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Thank you! And it's not a background haha! It's an indoor gardening simulation game, so there's no character except the plant on the windowsill XD

Mainly comes from real-life experience. Some experiences are very unique, you found yourself entered a very different state of mind everytime you experiencing them, and you kinda love that feeling. That's always the moment I began to abstract it spontaneously. Though I always didn't realise it happening for a long time, until met a chance and it just surging up inside me, together with all questions I've been thinking for a while and trying to answer, all works I always love to read or listen or watch or play, everything all mixed up, and turns into an urge to make a game. It keeps looping in your mind, and you have to make it in order to stop that looping.

Trust Know One

Thank you! We're glad that you enjoy this cozy slow-paced experience. And also thank you for your high praise of the art.

Insane in-depth for a 7-day game jam, and I have a feeling if have more time, it can be even more feature-rich. Hope that would happen in a post-jam version.

My only complain is the feedback loop seems to be a little bit too long at the very beginning for noobs. I didn't realise I should go to the store and buy some stuff to improve the finance after almost bankcrupt after tens of weeks. I thought since there's a money guy then he would handle all those jobs, so I just ignore the whole financial system focusing on the skill trees. I suppose maybe add a narrative event in first three weeks in which the money buddy would suggest player to go to store if they haven't come yet would be very helpful.

Overall a very good entry, with a unique approach to the theme, and the core gameplay is so fun! I can imagine how interesting it would be if expanded to a full version, and can't wait to play it!

Adorable! And quite polished. Can't believe it's a jam project.

Hope the interactive tutorial can also say something about the keyboard other than the controller. I stucked at double jump ablility for some time trying to press B on keyboard until finally figure out I don't need to follow the instruction all I need to do is simply double press the spacebar.

So true...ever since she died, I owe every good thing in my life a blessing from her.

Very calm experience. The atmosphere, the music, and the art fits so well. Really looking forward the full game.

btw, I ran into a bug. When cutting food ingredients, some pieces just hide behind the chopping board after cutting. I sometimes can pick them up with mouse cursor hover around the empty chopping board and saw a popup showing there's a food piece. Sometimes they just vanished without a trace.

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback! It's great to know that players love to read even if it's a full blown page explaination. I'm always afraid no one would like to read pages of words in games. Though in this game I think I can keep each hint and description in two or three lines, I'm not sure if I can make it in each and every game. Thank you for letting me know it's okay to have more lines, even pages.

I guess you survived to the winter with no flowers, in this case, it will enter the bad ending, the same one as not survived to winter. I think you're right, surviving itself is also something worth celebrating. It doesn't have to lead to flower or seed. It's an end instead of a mean. It has meaning of itself. I just didn't realise that. Thank you, I think we'll add one in the post-jam version.

And thank you for your high praise for the art. The artist I work with is truly talented. A fun side effect is, I don't know how it happens, but I found my own aesthetic sense dramatically improved after working with her for only a week, I began to notice details that I never noticed before, like my brain got rewired.

Hi there, you may wanna check our game, it's a gardening simulation.  https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-16/rate/4924289

Can't say it's good though. I'm always wanted to make good simulation games but till now still far from there. Would be very appreciated if you can help me getting closer with your feedback.

Thank you!

Thank you so so much for this detailed feedback. That's exactly something we really really need!

It's a good idea to have a short explanation, a little pop-up about the month we start, and where to finish the month into the journal. I think we'd add some kind of one line pop-up for month text and next month button to make that happen. The "Unlock Trait ..." text appeares after the plant died, and thank you for remind us, we forgot to add a short description for the restart button in that scene, and I think we'd add a popup text line to explain what to do next on hover over that button. And as for progression, we're thinking about making a collection/ encyclopedia system as suggested, and we'd like to put all plant traits there too, so that we can see more about the description and the progression.

The repetitive text in the journal is some kind of a design. I thought of making some text variation and pick one randomly each time, but then I gave up that idea, 'cause I kind of hope the repetition can add a little bit atmosphere of existentialism. I chose a music with some kind of a repetition structure for the same reason. And the year after year time loop, also for that. I guess I didn't build up that atmosphere well enough. Thank you so much for letting me know, though I currently have no idea how to improve that, it's very good to know there's something I still need to keep on working.

For the edits: Congratulations! And I'm so happy that you enjoy the trial and errors, I'm a huge fan of that mechanic as a gamer. I also think it's a very genius idea, a great suggestion to have a encyclopedia system. We'll work on that in the post-jam version :D

Thank you so much for your feedback and your love to this game!

It's such a genius idea to have a collection or encyclopedia! We have been thinking about maybe make a collection system to unlock all colors of flowers in the post-jam version, and it would be much better if we combine that collection system together with some kind of a encyclopedia system! We can put even more items in it, like the plant traits, etc., making it also work as manual. I'm terrible at writing linear instructions, non-linear fragments writing for a collection and encyclopedia system would work much better for me! XD

When I saw the title Who Farted I thought it must be a very fun game, and it is! And at that time, I never thought I would see so cute animal characters! And the audio is cute and fun as well.

Check ours! We're working on a post-jam version, any feedback is appreciated!

https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-16/rate/4924289

Thank you!

Thanks for your love to the art and music. We're working on the hints and guidance for the post-jam version.

I‘m not a fan of 2.5d aesthetic but this one's stunning! The atmosphere is terrific, and really love the sound.

I was thinking maybe it would be even more fun if there're 3 trending today instead of 1. And the more trending tags your post match, the more followers you're likely to get. In this case, the hotest posts would be even more ridiculous and more hilarious.

That's a very unique way of interpreting it hahaha XD

Though the plants are quite trustworthy in my opinion! Their behaviors are extremely consistent with their traits, except for survival choices (which is totally predictable). I once thought if it's better to give them some random choices that would be more realistic and more fun but then I decided to let them stick to their traits because of the theme. In this case, as long as you know the plants enough, you can always trust them growing and blooming in the end, even for those with the "trust no one" trait.

Thanks so much for your feedback, we're thinking about making the sunlight level of direct sunlight place and behind the thin curtain place visually different, and maybe add some direct hints, both visually and in text. Animation for polishing is a good idea, though time-wise it might be a little bit not that cost-effective for a two person team like us. Yet I think animation could be a great idea when there's some visual element we'd like to emphasize, visual clues that will be easily missed when they're static images. Thank you so much for bringing up this idea.

In depth feedback! That's just exactly something we need now! We're thinking about updating our game to a post-jam version after the rating period, and your in depth feedback would be extremely helpful!

Our game: https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-16/rate/4924289

The characters are so cute and the music is so fun! I have really a good time playing this game.

Just the interactions are not quite intuitive to me and it would be nice if updated in later versions. Some people have already said in their reviews. And as for me, since I'm the kind of person who don't quite read instructions in advance, not untill I'm stuck and can't find a way myself. So when I met the first dialogue, and found the space bar, the enter key, and left-click the dialogue box all didn't work, with the lack of audio in that scene, I thought it must be something wrong with my web so it's not loaded properly. After Ctrl R and re-enter the game three times and found it keeps happening. I read the tutorial and realise I should press E instead of Space bar or Enter key or simply left-click the dialogue box to continue the dialogue, which seems not that intuitive to me.

Also, I personally think it would be better if there're some sound effects when characters are speaking, and the text in dialogue shown word by word or character by character instead of the whole paragraph all shown at once, since the character avatar's all have very cute animations of talking, so the dialogue and the sound effects all have a hint of talking might be more consistence and more intuitive and more fun. And maybe help the players to be more concentrated while reading those really long paragraphs.

And something about the pause menu. It's very intuitive to use Ecs key as the pause menu. However, in WebGL build, press the Ecs key will also result in exit of fullscreen mode. I personally prefer play WebGL games in windowed mode so this won't happen but the font size of the dialogue text in this game is not quite big enough for short sighted person like me, so though start with windowed mode, I quickly turn into full screen mode, and accidentally exit fullscreen when I try to call pause menu a couple of times. I think it might be better if there's also a pause menu icon in HUD so that players who use fullscreen mode can click without having to press esc key which will accidentally exit full screen mode and may interupt the immersive experience.

Overall a very good entry, and I'm really looking forward your post-jam version.

Our bad, lack of instructions, will update after the rating period. Quick tips: try starting with the default plastic pot and the default 50% soil, and move it to where the soil can be just half wet.

A semi professional house plant killer got a flower? That's really realistic! XD 

Welcome back at any time when you are in the mood of some flowers :D

I think it would be a very bad game if someone have to have real life gardening knowledge to play a gardening sim game hahaha :( I prefer to believe that your girlfriend have a profound sensitivity to intuit the unspokens. That's why she knows how to take care of plants very very well in real life. Plants can't talk, unlike people, they can't come to us saying hey let's talk when they are drowning or in desperate need of water. That's also why she play this game so well, with me failed to write a proper manual. 

We do have some visual clue about the light level though. Aside from the curtains above (no curtain vs. thin curtain vs. thick curtain), when we place the plant in the darkest place, under the thickest curtain, we'll see the whole plant become a little bit darker, as if it's in the shadow. But I guess it's not visually obvious enough so people are very likely to miss it. Maybe change it much more darker? And I guess it's probably better if we make the other two places' sunlight level visually different as well. And maybe add some direct descriptions, like different numbers of water icons on each place with different sunlight value, showing they comsume different amount of water.

Besides places with different sunlight value, every changing visual element in this game also matters to the soil moisture thus affect a plant's survival: the weather, the pot, and the soil formula. I think it's probably everything's all mixed up at once at the beginning so it's hard for people to figure out which one causes what. I'm thinking about maybe lock some choices at first, unlock them after survive the first winter, but I personally don't quite like the idea of making people have less choices in hands. So maybe learn from some classic games like two point series or so, make a level by level unlock mode, aside from the sandbox mode?

Thank you so much for your detailed feedback, that's exactly what I needed to know. I'm the kind of person who don't quite read instructions myself, instead, I like testing things out. So when it comes to me to write a manual, I always have no idea where to start. (T_T) 

It's a great idea to start from one info, and then one by one more. Actually that's something I was trying to do (and failed). If we choose the default beginner friendly plastic pot, and then the default soil fomula which gets dry in a moderate rate, then the only thing that would determin a cutting's life or death in the first 5 turns' summer is only the different places with different sunlight levels. After that, in the 6th turn when autumn comes, we'll meet the second factor, the weather. It will affect the soil moisture as well, but that can also be adjusting through simply place the plant at a different place with a different sunlight level. And after sucessfully survive to the first winter, and maybe see one or two colors of flowers. If we'd like to see more flowers in certain colors, and we know in order to achieve that, we'll have to put them in certain sunlight level without killing them, we need now begin to try out the combinations of different pots and different soils that can make them both survive and thrive, in a certain color, at a certain place of a certain sunlight level.

The tricky part for me is, I just don't know how to write it simple and clear in the manual, or even better, make it intuitively known by people without having to read a manual. I tried but it just dosen't seem to work. Thank you so much for your suggestions, I think I'll probablly try start with a vague instruction about places and sunlight levels, how they would affect the soil moisture, and how too dry or too wet soil would kill a plant. Maybe start with certain numbers of sun icons and water icons on each place to put the plant. And make soil moisture level be seen through both visual clue and some text descriptions using the magnifying glass tool. And maybe some warning tips about how too dry or too wet soil may make a plant sick and wilt move it to some place else through a popup when the leaves turn yellow for the first time. We may think it through during the rating period and try update the game after that to see how it works. Thank you so much for your constructive advices, would be very appreciated if there's more feedbacks in future.

Congrats! And thank you so much for your feedback. It's great to hear you really enjoy this game.

There're seven colors of flowers in total, from the warmest red to the coldest blue, based on the places with different sunlight value you put them. More time under the direct sunlight, the warmer, more time in the shadow, the colder. For a while I was thinking of making it twenty-one so that each and every choice one made would make a difference. But then it occured to me that downsize it to seven would be better, 'cause in this case, some survival choices one have to make won't inevitably change their preferable color of the flowers.

It's not you doing anything wrong, but the game's lack of instructions. I'm horrible at writing instructions cause I rarely read instructions myself. I just try out things with intuition (which turn out to be wrong many times though T_T). So when it comes to write one, I always have no idea where to start. I wish I can make the infos to be received intuitively by people without having to read instructions, but I always fail. However, a very good thing about games and game prototype making is, there's no real price to be paid, no real cutting gets hurt when doing trials and errors, we can try as many rounds as we like, think as longer as we need, to figure things out. 

Really apprieciate your feedback, wish you can find your favorate flower :D

Yeah, the artist I work with is extremely talented, I adore her art as well. And thank you so much for your feedback about the instructions, would definitely add some in future. 

And also thank you for the feedback about text color, I didn't realise it untill submit, maybe it's because I always turn the the system's night light on. XD We have changed the text color now, and would update if after the rating period.

You're a very lucky guy to have a girlfriend who knows how to love and care a plant. I rarely envy people, but I do envy you. XD

And thank you for your feedback about the mechanics might be too realistic and the plant maybe too easy to die. Think we should add a soil moisture status tooltip on the magnifying glass tool, so that people don't have to know its importance until the plant's death.

Really appreciate your love to this game. And thank you so much for your words, that's something I never expected. 

I was quite sentimental before making this game. Then I put myself in this busy busy game making week. I thought I made a calm game, I felt calm designing mechanics and writing codes, like I always do. Never thought someone would see it, and felt the same sentimental while playing. You yourself trully have a very beautiful soul, incredibly empathetic, and incredibly good. I did't even realise I was still sentimental myself, not after the jam began, I thought it was over, but that's not true. Now with your words, it's all back, washing over me. 

I'm so lucky to have you playing this game, and your words really means a lot to me. It's a fortune to have a chance to know myself better, knowing what's deep in my heart, knowing that I still care.

When I submitted my entry and saw this game on the front page, I thought I should definately try this, it looks like a fun game that I would really enjoy. And now I know I was right.

The concept is so genius, remind me of the Crusader Kings series. In the way of beating the game, you get a clue why ridiculous things may happen. 

Great idea, and excellent implementation. By far the best entry I ever played in this jam.

The building process is super relaxing and fun. I spent quite a while to figure out I need to use the drill instead of line up things perfectly though. And I didn't realise there is a manual untill I'm kind of stuck on level 5. Good news, I'm not misleading by the instructions, I didn't realize it exists! XD

Yeah, every now and then, from the place where the wolf is located from the dog, there's a deliberately queit but still heavy breath, just heavy enough to give it's direction away. I think it will change the whole gameplay strategy as well. Before that I would try to herd the sheeps in one direction, to the pen. Now I'd herd them in all directions first so as to find out the wolf, and then herd them all together to the pen. Glad to see you'll try to implement it. Can't wait to play that! And yes, dogs are the best!

Attracted by the dog image on the cover and then found myself spend an hour listening to dog barks. 

Very interesting concept. The controls are extremely smooth and responsive. And the sfx works perfect with the arts, especially on scene changes.

It's just so hard for me to find the wolves. I'm not very good at noticing subtle visual differences. I think it would be more fun if there's also some audio clues to identify a wolf, like a heavier footstep, or a deeper breath. 

Thank you for your feedback. Should really add hints and tutorials in future. 

I personally love the trial and error mechaniques in games though. Maybe it's because I'm the explorer kind of gamer, and explore the unknowns through experiments is great fun to me. Of course, as long as the experiments require me think instead of using brute force.

The trait is completely random so you're very lucky to meet one same trait for three times. Possibility for that is below 5%. Time for lottery! XD Maybe we should consider make it less random so that these kind of things won't happen.

Both too dry and too wet soil will cause plant sick and dead, the best time to water it is when it's half wet, and the best place to place it is where the soil can be half wet. 

Thank you so much for your feedback. I think we really need to have a hint system.

Thank you!

Thanks! Really appreciate that you enjoy the trial phases where the nos become the knows.

That's really awesome!

Thank you! I think we'd add some hints and tips on tools in future.