AppleGrowthMonster

AGM (AppleGrowthMonster)

Gary is a Jardiner who love putting all the most chemical pesticide on his precious apple tree. One day a chemical reaction between all the new pesticide that he had shoot on his backyard and the previous one modified all the apple tree seed that were planted in hes backyard, they all start growing at a really fast rate and the apple that fell down of those tree were living creature. EVIL living creature! Gary has no weapons to fight back. The only thing he had was that machine that he use to shoot seed and pesticide in the ground. Gary has no choice but to using his machine to fight the apple monster but all seed he shoot also react to the chemical reaction wich is not so great for that poor Gary.

Now those seeds are Always-Growing.

this is my entry for the 3rd Alakajam! The them was Always-Growing

Voting results

Overall
24th
79%
4.333
Graphics
20th
66%
3.667
Audio
15th
48%
4.500
Gameplay
16th
52%
4.667
Originality
22nd
72%
5.000
Theme
21st
69%
5.444

This game entered in the Solo competition (29 entries).

Comments (16)

Z_Doctor
 • 5 years ago • 

Just by the description, I wonder if you thought it was going to be dangeous science ;)

LazorLord
(@LazerLord)  • 5 years ago • 

Funny i havent realise untile you pointed out XD

but actualy this description is just to put the player in contect since my game dos not really have a story.

I was more inpired by the growing plant and tree aspect of the theme just a few minut in the game you should understand why it perfectly respect the Always Growing theme of the jam

All the theme is in the gameplay! Since literally exept the player everithing is always growing.

LazorLord
(@LazerLord)  • 5 years ago • 

Next weakend if you speak french, i put the postmortem of this game where all the making process is documented on youtube. You will see that until the end I almost only had a game mechanic.

Baconinvader
 • 5 years ago • 

Great use of theme, I really liked the idea of your weapon making things worse for you. Wish there was more variety though, or ways to undo some of your pesticide chemicals. Other than that, great game.

LazorLord
(@LazerLord)  • 5 years ago • 

Thanks Baconinvader effectively after the jam, I immediately start working on what I call a VIP version that will improve on all the thing you mention and more. I just did not have the time for those implementations in the delay required for the jam.

ibotje
 • 5 years ago • 

I really like that shooing your weapon can work against you!
It makes it so that you can't just keep holding your mouse to shoot and you have to try to try to kill the apples with as little chemicals as possible. It would have been nice if the controlls were shown somewhere for first time players. And when you die it doesn't show your final score or the level you reached so you don't know what your score was unless you payed attention to it.

It would have been nice as well if it was mentioned that you can collect the red stuff to help you and get a greater score! You also lose health when standing at the edge of the level and this wasn't mentioned either and you need to replay a couple of times to figure out what killed you.
It's a fun game though and i enjoyed playing it!

LazorLord
(@LazerLord)  • 5 years ago • 

ibotje
I have already finished the next version of the game with all those details, but I await the end of the Jam to publish it on itch. you to avoid confusion with the old version. thanks for trying the game I appreciate your comeback on the subject :D

HuvaaKoodia
 • 5 years ago • 

A top down shooter, there are always a bunch of those regardless of the theme.

The growing chemical residue is a novel idea. I also like how the pesticide gas machine projectiles slow down after a while. This is where the positives end, you have been warned…

I got quite into the thick of things until I realized that picking up a few of those small red things destroys most, or even all, of the enemies. Every enemy drops one, which completely saps any challenge, i.e fun, from the experience. Too powerful powerups have a tendency to do that, I recommend you get rid of it.

The audio-visuals are the worst part here. The mix of pixelated sprites and smooth background textures doesn't work. One style is preferable.

The sound effects aren't terrible, but the music is. Here's the thing about music: disharmony is hard to get right, harmony is much easier! Choose a scale (Major is the easiest of them all) and stick to it. You can experiment later once the basics are down.

You made a thing which works; that's commendable. There's a lot of room for improvement which is should be encouraging, so good luck!

Overall: Below average (4)
Graphics: Bad (3)
Audio: Bad (3)
Gameplay: Below average (4)
Originality: Above average (6)
Theme: Below average (4)

LazorLord
(@LazerLord)  • 5 years ago • 

HuvaaKoodia thanks for you honest feedback I already have fixed all those issues in the full version, I just wait for the game Jam to end before releasing it.

automatonvx
 • 5 years ago • 

AS @HuvaaKoodia says you defintely see a lot of top down shooters in game jams, so its hard to get too excited over them. I liked the idea of shooting to leave stuff on the ground which kills enemies (and me) instead of the standard shoot the enemies, makes picking up power ups a bit of a pain though. Disagree with @HuvaaKoodia I actually quite liked the weird discordant background music, thought it gave a bit of an eerie vibe, it was actually sort of the highlight for me. Agree that the mix of pixelated and higher res images is always worse than sticking to one or the other though. Room for improvement but some nice ideas.

remiv
 • 5 years ago • 

fun game. As already said, the damage done by the fence is conter-intuitive, and don't seem to be explained by the back-story, you could easily get rid of it.

treslapin
 • 5 years ago • 

I didn't really understand what I was doing at first, but by the 3rd try I think I got the hang of it. :) This game needs a small tutorial, I think even a 4 panel comic would do the trick. As long as you explain the mechanics in the story, people will graps it faster.

I do like the idea, but I wish it was a little more polished. I see by your comments that you will release a new version after the jam - that's great! I can't wait to play it.

Kleinzach
 • 5 years ago • 

I really like the concept of a gun that hinders your movement. It really forces you to think about all of your shots which I find great.

I got a little frustrated with inching closer to enemy corpses to collect them which didn't really feel good. I liked the music, but the muddied background didn't really look good to me.

All and all, I really like when game jammers focus on innovation, and the gun in your game is truely cool and can lead to very interesting situations even in this first version. I really hope you double down on that mechanic and find all of the fun ways to interact with it!

LazorLord
(@LazerLord)  • 5 years ago • 

This is the page for the full version https://blue-rabbit.itch.io/agm-vip

For the moment, with control description, new power and new weapon, better UI and design improvement. Also the next update will be added soon that will include a Scinematique\Tutoriel. Thanks for your comment.

LazorLord
(@LazerLord)  • 5 years ago • 

I could also increase the size of the level at each 5 stage what do you think?

Ztuu
 • 5 years ago • 

I like your take on the theme.
Cute game its a cool idea and I love your backstory it's hilarious.
Some instructions at the start would be helpful but I worked it out ok.

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