Save the Tomatoes!

I had a BLAST playing this game. It's a perfect blend of strategy puzzle and spammy, going-to-town fun. I really liked the sound effects (that shwoosh!). At first I was surprised that holding down W/A/S/D didn't keep you moving in that direction, but then I realized how crucial each step was, and didn't mind retapping. The levels and mechanics are really interesting and fun, several times I went back into a level to eradicate the weeds even though I had 'passed' that garden. Nice job!

I love the mechanics of the game. Although I must say that I don't feel a 100% in control of what happens (like it's hard to understand how much time passes when you cut vs when you walk). I'm stucked at "When Vines Attack", don't know how far I am into the game! I'd like to go back to it and finish it at some point, but right now it's more than my brain can handle :P
Great job! The theme is original and the experience is quite nice.

Well polished puzzle game!

Great job! I really enjoyed it. Clever puzzles, a good amount of challenge, and cuteness.

I really enjoyed playing this game. The only thing that stopped me from playing is that my fingers became tired after smashing w a s d so many times.

Makes me want to play Stardew valley again. Good amount of variety with the levels. I know that it's time consuming and risky to add content as most players won't play games to the end. It was nice to see the strategy & puzzle aspect increasing steadily with though but into the level design. Game is turn based so player can take all their time to think their next move.

Game fits the theme 100% and is innovative. Mood is okay and could be enhanced with more detailed pixel art and work on the audio side. I didn't get the music to play in Chrome. However it played nicely on IE, but won't loop, so it just plays once. :( Nice relaxing country music fits the game nicely. As for the sound effects, swiping sounds nice. Walking sound and the "thud" you get from bumping into a wall could be clearer as they are barely audible, especially when music is playing.

I don't know if it was planned or just emergent gameplay; when I left some vines alive which didn't threat my precious tomatoes they actually ate bushes that grew on top of them the next round, providing extra layer of protection. This strategy failed however when the seed buffs attacked the roots of the vines and my defensive line of vines stopped growing. I think I found myself in the middle of plan war! I played until the "When Vines Attack" level, which I couldn't complete. The addictive gameplay is carrying this game for sure.

Controls work as they suppose to. Pretty simple stuff.

Graphics are adequate. It's easy to identify different bushes and tomato plants from each other. Texture outside of the wall could be something different than dirt for variety. One thing bothering me was the fine font. It contrasts too heavily on the roughness of pixel art. It also has smoothing on, which doesn't fit the pixel art. Consider using rougher pixel font.

Overall I think this is my highest rated game so far. Nice!

I loved it. The graphics remind me of harvest moon snes/FomT, and I really like these type of games. The gameplay is also unique but quite addicting, I lost quite some time playing this.

I retried the stage below a lot of times, but I can't seem to stop the vines. I'm not sure what I should do, I realized that depending on the way you cut them they grow in different directions, but I didn't know how to exploit that.

Anyway, really lovely game. Oh, and the music, did you guys make the music? Used some kind of program? While I find most of the music made for jam somewhat annoying after some time, this one is incredibly relaxing and the game is still in background playing the music.

The only downside I can think of, is that sometimes to clean all the weeds you just need a lot of time. The game loses some of it's puzzle aspect, and it's just you going from one side to the other cleaning the weeds faster than they can grow, but still slowly. I did like the idea of an "extra" achievement though, so I don't have any suggestions on how to improve it.

And again, the game is awesome. Hope there is an version with a more gradual difficult curve later.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! @sohakes We used LMMS with a MIDI keyboard and a free VST guitar plugin to make the music - an improvisation on the pentatonic scale (the black piano keys). We were hoping to go back and clean up the timings a bit, but didn't end up with the time to do it. Glad you liked it!

Very efficient game, polished, smart. One of the most solid I played so far!

goooooooooooooood work!

Neat game! Quite polished and some levels were quite difficult, good jam!

Fantastic game! Engaging and lovely. It is really nice to see how much thought you put into designing each puzzle! Nice! :)

Clever puzzle game. I like it!

Nice idea!
The game stayed fun because of the new types of weeds introduced.
I had to really prioritise which weeds I was going to cut.

Very nice work!

loved that happy sound after passing a garden, haha. it was really fun, thanks for your game! some nice level design there.

Loved it, fits the theme well and plays nicely. The puzzle difficulty was great too, it ramped up at just the right pace.

@rafiki @keppu @sohakes Here's a build of the game that has all the levels unlocked, so you can try them all without having to beat each one in order. There are 16 levels in all. Enjoy!

Save the Tomatoes - Unlocked (Win, Mac, Linux)

Save the Tomatoes - Unlocked (HTML5)

That's awesome, thanks @fractalsunrise!

Cool little game! Unfortunately I didn't play all the way through, i got stuck on a level and I had other games to grade. But from what I played I think you made an interesting and fun game with cute graphics and fun levels. The concept is based off the theme and incorporated well. Never have I found gardening to be as much fun as it is here. Great work!

I'd like to give some constructive criticism, but I can't find anything you could've done better. The game is really fun and has a nice feeling to it. The levels are well-designed and the gameplay is nice & simple just like your graphics. Probably as good as a ludum dare game can get. Well done!

I didn't know libgdx could also create webgames, i should look into it some time. Does it have well-maintained documentation? And did you need a mac to export the jar for macOS?

@proafkboy Yes, LibGDX does provide a way to do an HTML build. It mostly relies on GWT, an open-source project that compiles Java code into Javascript web applications. We used LibGDX's recommended project setup tool which generates Eclipse project files for us (you can check a box to include a GWT-based HTML project), though we have found that these sometimes need a bit of manual tweaking afterwards. (For example, we usually need to change one of the parameters Eclipse passes to GWT to increase GWT's allowed RAM usage in order for our projects to compile in GWT properly.) Our experience has been that LibGDX's documentation is often lacking, but general web searching for specific issues is usually good enough for us.

We did not use a Mac to make the .jar file (we don't have one). The three links above all point to the same .jar file, since Java is cross-platform (LD's website only has specific platform links available to choose from).

My feelings about the game went from "Uhh do I just smash these buttons" to "Ouuuuhhhhh I gotta plan this" lol. It's very fun, and I enjoyed it! Props!

A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good.
Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)

A very solid entry. The overall quality is great, and the game is really fun to play. Highly recommended.

I loved the cheering upon completing a level. That "Yay" really gave me a sense of accomplishment. I like how the fast you moved the quicker the weeds spawned. It made it so you couldn't waste movements later in the more difficult levels. Good job!

This puzzle game is pretty unique in this jam, furthermore it fitted the theme perfectly. I loved every moment of it, so I don't have much criticism to give. You guys made a great game!

*Just another day in the backyard...*

Really feels like this should actually be a real game from the past, in the best way.

Fit's the theme great, and has unique puzzle elements. I think spamming the keys to move is a bit clunky but I really can't complain as super similar movement to my game lol. Solid game with peaceful music

Simple but fun, I never imagined the job of a gardener would be this struggling. Really like the difficulty curve. Last level took me so much tries x_x

10/10 would get dandelion PTSD again

this was fun - but it also reminded me that i have some yard work to do - thanks for making this game

This was super fun and my friend and I loved it! The graphics are adorable and music is enjoyable as well - and the levels were all so unique! One of my favourites this LD :)

Oh yeah i love this game !! he is really huge !! Super nice work in the graphics anyway. A big GG !!

Great Game!