Aunt Emmas

by gagapete

co-authored: @exozetart

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.46

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.07

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.98

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.79

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.11

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.25

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.88

You've always dreamed about running your own delivery service for vegetables and fruits in the city. When your aunt Emma retired she gave you her old store with a small garden behind it and some money to pursue your dreams.

During the day you have to take orders by clicking on the ringing telephone. To complete them, you have to harvest fresh fruits and vegetables from your garden and bring the right amount and type of fruit or vegetable to the basket.

At night you have time to take care of your garden. Use your earned money to plant new vegetables and fruits. Maybe after a while you will get new varieties?

The game ends when your aunt tells you there is nothing more to achieve but feel free to play further to plant the garden of your dreams.

:mouse_three_button: Controls

Click to move and interact

Genres: simulation

Tools: Godot

Comments22

jward2 May 2023, 05:22

Gorgeous graphics and mood. It was a little hard to get started / not sure what to do. I planted some potatoes. Then a basket sometimes showed up with something that flickered inside? But nothing really seemed to happen. :thinking:

LDJam user 1842642 May 2023, 06:09

A good concept and nice art, but I found the path finding to be annoying. It seems to favor going to the side of something instead of the nearest spot or staying on the garden paths. Another tweak I would make it have the orders hover over the baskets at all times instead of needing to hover over them with mouse, as it took me a good few minutes to realize why they would seemingly appear randomly for a moment before disappearing.

exozetart2 May 2023, 10:27

@jward thanks for your feedback! agree, there's definitely a tutorial missing. we'll at least update the "how to play" description here on this page soon :)

@darkwolf thanks for the critique! we'll add this to our list of improvements :heart:

Flokami2 May 2023, 11:12

I hope my vegetables grow this well ! Nice art !

aryazaky3 May 2023, 15:50

The magic crops' expiry date is in 1 day. Many crops were wasted. May you all rest in peace, crops.
Ghastly baskets and phone. They only appear suddenly at daytime. Wait, does that mean they're un-ghastly instead?
Poor aunty, never got her long wished berries because I don't know how to send these berries to her.

Okay but seriously, this is good. But the daylight duration is too short. Those customers haven't seen my full power yet! If only I have more speed.

What happens when the field is full of potatoes?

Samantha_V3 May 2023, 17:27

This game is super cute! I love the graphics. I wish there were some animations with the character sprite walking and such. I would prefer to use WASD controls as well as the mouse, as my hand started to get tired with a lot of clicking ^^;

Overall, great game and excited to see more from you!

Calamador4 May 2023, 06:26

Very nice mood set by this game. I really like the cozy music in combination with the fun daily lifestyle. I will say that after playing for a few days my finger got tired of clicking so much haha. Also the phone call was a bit louder than I would like for a chill game. The sprite work was amazing though! All the different fruits and veggies looked so tasty! Also the day/night cycle was a good way to split up the time between hectic harvesting and selling and setting up for the next day.

SvenErik4 May 2023, 18:27

Very cute graphics and a relaxing game-play, could say that it had a harmonious feel to it. Though I would limit the amount of clicks in the game, when planting, just choosing it by number on the hotbar would be enough and would lessen the amounts of mouseclicks a lot already. Some background animations for extra- motion would have been nice too, but all that I've said can be done after the jam, as I know about how time constraints one so much here. A really neat game though in overall, loved it!

ciderpunk4 May 2023, 23:42

business advice: answer your phone from the other side of the table to double your productivity! ...or better yet get a handsfree headset! maybe that could be upgrades you could buy? great game, has a real one more go factor

LDJam user 2574385 May 2023, 05:17

Man the gameplay is bit fast for me
Other than that i is great game

Also play my game!!

jakelazaroff5 May 2023, 05:32

Love this! So cozy! The graphics and music gave it such nice vibes. Only comments would be that it'd be nice to have some sort of indication when the day is going to end, and I feel like the more expensive fruits and veggies should sell for more. I do like the multiple moods of it, though — it was kinda nice to be tending to the garden after frantically trying to fill the orders during the day.

JHax6 May 2023, 11:12

Took a bit of time for me to hit a good rhythm with it but devised a good system for stocking up on stuff before the first order starts coming in. As everyone else is saying, vibes are really, nice chill atmosphere to the game even if the gameplay can get a bit frenetic!

Kler6 May 2023, 11:24

Fun game, and I love the graphics!

Although compared to the chill gardening experience I expected, this was super stressful, having to run back and forth with such a short day cycle, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I do wish the phone ringing was less stressful though, and that there was an indicator of time passing during the day, as I was never sure how close to the end of the day I was.

Would also be awesome to have keyboard controls :)

Vladadamm6 May 2023, 22:20

Cute little game, I especially like the graphics with detailed pixel art (though it lacks some small animations) and trying to make a pretty garden is quite fun and chill.

As others said before, the pathfinding could be improved as our character often takes the long path to interact with stuff. The day cycle with handling orders is too short and quite stressful with the phone ringing up every few secs and pretty much not being able to do much other than round-trips between the phone & caskets. That doesn't fit that well with the chill gardening experience.

Dongle7 May 2023, 19:47

I'd like to share my perspective on the other comments. Although it's possible that improving pathfinding or adding WASD controls could be considered in the future, the game seems to be functioning well as it is. The game's main objective is to progress through the story by buying and selling, which it accomplishes admirably. I think what you focused on was a good use of your time.

I particularly enjoy the gradual unlocking of new seeds for purchase, and it feels like the game's economic balance is well-executed as I never struggled with money or felt like it would take too long to purchase a new plant. Overall, it's been a lot of fun for me!

Tyler M9 May 2023, 00:54

I really liked the pixel art and the music of this game! I imagine it was a time thing, but I would have really loved to see a walk animation on the character sprite. I'm also someone who is sensitive to high-pitched noises, so I recommend editing or swapping out the phone ringing noise (or just using it less often). I hope you continue to push this concept further in the future; this could be the beginning of a really awesome game!

AlexSolonnikovP49 May 2023, 09:05

Very interesting game. Oh well, you should save money. Interesting idea. The game hints that summer is coming :) Good job)

LDJam user 3382349 May 2023, 22:09

Very cute graphics and it's fun to unlock more crops. I like that there's a day & night cycle as well! The phone ringing did make me quite nervous, maybe substituting with a more relaxed sound/a single ring or delivered notes instead could work! The notes from aunt Emma are very sweet and add a lot of warmth to the game :)

LDJam user 2024089 May 2023, 23:14

I enjoyed the gameplay loop of this game, the mouse based movement is definitely an interesting approach and having different objectives for day and night keeps the game engaging and interesting, the mechanics are simple and very easy to understand, I think this can be expanded with more vegetables and maybe more ways to deliver them, maybe even having a restaurant where you plant your own food lol listen to me ramble.. the pixel art is also really nice! great work with this game!

LDJam user 010 May 2023, 00:02

I like the gameplay loop, reminded me of the last LD theme Harvest! the artstyle was charming and the sprites conveyed what they were aiming for, but I do have some issues.
I wish i could've used WASD, the pathfinding felt weird
the ringing of the phone is REALLY loud, so when i was jamming out to the music i got blasted.

fuzzybut10 May 2023, 17:49

Wonderful graphics - I love these sims. I played like 30+ days because I didn't notice the comment saying you're done after you get blueberries haha. There are a few features that could use polish (like pathfinding as everyone has already mentioned, or walking animation), but I'm sure given more time that is achievable. I noticed once your inventory is numerous enough, the inventory bar becomes greater than the screen width and you can't see the rest; might be nice to have a scroll feature there. I think it's a great effort for a good-mood game. Thanks for the entry!

Yngvarr14 May 2023, 19:51

The game looks so cute! I like how you didn't bother with walk cycle and went straight into what's important - game mechanics! That's the way to prioritize (no irony, I truly like it)!

The game idea is great, but the early stages feel a bit unfair. Why are people order something I don't even grow? One day I couldn't make a single sale because everyone are carving tomatoes, but I don't have a single bush of them.

Also, it would be nice not to remove all the active orders when the time is up. It's infuriating to see the basket go right after I clicked it. People have no patience round here! :) Which is fair, considering how fast the days pass by.

All in all, I enjoyed the game. Thank you! Here's my playthrough:

Other games by @gagapete

★3.23

★3.15

★3.80