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Secrets of the Seasons's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #3 | 3.071 | 3.071 |
| Audio | #6 | 3.143 | 3.143 |
| Best use of the theme | #7 | 3.143 | 3.143 |
| Overall | #8 | 3.043 | 3.043 |
| Most likely to make an impact | #9 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
| Graphics | #10 | 3.357 | 3.357 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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FourFox Interactive
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Comments
very beautiful and great music. I wish it had some directions so I didn't have to walk around for clues that mush. but all in all was great game
Hi thank you very much for playing it!
Thank you for playing Aline, yes unfortunately on the Web version I learned a lesson not to use the Escape key for exiting UI. This creates an issue with Itch quitting the fullscreen and then the UI freaks out. Thanks again!
I had a lot of fun playing this - it feels like it would make a great console game, especially if it was fleshed out with more story throughout the seasons as the main gameplay loop becomes a bit repetitive eventually. I loved all the storytelling details through environmental interactions. Sadly, I got to day 12 and couldn't progress.
Here are notes I took as I played:
nice music and ambient noise
long loading
quit just freezes game, doesn't minimize back to itch window
this is cool, fps?ish? surprising, not what I expected
ui explanation for far more is simple and easy to understand - the f button graphic is nice
background box and text in UI could be slightly more polished, maybe slight color gradient instead of black, different font, maybe some text shadow
red recycle bar, yellow charge? together the two kinda remind me of radiation warnings
farm view is cool
what a sad old house :(
plot needs cleaning...how? Maybe I walk there?
hmm, why can't I turn around to look at the house? clicking helped fix it, was only able to rotate view like 270 degrees - had minimized game to type in here, maybe an issue cropped up when returning
sunflowers are pretty
chainsaw and gas tank and rope...who owned this house?! :P
switching screens (eg alt tabbing to notepad) changes music track. Liking all the songs
like the detail of mud on the truck, axe in the tree, rope swing, clothesline. Good scene building
ooh found a greenhouse. Nice UI instruction with the click icon to pick plants
ahh my lightning bolt is dropping. takes energy to harvest
pretty long range on harvesting, nice, don't have to take a bunch of steps
wrong error message appears to be displaying - energy is at 0 but attempting to harvest is showing me one of the random "plant not ready to be harvested" messages. I think it should be giving an error about energy level being low? I like the randomization here. messages are well written. Sometimes 2-3 messages pop up instead of 1.
hmm how to restore energy
oh i can open greenhouse door, looks like the door doesn't have collison, walked through it
proper display of no energy message when attempting to clear yard. looks like all the apostrophes have been missed or stripped from these messages ("im so tired" "I just dont have the energy" "thats it for the day"
love the random messages with the pond, now i want to go find other features. Some messages in this list are missing periods, the one about swimming days
reflection of sun off water is nice
drifting specks in air is pretty
truck has interact (hand) icon instead of chat (speech bubble) icon. extra a in grandma/grandpa ("aa very long") message. I guess I have to learn to drive stick - ROFL, love it
ok i should probably rest
oh no it's locked
clicking chimney makes pretty sparks. Not sure if it's doing anything. Looks like toggling fireplace on/off - from the outside?
water tank has interact not chat icon. Maybe not bug, maybe I interact with these later?
view can clip into water tank and outhouse
lol, the outhouse messages are great. Few more punctuation errors.
produce stand is so cute, messages about its decline tug at heart strings. can clean up here even with zero energy.
running away into the hills! does the world have a boundary?
Beautiful image of the game world from far off up the hill, the golden specks are really pretty
ahhh i ran off the world and now i'm having an existential crisis, it's just grey nothing... maybe add invisible wall at game world boundaries
ok restart, clean some junk this time as well as harvest again
swing interaction is great, maybe slow swing animation a bit
hmm where is key
swapping to download client instead of browser afer seeing itch page comments. much faster loading time (obviously, lol)
oh wow how did I miss the letter on the greenhouse before? handwriting may be tricky to read for some users. AH switch text button, AWESOME. default font could be a little nicer
wooo stocking stall
wow I got a lot of tomato (85?!)
hmm is there any downside to placing all my stuff up for sale? Will it rot if not bought, or is everything I put up just sold? Saving a few in case
can't get mouse focus back in game when alt-tabbing during the stall inventory screen, have to close and reopen to interact with UI again
oh duh the key is for the workshop, house is unlocked
zzzz bedtime
oops double bedtime. total sales $0 :(
can clip into workshop from stairwell
wheelbarrow has interact icon but doesn't seem to do anything
yay cleared enough to prepare soil! Oh, no energy, darn
"add all" button to stall would be nice
wonder about seasonal/variety bonus, seems like the variety bonus is the same no matter how many types i have
can clip under the stairs and get kinda stuck, takes a lot of backing out to get mobile again
should it be total sales: instead of total sales.
ooh it's raining today! hmm house is leaky, some is coming in by the stairs
aww my recycle meter has gone down!
ok plant time. Plant cost - does that mean it takes 3 brocoli? I sold all mine...
ooh just found letter by the bed, great story details here - this seems really important for the player to find early on in gameplay, maybe make the player start in the bedroom after waking up with the camera facing the letter, make it glow? I think finding it earlier would make gameplay better
grandpa's handbook is REALLY useful, but it's also information dense. Maybe once read, add it to the UI for access in the future without having to go back to his workshop. Good writing.r
there seems to be an almost translucent panel in the left side of the screen. Didn't notice it until I read grandpa's journal, where the dark background makes it easier to see
i'm not sure if planting is working. It's taking my energy, but I get told "confirm to cultivate plot" but nothing happens. Animation is showing ploughed dirt. I like how the terrain updates real time!
ok next day, some plants have appeared. hovering it gives cultivate option, trying that makes plants disappear... Gonna just leave it, not sure what that's doing.
would be nice if the info in farming view updated to show what was planted/how far along in growth it is, when hovering over a plot with something planted in it
still dunno what my recycle meter represents
Looks like gameplay is basically this from here on, harvesting when plants are done. staying in bedroom and skipping days. This would be nice if there was story to introduce variety and progression, like people visiting the market or receiving letters in the mail.
day 12, game seems to hang. Just displaying "total sales." and then no amount and no way to start the day.
no way to save game :(
Hi there! Thank you very much for the extensive play-through. A lot of really great stuff in your message. The recycle meter is really just the amount of rubbish that is on the property. I wanted to have recycling more of a feature, with the type of materials you pick up being used to build different things around the farm. But as with a lot of features, I started the Jam a bit late on Tuesday and ran out of time.
Thank you again for all the notes. They are really impressive.
Ohh, the recycle meter makes more sense now! I hope you continue, I'd totally play this on my console. I loved following the story, got a little misty-eyed at some of the details like grandpa's chair (a special message when cleaning up the cans there could be a gutpunch).
I too found the letters unreadable, both because they were tiny in the webGL view, then when I went fullscreen that font... yuck. I dont think farm grandma wrote in that font ;)
I did manage to clean the stall unlike many people but the FoV was really unpleasant so I didnt do any farming.
I did steal grandads crops through the glass because im a farming ghost though :D
What I did play was pretty solid though, good use of synty (or synty-like) low poly assets, you included some environmental storytelling which I love.
You did fall into the 'seasons' theme being 'ill make a farming simulator about making money' trope. Coulda made granny and grandad old hippies doing subsistence farming (i dunno maybe in the letters they were :D )
Overall though solid work for 5 days.
Hi there, thank you very much for playing it! Sorry about the letters, the web GL build was very last minuet and i didn't get a change to test it apart from seeing if it even opened.
This game was a breath of fresh air! - pun not intended.
Every aspect was so well thought of and without the detail being left out. The graphics were pleasant and mechanics easy with the sound carrying you through the day to day tasks. I love how you start off being dropped into a random farm without instruction but you know what to do and where to go. I instantly felt like I was in the game rather than playing one. Felt user friendly from the start and the added highlight of little 'secrets' or 'story items' on the way felt on another level. Thoroughly enjoyed playing.
The only thing I didn't like was not being able to unpack those boxes! (I tried everyday just incase lol)
I really like that you can change from a first person view to a top down one. The only problem I have is that the fov on first person camera is to low, but that’s just a preference. Good job regardless!
Hi there, thank you so much for playing it.
Im with you on the FoV, especially when you're inside the house, it made me nauseous.
The first it take me 3 min to figure out how to close the note on the greenhouse :( (double esc because it is in browser). 😅
Annnnd it take me more than 10 minutes to figure out how to sell plants.It may be better if you don't have to clean the stall. When I played, I was thinking that I cleaned it entirely but one plank remain and so I search elsewhere to sell produce :(
It can be long and repetitive to harvest allll the plants sooo you may give to the player a tool to harvest an entire field... or not if you really want the player to relax and harvest bit by bit (I wasn't in the mood)
The little bubbles of advice/feedback were great!
And it is veryyyy long to sell all crops so a way to sell all at once could be cool.
Do you have a reason to hide the key? So the player hasn't access to the book unless he find the key :(
But it was a great and relaxing experience!
Hi! Thank you for playing it, that plank has stumped a few people i think. Everything else you have suggested is great too. There should be a way to harvest in farm view as well. And I was meant to get the sell all button in the stall i just completly forgot while trying to build the web version. The key hiding idea was just a way to try and keep some narative progression. Thanks again!
Awesome !
Hey, thank you so much for giving it a play.
This is honestly a really great foundation. The mechanics are there and there's a lot of heart in the environmental storytelling.
I think the pacing is a little off - it's hard to avoid in a game like this but the least fun part is running to and from bed every day. Maybe if you could just press a button to end the day wherever you are?
I ran into a gamebreaking bug trying to plant some broccoli on day 8 or so. Should've stuck to tomatoes and asparagus and I would have been fine ;)
Thanks a lot for playing it. Great advice too, sorry about the bugs.
Took me quite a while to figure things out. As others have mentioned the letters were pretty hard to read. Spent quite a while running around, not really sure what to do.
Had a good time once I found the greenhouse and figured out how to sell my produce. It's clear you put a bit of effort into all the systems. Probably pop-up UI tutorials would have been a better solution to teaching players about the game mechanics. Otherwise great game!
Thank you very much for playing it. You 100% right about the tutorials always something that is a bit lacking in my work.
Beautiful graphics!
thank you so much for playing it.
Beautiful audio and graphics. Loved the game until I opened the letter and switched texts, from that point on the labels on the UI disappeared. I fell like you could have made some kind of tutorial through notes because I was wandering around aimlessly until i found the greenhouse. Overall an amazing game though.
Thanks for playing William. I appreciate it. I wasn't sure if the letters were going to be obvious enough. My play testers didnt run into too many issues. Sorry about the UI issues, I think it must only be on the Web version which i didnt get to test very well and didnt run into those issues on the windows version
It was a pretty fun game. I would have probably played until completion if not for the UI glitch. I loved the general feel of the game as well.
Thank you again for playing William! I just found the bug you are talking about I only found it in full-screen mode. All the other times I played i didn't make it full screen and never ran into the problem.
Having Esc to close the window conflicts with Itch's esc to close full screen and seems to be causing issues. Something to remember for next time.
Awesome! Never figured out how to sell my produce unfortunately but had a great time cleaning up the ol farm regardless.
Ohh no! Sorry i wasnt sure if the letters were going to be obvious enough. In the letter on the green house it mentions the stall at the room. It just need some cleaning up and then you can put your veges in it to sell.
The stall by the road ay? Yeah I cleaned it and then I get the interact option pop up but when I click nothing happens, even after I harvest the vegetables from the greenhouse.
Damn, sorry Finnegan! I just had a wee play and didn't get a bug so I imagine there was still a bit of rubbish left behind. I didn't make the indicator different for rubbish from the click-the-stall indicator sorry which makes it a bit difficult to tell what can be cleaned up sorry.
Thanks again for playing.