I very rarely comment on videos, but this one feels special to me. I am super impressed with the game and the idea so far! If you're struggling to know if you're keeping the ability to turn on a radius of nectar around the character, maybe make it an option for levels that would benefit from it. Turn it into a power up, and maybe make the flower in the pot change based on your current power up. The garden level of It Takes Two might be a good source of inspiration if you like the power up idea! I also think it would be a nice detail if the flower on top of the character wilted a bit while they're outside of a nectar region.
Suggestion: You should add big bugs that interact with the world and the player. There are some fun gameplay elements you could have with these bugs, like maybe there are lines of ants that carry around leaves or nectar you can use as a moving platform mechanic, or ladybugs you can fly around on. You could also have aggressive bugs that seek to harm the player, like a rhino beetle that charges at you (maybe you could dodge and stun it) or a centipede enemy/boss. Either way, excited to see what you do with this project in the future. Best of luck!
throwing an idea out there, you can add seasons to the pot that the player can choose and cycle through depending on the puzzle, for example the winter season can freeze the lakes and let the player access a new area previously blocked by water, or the Autumn season can let you grow a specific plant that would help you in the puzzle, same for summer and spring, spring can let you "grow" the Rope, the rope being a vine, and lastly for trees to grow, the player has to cycle all 4 seasons in the correct order.
Consider adding roses, nettles, or something else with thorns. Could allow you to pick up the thorns to throw them and hit far-away objects or switches. Or maybe allow you to embed them in walls and use them as a platform of some sort. Don't know if that would fit in with this kind of game, just an idea.
I had a thought about the dandelion mechanics in the game. How about introducing wind currents or gusts in specific areas of the world? Players could then ride these wind currents by holding onto the dandelion, allowing for a unique mode of transportation or interaction when it comes to the problem solving of the game. Keep up the fantastic work! The game is shaping up beautifully!
I can see that posting this video opened you up to a whole lot more feedback. At the risk of adding to the pile, there was one thing I noticed when I just stumbled on your first video. I personally find the character to get lost against the brown dirt texture a bit. It could be partly due to watching on TH-cam rather than playing first hand. My eyesight is good with no issues, I worry about accessibility for others
I have not been keeping track of this at all, but this does look like an interesting idea. I sure hope you're ready for the commitment. Making any video game is no easy task. This is coming from someone who's stuck with Game Maker for about 15 years or so, and still working on projects.
This is what inspires me and motivated me to continue my own project! I wish nothing but success for your game and your dreams. keep up the amazing work man :))
it would be cool to see some sort of plant or flower such as a dandelion in which if you stand on it, the weight of the character would make it bend until it's nearly touching the floor depending on the direction that it's facing by default, this could allow for some interesting platform elements.
Yeah I thought of Farewell North as soon as I seen the nectar mechanic in your game but didn't think much of it as both of your games are very different from each other outside of that one mechanic and even with that mechanic, you use it differently. Can't wait to see how this game turns out! I'd say you've already made pretty good game design choices destined for a high quality.
On the dandelion idea - I don't know about dandelion, but maybe you could have a situation where the character is in a tree and uses one of those seed pods that spin like helicopter wings to get down.
Something I was thinking about was adding hornets and wasps, and somehow balancing their aggressive behavior with their beneficial roles as pollinators
I have a idea for when we take damage. We are a flower pot in the game so is can be cool to see the pot be cracked when we take damage and stay cracked until we heal. And in example of "enemy" is can be kind of hammer and abandoned mechanics stuff maybe ? Idk if is can be a good idea.. Anyway the game are so cute:D I'm very curious of what next you gonna do. I wish you good luck !
my suggestion would be to make the limbs and especially arms more noticeable and have them move more as it walks around, cause now you kinda have to squint to notice them or you will miss them
How about making the dandelions work like little umbrellas that work for a limited time: the little puffs on the dandelions trickle down as you glide with it.
I think it would be cool if some big leaves or something like that, have mini waterfalls coming off of them that the player has to run under to regen health. But then I thought about the rain you added and thought about how would that work? Maybe the player cant lose health when it rains? Maybe theres a power up that gives you a little rain cloud of protection to run through big screens of herbicide? I love the tight rope by the way. Think that could also double as a bounce and maybe reuse the asset and make a swing??
Very interesting ideas 🤔, I already plan on having the tightrope double as a slingshot for objects. I've had the thought about bouncing too, which probably seems like a good idea the more I think about it
Awesome work! Towards the end of your devlog at about 8:00 when you are on the tightrope. You can see the shadow of the vine but not of your character. I know you are going with the shadow dropping down directly on the characters z, but not seeing the shadow in this scene specifically is a bit odd.
dont know if u alrdy thought about it… but a cool way to depict level growth/power lvl on the player could be the number of sunflowers growing out of the pot. As a player, it would be very dynamic to see ur player grow as the world improves to visualize the change. Also, a full blooming sunflower pot would look rly cute (for marketing and for me personally) :) also ALSO, dont know if u thought if this... but another cozy post-apocalyptic platform that mixes nature and robots is Stray. Could be worth a look?
The plan right now is to keep the water good, and the rain can heal the player, but it deactivates the effects of nectar. So you need to shelter the nectar from rain
Ideas: VENUS FLY TRAP. if you touch it, it takes your bee and you'll have to go without it until it gets un-nectered. THORN VINES. they hurt. POWER MERGER. something that adds all the power going into it together. used by the idea below. could be used as an extension cable. ELECTRONIC NECTAR. nectar that scales with power going into it. ELECTRONIC DOORS. maybe they could have a sertain amount of power going into them to work?
hey, your shadow should actually be larger when the player is further from the ground. right now it looks kinda weird. And i think it would be cool if you added Venus flytrap plants
like opacity all the way up when closest to the ground that it can be, opacity all the way down when furthest. really awesome work, the character is amazing, and the camera work is also nice i think
it would also be cool if you made it a little more opaque when the bee's hovering over the withered grass. the contrast will make it feel like stepping out of the sunlight i think @@nerdchomp
We'll see, if there's enough demand for a tutorial I might make one, but I'm not very good at making tutorials. You could probably learn better from someone else. To achieve the effect I used a sphere mask. I store the info for the mask in a parameter collection, and I feed the sphere mask data into a lerp node in the material that I want to be affected
Ironically some people (like matpat from game theory) actually suggest starting with 6 videos, that way people have something to watch and stick around longer. Could've helped a bit in the long run. 🙂
I have only one suggestion for your game, and that is: Focus a lot of effort on level design and making fun puzzles and platforming. Level design seems to be nearly lost these days, with few exceptions. Take some influence from older games: Doom, Doom II, Quake, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Banjo Kazooie, and Banjo Tooie are some excellent references for good level design and references on how the level design changed in sequels of the same game. When you are making your levels, ideas for new mechanics, enemies, and items will come to you, and you should definitely try them out to see if they work. One other thing that I have noticed and that I will give as advice is that you need to have fun when making your game. If you get too frustrated or angry, you should probably take a break and maybe try to work on something that you find more fun. It seems like most of the best games were made when the developers were having a great time making it, and games that were developed in passive aggresive/angry environments turned out poorly.
Pretty randomly got this recommended. I have no clue about game development, I am a dev myself however, just nowhere near games. This is absolutely not my type of video game. Still somehow had to watch the whole video. I wish you good luck with the game.
bee is still distracting! so why don't you make it land on the pot and only fly around when approaching something interactable? that gonna solve the distraction problem and also gonna be an "in-world" indicator to draw player's attention to the interactable items/switches/etc... BTW I'm also an indie dev and I have a game on steam called "ACROBATIC CAR" and I will be glad if you mention it on your next video. hope you the best with your game
i'd say remove the shadow from the bee because it's so small.. can not project a shadow from that distance in real world also rhe nectar being with hard poligons is a bit weird.. better make them smooth
Ok as much as i love seeing people get into game development why would you make a steam page when the core mechanics and even ideas for your project are almost non existent?
I very rarely comment on videos, but this one feels special to me. I am super impressed with the game and the idea so far!
If you're struggling to know if you're keeping the ability to turn on a radius of nectar around the character, maybe make it an option for levels that would benefit from it. Turn it into a power up, and maybe make the flower in the pot change based on your current power up.
The garden level of It Takes Two might be a good source of inspiration if you like the power up idea!
I also think it would be a nice detail if the flower on top of the character wilted a bit while they're outside of a nectar region.
Suggestion: You should add big bugs that interact with the world and the player. There are some fun gameplay elements you could have with these bugs, like maybe there are lines of ants that carry around leaves or nectar you can use as a moving platform mechanic, or ladybugs you can fly around on. You could also have aggressive bugs that seek to harm the player, like a rhino beetle that charges at you (maybe you could dodge and stun it) or a centipede enemy/boss. Either way, excited to see what you do with this project in the future. Best of luck!
The game is so cute! :D
throwing an idea out there, you can add seasons to the pot that the player can choose and cycle through depending on the puzzle, for example the winter season can freeze the lakes and let the player access a new area previously blocked by water, or the Autumn season can let you grow a specific plant that would help you in the puzzle, same for summer and spring, spring can let you "grow" the Rope, the rope being a vine, and lastly for trees to grow, the player has to cycle all 4 seasons in the correct order.
Consider adding roses, nettles, or something else with thorns. Could allow you to pick up the thorns to throw them and hit far-away objects or switches. Or maybe allow you to embed them in walls and use them as a platform of some sort. Don't know if that would fit in with this kind of game, just an idea.
I had a thought about the dandelion mechanics in the game. How about introducing wind currents or gusts in specific areas of the world? Players could then ride these wind currents by holding onto the dandelion, allowing for a unique mode of transportation or interaction when it comes to the problem solving of the game.
Keep up the fantastic work! The game is shaping up beautifully!
I can see that posting this video opened you up to a whole lot more feedback. At the risk of adding to the pile, there was one thing I noticed when I just stumbled on your first video. I personally find the character to get lost against the brown dirt texture a bit. It could be partly due to watching on TH-cam rather than playing first hand. My eyesight is good with no issues, I worry about accessibility for others
I have not been keeping track of this at all, but this does look like an interesting idea.
I sure hope you're ready for the commitment. Making any video game is no easy task. This is coming from someone who's stuck with Game Maker for about 15 years or so, and still working on projects.
I'm definitely aware that it will take a long time, but I'm fully committed to finishing this!
This is what inspires me and motivated me to continue my own project! I wish nothing but success for your game and your dreams. keep up the amazing work man :))
Thanks! I'm so happy my work inspired you
it would be cool to see some sort of plant or flower such as a dandelion in which if you stand on it, the weight of the character would make it bend until it's nearly touching the floor depending on the direction that it's facing by default, this could allow for some interesting platform elements.
Amazing Concept and the style of the assets fit the overall feeling of the game!! Keep up the great work NC Dev!!!
Yeah I thought of Farewell North as soon as I seen the nectar mechanic in your game but didn't think much of it as both of your games are very different from each other outside of that one mechanic and even with that mechanic, you use it differently. Can't wait to see how this game turns out! I'd say you've already made pretty good game design choices destined for a high quality.
I'm glad you think so. I got pretty worried when I first discovered Farewell North, but I think my vision for Nectar is ultimately very different
Love the devlogs so far! They are really helping me with motivation for working on my own game! Keep it up!
On the dandelion idea - I don't know about dandelion, but maybe you could have a situation where the character is in a tree and uses one of those seed pods that spin like helicopter wings to get down.
Something I was thinking about was adding hornets and wasps, and somehow balancing their aggressive behavior with their beneficial roles as pollinators
I have a idea for when we take damage.
We are a flower pot in the game so is can be cool to see the pot be cracked when we take damage and stay cracked until we heal.
And in example of "enemy" is can be kind of hammer and abandoned mechanics stuff maybe ?
Idk if is can be a good idea..
Anyway the game are so cute:D
I'm very curious of what next you gonna do.
I wish you good luck !
I thought about doing cracks in the pot, but the idea of him shattering to pieces when he dies felt really gruesome to me lol
this game has a really nice theme to it, i am looking forward to your future posts
create mushrooms that boost your jump height, and use the dandelion to glide on the air, honestly any leaf would do.
my suggestion would be to make the limbs and especially arms more noticeable and have them move more as it walks around, cause now you kinda have to squint to notice them or you will miss them
How about making the dandelions work like little umbrellas that work for a limited time: the little puffs on the dandelions trickle down as you glide with it.
Just a quick reminder:
Pay attention to shadow's when your little character walks on the rope :)
I think it would be cool if some big leaves or something like that, have mini waterfalls coming off of them that the player has to run under to regen health. But then I thought about the rain you added and thought about how would that work? Maybe the player cant lose health when it rains? Maybe theres a power up that gives you a little rain cloud of protection to run through big screens of herbicide?
I love the tight rope by the way. Think that could also double as a bounce and maybe reuse the asset and make a swing??
Very interesting ideas 🤔, I already plan on having the tightrope double as a slingshot for objects. I've had the thought about bouncing too, which probably seems like a good idea the more I think about it
Awesome work! Towards the end of your devlog at about 8:00 when you are on the tightrope. You can see the shadow of the vine but not of your character. I know you are going with the shadow dropping down directly on the characters z, but not seeing the shadow in this scene specifically is a bit odd.
Hmm I can't see how that could be jarring to see the shadow of the tightrope and not the character. I'll have to brainstorm solutions
dont know if u alrdy thought about it… but a cool way to depict level growth/power lvl on the player could be the number of sunflowers growing out of the pot.
As a player, it would be very dynamic to see ur player grow as the world improves to visualize the change. Also, a full blooming sunflower pot would look rly cute (for marketing and for me personally) :)
also ALSO, dont know if u thought if this... but another cozy post-apocalyptic platform that mixes nature and robots is Stray. Could be worth a look?
If water is good and you still want the rain level, it can be acid rain!
The plan right now is to keep the water good, and the rain can heal the player, but it deactivates the effects of nectar. So you need to shelter the nectar from rain
Underrated!
I’m gonnna make some fanart on blender for this game at some point 🙏
Maybe as a healing add dewdrops on the leaves.
Ideas:
VENUS FLY TRAP. if you touch it, it takes your bee and you'll have to go without it until it gets un-nectered.
THORN VINES. they hurt.
POWER MERGER. something that adds all the power going into it together. used by the idea below. could be used as an extension cable.
ELECTRONIC NECTAR. nectar that scales with power going into it.
ELECTRONIC DOORS. maybe they could have a sertain amount of power going into them to work?
A lot of people have been suggesting the venus fly trap, enough so that I might just have to add it lol!
hey, your shadow should actually be larger when the player is further from the ground. right now it looks kinda weird.
And i think it would be cool if you added Venus flytrap plants
bee's dropshadow should be barely visible, and invisible when the bee is the furthest from the ground that it can get
like opacity all the way up when closest to the ground that it can be, opacity all the way down when furthest.
really awesome work, the character is amazing, and the camera work is also nice i think
That's a good idea! Thanks
it would also be cool if you made it a little more opaque when the bee's hovering over the withered grass. the contrast will make it feel like stepping out of the sunlight i think
@@nerdchomp
how did you done that area effect? Would you like to make a tutorial
We'll see, if there's enough demand for a tutorial I might make one, but I'm not very good at making tutorials. You could probably learn better from someone else. To achieve the effect I used a sphere mask. I store the info for the mask in a parameter collection, and I feed the sphere mask data into a lerp node in the material that I want to be affected
I would name them Terry after terracotta or terrain.
Ironically some people (like matpat from game theory) actually suggest starting with 6 videos, that way people have something to watch and stick around longer. Could've helped a bit in the long run. 🙂
Honestly I didn't put much thought into a release strategy, but it seems to have worked out pretty well the way I did it lol
I have only one suggestion for your game, and that is: Focus a lot of effort on level design and making fun puzzles and platforming. Level design seems to be nearly lost these days, with few exceptions. Take some influence from older games: Doom, Doom II, Quake, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Banjo Kazooie, and Banjo Tooie are some excellent references for good level design and references on how the level design changed in sequels of the same game. When you are making your levels, ideas for new mechanics, enemies, and items will come to you, and you should definitely try them out to see if they work.
One other thing that I have noticed and that I will give as advice is that you need to have fun when making your game. If you get too frustrated or angry, you should probably take a break and maybe try to work on something that you find more fun. It seems like most of the best games were made when the developers were having a great time making it, and games that were developed in passive aggresive/angry environments turned out poorly.
How about making some sort of collectable which is needed to unlock "Flower skins"?
That could be a cool idea!
going to deadzones harms you overtime
What about Cotta like Terracotta for a name.
Pretty randomly got this recommended. I have no clue about game development, I am a dev myself however, just nowhere near games. This is absolutely not my type of video game. Still somehow had to watch the whole video. I wish you good luck with the game.
Haha thanks for watching anyways!
Terry Cotta
bee is still distracting! so why don't you make it land on the pot and only fly around when approaching something interactable? that gonna solve the distraction problem and also gonna be an "in-world" indicator to draw player's attention to the interactable items/switches/etc...
BTW I'm also an indie dev and I have a game on steam called "ACROBATIC CAR" and I will be glad if you mention it on your next video.
hope you the best with your game
That's a solution I've been thinking about, but haven't had time to experiment with it yet
I think it is odd that she mows the grass where she runs instead of just flattening it down. Would be a good idea to fix that.
Discord still invalid :(
That was a dumb mistake on my end. I put the old broken link instead of the fixed one haha. Should be good now though.
I don't wan't to be the 🤓 guy but mushrooms are not plants, they are fungi
Potty
Touch grass. Become grass.
Is this in Fking Godot ??why some people don't mention Game engine ... it is soo annoying sorry I'm being a little rude and offended someone😮
I mention it in devlog 0 but this is unreal
@nerdchomp ooo.... Sorry I didn't watch that episode.
No worries!
@@nerdchomp but why u don't #gameengine name cause so many devis do this .
I was actually not aware I could # things on youtube lol. Well now I know. I've added #unrealengine to all of my vids. Thanks for letting me know!
i'd say remove the shadow from the bee because it's so small.. can not project a shadow from that distance in real world also rhe nectar being with hard poligons is a bit weird.. better make them smooth
Ok as much as i love seeing people get into game development why would you make a steam page when the core mechanics and even ideas for your project are almost non existent?