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An original premise, fun to play, fiendish escalation (so to speak) of difficulty!

Let me say that I impersonated someone and helped another person refresh themselves, allowing me access to a new area. And after that, could not figure out how to proceed.

Yesss, another HinmanLantern game!

I'm loving the setting and art direction--beautiful environments and solid music. Feels like a low-fi retro Hitman game! 

Unfortunately, I got stuck after just a couple of sneaky moves (but I don't want to leave spoilers for anyone else, haha).

These devlogs are a joy to read. Of course I want to get my hands on the game, but the downside is that I don't want the devlogs to end. ;)

Incidentally, I too would like to volunteer as a playtester if needed.

As for the Patrick O'Brian books, there are 20 of them, so it should take a while to get through all of them.

The depth gauge looks fantastic.

These updates are always really fun. Even the smallest challenge is taken very seriously and tackled with an extraordinary passion and energy.

I also appreciate the Aubrey-Maturin callback. I'm a huge Patrick O'Brian fan and I get a jolt of endorphins any time I come across even the most oblique reference. :)

Agreed, it looks beautiful. This is such an achievement with 2 colors and a 400 x 240 resolution.

Another fascinating glimpse into the endless challenges of design. I really enjoy these devlogs, though I can't wait for the game to be released.

FYI, I don't think "gun out" is as clear as it could be. "No ammo" might be better.

Really looking forward to this title. It'll be great to have a game of this scope and depth coming to Playdate. 

Thank you for all your kind words! I'm really glad you enoyed it. 

I was really impressed by how much you managed to do with PICO-8. I didn't even know you could build an inventory system like this! The controls work smoothly and it's fun dodging the enemies, exploring, and shooting the ghost bunnies (?) to bits.

Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to plant anything, and I wasn't sure what my overall goals were.

Also, it would have been cool to have more music and sound effects.

Thanks so much for trying it, and for your kind words! I personally like playing co-op even by myself. One character can go exploring while the other character stays behind to work the farm and protect the baby from the eyespiders.

I experimented with different lengths for the day/night cycle, but in the end I stuck with a very short cycle because there isn't too much to do during a day, but you need a certain number of days to grow your crops. This is definitely something that would require very serious experimentation in a commercial ganr.

Fantastic art, well done! The music works, though a bit more variety would be nice also. I found planting and growing the crops pretty intuitive.

I did have some issues with controlling the soldiers. When trying to click on one soldier, I would find myself giving an order to the soldier previously selected. Also, giving a soldier an order would deselect him, so if I wanted to give the same soldier multiple orders I would have to click him multiple times. Instead, I think it would be more sense to select soldiers with LMB and give them their orders with RMB.

Nicely executed defense game. The allies and enemies had reasonable behaviors, and I enjoyed watching a large horde of my various veggies taking on those slimy cubes.

The movement system was a little cumbersome. I would have preferred the ability to click on a spot further away from the player character, and without having to click a special icon first (i.e., maybe right-clicking would free up the cursor for player movement, as is typical in turn-based strategy). 

I got some sound effects, but music would have been nice, too.

Nice job with the procedural world generation. The controls are responsive and the UI is perfectly clear.

Growing your own enemies was a little unexpected, but why not?

Also, nice job incorporating couch co-op! Only a few of us did that. ;)

I'm not sure if you included sound and music in the game, but if you did, it wasn't playing for me. That would have really helped with immersion.

It was nice planting the flowers and seeing them come up the next day. Experimenting with the potions was fun (and the recipe book was a nice bonus). The music was pleasant, and didn't outwear its welcome.

I did have a little trouble figuring out the UI at first--the second row of UI elements at the top had me fooled for a while. I think it would have been possible to display all the icons simultaneously.

Overall, a solid entry. One thing that might have made everything a little more fun might be a bit of flavor text: names for the different plants, names for the different potions, names for the different monsters.

Great character designs. The vibrant colors on the black background look absolutely psychedelic. The music is also very cool. The sound effects are serviceable, although the fart sound got a little old after a few minutes. :)

Finding the dragons was fun!

One high-level observation: the vibe didn't feel as much like a farming game as much as it felt like a "cleaning up" game (e.g., Super Mario Sunshine). This is probably because I wasn't planting seeds in order to harvest the crops, but rather for the secondary effect of the plant growth (eliminating the surrounding muck).

Overall, a fantastic entry.

Great art and music. Everything has a mischievous, Halloweeny vibe. The theme is deliciously gross. Eyeballs and hands in a pot--brilliant. The customers are very well-designed, and the frog is adorable. I laughed out loud when the angels first showed up.

Some of the UI is a little counterintuitive. The GIFs on the game page make for a helpful tutorial, but I still found myself confused about how to serve up potions (although in practice, it worked).

The pacing is a little off. Although it's a lot of fun to spray those pesky angels, the night lasts too long and I found myself just waiting for dawn. 

Also, I think it might have been helpful to give the player a bit more money in the beginning, or at least set the lab up with a single pot and a couple of free seeds. It is a little too easy to waste all your money buying pots and then realize you don't have enough to buy any seeds.

I'll see if there's anything I can do about the UI after the jam.

If you ever have the urge to give it another try, the controls are written on the game page.

Thanks again for trying it out!

Hmm, sorry to hear that. May I ask what screen resolution you are using?

Did you get stuck in the dialog, unable to progress to the game?

Multiple sets of responsive keys is also an option (as long as they don't overlap)!

In a commercial game, the correct answer is "keys must be remappable," but in a jam game, I don't think it's worth the time investment.

Thanks so much for playing, and for your kind words! Glad you enjoyed.

You're very kind. Thank you for checking it out!

You could consider I, J, K, and L. Those are the mirror positions of W, A, S, and D.

This is what Blasphemous does and I think it works really well. Just a thought.

Thanks for playing! It's definitely quite hard. I actually like playing both characters myself, but that takes quite a bit of practice. :)

There is so much to do and so little time! But hopefully you had fun and learned a lot while doing it. :)

Awesome art and audio style, like a demented version of Stardew Valley!

Some of the text (e.g., the letter in the intro, or the numbers on the trading pop-up) is too small at this resolution.

The combat controls reminded me of the Alone in the Dark games. A pleasant memory, but dodging is quite difficult with this control scheme.

Cool art. Impressive number of crops you can grow!

Some of the colliders don't seem to be in the right place (e.g., I can walk all over the trees in the forest, or on the roof of the house). 

Also, I wasn't getting any audio. Not sure if there was any, but if there was, it wasn't working for me

At the end of each day the label made me expect some kind of summary of what I had achieved, but I didn't see any statistics.

Lastly, sometimes the game would select two tiles at once, as in the screenshot.

Great graphics, catchy music. I love your interpretation of "human resources"--makes much more sense than the traditional definition. :) The resource collection and building system is impressively sophisticated, and the writing is humorous and fun.

Note a minor bug: After ending a dialog with the tutorial character, I would get his last line one more time before I was able to start a new dialog with him.

I loved all the different kinds of contextual actions. However, I am not sure that the arrow keys are the best choice for the action controls. They are a little out of the way on some keyboards.

Lastly, this might be just me, but it took me a while to figure out that "BACK" was short for "Backspace." :)

Looks really nice! The main character's animations are excellent, and the game runs smoothly. The world looks integrated and consistent, not always easy in 3D. I had great fun exploring this attractive little world.

The decision to make water a sparse commodity is an unusual choice, but it adds some unique flavor.

The camera angles are generally quite good, but there are sometimes radical shifts in perspective that make me slightly uncomfortable (not quite seasick, just a little uneasy). 

Unfortunately, I couldn't get any sound to play, even at top volume. :( Also, the first time I picked up the hoe, the game crashed on me. That didn't happen the second time, though.

Wow, fantastic art! Makes me want to leave my job, pull a Stardew Valley, and move to the countryside right away. :)

Of course, the peaceful opening tone makes... the twist that much more radical and gripping.

I am ambivalent about the choice to speak about the player character in the third person. Most games would say "I" or "you." Saying "The Farmer" puts a little distance between the player and the player character.

Oh god lol this one was so weird. :) I love how you leaned into its offthewallness!

NGL, it's a little addictive to grind those stats. And I loved how each area had its own theme, a color scheme, its own associated romantic interest, etc. Good choice putting Coco on the cover, she's the best.

It would have been great if every location had its own minigame, just like the farm.

Also I, uh, think I got a bad ending. :) 

Looks very cute! I'd like to see what you'd make of it as a game game. 

Note that I was sometimes able to collect the vegetables, and sometimes not! I'm not sure what the reason was. 

Also, a minor bug: After moving upwards, when you let go the movement key the player faces down, rather than up. (This does not happen after moving left or right.)

I feel for you... it definitely turned out harder than I intended...

But it does sound like you had fun. :)

Thanks so much for checking it out, I really appreciate it!

Thanks so much for trying it out!

Yes, the UI can be a little finnicky when not in full screen.

I did try killing the spiders at dawn. The problem with that was that many spiders didn't even reach the cabin by dawn. This suggests the spawn points need to be closer to the cabin, but I didn't have time to tinker with that.

Unfortunately there is not always time to balance the difficulty in the context of a jam! I may return to this after the ratings period.

Thanks very much for playing! It did turn out harder than I intended. I ultimately settled on a very short day/night cycle because the crops take a certain number of days to grow, but there isn't  huge amount to do each day.

The game definitely turned out harder than I intended, as I didn't have time to balance the difficulty. I personally enjoyed playing both characters  myself, one exploring and one working the land, although I can't quite handle both players in action! What I think I will do eventually is reduce the spawn rate of spiders in the 1-player version.

Thanks again for trying it out, and for sticking with it!!

Nice job beating it! And thanks for reporting that bug; I should be able to upload a fix after the ratings period.

Edit: I kind of have to ask: Were you playing single-player? How did you strike the valance between exploring, defending the baby and tending to the crops? :)

The world looks colorful and well-integrated. The music is pleasant and doesn't outwear its welcome.  I think the choice of making the farmer be a dog is absolutely inspired. I also enjoyed the earth plot Tetris mechanic; that was unexpected but very enjoyable. And I really appreciated the variety of plants and potions. 

I would say that, not only is it possible to get soft-locked, but it's very likely to occur on the first playthrough. In a lot of farming games, you begin with a simple cash crop monoculture, sell the crops, and move your way up. In this game, that won't work, because you need a combination of ingredients to make a potion. This would have been clearer if the game gave the player a single potion recipe right at the start.

I would have preferred a little bit more notice (e.g., screen fading to black) when the dog goes to bed. A couple of times I ended up clicking twice, because I didn't realize it worked the first time.

Note that the dog has a strange jittery effect when moving. Also, I was unable to close the shop window without moving to full-screen mode.

Cute game! The crafting seems to work very well, although I'm not sure there's a purpose to building the house in so much detail (it could have been a single unified object).

The UI is excellent. The game has a fully functioning inventory system, plus multiple merchant screens, and it always remains both clearly legible and bug-free

I would say the night is too dark to see comfortably. Also, the sound effect of the pickaxe isn't quite synchronized to the swing of the tool.

Thanks so much for trying it out! As happens often with jam games, this one turned out a bit harder than I intended.

When playing with a single player, the best method is to dart into the woods briefly in search of the Grim Roots, but return to the cabin frequently to make sure there's no mischief. You don't have the luxury of wandering around in the woods for an extended length of time.

When playing with two players, you can send one player exploring while the other player does guard duty and clears and tills the soil. My favorite way to play is actually to both characters myself. :)

As for the length of the day, I struggled with this a lot. I settled for a short day (20 seconds day and 20 seconds night) because you need a certain number of days to grow your crops, but there isn't all that much you have to do each day. The spiders only spawn at night, but they often arrive at the cabin during the day.