Hello everyone and welcome to the post for Snow n' Grow, my game for Ludum Dare 34. It utilizes the Growing theme by how the snow grows and piles up on the ground. Please enjoy it!
Title Screen:
The title screen is very confusing. Just press play and the game will start. I know, confusing.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is very simple. Students will spawn on the left of the screen and will attempt to make their way over to the school on the right. However, snow is coming down fast and you will need to shovel it out of the students way so then they can make their way to the school. As students get to the school, you will see the slider on the bar at the top of the screen go up. The more students that reach the school the more the bar goes up. Be careful though! The slider is always dropping very slowly. Be careful that the slider never reaches the left side of the screen, if it does, you loose. If it reaches the right, you win.! Have fun!
Hot-Bar (select by scrolling):
(Descriptions are in the order of the hot-bar, left to right)
Shovel: Select the shovel and press s while near snow to shovel snow.
Pause: Pauses the game.
Play: Un-pauses the game after you have paused it or if you are in the shop.
Shop: Enters the Shop, see more about the Shop in the Shop section.
Home: Sends you to the Title Screen.
The rest of the slots are for things in the Shop.
Shop:
As you shovel snow you gain currency. With that currency you can buy things from the Shop. You can see how much currency you have by looking at the small, black number in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
(Descriptions in the order that you would read a book)
Snowplow: Costs 600 - The snowplow plows snow off of the road. Be careful though, it has a small cost for usage.
Player Size: Costs 600 - Doubles your player's size.
Snow Speed: You can choose one of two costs, by clicking the left button you spend 100 and you lower the speed in which the snow is falling. By clicking the left button you gain 100 but you make the snow fall faster.
Bus: Cost 1000 - The bus drives across the road and drops four students off at the school. It has a small cost for usage and if it hits any snow then it will vanish and it will cost you.
Salt: Cost 250 - You can buy and place salt on the sidewalk (place between the road and the school). Snow cannot pile up on places with salt.
Controls:
Scroll to select in hot-bar; You can also hot-key with 1. 2. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Click to use stuff in the hot-bar.
Press s to shovel snow while the shovel is selected.
A:D - Left:Right
Space to jump.
To run simply unzip the downloaded file and open the .jar file.
When people say the controls are confusing it's not perse that the keys are hard to use or anything but it's more a question of understanding what is going on. I was just holding S + A/D to plow the road continuously but I was not sure what the ball of felt patches was for (I now read it was a slider of student presence?), the money you have is hard to see as tiny black letters in the bottom right and once I suddenly entered the shop (the icon did not respond to clicks earlier) I could not get out anymore, only to the title screen and back. Things move quickly in this game and there are a lot of brightly colours, big pixely things vying for your attention and then some really tiny things like the students and you. Also note how if I write all of this in a single paragraph it's harder to read than with line- and paragraph breaks. That's the difficulty.
Not that it's bad but consider we go into this without any context (and many people will never read your (extensive) description but just jump in.)
Was really relaxing watching the snow fall. Worked out you can periodically get rid of a bit of snow and jump not sure what else there was. Cute graphics. Nice.
Comments9
Not that it's bad but consider we go into this without any context (and many people will never read your (extensive) description but just jump in.)
Anyway, good effort.