Cultivate Post-Mortem (and Favorites!)

Hello there! With just over a day remaining in the voting period, it seemed like a great time to finally write up a post-mortem for my experience this time around. I’ve included my favorites/recommendations of the entries that I’ve played so far at the end of this post.

Of course, if you haven’t played the game yet I would love to get your feedback! Visit the game page here:

Cultivate is an adventure/visual-novel-like game about a day of high school.

Overview

This was a really interesting Ludum Dare for me – the second I’ve completed an entry for (and the fourth or fifth that I’ve actively attempted.) The idea of an adventure game with binary choices that lead to branching paths seemed like it might easily get out of hand and too ambitious for the compo, but I wanted to attempt it anyway. If nothing else, it would be an exercise in limiting scope – something I usually struggle with in game design.

Ultimately I ended up with an entry that I’m really proud of: despite a few issues it feels reasonably complete (though I would have been pleased to add music!), and represents the original concept well.

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