After some time spent reworking the prototype made for the LD33, the demo of my bonsai-growing game Eda is out!
I warmly recommend the desktop version, the game not being optimized for web.

> Play/Download through GameJolt

> Play/Download through itch.io

Thanks again to the Ludum Dare community for all the feedback and advice during the earlier development stages of the game.

I hope you’ll enjoy the experience!

I’m currently reworking my LD34 entry, a bonsai-growing game called Eda.

First  of all : thanks a lot to the Ludum Dare community for all the useful feedbacks on the first version of the game!
Many of these insights are now implemented, and contributed dramatically to improve the game and motivate me to push it further.

The LD vesion of the game

The original version (playable here) allowed the player to choose the branches he wished to grow. The player had overall limited agency over the tree’s evolution, and the game presented little variety outside of diverse planting pots.

My LD 34 entry Eda

The current version of the game

In it’s current state, the game presents two different shaping tools : growing and pruning.

It also features now :

– different varieties of trees to choose from or to grow randomly
– different planters and little carpets to choose from or to randomize
– four seasons with different color schemes, depending on moon cycles
– an in-game screenshot mechanic
– a proper menu and decent UI
– improved graphics
– a more fluid and adaptative camera
– fully rewritten and optimized code

A lot of these ideas came firectly from the suggestions made here on the LD website, so once again: thanks everybody!

Eda, screenshot : June 2016

Eda, screenshot : June 2016

Eda, screenshot : June 2016

Where is it heading to?

The plan is to have a free demo by mid-june and to ship the finished project by September 2016, for desktop and Android.

The main remaining features yet to implement :
– make the tree evolve depending on season cycles (bloom, fall, growing fruits, etc…)
– add some weather elements (rain, snow, sunshine, etc…)
– add more tree shaping and tree care elements
– give more variety to the different kinds of trees, with more varied growing shapes
– have different kind of background scenery, eventually randomly generated

And finally : thanks to Mathis Bouron who did a great job with the soundtrack and sound effects, and continues to do so now for the new version of the game!

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First of all, I fixed the bugs present in the game, it should normally run well now!

>> Eda: link to the entry (fixed) <<

What went well :

• For a second try with the Unity engine after using a graphical programming tool (Construct2), I think it went pretty well and much better than my preceding entry for the LD62.
• I’m happy with the music and sound effects created by Mathis! Thanks to him a lot.
• I had to choose a very simple visual style because of the time I planned to spend on the programming (the amount of tutorial reading in the timelapse can attest of my experience in the matter), and it worked out pretty well in the end, with a visual style I’m pretty satisfied with.
• I managed to set the scope of the game better, and to achieved a more polished game than with my preceding tries.
• Overall, the working process and time management went pretty smoothly.
• I did my first timelapse! Which is nice not only for the resulting video, but I realised that all these process screenshots were ideal to document my work and to analyse my workflow to make it better. I was also happy to have a vision of how the tree algorithm evolved with time, when working on it I was too busy with coding to screenshot every iteration!

What went wrong :

• Due to my incompetence, I ended up with some bugs in the game which caused it to crash for some players, or to freeze. These are corrected now, but for next time, I’ll plan some time at the end of the jam to fix my mistakes! I lost some opportunities to get some feedback this way, and some interested poeple have been deceived, only because of me overlooking this issue when submitting the game.
• I  spent way more time looking for tutorials/information instead of actually coding, but this is a normal effect of my lack of experience with Unity.

Evolution of the tree generation algorithm:

For example, by looking at the screenshots here, made thanks to the timelapse, I can realise that the bigger trunks visible in one of the middle stages were quite interesting looking. For my next iteration of the program, I should allow to have a bigger size difference between branches and their children, to allow trees with this kind of style to grow.

The music created by Mathis for the game :

Process Timelapse :

Finally, the Bonzais look like genuine little trees!
The game also has a name : Eda, which is the name given to Bonzai branches.
A few hours left now for polish and making them grow leaves.

It’s time for a little progress log for this second day of jamming! For my second game made with Unity I’m taking ages to make anything work but I’m still happy about where it’s heading compared to my previous participations to the ld!

• planters are now randomized and their designs a bit more polished
• player can grow branches with left click and stop their growth with right click
• trunks start to look like bonzai trunks
• sound is implemented

To finish tomorrow absolutely:

• grow other branch starts on click
• grow leaves on branches so they don’t look dead
• make the reset function / generate new tree work properly
• if possible, allow to cut some branches to restart their growth and subdivide them

And if time for it: add some polish, tweak the growing algorithm a bit more, etc…

little guys and their planters

Good luck everybody with your entries, I’m taking some rest!

After one day of work, the Bonzai-growing game is on the way! I struggled a lot with programming as usual, but it starts to look like something and the music by Mathis is already done and ready.

A few planter sprites

First tests of bonzai growing, still not quite there :

test 1

test 2

The growth alrogithm still needs some work, obviously! Back to work!

Taurus is up and running!
You can now try out the entry !

After submitting the jam build, I added a bugfixed version on the itch.io page to correct the game-breaking bugs, otherwise the game is exactly the same as the one submitted to the LD62.

Thanks a lot to Hasar de Doria who made the music and sfx for Taurus, JupiterHadley for trying out the prototype in their LD62 compilation!

Starting to work on my mini-LD entry!
Here is a first level mockup so far

Today the main gameplay mechanics have been implemented, and a lot of progress has been made with the sound and music !

Here you can see a parasite infested ant (the player has to infest an ant to take control of it) and an ant changing it’s host !

changing host

infested ant

Next steps to implement :

– death of host after a few seconds
– allow the guards to chase and kill the infested ants
– create the Queen Ant room
– setup the score system and a functional menu with instructions

general screenshot