Hi! This is a topic for posting your feedback on the pre-release-version of Symphonies Garden.

The game is still in early development. It is currently in Alpha stage: it's a vertical slice with most of the mechanics, the gameplay loop, and an ending. There a still a lot of content missing, but it is playable and should give you an idea of the final product.

For now, I need to collect feedback on players' understanding of the game. I'd like to know:

• How well did you understand the game's rules? Were there some confusing aspects? Are you still unsure about some mechanics?
• Was the UX easy to read? Were there informations that you didn't get?
• Are there instructions you wish the game had provided? Regarding your session, do you feel you'd have a better experience if you had some guidance?

One of my goal is to implement a short tutorial for the game. So I need to know how players understand it as it is, what is intuitive and what is confusing.

You can play the game here. It's a browser game, you don't need to install anything. A complete play-through takes about 5  minutes.

Thank you for your replies!

Hi! Just stumbled upon this from your Bluesky! I don't know if you are still looking for feedback, but here's mine:

Game rules: I played the game just once, and I am not sure I understood it all. It seems that harvesting seeds then plant them again always leads to having a lot of seeds available. Then using the buttons below leads to different "gardens" where this strategy can be repeated again until you can access new gardens. If the garden is full, a special seed can be harvested. Is there something more to it? I didn't find it difficult at all, and that seems to be on purpose, to focus more on exploring the music.

UX: no real problems with that, maybe the buttons below to teleport to different gardens could be bigger..?

Instructions: I personally like games that feel a bit alien at first, with no explicit instructions. That said, a smaller garden with just two tiles as an introduction could have done a tutorial impression without actually having one that tells you what to do.

Feedbacks are always welcome! :)

It seems that you got the rules pretty well. It isn't a difficult game indeed. In fact, it is almost an idle game, without really any challenge. The purpose is mostly exploration and enjoying the musical experience.

And I also enjoy games that have very few instructions and require to experiment to understand how they work!^^ Although the tutorial idea you propose is close to one I also had in mind. But I eventually realized that it creates some challenge in the design, and seeing that all players until now understood the rules by themselves, I decided to put it aside and keep the current minimalist introduction.

Thank you for your feedback!