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A jam submission

HarvesteradoView game page

Defend your farm with your six shooter in the old west
Submitted by mattlawr (@mattlawrdev) — 8 minutes, 58 seconds before the deadline
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Harvesterado's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall polish#583.9353.935
Overall#593.8173.817
Creative use of art assets#683.8713.871
Engagement#1273.6453.645

Ranked from 31 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Very interesting controls. Hard to start but very cool game!

Developer

Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

Very nicely done! The aiming and shooting is very satisfying, great job!

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted(+1)

Really nice game. It was complete in many ways and the level of development was incredible. Many details that kept me very entertained. I’ve enjoyed how you introduced the mechanics and the nice tutorials along the way, it was crazy!

Developer

Thanks! I really wanted to let each detail slowly reveal itself.

Submitted(+1)

Incredible!!! I loved the fact that you can play with one hand! such a well thought out game! great!

Developer

Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

I really loved the game feel and the progression system, but I'm just not a huge fan of the control scheme.  Just my personal preference, and mad respect for trying something new!  Im sure if I took more time I'd get used to it, and even with me having trouble it was still fun to play!  The tutorial was fantastic too!  Great work!  :D

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted(+1)

This is very cute and visually effective. It wasn't clear to me why control was completely through the mouse buttons. That felt awkward compared to splitting it across mouse and keyboard. It took me several goes to figure out the reloading mechanic, I kept ending up with just one bullet in my gun and not knowing why. I think it's a good mechanic but a bit of a hint about it would have been nice, if there was something in the tutorial I missed it.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! I had the idea to try and make an FPS that could be played with just the mouse and I pulled a lot from Resident Evil tank controls. I felt it would suit a slow survival feel more than traditional WASD controls would. If not for these ideas, the game would’ve been split across mouse and keyboard.

I definitely agree that some aspects should have been given more tutorial time though. It sounds like there was some trouble with feature that will cancel your reload if you aim during it. I see now that might be a bit too sensitive, maybe I should cancel a reload only when you shoot during it. Either way, thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

solid game. It is quite difficult but loved the unique controls and just overall polish of the game.  Good job :D

Developer

Thank you!!

Submitted(+1)

Interesting survival far west game! I was blown away by the mouse only control system which is really clever and works pretty well! 

The only issue for me was the difficulty which was too high for me, I would have like more hearts and/or less damage per second.

Otherwise, your utilization of the art assets is very nice, now I'm convinced that we can do Red Dead Redemption with this art kit :D

Overall, good job!

Developer(+1)

Thanks! I definitely want to smooth out the difficulty curve as a future improvement.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Hoi great alteration on the art kit. Never would have though of making a desert version^^

game was a bit difficult for me, i keep getting destroyed by the snakes. (i just suck)

my best was day 33 after 6 attempts.

But i see that there's alot of quality to this game, Solid tutorial also!

I wonder what happens at day 5 O_O

Developer

Thanks, worked hard on squeezing the tutorial in there, glad it was worth it!

Submitted(+2)

It is hard to judge how much I enjoyed this game. On one hand, the game feel is solid. The sound design is very satisfying and the feeling of using the revolver with the screen zoom, aim reticule, and the recoil feels very smooth. The upgrade system was pretty fun, once I figured out what was worth upgrading. It is an interesting mechanic to be encouraged to leave the home base to scrounge for extra resources, but having to always be ready to rush back to defend your crops. I like the concept of tying thirst and health together, made for a very tense mechanic appropriate for a small game like this. I liked being able to pull enemy aggro just by pointing the gun at them; it added an interesting risky option to help me defend the base.

On the other hand, there were many frustrations that ate at me throughout the experience. The kick input is very awkward; it could stand to allow a larger window between the two right clicks or ideally just dedicate another button to it. I had a bit of a conveyance issue on my initial playthrough when I thought I was doing damage, but it was just the enemies flashing red from presumably muzzle flare? There were mildly annoying technical issues throughout; mainly losing focus on the game window whenever I used middle mouse click (I eventually swapped to reloading with "R") and when transitioning to a new day. I would have swapped to the downloaded version, but I tried both 1.0.0 and 1.0.2 on my Windows 10 machine and the mouse sensitivity was far too low and seemingly unchangeable. It is frustrating how fragile every structure is. Crops only take 2 hits to die, and defending them is made even more annoying by the fact that there's friendly fire. Bait and barriers felt like traps to upgrade since they  would only stop one or two attacks. Maybe that's fine, with how short the game is. What isn't fine is the gunmen. Extra range makes them strong enough; they don't need more damage. With the combo of large, fast moving ranged projectile, 2 damage, and worst of all piercing shot they easily destroy the ENTIRE field of crops you've been growing with one shot. They ought to at the very least make a louder and more unique sound from other enemies so you know they're coming. Getting blindsided by them multiple times felt quite unfair and very nearly put me off from finishing the game.

Some exploits:

-extra ammo does not seem to reset between lives. I could collect 8 ammo packs, reset the game and still start with 8 ammo packs.

-I was free to use night time to collect ammo and break open cacti for water since fatigue doesn't tick during that time. Maybe that's intended.

The core of the game is very good and definitely appeals to me. With the limited resources there was always a feeling of living on the knife's edge which I figure is what you were going for. It feels like it could be easily expanded if you wanted to do so. Even as it is now, it would only take a couple tweaks for me to be fully satisfied by it. Great work!

Developer

Wow thank you for the in depth feedback, it means a lot. You hit a lot of helpful points here, especially the short kick window. I plan to fix the mouse focus issues in a future patch, I didn’t have time to fully test the WebGL build unfortunately, and I also seem to have broken the sensitivity in the Windows build. Sorry about those frustrations!

The flashing enemies is a short muzzle flare effect, I had a hunch that would be confusing but I never got rid of it before publishing. Perhaps I need to tone that down to prevent confusion!

I honestly added the ranger enemies in very close to the deadline, and had little time to test their fairness. I agree about the damage being too high, and the crops being a bit too weak.

Also, surprised you got so many details right! The exploits are both small decisions I made to help players get the edge in between rounds if they would desire; I felt it was unfair to take ammo away from players, so it only gets reset if you have less than three ammo packs.

Thanks again for the criticism, I’m glad you enjoyed the game feel and core concepts!

Submitted(+1)

Amazing game! For me the mouse sensitivity was a bit much, but other than that really cool use of the assets and awesome gameplay! Couldn't play too much cause my internet sucks, but I am so looking  forward to playing a Windows version if you plan on making one!

Developer(+1)

Thanks! There is a Windows download that should work.

Also, PSA: there is a sensitivity slider to the right if you hit P to enter the pause menu while playing in case anyone misses it.

Submitted(+1)

Just noticed them at the bottom, my bad! will update once I get a chance to check it out!

Submitted(+1)

Super engaging! I couldn't put it down, but alas I had to! I think I'll come back to this once ratings are over, and give it another shot. I think the cowboys may be a bit powerful, they seemed to destroy my whole oasis and me very quickly.

Well done!

Developer

Thanks, glad you want to play again! Yeah the ranger enemies are really strong, it’s an achievement to get to the later rounds honestly.

Submitted(+1)

Fantastic game well done !

Developer

Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

Amazing game.

Nice aiming, punch..... Also i like controlling with only mouse, it interesting.

Your game is my favorite so far!

Developer

Thank you, glad you enjoyed!

Submitted(+1)

Best game I played in this jam so far, it took me more than half an hout to beat it. Very polished an challenging, congratulations!

Developer

Thank you! Congrats on beating it, that’s awesome.

Submitted(+1)

This game looks awesome from the screenshots! I wasn't able to go far because Im on a laptop with trackpad and cannot play with the mouse only mechanics. Congrats!

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks! FYI for anyone with a trackpad, the alternate keyboard controls should be bound to arrow keys for turning and ZXC for moving/shooting, reloading, and aiming if you want to try it that way. But unfortunately the game is designed for mouse controls first.

Submitted(+1)

reminds me of RE4 but it's really hard to get use to controls

Developer(+1)

Yes very inspired by RE4! Sorry about the unconventional controls though.

Submitted(+1)

Shooting is very satisfying, well done game :-)

Developer

Thank you! :)

Submitted(+1)

Surprisingly atmospheric, and I like the mouse-only controls in a way, it keeps it from being generic. I like the mechanics, and the "place items in the world" bit surprised me.

Perhaps it's a bit too tough, even without getting hit my health runs out very fast. I'll try again, this time exploring more. Also, the crops feel a bit too vulnerable if I'm honest.

Developer

Glad you liked those qualities, and thanks for the feedback! It definitely could use more balance on the resource management, and maybe a better way to teach it in the tutorial.

Submitted(+1)

this is so slick. i really, really hate moving forwards with the left mouse but everything else is super impressive. placing down the wooden wall in the top down perk screen and having it appear in the world like that is amazing. if this had ASDW controls i would play it loads. 

Developer

Thanks, glad you liked the perk screen! Sorry about the unconventional controls, wanted to try something new (been playing too much Resident Evil 4 lately).

Submitted(+1)

i think it was not being able to walk backwards that really fucked me up. the monsters would be approaching and i would need to reload but the only way i could move was forwards so i was kinda just running into their jaws all the time.  maybe you could have a quickturn button like RE4 bound to S. i really liked the double click kick on the right mouse button too it feels so heavy and satisfying. 

Developer

Yeah that’s fair, a quick turn would’ve made moving around much easier.