itch.io

Thank you so so much for sharing your thoughts on my game! I really appreciate you going in depth like this:)

The seedlings try to avoid other stems as best they can, but they do have a habit of getting stuck! Thankfully it never hard-locks you from finishing the game, as you can always buy more seeds or wait for a bird to drop you one, but it would really help to add some sort of "preference" system to the seeds. At the moment they don't really differentiate between turning left and right when an obstacle is in the way, which results in them making a bad choice at random. I do believe that it would help a lot if the seeds preferred to turn one way or the other depending on if that direction leads them higher up or not.

The choice of being able to hold only one tool at a time was intentional for both simplicity and to keep the entire tree relevant throughout the game. If the player had all their tools on hand at all times, there would be little reason to ever go back to the ground except to buy more seeds. Furthermore, the player can add vine seeds to help with navigating up and down the tree faster as well as just leave tools lying on the ground somewhere higher up the tree. I do agree however that the game would benefit from having more methods of keeping your tools close by. Maybe some sort of seed that lets you create a "mini shack" somewhere up top to retrieve your lost tools from, or a whistle that triggers a bird to fly over with a tool of your choice. Something to consider for the post-jam release, I suppose!

The red seed does have the benefit of spawning more bramble and thus giving the player more currency, but I agree that the balance of the two seeds could have been fine tuned better. In the later parts of the game, once currency isn't much of an issue anymore, the player doesn't have much of an incentive to buy the red seed unless they simply want a more challenging platforming experience. Making the red seed grow taller as you mentioned could definitely help, as would maybe making the store restock seeds at random, so sometimes you wouldn't even get the choice of a blue seed, as the store would only be selling two red ones. In an ideal version of the game, there would be loads and loads of different seeds to choose one, each with a different type of platforming challenge that they offer to the player, resulting in this ever changing climbing experience. One idea was to add a seed that wouldn't spawn platforms, but instead little balls that the player could bounce off of. Alas, I did not have any time left to add that into this version of the game!

And I agree with the upgrading feedback! I think the core idea of this game lends itself pretty well to further development. Allowing the player some sort of meta progression in the way of upgrading tools, unlocking new seeds, having some sort of floating islands with treasure, different obstacles to overcome at different altitudes (like wind or maybe the cold) - the game is bursting at the seams with potential! Who knows, maybe this could even turn into the first game I ever release on Steam...?

As a little insider info, this game was inspired by my recent experience of moving abroad from my home country of Estonia. Having grown so much while living there, making friends and connections, it was all a bit difficult to let go of but nevertheless a very important step to take in my own personal growth. 

I wanted this game to reflect that - you grow and nurture this plant, interact with it all throughout the game, learn the best pathways up and down it, trim parts that hinder further growth while letting flourish the parts that help you on your way up. You put loads of work into it only to have to eventually let go and move on. I'm really happy you liked the little wave at the end, as that was a small little addition that meant a lot to me personally:)

Thanks again fo all the feedback! I already played your game as well (it was real good) and will try and return the favour in the coming days, but having moved only a week ago, a lot of my free time is still being spent on getting my footing in a new, foreign (but exciting!) place.