Fungi focus
Little counting game
In this simple little game, your job is to watch the mushrooms closely and try to keep track of how many mushrooms of a certain species grew on the patch of green. Every round, it gets a little harder while the speed and number of mushrooms go up. Did you count that one already?
I'd love to hear your feedback and your highscores! :D
Controls & Gameplay
Goal: The task sounds simple: count the number of mushrooms of the given species (indicated in the middle of the top of the game).
Controls: Press space to start, and then mouse (and keyboard if you like) to enter a number when asked for it. You have 10 seconds to put in your answer. When your answer is correct, you will get (your answer + 10) points! If your answer is wrong, you will lose a life and lose some points (depending on how far you were off). You start with 3 lifes, as you will see in the upper right corner. Every level lasts a bit longer than the one before, so stick around for a few levels to see it becoming more difficult.
Thoughts
Although I found fungi to be a very interestic topic (I was fascinated by the timelapse videos that I saw on YouTube), I found it hard to come up with a game idea related to fungi. I read a comment here on Alakajam somewhere about keeping it simple, well I did! I only had a few hours to work on this on Sunday, so this is a very little game that started with some quick sketches of mushrooms. But it was a good exercise in how to use Godot (but there are so many questions left!).
If I would have had more time I would have added: a (generated?) background, animals that walk around, flowers, more fungi and maybe tasks in which you have to count multiple species at once. But I am not sure if this would have helped to make this concept fun enough to play more than once. ;)
Tools
Godot, InkScape, Google Fonts.
Comments (15)
Hey @heyheyhey!
Thanks for playing and your feedback. Yes, sound would have added a lot. I thought about adding unique souds for each fungus type, but I thought that maybe it would make it too easy, since you could play without looking? But maybe I should just give it a try after the jam. :)
Cool idea, I like the mushroom growing animation and the hand drawn mushrooms in the background. I found the difficulty ramp a little slow. It would be interesting to have levels were you were tracking multiple mushrooms. Audio would be great, but yes I think different sounds for different mushrooms would make it to easy / interfer the core mechanic.
I started with your game in the third part of my alakagamejam results run :D
I really, really liked your game! You are right, it gets really harder the longer you play!
very well done!
Here is the link to the Video. Its the timestamp where your game starts :)
Edit after I read Lagunas Coment: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1420488754?t=0h5m54s
Sorry, Somehow I did not post the Link. ^ This is the timestamp, the Link @laguna postet is the full video. :)
This is the Video @xXBloodyOrange was talking about: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1420488754 :)
I really enjoyed the idea with the counting. What starts as nice exercise, becomes challenging quickly. My main concern would be the missing music. Other than that it is a great solid entry. I especially liked the mushrooms animations.
@xXBloodyOrange Thanks for playing my game and sharing your stream! It was fun to see you play.
I didn't play test my game much in the browser, it seems to be rather slow compared to when I play it directly from Godot. Indeed, as you said in your stream, some music would have been nice, and more different kinds of mushrooms, but I didn't have/take anough time in this jam. ;)
Good joob for your game.
I would have me the difficulty increased a little bit sooner. I don't know if it was juste bad luck but I had to wait a loot before having a level where I had more thant 5 mushrooms to count (even if other species had a lot more)
On the UI part, you could make the input to take the focus automaticly so we don't have to click inside the input to enter the score ;)
@Thrainsa Thanks for playing and your feedback! :)
I tweaked some speeds and how they changed last minute, and it turned out a tad too slow indeed. (Also it seems a bit slower in the browser than directly from Godot on my computer, I should check and finetune this.)
You can indeed get (un)lucky by having to count only a low number of mushrooms for many levels in a row.
Thanks for the suggestion on the input focus, I changed it and will upload the PostCompo version after the jam. :)
Simple yet effective!
The lttle animated mushrooms look nice, all I miss graphics-wise is some sort of background for them to grow on, maybe a distraction or two like a caterpillar popping from behind a leaf with the same color as your mushrooms :D
The progression was a bit slow for me, maybe because of my Mario Party practice… I found the game became interesting starting at around 30-35 mushrooms, and in particular the waves of 8+ mushrooms in them. The wave-based spawning is interesting because I had to adapt and figure out a specific way to count:
I used my fingers to count each wave while I was also counting globally in my head, this usually gave me a couple seconds to double-check that what was on screen matched my fingers
My game over was caused by counting the wrong color at some point :P
@Wan Thanks! Yup, a background is definitely missing. ;) I also thought about little animals crossing the screen that eat or move a mushroom, but I didn't have/take enough time in this jam. :)
@M2tias Thanks for your feedback! The game turned out too slow indeed. I also noticed that there were some bugs that fill the console, I think that's one of the reasons the game is slower than intended. A PostCompo version will definitely be faster ;)
Simple but effective! I like the animated mushrooms. Some music wouldn't have gone amiss.
The number entry at the end feels a bit clunky. I know it's a default Godot control, but those are pretty easy to restyle! Maybe just having buttons 1-30 or so, in a grid, would have been simpler. The time limit on the number entry doesn't add a lot of value; thinking about the answer isn't going to make it any better.
As for the gameplay, a nice challenge would be if you weren't told in advance which type of mushroom to count, so you'd need to keep track of all of them. Maybe too hard though.
Different behaviour for different types could also be a nice addition. For example, some stick around longer than others, some move around smoothly, some teleport around, some grow in clumps, and so on.
@thomastc Thanks for playing! Yes, the input is quite clunky indeed. I am still getting used to making UI things in Godot, and there is a lot of room for improvement here. Ishould find some tutorials about this. :) The time limit is there for the very unlikely case that someone records the level and plays it back to count the mushrooms. :P
I thought about letting the player count multiple types of mushrooms (that you know before the level starts), but I didn't consider this variatio! Sounds hard indeed. ;)
I like the idea of different behaviour types for the different mushrooms. Teleporting shrooms sound hard to count though ;) But maybe, with the right kind of visual effect… :)
Thanks for your feedback! :D
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High scores Submit score
| # | User | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @Obelex | 769 | |
| 2 | @Wan | 624 | |
| 3 | @Papaver | 376 | View all 3 scores |
Very interesting game. I thought at first it was simple, but after 2-3 rounds it became challenging. Overall, it's an unusual concept, and I think you applied the theme very well. Needless to say, sound would add a lot to the experience (you could even have a unique sound for each fungus type). The graphics however are good — simple and colorful. Overall, I think this is a solid entry. It is also a good mind exercise — does it improve attention focus? Perhaps.