Reviews for Blooming

[V1ral]

I love the idea of a power-based platformer based on stationed pickups like this, and I really want to adore it with the combined aesthetic, but a lot of the layouts seem to just pluck my petals the wrong way, so to speak - at least, later on.

Some of the game's assets are introduced in a poor or outright mean way. The closing gates are completely unmarked until they've closed on you once, which can lead to deaths and resets that were unnecessary. The red petal is introduced with three coin jars - which is a fine challenge, but could've been taught better in a safer environment such as the challenge directly after this.

Beasts make sense to have as well, giving a mobile obstacle and even a full boss from what the changelog says, but their use demands near pixel perfected timing. As of this review, I'm stuck at the duo where the top requests perfect timing to pluck the red flower and just barely escape, while the bottom is blocked halfway by a door where you'd have to force a death reset if you fell down without a flower anyways; I'll admit to being dumb for some challenges, but this is just very tight timing.

Maybe in a future game you could work on layouts, because I wouldn't wish anyone to have to work on the same project over and over. The yellow flower's usage is probably a good highlight to show the better parts of this game's ideas, and was my favorite section of gameplay; It's a simple idea, but it's made to combo well with other petals and the terrain around it nudges the player towards the solution amazingly.

HealliesGames responds:

In the part where you got stuck, you don't need to time the beast to take the red flower because a little further on, there's a door which can be used to block its pattern.

I thought it might be a cute puzzle, but of course you don't have the slightest clue to understand it and, as you say, the doors would have been better if they were visible.

The whole difficulty was a combination of factors:
make it longer lasting (although it was a game for a jam), and then show the heart of puzzles, unfortunately without giving to the player the time to settle down.

I'm very sorry for making it so inaccessible.
Thanks anyway for appreciating the idea and for the feedback, V1ral!

If I have to come back with a puzzle game, I will try not to repeat the same mistakes.

[JoelLikesPigs]

I really liked the concept of this game, it had a unique element to it, but unfortunately I couldn't get over the time it takes to pick up the flower.

It slowed the entire game down to a halt - I understand keeping animations in, but having it creates this weird pause in the gameplay that becomes slightly frustrating.

This could be avoided by giving you a flower on re-spawn, or causing a check point on picking up a flower to avoid having to the animation again.

Personal preference as well, but I think if the petal shot upwards and forwards, with you having to jump into rather than onto it would produce slightly better feedback. I found sometimes I would over shoot the landing, turn back on myself and petal-float backwards

Outside of this I think this is a solid puzzle platformer with an interesting and somewhat creepy yume nikki styile vibe to it.

HealliesGames responds:

It would have been more interesting if the animation had somehow acted in terms of gameplay,
which is currently happening only in a small section further.

But I realize as a player, as soon as I arrive at the solution, is more rewarding to be able to implement it without hindrance.

Was really penalizing working alone, without letting anyone to test it.

I'm glad you liked the mood, though! Never heard of Yume Nikki before; it seems quite interesting.

I will take notes for the future, thanks for the review and for playing, Joel!

[FutureCopLGF]

Holy moley, you expect a lot out of your players! This game was super confusing, unintuitive and frustrating: a lot of the time when concepts were explained to the user, they were done with vague graphics, and those graphics weren't even visible at the moment you needed them! However, once you wrap your head around how the game works, this game had some crazy mind-bending puzzles that really challenged me and blew me away! Can't get over what a unique and interesting experience this was, and I'm glad to say I was able to beat it. It's not all sunshine and rainbows though: I felt like the dogs were a bit annoying to deal with due to their weird AI, and the boss was a bit of a letdown after the initial thrill due to how much health it had and how little time you had to pick a flower to strategize through the obstacles it sent your way. I bet a lot of people will bounce off this game, and you should work on that, because I want more people to see how great this game can really be!

HealliesGames responds:

No matter how hard I try, it seems that creating an easily understandable game is really against my nature.

I think it is partly due to my experience with videogames;
games like Another World or Contra took me hours, if not days, to figure out how to get through a part.
I want to convey this, apparently failing.

The dog AI is actually simple: they follow the linear path until the character is inside of their range. Then start following you. A circle showing how much distance to keep should solve the problem!

As for the boss instead, I should be able to resolve simply by removing the possibility of making consecutive attacks, since the moment you are dead you don't have the physical time to collect the flower.

I really hope I can improve this aspect in my production. This thanks mainly to user feedback, as well as thanks to your work of reviewing complete with gameplay.
I wait to see how you played it!

[ElCatrinLCD]

It looks amazing and the gameplay is interesting, but picking flowers takes too much time

HealliesGames responds:

As it was meant to be a puzzle platformer to be taken calmly, I thought animation could be intrinsically part of the gameplay.
You know, like Resident Evil with the slow but atmospheric opening of the doors.

Since the fall of the petal also occurs slowly, everything fits well together.
I even speeded up the picking of the flower, I'm sorry it continues to be redundant.

The only situation that I believe the animation can result extremely slow is during the boss recovery phase. And I really think I will increase the duration of that.

Thanks for your feedback, ElCatrinLCD!

[Notabla]

The last part is VERY pretty :O
And the game is pretty hard with these perfect jumps and flower swapping :P
Definitely deserving way more than 2.99 it got... :/

HealliesGames responds:

Unfortunately, the low rating was due to the brutal difficulty in the moment of release.

But thanks to the criticisms, I managed to balance stuff.
Every cloud has a silver lining.

And the fact that the judges took the game into consideration despite the score made me really happy!

Thanks for your feedback, Notabla. I am glad you liked it!