Air Garden playtest

Air Garden prototype 2024-05-26.
Click on the top right bubble to show/hide the bottom menu.
Playable on browser on desktop/mobile.

🌸 If playing on iPhone, turn off silent mode to hear game audio. 🌸

🌱 Both levels are unlocked for this playtest demo, but I recommend starting with the "Peaceful Glade" 🌱

Music by Samantha van der Sluis

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Overview
- This prototype is for testing new mechanics
- UI, animations, visual fx, progression pacing, etc. are still in early stages

UI
- Plants now have to be dragged from the menu to be placed on the map (previously, you click on the plant in the menu and it'll appear on the map)
- You can now click and drag on the map to move the view (previously, you click and hold on outer edges of the map to move around)
- You can still move the view while moving a plant
- Option to toggle on plant stats if you want to see the exact production rates of each plant

Plant emoji fx
- Plants emit "emojis" to show their status / currently activated effects
- Can be toggled off

Do not read the information below if you want to just try out the new mechanics and see if you can figure them out on your own with only the basic in-game tutorial 😂

Plant movement mechanic
- Plants can be moved and replanted freely, but every time they are planted they spend some time taking root before becoming active
- More expensive plants generally take longer to take root

Booster plant mechanic
- The prototype currently has one plant type that boosts nearby plants
- This plant, aside from having brighter vision, boosts nearby plants (increased production rate) - this effect stacks with multiple booster plants and with multiple butterflies
- Boosted plants emit a "sparkle" emoji

Crowding mechanic
- Crowding will make plants unhappy (previously, plants can be infinitely stacked in one spot with no consequences)
- Crowded plants appear shadowed, emit a "sad" emoji, and have reversed effects (for example if they were supposed to produce clean air, they will absorb it instead)
- Plants that are optimally clustered (max number of nearby plants without crowding) will attract small white butterflies
- Optimally clustered plants can be highlighted (this can be toggled on, it is off by default)
- I initially had optimally clustered plants emit a "star" emoji, but found that it looked too busy alongside all the other emojis

Plant friendship mechanic
- Some plants work really well with specific other plants; for now this is just the lotus which attracts dragonflies when placed near a waterlily, cattail, and columbine

Critters mechanic
- The small white butterfly:
--- Nearby plants are boosted (increased production rate) - this effect stacks with multiple butterflies and with multiple booster plants
--- Nearby plants spawn bubbles - this effect does not stack with multiple butterflies, but does stack with terrain effects
--- Nearby plants emit a "sparkle" emoji
- The caterpillar:
--- Appears when you have a lot of plants
--- Eats plants then turns into a butterfly
- The butterfly:
--- Produces special rainbow bubbles which make clean air and remove toxic air
--- A few rainbow bubbles contain special plants, like one that attracts hummingbirds and one that prevents nearby caterpillars from eating plants
- The hummingbird
--- Flits around and pops bubbles
- The dragonfly
--- Appears when you have a lotus near a waterlily, cattail, and columbine
-- Produces special rainbow bubbles which make clean air and remove toxic air
--- A few rainbow bubbles contain special plants, like one that cleans up contaminated terrain

Terrain mechanics
- The prototype currently has 7 terrain types with various effects:
- Terrain that reduces wait time (both the time it takes for a plant to take root when planted, and also the duration between plant actions such as producing clean air) - plants here emit a "lightning" emoji
- Terrain that boosts production - plants here emit a "heart" emoji
- Terrain that increases the max number of nearby plants before overcrowding - plants here emit a "happy" emoji
- Terrain that increases vision - plants here emit a "glowing orb" emoji
- Terrain that causes plants to spawn bubbles - plants here emit a "bubble" emoji
- Water terrain that can only be used by aquatic and amphibious plants
- Contaminated terrain that makes plants unhappy (except for the ones that can clean it up)
- The prototype currently has procedurally generated maps; patches of terrain do not overlap; currently the map generates 5 patches of each terrain type, but I plan to make this adjustable (can have presets)
- Not yet sure what to name this mechanic (it could be "terrain", "ground", "area", "soil quality", or something else), and don't yet have specific names for the various terrain types