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Blooming Together's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Community's Voice | #35 | 3.655 | 3.655 |
Ranked from 29 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Creative Vision / Rationale / How Did You Incorporate the Theme
Nature is the greatest example of generosity. Not only does it give us everything we need, but when looking at the synergies in an ecosystem, every single organism benefits by sharing with others. Beyond that, the game incentivizes players to be generous with each other and donate resources and seeds to make all the ecosystems flourish.
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Comments
Very relaxing and addictive game, I like that the game is showing possible connection points, it makes the process much more smoother.
Game looks and feels very polished. The random cards and puzzle aspect makes it quite addictive I could spend hours playing this. The online feature of gifting cards to neighbors definitely suits the theme for the jam. Great job guys! By reading other comments I can tell that there was an even greater vision for the game. I am hoping that you'll work to fulfill this vision after the jam as I see a lot of potential for this project.
Nice and ambitious - I really like the online social games in this jam and you made a great one, too!
It really reminds me of this swiss tile laying game "Tantrix" if I remember right :D The game plays very nice. However the social feature didn't seem to work for me - I think I only got cards by nature and not other players.. Is it only current online players or do I also get cards async from people that donated while they played?
It is async and donated cards get queued in the server so you will get them when you log back in. I just sent a couple to all the recent players (the player list on the right is sorted by most recent interaction).
Thanks for playing!
And yes, my original inspiration was https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/822/carcassonne but I really like hexagonal tiles. It was only later that I learned about Tantrix and Kaliko. Both of these reward “path” length with I wanted to do as well but I ran out of time.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4178/kaliko
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/79300/tantrix
I may have spent a little too much time playing this lmao. The gameplay was really fun, I like getting to fit the different pieces together and watching as the fauna expanded. I especially like the visuals and looking at the plants I've grown without all the intersecting segments. I will echo what faedoll said in the comments, I think the design of the puzzle pieces doesn't go super well with the nature aesthetic. Maybe if they were vines instead of tubes? Aside from that, I really enjoyed playing your game, kudos to your team!
I see you also did a flora/fungi inspired game!!
I had fun playing this. It was satisfying and relaxing to place the cards around. Nice work!
I really liked how you visualized the root interactions in your game. I ran out of time on the mycorrhizal fungi, the plan was to have a full ecosystem where we can see the interactions between all these organisms and maybe add some educational content. We need to spread the word about fungi!
I had so much fun with this game! One of my favorite parts of playing was that even though there was a points system, I found that just looking for the placement that felt right to me was even more rewarding. Like placing a tile in the middle of 6 other tiles and watching it snap into place perfectly! I also really appreciate the game showing me where a tile could go because it helped ease the placement process. The multiplayer features were really cool. I loved receiving a gift from someone and sending one back like a little thank you card.
Sooo relaxing and satisfying! I found myself trying to give away all my tiles just to see what it does, collecting the flowers from different players is super neat! The paths and placement reminded me vaguely of the board game Saboteur, perhaps also from the cute lil prototype tile pics you guys included. Ironic, because in that game, you sabotage each other from collecting the treasure, while this one is encourages sharing. A potential takeaway from the board game is that there could be "areas" or "special tiles" you try to build towards. Just another way to incentivize the players to keep expanding.
Your efforts with this one really shines through! Reading all the planned additions makes me excited to see where this goes. Psst, this would be such a great mobile game ^^ Yay team!
Thanks for playing. I think I missed you while you were playing but I sent you a couple flowers that you will see when you log back in. Hopefully someone else sent you some of theirs!
Oh, by the way, the special tiles are there! These are the seed caches. They are initially “hidden” and you were supposed to follow the pollinators there but we scrapped that.
Spoilers: They are marked with some yellow blobs and there is a 90% chance you will find a new flower when you get there. It’s kind of a surprise element. Maybe I should include that in the game page now that there is less traffic to the game and you may not overlap with another player.
And yes, better touch controls and a mobile build is definitely in our plans.
OMG I have white, purple, and red flowers now YAY. I'll check back again tomorrow haha ^^
Great job on the visuals and gameplay, the social stuff was super impressive! I loved seeing your prototype tiles included at the bottom of the page too :)
Ahhh very addictive! I kept on playinggg. Really nice implementation of the theme as well. At first, idk why I couldn’t understand, but as I kept on playing, it became much more clearer, easier and fun. Visuals are really beautiful as well.
Very cool idea and theme. Nice incorporation of generosity with the multiplayer bit too!
Great art and really interesting UI/ visualization of the experience! I would love to see the beautiful visualization applied to all the UI. But overall really fun, unique and cute experience!
I love love love the art for the main cutie with the green hair, but I am Autistic as hell and something about the grey boxes felt too mechanical for the UI/UX if going for these lovely organic-based experiences. I abandoned ship before I could truly get into the game. But! I do intend on coming back and seeing if the d/l version is different as there are screenshots that look different than what I saw!
I understand. The plan was to revamp the full interface to make it more friendly for touch devices but we ran out of time. I’ll keep you posted on that but updates are locked during the voting period.
By the way, before I started working with an artist on this project I was considering this free asset pack to build the UI around. You brought up some good points so I thought I’d ask you, what do you think about this one? https://coarsecurve-art.itch.io/leaf-branch-ui
gorgeous!!! And a very good fit!!! I’m excited to recheck it out tbh!!
I did not realize till later, but I really like the giving mechanic where you give cards to other players. Nice work.
I was still asleep. I wish I had seen you, I’ve been trying to send a few cards to other players when I see new people online. They get queued on the server and you’ll receive them when you log back in.
Don't worry, while you were sleeping, I gave so many cards to many players because I can't get the right cards to finish the board lol
hey Chris here!
I managed to get to 250 points: Loved the simple piano melodies, the theme, and the satisfaction from clicking and putting each tile in! The feeling of these things combined matched the jam's theme well. It might be interesting to take this theme with another gameplay loop, or simplifying this tile-based matching mechanic. I wasn't able to understand the connection between the pollen, the bees, the flowers with the tiles themselves and how it was scored, and there were a few holes in the middle of my ecosystem that I was secretly hoping to get a tile that just perfectly matches and fills it!
Thanks for playing!
There are a few ways you may accidentally soft-lock some spots if you are not careful when placing tiles, it’s part of the strategy. One feature I didn’t have time to implement was the ability to ask other players for specific tiles you may be missing.
Scoring: You get one point for each side that connects, that is, that matches the color of a previously played card. Then the points get multiplied by the card boost at the top left of the card. Additionally, every time you find a seed cache for a new flower you get a specific number of points depending on how many different flowers you currently have as indicated by biodiversity.
Pollinators spawn on purple segments and their kind depends on biodiversity but currently are only aesthetic and do not affect the scoring.
I’ll add this to the game page. I hope it was useful.
I had to stop myself because this game is too addicting. It's a great idea with great visuals with fun game mechanics, intuitive game design, it's hard but makes players want to try more. Great job on this game. I had fun! Thanks for making a great game.
Really intriguing puzzle mechanics, a fun challenge. I appreciate the focus on generosity in the natural world and how we can impact our ecosystem by interacting with it in the real world. Also - I really like the crow cawing SFX in the beginning lol. Reminds me of home
The ecosystem encapsulates the theme very well! I liked the multiplayer aspect of the game. I do wish there was a bit more to the story and gameplay loop that could lean a bit more into the theme. I love how you've done the UI and art! The loop itself, because it's puzzle-based and repetitive, you can really get in the zone and keep building. Excellent job!! This is so exciting!
The presentation is very clean, and the tutorial is well done. Gaia really sets the scene well, and the music is quite relaxing. A game about maintaining ecosystems is an interesting idea, but that idea gets diluted by the gameplay, where instead of maintaining ecosystems, the game is about rotating the cards until you can find a place to put them. Doesn't really allow for long-term strategy.
Speaking of which, you mentioned in your feedback for my game that rotating puzzle pieces with the right mouse button (RMB) did not feel intuitive. In your game, you have the option to rotate pieces with the mouse wheel or on-screen buttons, which work fine on their own. Although the mouse wheel is the more intuitive option by far, since the rotate buttons prevented me from moving the piece around freely. Still, it would be nice to have the RMB as an option as well, as that's what I immediately tried at first. I get that this is a "different strokes for different folks" kind of thing, so do with that what you will.
Lastly, I want to commend you for including networking in your game. It's a creative way to incorporate the theme of generosity, and I know from experience that networking is really hard to do. It's cool knowing that I can give away cards to other real-world players.
Immaculate vibes, UX feels VERY nicely responsive, clean and smooth to use. the gifting aspect is very cool and unique!
Very zen to play, love the mechanical take on the generosity theme