Oh wow, thanks for taking a look at my work! Your use of randomization is really interesting and I'm a sucker for using randomizing, so you can probably see some threads of inspiration!

Just wanted to say that playing Seedship is what inspired me to try out building my own games. Loved playing this follow-up and wish you all the best success as a dev!

I wasn't able to play this, but I read over the documents. It seems like there is the seed of an interesting game here and I think if the rules were tightened up a bit it could be effective. The nature of using things on hand makes it feel almost like something people play together when they are at a climate change protest! The theme is great and I really loved how the message you are telling is woven directly into the gameplay itself.

Notes taken while reading:

I like the components section to explain what's needed to play. i like how you could play this with anything on hand, such as dried beans from the pantry

> Players are Yanomami, at farming - this line is confusing

image of gameplay board is blurry

really loved the theming of indigenous Brazil with miners being used as a blocker, great way to incorporate the theme with gameplay. Calling it the Sadness is simple but effective naming!

cost for actions: how do we see how many points we have?

the punishing nature of the gameplay looks like it helps drive home a message about what the Yanomami are facing

Couldn't play the game myself but watched the walkthrough. I liked the overall setup of having a farmer teaching the player the ropes!

Notes from watching video:

phone sound is a bit too loud and annoying

voice is a bit hard to understand, subtitles would be nice

lol, i like that there are jokes

tv, food interaction is a fun detail

background music is nice

this is the same layout and images as secrets of the seasons, was it the same creator? or asset pack?

i like all the details about farming practices

windmills in background are nice

looks like player is clearing away weeds?

I really loved the concept of this game. This feels like it could be developed into a really nice educational game for parents to play with their kids! The core gameplay is really solid and seems to be built in a way that you could expand out variety in a lot of different ways, such as movement buffs/debuffs, different types of trash, different microbes, etc.

Notes taken during gameplay:

the wiggly text is fun for a start link, but hard when it's directions for gameplay. decomposer and recycler are clipping into the link below it

i love that this is a 2 player game!!!

the swirl fade out is a nice animation

pretty music, very peaceful

ran out of energy, press spacebar. Pressing spacebar doesn't do anything

the background is simple but effective and I like the highlighting around the different things to compost. the main gameplay bacteria sprites are cute and reinforce teaching about compost. Love the wiggling cilia as movement.

i like the regenerate logo on the splash page, may use that as well for next build of my game!

the noise when first hitting spacebar to start game is nice

so hard to keep energy up with just me playing lol edit: got a lot easier, maxxed out the bar by winter!

nice sound effects on composting and gathering energy

i like how the screen zooms out if the players split up, however it makes the falling objects fall to either side of the compost heap and out of gameplay

need restart button, having to refresh whole page and start from intro to try again

upper right hand UI gets weird after winter ends, year doesn't update as well

I like the varied terrain, it adds navigation difficulty to getting different pieces of compost

sometimes objects get stuck floating in the air if the item they are on top of is composted

seasonal background changes weren't very noticeable until winter happened

music gets a bit too dramatic and distracting in some spots

gameplay is sold, but after a point there isn't much variety or challenge. Some story, different maps and different types of things to compost (or even avoid composting!) could help keep the gameplay engaging as the game goes on.

It took me a bit to figure out how it worked, but once I did I thought it was quite fun. It would make a nice mobile game - I like how the deck dealing mechanic opens up the door for a bunch of variety, excellent design there. The graphics are so beautiful and the UI is awesome! 

Here are the notes I took while playing:

adorable art style and nice button style. Font could be a bit nicer, maybe shadow added to buttons. Logo is awesome but could use some thin outlines to help make the individual elements pop, especially the letters and the bird against the black background

starting story section. cute music, wonderful art! I love the skew and pencil, great way to learn in to the jam's limited time and enhance a sketchy style for speed of production! scrolling text sound quickly gets grating, text is a little hard on the eyes while scrolling. ui looks very clean and crisp.

skipping to a new page mid sentence makes it hard to follow the story

is there a page missing from the story? It ended at "at his house," but then went to stage select

back button took me to main menu, was thinking it would take me to story. S to skip avoids the printout, on first play through I thought it meant skip that page of story

i like the audio feedback on button clicks, sound is fun and fits thematically in the game, few errors - playing on mouseover, playing twice when previous/next spawns after clicking next in tutorial 

tutorial is nice!

ooh choose a deck? Intriguing... what did it do?

this game board is awesome, great art and layout

oops i think i skipped a day. Slick animation on that!

skipped all days, got to loss, back to stage select

how do I get more tills? I noticed plants grew randomly when I just skipped turns. Do I need to plant everywhere?

i planted a carrot and it said -5, -5 what?

puzzle piece isn't doing anything when clicked, i assume this is compatability menu

oh no, crows ate food! Nice animation on them, they ate it so fast though!

used the rain. Ohhhh i get it now, it's a deck of cards, like a board game. Oops guess i used my weather card

inconsistent having to click the plough but drag the seeds

counter for days it at 3, watering can says 15 uses but could only water one plot, clicking on others doesn't do anything. are they done growing? Do i need to harvest?

i planted everything day 1, not sure what I should be doing

i lost, ran out of turns?

oh i figured out the compatability menu, it's a drag, that's confusing. Wish it could be toggled open

cut card doesn't seem to work, unless it does something other than the plough button.

i like the alert sound when crows appear

music repetitive

ohhh use the plough to harvest, that's why they can't be watered

more seeds could be another possible reward for harvesting, I got free turns

i won, +1 star!

stage 2!

how many points are plants worth? Like if i get -5 points for planting incompatible is it better not to plant?

doesn't look like there is a stage 3

I can't seem to figure out what to do. I can plant trees but can't figure out controls if I need to steer the bug. I'll give it a replay if you let me know how the controls work!

Notes taken during playing:

clean pixel art style

not sure what's happening here though

can't seem to click the bug

clicking on plots plants trees, pretty

planted trees everywhere...

restarting

tree doesn't stop bug. Need a restart button. Am I supposed to steer the bug?

The game's day time was 2:30 when the screen dimmed. 

I really liked this game and I would 100% spend way too much time playing something like this on mobile. It's very addicting and once I figured out the core concept, the gameplay felt very easy - it's the tactics which are hard. Really good job with the design of this! I hope you continue with this and develop it into a full release. Had fun playing!

Here are the notes I took as I played:

would like to have music

i like that there is a tutorial and example image!

ok, this is cool, I have to build windbreaks

are trees all that I can plant?

how does stopping wind work, I'm seeing wind animation go through trees

what are the glowing yellow dots and what does the dinging mean? ding is VERY quiet

how do I get more plants?

I think I picked the plant that was growing, but sell button didn't seem to do anything

oh just noticed the shop button. Gonna buy everything I guess. I liked the detailed information when you've clicked on an item. Would like that same info when clicking on it in inventory.

no failure message when attempting to buy more than you can afford

aha the elephant grass attracts the sparklies. I wonder how big a range this has

ooh the tip bar is nice

oh the dings are when plants are ready

planting anything on the top border kills it

acorn seeds can be planted to...make more acorn seeds... they block wind during this time so could be used as an exploit for free temporary wind blocks since so many are grown by the trees

ok game over, let's try again

why is the wind going through 2 rows of trees?

oh no i clicked and dragged from inventory lol

are the dings bugs? I dunno what the dings mean

coffee beans aren't centered in box

wanting some sort of feedback for when I buy stuff, like a button press down or audio event

oh duh I see the light up box now around the harvestable stuff

coffee image looks to be going blank when it can be harvested

don't like how the defensive purple flower is lighting up, keep harvesting it by mistake

would like a button to sell all harvested items

ok lost again but got the hang of this. Accidentally painting all my trees in a terrible formation didn't help lol, but that could be a concept you use for different game modes with like prelaid maps and different gold amounts or items in the shop. You could remove trees entirely, make them expensive, not sell the axe, tons of different ways you could build challenge levels by just adjusting the base design!

ok round 3

naw i started badly, a restart button would be nice, have to quit game to start over

shop sections (eg seeds) should be in order of cheapest to most

need pause button

i like how i can harvest and keep the selection for left click

purple plants never seem to take wind damage

same types aren't stacking, eg multiple stacks of acorns

can plant harvested stuff, will create new stack when harvested

can sell seeds and stuff like the purple plant - gives extra money if done right before end of round, so you basically can plant these for free

I feel like I might be missing part of the gameplay. All I can figure out is to shoot monsters. If there is more I should do, let me know and I'll give it another play!

Notes taken during playing:

oh, got launched right into the action!

I'm a cute little soldier dude, are these crabs attacking me?

music doesn't really seem to fit

the chicken on top of the house is awesome

is this all hand-drawn? It's got a cute vibe to it. Reminds me of old old games, like Turrican

how do i use the CHAINSAW?!

enemies move so fast and then push me, I end up just spamming click versus aiming from a distance

do I have a health bar?

hard to control gun aim

what are these gold stars in the middle? edit: in your screenshot it shows that as a UI bar showing seasons. On my screen it's in the middle of the map beneath rocks.

guessing the purple stuff on the ground are random void zones

can I plant? 

might be missing some of the gameplay here, can't figure out what to do except kill monsters

Cute game, reminds me of Stardew Valley meets Zelda! You did a great job envisioning player progression by adding more expensive plants and plots to save up for. Adding in more to do would help may the gameplay loop exciting as the seasons progress. Nice work producing something so cohesive!

Notes taken during my gameplay:

intro screen is visually interesting, could be polished more, like a border around the title box. Background is low rez compared to buttons, creates some visual conflict

nice music, reminds me of stardew valley

nice tutorial, very helpful. Inventory button could use better highlighting, wasn't sure what button it was referring to. Having players do the actions during the tutorial can help reinforce their memory of what the commands are, versus just showing them.

i like the little village. Can I interact with anyone?

villagers walk through buildings

shop menu: the separate tabs for selling are confusing - will I be getting seeds to sell?

I can enter negative values into the seed amount field to receive gold (I'm spending negative 50 gold, so that means I receive 50 gold), need to use absolute value when processing this and/or forbid negative sign being used

entering negative values into the sell plant box results in negative gold

faded background from shop interaction didn't go away when i left, whole screen has a dark overlay

how do I use tools, forgot tutorial, it's selected but can't figure out how to use. same with planting. Gonna restart and try again.

second try. Dragging is an odd mechanic, not very intuitive.

good use of strength as a meter for player activity to make them choose actions

planted, time for sleep I guess? Going to explore first. Nice job making a fully boundaried game world which players can't escape. Layout of the world is easy to navigate and the design is cute and consistently themed.

good use of buying new plots and more expensive seeds as a way to give progression as gameplay advances

i like the circle fadeout/fadein to next day. consider locking player movement during this animation.

next day, oops forgot to water

watered, don't really think there's anything more I can do today, need some more gameplay besides the planting to fill up the day

next day, plants have advanced in growth! are they grown? How can I pick them?

next day, aha there they are grown! Great work making it clear they are grown with the white outline. Click to harvest was nice and easy.

eating plant works to restore strength, seems to give a big amount!

there seems to be some clipped art/border stuck above my sprite's head when moving

would be nice to see how many of a plant we have in the sell menu

able to sell plants!

does season affect planting?

ooh, it's raining, nice random weather effects!

seasonal rotation is odd. We start in jan/summer (fitting for NZ), but then go to month 2/spring. then autumn. I like how you included seasonal variation in the art!

What a fun project! I love how much research you did for the questions - you really nailed the educational spirit of the jam. The gameplay isn't much, but I think this is a great template for future projects. The slick art made this a very fun version of trivia and I liked testing what I learned in the jam!

Notes I took as I played:

very long installation

had to download a lot of extra stuff :/

music a bit too loud. Curious music choice

LOVE the art style, the spinning die is cool

font is too low res against the high res background, style is nice tho!

die roll and screen tilt is cool effect

instinct was to click the box next to answer, not the answer

nice audio feedback on answer

I like the questions, definitely feels like you learned from the jam, good way to test us all on what we also learned! Love that this is educational.

why do i need to hit space? Feels like i should just be able to click everything. have to click out of the answer window for space hit to register. Now I have to use keys to select?

flickering in background trees, view is edge of spring, umbrella in bottom right

haha i love the innertube on the kiwi for summer!

dice shadow is cutting off, half is off the bottom edge of screen

only just realized that the tiles have different themes

aww cute little autumn scarf on the birdie

santa hat not quite right for winter if this is focused on NZ, they have christmas during summer in southern hemisphere

no real effect for wrong answers

will I get more questions if I keep going? Will I run out? Will they repeat? guessing these are randomly pulled from different potential lists based on type of tile I land on. If not already done, consider using something like a master list which you use to build a current list, then do something like pop + random functions on that so it will remove the value and not repeat questions. When the current list is empty, you can recreate the entire thing using the master list. This will get you random question variety without repetition.

super cute 

I can't seem to figure out how to play. Clicking on the different plots doesn't do anything. I'll play again if you can give me some instructions! :)

Notes taken during gameplay

interesting icon, looks like a skull?

buttons beneath play can't be clicked. Corn icon is cute.

the little dude is cute/creepy

would like sound

looks like enemies are spawning, is this like tower defence?

can't remember what controls are

lost. unsure what to do

round 2

clicking on plots doesn't seem to do anything

round 3

can't figure out how to play

It says I need microsoft visual C++ runtime and directx runtime.

Absolutely stunning art. The music is nice, though it didn't start playing for me until after a season or two had passed. Love the intro story and thematic framing of the game. The controls felt a bit clunky to use, but I think it would translate well to a controller or mobile game. Gameplay got a bit frustrating by the end since if I didn't plant properly and didn't notice soon enough I couldn't really do anything except watch my meters go down. I think with some further development this could be a really nice little game, maybe include story about different places that Ora goes to! Great work!

Notes I took during gameplay:

Love the name, instantly intrigued, makes me think of a cool 90s rpg

gorgeous splash screen. Amazing font. Sets the scene/theme immediately

nice wave sounds

love the starting story and the sketches framing it, well written and nice layout

lovely UI, fits theme well. Did you guys do this jam last year? the style feels a bit familiar, i'm vaguely remembering another game that felt similar

wood and woven textures read well. Stones (ora back plates?) ringing the play area are nice, like the moss. Ora itself looks awesome, nice use of villager cluster at the neck nape to put the assets together in a clean way. background of island in the mist is awesome. ambient details like birds are nice, though the falling leaves make me wonder where they are coming from. The sticks to indicate plots of earth are great.

love the meter at the bottom, the rope is a great touch. Unsure what it means, maybe time between seasons, or ora going somewhere else?

ok what do these different baskets mean? and the meteres in top left?

mouseover icon for interaction is great and reads well. Popup has great styling. I like the details about the plant use. Are these real plants or ones made up for the game? Font could be a bit nicer. Grow icons help explain the bottom meter, at this point I'm guessing it's a timeline for transition between seasons

mouseover showed plant interaction. Right click instead of left is odd, oh it removed them, maybe that's why it wasn't primary click...

can I rotate the camera?

ooh story, guesisng this was triggered by season change? Oh no, looks like it's a sad game over. Poor Ora :(

round 2

oh, the plants have bugs near them now. Or...sparkles? Can't quite tell.

there is an icon over my head, orange circle/brown circles on either side/leaves on top. Dunno what it maens. it's been following me ever since I clicked the basket with the shape that looks kinda like a turnip (top left basket). Oh, clicked a plot and planted something. Ok guess that means I am carrying a seed

ok, got it, planting now! now, does it matter what I plant? Guessing I have to fill the meters on the top left. All planted, do I just wait for the next season?

Oh nice, some plants grew. Oh, it looks like the meters are going down - the hollowed out design made me think they were already empty and needed to be filled. Making the meters raised instead of embedded, or showing them in a different color, may help this read more clearly to players

sun season. Music only kicked in now. I like the gong for season change, a popup might be nice for at the least the first season change to help explain what's happening

oh imma die, i can't grow any more turnips for another season lol. edit: looks like they are growing anyways in sun season. edit2: oh I see, there are two different types of tubers. 

movement feels a bit too slow for all the picking I have to do

maple leaf season. Warning about stocking up on fibers and flowers!

can't appear to harvest mauflower. or...it has 3 stages of growth? it finally grew.

i seem to have planted pretty well, so gameplay at this point seems to be just picking plants. WASD feels a bit clunky here, would be nice to just use mouse for all of this (feels like it'd be a good mobile game for easy controls)

can I win? Does gameplay change?

nice, snowy art!

Snow season music feels absolutely perfect for the game. The season before didn't seem to match the theme, I think there was piano?

moving backdrop is gorgeous, but often covered by the popup UI. Missed that there was even much there for quite a few seasons.

didn't grow enough fiber before snow season, so kinda just had to sit and wait for the game to end.

round 3

gonna try more actively replanting this season. Slow movement makes it feel a bit frustrating with how short seasons are.

You can keep ripe plants unharvested and harvest them later during seasons they don't grow. Useful if meter is full to hold, but might trivialize later content. Plants give a lot more resources, so instead of picking when done, I'm standing around waiting until meter has dropped

a bit frustrating to see resources going down, but can't do anything but wait for growth

Game doesn't appear to be available.

This was a solid core game loop with slick graphics. I liked the tutorial animation - it was simple, easy to interprest and effective. With additional challenges and upgrades, this could be a nice, chill mobile game!

Notes I took while playing:

music is ok, but a bit discordant

graphics are clean, font is exciting. Cloud next to march is clear indicator of weather. my instinct is to click the button, feels like there should be a popup here.

I like the coin icon

like the hand dragging tutorial

can't view shop if 0 gold. closing shop bar after hitting x takes a little bit too long

planted stuff, but told it's too hot. Can't undo or buy anything else. Flowers grew anyways.

animation showing +# beneath coins is laggy, it's showing up after i've bought from shop

I like the numbers under the plant pots showing how many months are left.

slideup shop ui covers next month button, which means I have to move my cursor left to hit x, wait for it to close and then move my cursor all the way right to click next month to advance month. Changing layout or adding that button to the shop menu would create less friction in UI

gameplay peters out once you get enough money. Need more upgrades, challenges, some way to spend the money or grow in off-season, some way for more difficulty

I loved the cute vibe this has. Amabel is a well-made sprite and you have some pretty assets like the pumpkin and the well. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to fight off the birds - if you let me know how to do that, I'll give it another play!

Here are notes taken while I played:

Cute growing animation on splash page

music feels a bit too high-pitched for my old ears

I like the soil, looks like chocolate bars :D Well is pretty, scarecrow is cute

amabel is a cutie, I like her little hat

protector pumpkin is cute, I'm guessing it's autumn?

I like that there's a tutorial

I see tools on the ground, guessing I'm going to pick them up

nice menu design. Would be nice to have some feedback about making a selection, eg sound when it's made, changing cursor or soil mouseover

tells me to pick up water bucket but doesn't explain how to move. Tried clicking.

no feedback when filling water at the well. Because the bucket is on top of the well, amabel was behind the well's sprite so I couldn't see that the bucket had turned blue inside

nice visual feedback with the darkened patch after watering. Great animation detail on this with the wavy outline, really awesome design and detail

birds came and ate my seed - how do I defend?

what is this countdown over the scarecrow?

picked up pickaxe, hit e (which dropped it, swapped me to water can) then got a game over screen. Score 0. Protector Pumpkin still has a dialog up and end tutorial button still displays.

round 2!

it's a bit confusing having both click interactions and button presses

still can't figure out how to defend against the birds. There must be a keypress I'm missing. The tutorial text just says "Pefect, now you just need to defend the seed while it grows."

Ohh, the recycle meter makes more sense now! I hope you continue, I'd totally play this on my console. I loved following the story, got a little misty-eyed at some of the details like grandpa's chair (a special message when cleaning up the cans there could be a gutpunch).

Can't install via the itch app: TypeError: Cannot read property 'build' of undefined.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thanks for the report! You can currently spam the explore option to see all the birds and get to the end, but that's not very fun :P Hopefully I'll have a fixed build up soon!

This was an interesting concept and I think you did a really strong job of creating a core game loop. Future updates could perhaps include balance tuning and introduction of obstacles - the game feels pretty easy to beat and I don't feel like my choices were that important to victory, so changes like tweaking spawn/growth rates or introduction of tension (birds steal seeds, plants die from not being watered, etc) could help make the game feel more tricky and engaging. Overall, I think this was great and I'm impressed at how much you achieved in the short time!

Notes taken during my playthrough:

font is hard to read

birds are cute

sound is nice

what is this thing in the middle of the screen? a sprinkler?

plants appear to be generating on their own

i clicked a tile and put down a plant, can't seem to put down any others. it's grown bigger. now it's mud?

nice detail in tooltip. what is syntropy?

bottom right, white square saying empty, what's that? edit: shows seeds

are these glowing dots seeds? How do I get them?

commands in game would be helpful, have to have second window up

commands have a nice range, I like that I don't have to be right next to the tiles. Why even have a character though? Feels like I could just scroll the map and play, would be less work that navigating a character

scythe animation is cute

1234 is confusing. What are the crop layers it's showing? What does that mean? When I click 4 it has multiple images stacked together. Are these crops I've planted or potential crops I can plant? Edit: walking around it shows some 3d depth, which looks pretty cool. The art here is very interesting, I think a bit of tweaking would help make it easier to read when not moving.

i like seeds being automatically picked up. Nice noise. Is there a limit to what I can carry? Stopped picking them up. some are still being picked up. what triggers them spawning? Weird to see them in fenced area outside of gameplay.

do I need to water? Seems like plants are growing fine without it.

watered image is too green, looks like a plant. composted image is also too green - these two are hard to tell apart and it took me a while to realize they were even being added to the tile.

can repeatedly water/compost the same crop

what are the brown and tan square shapes?

oh, seems seasons changed. I hit abundance without realizing it. Would be nice to have some updates/animation/popup/etc to convey season change. I think I won? Edit: Congratulations popped up after playing around a bit more. Cute screen, fun sound of river returning.

Oh, I did get one from the shop, but when I tried to plant the E icon just spun in a circle.

> Seeds: none | Items: feather4 setup.items[_item] - make for loop here

Haha yeah some debug/to-do notes slipped through.

>you've got a bunch of times where if you click lokk/listen/etc you get 'undefined' attributes
yeah, not sure why it's not working, thanks for the update, adding to my to-do list!

>didjeridoos are indigenous australian instruments if you want to keep on them there are a bunch of maori and pacifica wind instrument
Awesome tip, thank you! The call sounds so similar to that and I put it as a placeholder word and of course completely forgot about it. That link is perfect!

>the 'continue' text could probably be a bit more contrasting
Yeah, I think i'll change it to buttons. Might restyle all the link text, CSS was kinda slapped on 11th hour

>All the maori legends stuff at the start seem a bit heavy handed just to have it in there. The narrator doesn't seem culturally knowledgeable yet they can riff off a bunch of legends. The narrators former companion is set up as the one who knew stuff. It would make more sense narratively is that stuff either came from the bird, or the narrator was looking at books or journals left behind by the companion.
Great feedback. I might add some more interactive elements early on to tell the story more organically.

>I got to the point where no matter what plant i tried to plant i got 
Yeah, this was bugged and didn't have time to fix. I added a hacky workaround to just spawn any birds you haven't found yet by randomly exploring, versus having to grow the right plant type XD Top priority bug!

>I tried, but i gave up on the ending when i got to my third line of seeds in the UI

lol, I knew I should have added some sort of logic to this list!

>Overall though I think this is a solid entry
Thanks so much for the great feedback and your bug hunting! Very much appreciated!!!

Thanks! We had fun learning phrases to include!

Thanks for hosting the play session! I had a lot of fun :)

I loved the beautiful artwork and the seasonal progression. I enjoyed how it helped teach about plant and soil life cycles! I was able to collect 7 plants.

Notes I took during my gameplay:

download is launching unity webgl player, doesn't run, switched to html

flyout on right hand side is in awkward position, have to scroll screen to select it

i like the greyed-out vs color to indicate plants you've identified. would be nice to have a bit more text here to learn about plants

maybe seasonal growth should pause while alamanac open? Went through 2 seasons looking at plants lol

i like the tooltips on mouseovers, could round the edges to make them look more polished. Multiple words overflow box (wet, water, shadow)

how do I plant?

seasons changing while in pause menu

what do stars mean? edit: oh, tracks gathering

the screen scrolling feels smooth and fluid

i like the seasonal noises

nothing is growing, restarting game. plants growing now

ding noise on start is thematically at odds with the rest of the game

pretty illustrations

ooh I can pick shrooms. sometimes hard to select. Are these the only things I can pick?

oh I was able to pick a tree

can't figure out how to plant, I assume I need to do that to unlock the rest of the plants

I loved the beautiful artwork and the seasonal progression. I enjoyed how it helped teach about plant and soil life cycles! I was able to collect 7 plants.

Notes I took during my gameplay:

download is launching unity webgl player, doesn't run, switched to html

flyout on right hand side is in awkward position, have to scroll screen to select it

i like the greyed-out vs color to indicate plants you've identified. would be nice to have a bit more text here to learn about plants

maybe seasonal growth should pause while alamanac open? Went through 2 seasons looking at plants lol

i like the tooltips on mouseovers, could round the edges to make them look more polished. Multiple words overflow box (wet, water, shadow)

how do I plant?

seasons changing while in pause menu

what do stars mean? edit: oh, tracks gathering

the screen scrolling feels smooth and fluid

i like the seasonal noises

nothing is growing, restarting game. plants growing now

ding noise on start is thematically at odds with the rest of the game

pretty illustrations

ooh I can pick shrooms. sometimes hard to select. Are these the only things I can pick?

oh I was able to pick a tree

can't figure out how to plant, I assume I need to do that to unlock the rest of the plants

I thought this was really well done and very thematic! The spreadsheets + rules + almanac were a bit overwhelming at first, but the emotional story and beautiful art made it fun to figure out! Loved your theming of this game and I hope you can build that app for it you mentioned!

Notes taken during our gameplay:

pretty images in manual

story is nice. I like the detail of the iguana changing color for emotions

ooh interesting story twist - are they alien astronauts?

I like the broken english used to indicate their rough understanding of the language

reminds me of sentinel island 

oh nice illustrations of the people

role assignment by age is cute

i like the familiar creature for villager creation, gives players something cute to latch onto for immediate engagement with their character

beautiful illustrations, very evocative with lots of personality

lots of different tabs. almanac as pdf makes it harder to resize

would be nice to have a table of terms. What is XV?

example year is a useful page to have to demonstrate gameplay

fun moment where game plan immediately is set awry by the wrong weather, good way to band players together right away

life portents are a great way to encourage roleplay, nice open-ended choices allow players to easily make story on the fly

i like the different potential strategies available with the planting choices

seasonal progression is a bit confusing to get the hang of at first

would be nice if spreadsheet automatically updated when season changed. also would be nice to see output for plants in spreadsheet

when does gameplay end?

should I be getting plants every season?

thematically, the game feels cooperative

future addition: crafting during harvest/respite? turn plants into other objects to use, eg as solutions for random events (healing salve, food for feast)

concept is solid, numbers need tweaking for fine-tuned balance

I had a lot of fun playing this - it feels like it would make a great console game, especially if it was fleshed out with more story throughout the seasons as the main gameplay loop becomes a bit repetitive eventually. I loved all the storytelling details through environmental interactions. Sadly, I got to day 12 and couldn't progress.

Here are notes I took as I played:

nice music and ambient noise

long loading

quit just freezes game, doesn't minimize back to itch window

this is cool, fps?ish? surprising, not what I expected

ui explanation for far more is simple and easy to understand - the f button graphic is nice

background box and text in UI could be slightly more polished, maybe slight color gradient instead of black, different font, maybe some text shadow

red recycle bar, yellow charge? together the two kinda remind me of radiation warnings

farm view is cool

what a sad old house :(

plot needs cleaning...how? Maybe I walk there?

hmm, why can't I turn around to look at the house? clicking helped fix it, was only able to rotate view like 270 degrees - had minimized game to type in here, maybe an issue cropped up when returning

sunflowers are pretty

chainsaw and gas tank and rope...who owned this house?! :P

switching screens (eg alt tabbing to notepad) changes music track. Liking all the songs

like the detail of mud on the truck, axe in the tree, rope swing, clothesline. Good scene building

ooh found a greenhouse. Nice UI instruction with the click icon to pick plants

ahh my lightning bolt is dropping. takes energy to harvest

pretty long range on harvesting, nice, don't have to take a bunch of steps

wrong error message appears to be displaying - energy is at 0 but attempting to harvest is showing me one of the random "plant not ready to be harvested" messages. I think it should be giving an error about energy level being low? I like the randomization here. messages are well written. Sometimes 2-3 messages pop up instead of 1.

hmm how to restore energy

oh i can open greenhouse door, looks like the door doesn't have collison, walked through it 

proper display of no energy message when attempting to clear yard. looks like all the apostrophes have been missed or stripped from these messages ("im so tired" "I just dont have the energy" "thats it for the day"

love the random messages with the pond, now i want to go find other features. Some messages in this list are missing periods, the one about swimming days

reflection of sun off water is nice

drifting specks in air is pretty

truck has interact (hand) icon instead of chat (speech bubble) icon. extra a in grandma/grandpa ("aa very long") message. I guess I have to learn to drive stick - ROFL, love it

ok i should probably rest

oh no it's locked

clicking chimney makes pretty sparks. Not sure if it's doing anything. Looks like toggling fireplace on/off - from the outside?

water tank has interact not chat icon. Maybe not bug, maybe I interact with these later?

view can clip into water tank and outhouse

lol, the outhouse messages are great. Few more punctuation errors.

produce stand is so cute, messages about its decline tug at heart strings. can clean up here even with zero energy.

running away into the hills! does the world have a boundary?

Beautiful image of the game world from far off up the hill, the golden specks are really pretty

ahhh i ran off the world and now i'm having an existential crisis, it's just grey nothing... maybe add invisible wall at game world boundaries

ok restart, clean some junk this time as well as harvest again

swing interaction is great, maybe slow swing animation a bit

hmm where is key

swapping to download client instead of browser afer seeing itch page comments. much faster loading time (obviously, lol)

oh wow how did I miss the letter on the greenhouse before? handwriting may be tricky to read for some users. AH switch text button, AWESOME. default font could be a little nicer

wooo stocking stall

wow I got a lot of tomato (85?!)

hmm is there any downside to placing all my stuff up for sale? Will it rot if not bought, or is everything I put up just sold? Saving a few in case

can't get mouse focus back in game when alt-tabbing during the stall inventory screen, have to close and reopen to interact with UI again

oh duh the key is for the workshop, house is unlocked

zzzz bedtime

oops double bedtime. total sales $0 :(

can clip into workshop from stairwell

wheelbarrow has interact icon but doesn't seem to do anything

yay cleared enough to prepare soil! Oh, no energy, darn

"add all" button to stall would be nice

wonder about seasonal/variety bonus, seems like the variety bonus is the same no matter how many types i have

can clip under the stairs and get kinda stuck, takes a lot of backing out to get mobile again

should it be total sales: instead of total sales.

ooh it's raining today! hmm house is leaky, some is coming in by the stairs

aww my recycle meter has gone down!

ok plant time. Plant cost - does that mean it takes 3 brocoli? I sold all mine...

ooh just found letter by the bed, great story details here - this seems really important for the player to find early on in gameplay, maybe make the player start in the bedroom after waking up with the camera facing the letter, make it glow? I think finding it earlier would make gameplay better

grandpa's handbook is REALLY useful, but it's also information dense. Maybe once read, add it to the UI for access in the future without having to go back to his workshop. Good writing.r

there seems to be an almost translucent panel in the left side of the screen. Didn't notice it until I read grandpa's journal, where the dark background makes it easier to see

i'm not sure if planting is working. It's taking my energy, but I get told "confirm to cultivate plot" but nothing happens. Animation is showing ploughed dirt. I like how the terrain updates real time!

ok next day, some plants have appeared. hovering it gives cultivate option, trying that makes plants disappear... Gonna just leave it, not sure what that's doing. 

would be nice if the info in farming view updated to show what was planted/how far along in growth it is, when hovering over a plot with something planted in it

still dunno what my recycle meter represents

Looks like gameplay is basically this from here on, harvesting when plants are done. staying in bedroom and skipping days. This would be nice if there was story to introduce variety and progression, like people visiting the market or receiving letters in the mail.

day 12, game seems to hang. Just displaying "total sales." and then no amount and no way to start the day.

no way to save game :(

Ah, how do I select a seed? I'll give it a try again.

Thank you for the nice feedback!

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback. 

The UI issues are helpful to hear about - I didn't spend much time testing screen size variants, so I'll make sure to work on the layout on my next build. I definitely agree that I should make the rest link more visible. I will turn both it and explore into a button. 

The planting does get buggy once I introduce more plots. I *think* I know what's going on, but I'm going to sit and give that a fix, since it's a pretty big part of the game!

I'm happy to hear that you were able to get to the end of the game! Completely missed that layout issue and added </div> to fix it - great bug catch with an easy fix :D

Thanks again for the helpful feedback! Our musician's info is here: 

https://liam-hotter.itch.io/

   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChvCdyE-puZm-vLB_7r0vAg

They will be releasing the soundtrack onto spotify!

Thank you for the reply! Here is our musician's info:

https://liam-hotter.itch.io/

   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChvCdyE-puZm-vLB_7r0vAg

They will be releasing the soundtrack on spotify!

Considering changing health to stamina and making you fall to the ground if you run out so you never 'die' but you have to sit around for a bit. This would be combined with putting in a timer so you have to reach the end of the level before nightfall (when bees can't fly around) which would be the 'game over' condition ... what do you think ?

I think that could be interesting, maybe give players some way to bypass or mitigate this effect - having to sit doing nothing isn't very fun, but losing/gaining speed or collecting buffs feels engaging. Having the stamina affect speed sounds cool, then the player would directly feel the effects of their good/bad play through the game movement.

Absolutely, just let me know when you want another playtest :)

I let it sit for a bit and got to a few thousand but now I kinda wanna go and see if I can hit int overflow with all my gains!