Ludum Dare #46compo

it lives and grows

by julianmh

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.08

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.84

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.79

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.21

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.18

Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.83

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.61

Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.00

This game is about growing plants and keeping them alive. And most of all about growing the perfect plant!

If you like plants and growing things, you might like this game. You may also like this game if you are a fan of procedural content generation and L-Systems.

Since the rendering code is poorly optimized, the game needs a beefy PC to run. Sorry about that :/

Download links explained

The original compo version is the *Windows (XNA)* version. This version requires XNA Redistributable 4.0. For this reason, I recommend downloading the *Windows* version instead. All other versions (*Windows*, *Mac OS*, *Linux*) were ported after the deadline and contain some performance optimizations, but are otherwise unchanged.

Audio category opt out

All sounds are recorded by myself within the 48 hours. All music was produced using Garage Band for iOS within the 48 hours aswell. However, the music uses way too much Garage Band autoplay to allow me to claim it is original. This is why I decided to opt out the audio category.

Tools used

- Visual Studio & C# & XNA Framework 4.0 for programming the game
- FNA-XNA for porting the game to Mac OS and Linux
- GIMP for the background image
- Speech Recorder (iOS) & Audacity for the sound effects
- Garage Band (iOS) for the music

Tools: Audacity, GIMP, GarageBand, XNA

Comments14

Landerack20 Apr 2020, 00:20

Hey~ I tried downloading it cuz I loved the pic. Then read the requirement~ Pls send me a note when it's up. It looks super cute and I really love the music track that you included.

Landerack20 Apr 2020, 17:06

Yeeeees! I am the ultimate gardener!
I really liked that. 'few people know how to grow it' it's a really nice qlue that is just enough info. Really fun :) good job ^^

Moritz1420 Apr 2020, 21:55

Wow the sounds are crazy good! If i could earn money that fast in real life....I love that game!!!

PerfectSquare20 Apr 2020, 22:12

That was a lot of fun. I was just going to grow one or two plants but one thing led to another and now I'm the ultimate gardener! Excellent job setting the tone with the music and art style.

Adam Clayden20 Apr 2020, 22:24

Very nice game and fairly well polished. The water effects and sounds were well made and I had a lot of fun growing different plants!

Pincushion20 Apr 2020, 22:24

This is a really nice game. The feel reminds me of Flower (where you play leaves in the wind) - it's so calming. The window scene and music set that tone nicely.

You really nailed the procedural plants. There were no strange plants that I encountered. They all made sense and looked nice. The plants also grew so smoothly. In general, performance wasn't an issue for me.

The mechanics were simple, but I still needed a minute to figure things out. I couldn't figure out if/how to sell the plants at first. Small money, but I was half way through before I realized that I could sell my old pots!

Really. Great job!

Lex22 Apr 2020, 11:10

Got to say that I'm the ultimate gardener.

Nice game, great mood!

AFlatThrasher2 May 2020, 18:02

Well that was a lot of fun. Simple, but kept my attention. Audio worked very well, too. I had to keep playing until I grew that last tree!

natpat2 May 2020, 22:10

I'm really glad I played this - the game I helped make was also a plant growning/tending game, so it's really interesting to see how others implemented it. I really love how your plants look and grow - the leaves swaying, growing up and sprouting new leaves - it's really great to watch. Having a few different plants to grow and different ways to take care of them was fun. I liked having to puzzle out how make money most efficiently and how to grow the star tree correctly! The sound effects and music were extremely fitting and worked very well with the game. Great entry!

dcrdro6 May 2020, 14:16

Technically interesting game . Liked thriving and withering effects. Generally athmospheric game. But unfortunately I'm bad garderner :(

Voidsay6 May 2020, 17:23

Had a look at your code. Was presently surprised that you actually generate the plants. I would have just scaled an image and called it a day.

Igor KinGamer6 May 2020, 23:51

Pleasant game! Oh, my two startrees almost died while writing this comment XD

It would be nice to have something like costumers asking for specific plants (and sell them at higher prices), and maybe some incentive to challenge yourself to be faster. Also, it could be interesting to have fixed places where you can place the pots instead of anywhere. I also didn't figure out things like how to sell at first.

jk50007 May 2020, 06:36

This is overall an interesting and very relaxing game. I like both the music and visual style. The gameplay was okay, but I had a hard time earning much money. Overall is this a good compo game. Well done.

Literal Games9 May 2020, 11:26

Very relaxing and impressive plant generation. Your theme is very similar to our game but has a totally different feel - I love the geometric shapes in the plants and the different growing methods. Would love to see this expanded!

Other games by @julianmh

compo

Populists Land Use Simulator

★3.79

LD42

compo

Mr. UN and the small world village

★3.50

★3.81