Interesting level progression concept where the platforms change immediately. No loading screen, yay! There were a few minor glitches like with the player fidgeting while jumping next to or through platforms. But other than that, it was well polished and capable of holding attention throughout. GJ!
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Verdant Heart's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Mechanics | #49 | 3.753 | 3.753 |
| Overall | #62 | 3.896 | 3.896 |
| Fun | #69 | 3.779 | 3.779 |
| Aesthetics | #74 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| Story | #95 | 3.234 | 3.234 |
| Theme | #193 | 3.766 | 3.766 |
| Sound | #202 | 3.221 | 3.221 |
| Music | #241 | 3.312 | 3.312 |
Ranked from 77 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game in total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
No. All assets (aside from audio) were done during the jam time.
Comments
Very impressive stuff for the jam! The art is great and generally easy to read, and there's a lot in there that works well. I'd say the platforming itself is a bit weak (I know this is difficult), I would have preferred one less mechanic in favor of improving that I think. Another thing is it's not clear if it would ever end, which makes it so there's less incentive to continue, but I played until the tree was super massive at level 12 (the tree's growth is cool!). Great job!
Yes it was fun and engaging for a while, a decent challenge without being too difficult overall, and the concept is a good one overall of growing and protecting your base. If you plan to keep working on it, I could see something like thronefall-style upgrades being very interesting in a game like this, where you choose different structures for different branches, e.g. automatically protect half your tree while the other half generates more essence for you while you protect it yourself. Oh yeah and I would say abilities like shooting and repairing should have a bit of a cooldown otherwise easy to cheese. Great job overall for sure!
Fun - Super fun! It was such a delight upgrading the world tree and seeing where the roots expanded to next.
Theme - I think you nailed the theme. Growing a new world tree from nothing to the big tree I had at the end was perfect.
Aesthetics - Really wonderful retro feel. I really loved the colors used and the graphic style was right up my alley.
Music - Solid, though the menu screen music just about knocked my eardrums out. I appreciate that your settings worked and I was able to turn it down, though! Not many game jam games include settings (mine included...)
Sound - Sounds worked well and felt excellent.
Mechanics - Really fun mechanics. I loved being able to power up my spear to knock the shielded moths out of the air. I saw some slimes chilling on my tree, however, and I wasn't sure if they were enemies or allies? I tried shooting them a bunch, but they just vibed on, so I left them alone.
Story - Cute story that hit the theme perfectly.
Overall - Really great game! I spent a good while growing my tree and defending its roots. A really solid gameplay loop that I found to be super addicting and easy to lose time to! Well done!
Wow! I am honored with the time you spent to write all of that. Thank you very much. The slimes in the trees, I really should have added a tutorial pop-up for them. They are more essence that you can collect in the day that entice you to go up into the leaves. I could have communicated that better. I was thinking "make them the same colour as the player and the bubbles to make them enticing" but overlooked that making them look like the bubbles (that you shoot) would make people think "Maybe I shoot these" instead of "go up and interact with them".
I appreciate the time you spent and I hope, judging from the sound of it, that you had an enjoyable time. Thank you very much.
Thanks. I think also adding in more bubbles, or vary the speed of them, etc at the start to give more. If time permitted, I was starting to brainstorm what else to do at the start. Your comment is very valid and I'm writing it down on my list with the others ;). Gives me something to reflect on. Thanks for taking the time to play it. I hope you had fun.
A really nice game. I liked the idea of building terrain as you kill enemies and collect the essence needed.
I'd speed up the first part of the bubbles a bit, and maybe put a cooldown on the attack, because otherwise you can spam them and it's easy to defeat the enemies. Very good! Keep it up!
Love this game and enjoyed seeing updates in discord. The most recent changes make it even nicer. Love the little bubbles in the day now too. Very easy to play and get lost in this game.
I think maybe it could be expanded even further but an incredible job for 1 person in just over a week! Well done
Loved the aesthetic. The art was very cool; illustration and pixel art. I wished the movement wasn't so inconsistent however. The variable jump height is a mistake in my opinion because there is no benefit to having the option to go lower than the max height. The charge shot was really cool! The storytelling was a nice addition also. Good job!
Great concept and execution! This was really fun to play.
Gorgeous art. Great concept. Very well explained and detailed game play. Great story.
I love the art! The idea of building up a (tiny) world from a single sapling is very neat.
I liked the arrow indicators which revealed which parts of the tree's roots were under attack, but in the end I found it was easier to run from one side to the other throwing spears than to heal the roots back to full. Losing the roots felt bad but didn't seem to impede the overall goal and I did manage to win by day 11.
There's a bit of graphical tearing in the tree's leaves at higher essence levels, I think a sprite atlas might sort that out?

Way to go on finishing it! Yeah, I agree that some balancing could be done. I think I need to revisit the spawning algorithm for the moths to add more tension and drive to save the roots. Or maybe each root that dies deducts life from the tree instead of the whole chain always only losing 1 health. Or something. And I just noticed that leaf issue earlier today and was just ignoring it for later :P. Something I'll definitely look into. Thanks for playing :D.
I know very well the feeling of ignoring something discovered on the last day of a game jam. 😸
One other thing I meant to mention: I used falling off the platform a lot as a method of quick travel, I'm not sure if that was deliberate design or an exploit. I did feel like I ought to be punished for doing it.
Very neat game. I enjoy the growth of the tree and how the world progress as you play.
You started with a solid premise and built well from this. I'd be curious to see where this goes should you choose to expand on it!
Loved watching you progress in this game. Beautiful graphics and music. Well done!
This artwork is incredible, and I really like the idea. For some reason I was unable to move around or jump. But throwing the spears was fun!
I really like the concept, it's a really unique idea. I also really like how you explain a mechanic as it happens, but the text is really hard to read, at least for me. Otherwise, great job!
Great look and feel to the game.
Such a unique platformer, being able to climb down and up the tree.
Had fun also shooting the bubbles during the day, and hunting down the blobs to mine as well.
Great job!






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