be displayed in the bottom left corner. If you have the required plants in your inventory a button with a green checkmark will appear on the order that you can click to complete it. You will be given a cash reward if an order is completed.
- There is a shop button in the bottom right of the game that can be clicked to access the shop. You can use your earned cash to unlock new plants and additional farm patches in this shop menu.
GDD - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sgROLI9FpzclOA3W-58WsKQEpUvFj4_puZDB5WyFmXs/edit?usp=sharing
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Comments
Once I figured out the game it is a nice, enjoyable game. When I figured out that I could spam the button to get cash I became the richest alchemist with negative amount of crops in the garden! haha! Very fun game!
Lol the button spam was a bug we missed. Thank you for playing and leaving feedback! Glad you enjoyed it!
A relaxing gardening game, perfect to chill out with. Similar vibes to what I was going for with mine. Yours turned out great, the little critters are very cute and I'm happy to let them chomp away at my garden, lol.
Great Idea and loved the challenge! I will also agree with the rest of the reviewer that there should be other ways to lose too, like lose money when you fail an order and go in dept or the animals attack you and take your upbrella after all fields are full.
Took me a little bit to understand i had to drag and drop the herbs in the garden to grow.
But it was very chill and fun. Great work!
Very cool concept especially using the umbrella to cool off and hide from the heat while trying to defend the garden. Took a minute to wrap my head around the control scheme, but once I got it, it was a nice balance of systems. Expanding into more levels and different challenges would be cool to see. Great game!
Thank you for playing!
Hahaaha i was really confused as to what was happening but having fun all the time nevertheless. I felt like I was trying to grow some plants but ending up feeding some random handsome snails and snarky rabbits and laughing my ass off :D
Then I read the tutorial/key prompts and went back. Now, with the gun, the game made a bit more sense. Have to admit, I honestly liked "feeding" them to get rid of them more than killing them since they look so sympathetic :D
I didn't like draggin every time from the icon to plant, it feels finicky. Clicking a key or the icon to select one plant and then clicking the soil would make it much smoother or something along the lines.
Overall the game had a fun, happy atmosphere and a I really enjoyed it!
LOL! I love the idea about feeding the critters instead of defending your crops against them. We would have liked to do some kind of in game tutorial to help explain everything, but we ran out of time.
Thank you for the feedback on the clicking and dragging mechanic. We thought this would make it feel more interactive, but I can definitely see how it could be annoying.
Thanks for playing our game!
I LOST WHEN I WAS 75 BUCKS WAY FROM THE FINAL UPGRADE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Really loved this game, the simplicity, mechanics and theme. Only criticism I would have is the alchemy theme feels like it is in name only so you could have maybe had a layer of mixing the ingredients you harvest, then selling them. But I loved this
Oh and there was some texture issues maybe it was just webGL being weird but alot of the screen was grey
Oh no, you were so close!
Thank you for playing our game, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! We also appreciate the feedback. We did have some ideas to expand on the alchemy theme, but due to time constraints we were unable to finish those ideas.