Play "Gardening Simulator"
Mind Garden's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #46 | 4.338 | 4.338 |
| Presentation | #300 | 4.095 | 4.095 |
| Overall | #862 | 3.419 | 3.419 |
| Fun | #2355 | 2.676 | 2.676 |
Ranked from 74 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
This game is about a person whose emotional state is "growing" out of control. The objective of the game is to try and maintain those emotions, before it's too late.
Did your team create the art for this game during the 48 hour time slot?
Yes
We created all art during the game jam
Did your team create the audio for this game during the 48 hour time slot?
No
We used pre-existing audio
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
I love this, the art is stunning, the ambience is brilliantly maintained. Everything fits together very well. I do feel it's so well done that you may want a warning at the beginning, as this does tread on some dangerous territory. Possibly a few more options on the activities bar that are not solo, friend, therapist, family, etc. I am not entirely sure if there is a win state or not, and I don't honestly know whether there should be one or not, but I do like the idea of beating the plants back. It's a delicate balance of them growing and retreating. This was a beautiful and emotional trip, thank you for building this.
Thank you so much for all of your praise, it truly means a lot! And that's a very good point, I'll probably add a warning at the beginning of the game once patches are allowed.
A unique idea but, no matter what I do, the emotions get out of control.. Is there no way to win the game?
To be honest, the game was not very fun to play, all we had to do put up actions in the book and watch the garden grow... I could not figure out if there is anything else to do...
You can probably make a better one next time though :)
Very good art and presentation! Kinda sad to be honest, but I guess that's part of the atmosphere!
Hope everything's going ok! I'll bet it's hard to explore these kinds of genres.
Yeah I actually found myself getting a little moody while working on this haha, but it also felt therapeutic. Thank you for playing! :)
I really like the presentation. It fits well with what u r trying to convey here.
One thing though, I really don't know if I was playing it right or wrong, as the issues keep increasing no matter what I do, Is it by design?
Thank you! And yes it's by design :) Depending on how you pick the activities you can either stop the growth of one plant, or reduce the growth of two. In hindsight, we could've played around a bit more with the values, along with making it more clear what each activity does xP
Yeah that would have been more clear to the player.
We're going to update the game afterwards to fix some issues, so perhaps then we'll play around with making it more clear :)
I dislike the idea because it might make some people affirm their depressed mental state and mental loop. Not fun at all and less of a game than an interactive experience. Just made me sad
That's fair, thanks for the input. Kodey and I both are very familiar with mental illness as it’s been an ongoing struggle in our lives, and this game is a way to reflect our experiences. But I totally get how it could make others uncomfortable.
Such a tragic but true illustration
Thank you so much for playing our game on stream! :)
Some amazing graphics, circling purely on one idea, being able to execute it perfectly, allowing for more features and a gradual build up of out-of-control-ness!
That's a good point, thank you :)
Very unique idea which is very well executed. The music and art was simply beatiful. Really well done game.
Thank you! :)
Relevant themes for these times, and is very unique compared to other games from the jam! Great game!
Thanks! ^_^
This was definitely a unique experience. The aesthetic worked well. Probably not my style of game, but I still found it interesting. Overall a cool submission.
I'm glad you still found it interesting, thank you! ^_^
Not my kind of game, but I did find it interesting, and it definitely did a good job of conveying a narrative.
Thank you :D
Pretty unique experience. Never saw a jam game that is about mental health, and this one has a nice immersive presentation. Good job!
Thank you! :)
I really like the art! It's a pretty interesting and creative idea and fits the theme well. It has a fitting atmosphere and I like the idea of using growing plants to represent emotions. Good job!
Thank you! :)
Really creative and interesting idea, I felt the game managed to convey the characters emotions through the garden and facial expressions very well. I probably think that eating and sleeping should be set in the timetable everyday since in reality if you had the option between the activities, you would just pick eat and sleep every time since not doing so has huge negative impacts. Despite this, the game was still very atmospheric and an original take on the theme, great job!
That's a very good point, thank you for the feedback! :D
I think you created a very effective, introspective experience. I think the visuals and the control scheme worked well for me, and felt kind of foreboding as the vines grew closer and closer each day. I think if going further with this, I think having more varied visuals and effects for each of the options might have helped me try them more than once. I think once I tried everything, I just kept trying Exercise and Meditation over and over, and avoided medication because it only made me marginally more happy. Only once Meditation stopped working did I try branching out, and then I noticed while everything else stopped working, Exercise and Medication seemed to keep saying that they were making me happier, although the visuals didn't support this so I wanted to mention it in case it was a bug. Great job on this, it felt like a really unique and clever take on the theme!
Thank you for your feedback! :) What you've described is actually the mechanics of the game working as intended, however we really should've made it clearer how all the different activities affect the garden haha. Thanks for pointing that out and taking the time to play! :)
The concept of managing your emotions from getting out of control is really interesting (and I really like the art that accompanies it as well!) One thing to note was that despite the text, I felt like a lot of the options were superfluous and weren't having an impact (doing stuff for happiness (exercise, eat) was still making the sadness plants grow). Perhaps it's a theme of existential nihilism? Either way I enjoyed myself! Well done to you two :)
Thanks!! :D
Saw it on the Taco stream, amazing game!
The great visuals and music make it very touching!
Love your game, great job! :)
Thank you for the praise! :)
This is difficult to rate, it touches on things one does not usually seems on games, the ui could use some more polishing but the art and music works well.
Thank you for the feedback! :)
I really like the idea behind this game. As soon as I entered, the soundtrack really set the mood quickly. One major flaw here is that the book seems to be having some serious screen scaling issues. I think I am seeing only a fraction of the book. I tinkered around in the properties on my win10 to no avail. Please fix the issue, I wanna play this game.
Sorry about that, it was an oversight on my part--I'll have the book scaling fixed as soon as updates are allowed. Thank you for trying to play the build, and sorry it didn't work out!
Out of curiosity, did you try running it through the itch.io app?
Gorgeous game, and you bring the intendet feeling across really well. Top marks there.
And I realize that that's the point of the game but I feel like I wasn't able to accomplish anything, no matter what I did. So it's a cool experience, it's really creative and looks great.
But it's not that interesting from a gameplay perspective.
But creative ideas is exactly what game jams are for, so great job!
Thanks for your insightful feedback! :D