Forager
Forage mushrooms before the bugs eat 'em
Move your player with arrow keys and jump with X - forage by pressing down and kick any intruding bugs with Z. However, if you get too aggressive you have strayed off the path of the forager.
Every level adds more mushrooms and/or enemies. How long can you last?
Comments (11)
You know something? I had fun playing this game through. But it seems it's mainly the luck of the draw, as stated above. I kept replaying levels until the arrangement of bugs and fungi was favorable. I noticed two bugs. First, sometimes a fungus is on top of the stalagmite in the bottom right; it seems impossible to get in that case.
Also, when I beat level 5, I got a runtime error. I have included two screenshots below.
Aside from this, I like the gameplay — I had plenty of tense moments, trying to harvest the fungi while keeping an eye on the bugs. I like the added detail of mitigating aggression — a welcome message in these woeful times.
As others have said too ends up being much luck of the draw because the bugs get to the shrooms so quickly and eat them that the onhly chance you have is they don't spawn too close to begin with. If they just took a bit longer to eat them at least I would have a chance to get there and kick them off. Like the concept and kicking bugs around seemed like it would be pretty fun and balacing foraging and aggresion is an interesting idea. Also bonus points for Pico-8 just because I love the aesthetic. :)
I agree with the RNG being a bit of an issue. There were definitely some opportunities for improvement in how it was applied. Fundamentaly I think the game works as a solid minigame if the randomness is applied a bit more fairly. For example, you could prevent the bugs from spawning on (or too close) to wherever the mushrooms are. Additionally, I think there could be more room for skill in the gameplay without reducing the randomness by just decreasing the bug speed, increasing the player speed, or making the player's movement tighter. If the mushrooms create a split path with the bugs going to both, it becomes nearly impossible to fend off the bugs and get the shrooms.
Not too big of an issue, but I may have found a softlock. I don't think I could forage mushrooms if bugs died on them for some reason, so if all the bugs get killed, you can't lose or win and you just get stuck.
Anyways, it's a cool concept and I think it could work pretty well with some minor changes. Good work.
This was a pretty unexpected take on the theme, and I liked how simple yet unusual it turned out.
It took me a little while to understand the controls and gameplay completely, when I did I had fun, well until level 5 :D One of the first layouts I got for level 5 was 3 insects spawning right besides their respective 3 mushrooms, making the game over trigger in <1s haha. That's how I figured out maybe I reached the end of it.
Like the others I found the randomness/balancing difficult, and level 5 seems pretty much impossible, so handcrafted levels would have suited the gameplay more.
I really, really love the lowres art style.
The kicking animation is toooo cute! But unfortunately, this is not a game for me.
It took some time to get used to the controlls.. however… you can hear me loosing patience the higher the level gets. xD
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1423581480?t=1h18m37s Here is the VOD with the timestamp when your game started. :D
I love the art and sound style, but this game is really RNG-heavy. At level 5, it feels like sheer luck to pass a stage. The gameplay is easy to learn, hard to master. That's great!