I simply had trouble wrapping my head around which control go in which direction. Maybe an idea would be to simply map the controls depending on the actual direction on the screen? (For instance, pressing S and D would make you go down-right and simply S would make you go straight down.) It simply is an idea though, maybe not what you envision for your game. I personally think it would be more intuitive.
Edit: I somehow missed the part of your response about the controls similar to top-down. I'm guessing this is what I'm talking about. Guess I don't know what the right solution is then. It may actually be fine as is, but is certainly takes some time to get used to.
You can get used to controls pretty quickly working on your own game, I know something about it, most criticism on my game this jam is about unintuitive controls x)
I wondered whether I should include an indicator for the range. I thought about making an animation to show it but I couldn't decide on what to make it look like and ran out of time. I'm taking notes :D
I feel like the game is pretty much impossible without knowing exactly where you have to go... Perhaps make the growth slower would help?
Overall a very interesting idea, I really feel like the idea would shine with a bit less difficulty, allowing you different paths depending on your current size.
The presentation was also really good. It felt polished.
Pretty funny concept. I didn't really feel the threat of the hiccups though. Actually, the zombies were pretty easy to avoid without using any ammo. The controls were also a bit awkward, while still manageable.
Nonetheless one of the most complete games of the jam. Cool game, works well.
I think the grass grows a bit too quickly so I had a hard time. The controls felt a bit strange with the isometric view but I'm not sure how to improve it.
The graphics were pretty cool! I really liked them.
Pretty cool! Good looking, the controls are easy to understand.
The credits don't serve much purpose I think? The game is pretty easy to finish by just going straight to the goal. I'm guessing the potential enemy spaceships you mention would help that.
I didn't understand how to make the villager turn back until I read the comments here.
Once I got this I managed to get further, but I stopped around night 6 because it began being a bit repetitive.
Interesting concept! I'd say maybe the player was a bit hard to control or should go a bit faster? I also think it's not super hard to survive since the population grows rapidly.
Oh, also, thanks for including ZQSD controls but they didn't work for me for some reason?
I like the concept and the artstyle is pretty good. I noticed some seams between some road tiles, you may be able to fix this by enabling Pixel Snap in the Project Settings.
As some said before me, I wish dehydration would be a bit slower.
I was also a bit confused by the perspective starting from level 2. I had trouble discerning background and platforms.
Pretty nice game nonetheless, I also thank you for the controller support and I think I noticed you allowed jumping for a small window after leaving a platform which is always nice to see.
I personally don't think hoeing the whole map at the start is a problem, you don't have enough seeds to plant everything anyway and it's heavily discouraged by the long cooldown.
Overall the hoe isn't extremely useful in this game anyway, it can be used to create fun patterns and may be necessary in the end-game to plant more high-value seeds but that's about it.
I agree with the rest of the criticism though, the wall of text is something I hate too but didn't really find another last minute solution unfortunately. The hoe thing is also something I'll keep in mind.
I wondered if the money system could even be assimilated to health, so I didn't consider it as a Wild Card in my submission. Happy to hear you interpreted it this way!
The difficulty was indeed adjusted last minute, we'll focus on this part of the experience earlier on in future games.
I'm surprised by the decimal point problem, I actually used the stepify function and never met any problem playtesting... I'll keep that in mind anyway.
I actually thought about the sound effects but didn't manage to add them in time... Maybe another thing to focus on earlier on!
Never heard of this game before, but after checking, they indeed have similarities. They were at first supposed to be more vine-like but ended this way.
Well, the game sure lacks a goal, but all the mechanics work well which must have been a big amount of work. I didn't really have any problem with the controls, which is actually pretty rare x)
The game looks really cool but I was kinda confused and I think I encountered some glitches... One time I suddenly disappeared and was then staring at the spawn area but with no character in sight?
The controls for the ladder were really hard to understand and still pretty hard to use afterwards
The meat takes too much time to cook
It's sometimes hard to know how many of each ingredient is needed when there are multiple of the same type displayed next to each other
Since you only know the order of the first client, if you fail once you basically don't have the time to satisfy the next client since they already waited a long time
And overall the difficulty is too high. There are a lot of ingredients since the very start and if there are multiple pieces of meat in it you lose even more time (or money I guess)
Cool game! Didn't understand the point of the scraps though, didn't seem like they restored your life nor counted towards score? I may have missed something though.
The ending indeed is pretty hectic, I kept dying by being stopped by cars going straight into me and then being shot by all the other cars at once. Pretty intense stuff if I do say so myself x)
I'd say the "RNG" problem is mainly just that the curve sometimes varies too much at once which is really hard to avoid. I couldn't even reach level 10 x)
I agree with what Nivosin said, and I'd add that I found a "glitch" or technique that allowed me to kinda break the game...
I scaled up the stick and mashed right click on the character, which made it "fly". But flying was pretty fun anyway and the idea itself was pretty original so I had a good time!
Very interesting take on the theme! The game itself is clean and feels smooth!
The only criticism I have is that it gets a bit repetitive and the letters could go super far which made bringing them back kind of a hassle... But overall still a great experience!
