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A Visit from The Very Tall Man's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Uniqueness | #6 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme / Secret Requirement | #7 | 4.182 | 4.182 |
| Farming | #12 | 3.545 | 3.545 |
| Enjoyability | #15 | 3.091 | 3.091 |
| Bug Amount (5 Star is no bugs) | #16 | 3.727 | 3.727 |
| UI | #16 | 2.818 | 2.818 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
WOW! What an amazing submission!
The character art is really cute and charming , the gameplay loop is really well done, controls feel crisp and the dialog with The Very Tall Man is really fun. It's really enjoyable to attack the spiders and explore, but having to protect the baby at night discouraged going out and finding the Grim Roots. It's a really fun mechanic that made me consider how far I was going from the house so that I made it back for sunset, but the day felt too short to get any reasonable distance let alone finding the roaming Grim Roots and defeating them. Also I found the large popups got me hit unfairly since it was covering the screen as I was fending of spiders. But outside of those small nitpicks, the game is really great!
Keep up the good work!
Thank you for all your kind words! I'm really glad you enoyed it.
Kudos for getting a co-op game going! Unfortunately, I didn't get to take advantage, so I only played single player. I liked having to hunt for the strange creatures with the seeds and the farming seemed pretty good in between battles with the spiders. I do wish the day/night cycle was a little longer because I didn't have much time to do farming in between fights. Though, I assume that would be solved if I had a second player with me. The characters and art overall had a charm to them. I especially love that cover image where they all look freaked out.
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.
Had issues with the size of the game, without doing fullscreen I couldn't progress and even full screen I could not see all the dialog choices.
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?
I was able to, though I was confused on the controls cause it seemed that the size was forcing some of the ui to overlap. It should be 1440x900
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!
Very unique and fun idea for the theme! Really liked the low poly style and the sound effects. The day and night cycle are quick but it keeps it interesting I think. Great stuff, was fun to play!
Thanks so much for playing, and for your kind words! Glad you enjoyed.
10/10 would recommend because this is masterpiece. Honestly. :)
You're very kind. Thank you for checking it out!
It's very.. hard... It took me a while to learn you have to kill big enemies to get the seeds, I died a lot. Then again, I was playing alone when I think it was intended for 2 players. I do like the concept, maybe a little balancing would help.
Thanks for playing! It's definitely quite hard. I actually like playing both characters myself, but that takes quite a bit of practice. :)
I like the quick action of it, the quick day-night cycle really adds a sense of urgency,. The music and silly sound effects were great as well! Although admittedly I had no idea what to do until about day 8, where I managed to kill one of the big bad guys only by getting him caught on geometry. I reset and tried again a few times, but kept dying to either the bug guys or to a spider that crept up on my baby. By the time I got the notification it was too late to do anything :(
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!
For the first few tries, I couldn't get into a game level to play- my game was stuck on the scarecrow screen after selecting an option. After multiple reloads I still could not get it to work, But after I full screened it, it seems the dialogue just wasn't loading up in non-full screen on my end (the initial arrow button was there but no dialogue).
This game is challenging for sure! As i played, I was hoping the spiders would stop existing during the day, but I was still chased around in broad daylight lol. One of big tree trunk looking monsters got a genuine startle out of me, lmao.
I wasn't able to get seeds to plant because I suck at games and killing things.
Overall solid game, and good job on your entry!!
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.
I played for 14 days, got defeated many times and harvested some crops. It was a cool experience, but somewhat lacking. Found a bug when you dash over the small rock in front of the house you can go through the house walls. Day night cycle was too fast. Nice variety of enemies, couldn't defeat the golden one.
Definitely great job on modelling and creating the sounds for the game :)
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.
This game is so hard! At some point there were so many spiders that I hardly had time to water my crops ^^' I manage to beat the boss but man, it was difficult. Funny storyline and cool graphics for a jam.
I encountered a bug: if the fight with the Very Tall Man takes more than a day, the cutscene starts over and then you get stuck in it while the game still runs in background. I had to wait and lose to try again.
Great work overall!
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? :)
I indeed let myself believe that if the game was so hard, it's because I played it alone. I was actually very difficult to explore. I had to find every seed after delivering every crop of the previous kind. I lost once or twic, looking for them ^^'
I had to fight so much that I didn't even have time to water all of my crops in a whole day haha! I think it would be great leaving more time or spawn less enemies when playing singlet-player.
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!!
Overall this is a really solid start! I'm not sure if this was a me problem, but I was constantly fending off the spiders from killing the baby, it seemed like they spawned constantly. I didn't have a chance to find seeds or else it would be game over. Maybe there is a pacing issue as well, because it felt like the day was extremely short. Was this intentional? I like that you put in some narrative and gave a point to it all, I think the way the game feels makes a lot of sense. The music was nice too and you really stuck the "horror" aspect with the opening cutscene.
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.
Hey, the storyline was really funny! Where could we get seeds to plants?
Thanks!
If you wander in the woods, there are some large monsters to kill. Each if them drops one seed bag, which can be picked up with R (Y for Player 2). It may take a while to find the monsters, because they can appear anywhere in the woods.