I don't think poor Minetest has ever seen such quality of texturing before. It even features mostly correct collisions for the stems and flowers! The creator really poured all their creativity in the making of this beautiful exploration minigame, and it shows; its simple, yet well layed out parkour gameplay allows you to look at all the nooks and crannies of the luscious landscape around you. Lets not forget about the soothing ragtime soundtrack, completely composed from scratch and even improvised, just for this Jam: the icing on the cake! If you can't figure out the obstacle in front of you, you are encouraged to attack it from another angle (or flower petal), an experience many exploration games fail to provide; if you are totally lost, just take a deep breath to calm yourself, use the neat level selection menu and go back to earlier levels. In fact, it managed to make me lust for those stars looming over the petals, just mocking the inability of the persevering, young ladybug to fly...
Whatever you do, DON'T give up! The experience is totally worth the effort.
The biggest sin of this game was making me spawn in the air to fall in the void sometimes. A formspec was blank in one level. Like many of the other minigames, it showed some minor issues that I think don't hinder gameplay much, for example a few stems in some levels are shown floating above the ground or vases; but it's a game jam, what can you do? :|
Its calming vibe balances your frustration very well. Bravo!
making sure players aren't spawning in the void in earlier levels;
addressing minor level layouting issues (e.g. yellow flowers are raised from the ground in level "Mid-Term", grass stems are raised from the vase above the giant tree stump in level "Garden");
fixing introduction text to level "Flowers" being printed as error in chat (only occurs in Minetest 5.5.0);
polishing player experience (e.g. maybe create a level where it rains and you are safe inside something, maybe add a node- based kid with a magnifying glass, maybe add a node- based ravenous lizard/ salamander which opens and closes its mouth as platforms).
To everyone else, I did not pay or know this reviewer! (At least I don't know that I know this reviewer)
Thank you for the kind and thoughtful review!
As for the rest of it, let's dive in:
The spawning and falling to your death part is something I have only experienced once in 100's of level loads. It is due to minetest missing packets I believe due to CPU load. Specifically the one that sets your gravity to zero. Which, obviously is very important.....I think I will have to end up sending a "move player back to start" packet multiple times, and make the floor invisible or something in general underneath each level.
Yeah the plant layouts are due to me centering badly on blender. Coincidentally that messed with later boxing of those objects, so now both are wrong together. I don't think it's worth going back and fixing the dandelion one, but I can for the flower pot, as that's an important object to fix up. The issue with fixing it, is that now these "classic" levels will need their own specific flower pot, not the end of the world, but it's a tad messy.
Polish and more flowers/animals/events! I totally agree here, and in fact plan to make future levels and iterations of this game NOT be so punishing in the collision box regard. The idea is that the challenge will come from more puzzle-like aspects than parkour. Think: "okay I have to wait for this ant to go by, after smacking that dandelion, so that the petals are flying by so that the next ant can't see me" kinds of things.
As for the formspec being blank, no one has had that particular problem yet?? Are you using Minetest 5.4.1 for this? 5.5? an older version?
LMAO I can confirm, I didn't receive monetary incentive for reviewing, nor did I know the author beforehand. I just like exploration games, and I recognize effort where I see it; ofc, this isn't the only Game Jam submission where I found it, and I still need to review some. Good luck!
Glad you're looking into it, it's not game breaking anyway;
I see, these are just little issues I noticed; pick and choose what you think is right for the direction your game should follow;
That's pretty cool, new mechanics are always welcome in games ahah!
I don't think poor Minetest has ever seen such quality of texturing before. It even features mostly correct collisions for the stems and flowers! The creator really poured all their creativity in the making of this beautiful exploration minigame, and it shows; its simple, yet well layed out parkour gameplay allows you to look at all the nooks and crannies of the luscious landscape around you. Lets not forget about the soothing ragtime soundtrack, completely composed from scratch and even improvised, just for this Jam: the icing on the cake! If you can't figure out the obstacle in front of you, you are encouraged to attack it from another angle (or flower petal), an experience many exploration games fail to provide; if you are totally lost, just take a deep breath to calm yourself, use the neat level selection menu and go back to earlier levels. In fact, it managed to make me lust for those stars looming over the petals, just mocking the inability of the persevering, young ladybug to fly... Whatever you do, DON'T give up! The experience is totally worth the effort.
The biggest sin of this game was making me spawn in the air to fall in the void sometimes. A formspec was blank in one level. Like many of the other minigames, it showed some minor issues that I think don't hinder gameplay much, for example a few stems in some levels are shown floating above the ground or vases; but it's a game jam, what can you do? :|
Its calming vibe balances your frustration very well. Bravo!
Post- Jam development should focus on:
making sure players aren't spawning in the void in earlier levels;
addressing minor level layouting issues (e.g. yellow flowers are raised from the ground in level "Mid-Term", grass stems are raised from the vase above the giant tree stump in level "Garden");
fixing introduction text to level "Flowers" being printed as error in chat (only occurs in Minetest 5.5.0);
polishing player experience (e.g. maybe create a level where it rains and you are safe inside something, maybe add a node- based kid with a magnifying glass, maybe add a node- based ravenous lizard/ salamander which opens and closes its mouth as platforms).
To everyone else, I did not pay or know this reviewer! (At least I don't know that I know this reviewer)
Thank you for the kind and thoughtful review!
As for the rest of it, let's dive in:
The spawning and falling to your death part is something I have only experienced once in 100's of level loads. It is due to minetest missing packets I believe due to CPU load. Specifically the one that sets your gravity to zero. Which, obviously is very important.....I think I will have to end up sending a "move player back to start" packet multiple times, and make the floor invisible or something in general underneath each level.
Yeah the plant layouts are due to me centering badly on blender. Coincidentally that messed with later boxing of those objects, so now both are wrong together. I don't think it's worth going back and fixing the dandelion one, but I can for the flower pot, as that's an important object to fix up. The issue with fixing it, is that now these "classic" levels will need their own specific flower pot, not the end of the world, but it's a tad messy.
Polish and more flowers/animals/events! I totally agree here, and in fact plan to make future levels and iterations of this game NOT be so punishing in the collision box regard. The idea is that the challenge will come from more puzzle-like aspects than parkour. Think: "okay I have to wait for this ant to go by, after smacking that dandelion, so that the petals are flying by so that the next ant can't see me" kinds of things.
As for the formspec being blank, no one has had that particular problem yet?? Are you using Minetest 5.4.1 for this? 5.5? an older version?
LMAO I can confirm, I didn't receive monetary incentive for reviewing, nor did I know the author beforehand. I just like exploration games, and I recognize effort where I see it; ofc, this isn't the only Game Jam submission where I found it, and I still need to review some. Good luck!
Glad you're looking into it, it's not game breaking anyway;
I see, these are just little issues I noticed; pick and choose what you think is right for the direction your game should follow;
That's pretty cool, new mechanics are always welcome in games ahah!
Posted an issue on Github.