Plantify

another subpar student project and farming game to add to their respective piles. my hatred for cats aside, I always appreciate educational value even if I don't particularly care about plants. you'll also deal with orders placed by townspeople. or townscats. there's a happiness meter, seems excessive for a game like this, though not sure what the consequences of constant failures are.

the positives are customizable main character (though I couldn't care less and the game doesn't use your chosen name), can opt out of the tutorial before starting a new game, instant and silent text display (excellent) and no energy/stamina (ditto). there are hotkeys for tools and seeds, the hotbar and inventory can be extended with cash. the radio plays a variety of songs, including some black(ish) metal.

negatives are more numerous. no settings or keyboard controls in the main menu and only separate volumes while playing. nothing for resolutions, windowed mode, graphics, nada. there are some annoying text animations that can't be turned off either. only saving at the end of the day is a dealbreaker, as always. wherever you are when the day ends, you'll end up at home with no need to sleep but it's an option and can do it anytime to move things along.

not being able to pause at all is just as bad. not during the tutorial or dialog, nor while the inventory, settings or whatever are up. and since seasons are crucial for planting reasons, it's even worse than just wasting identical, inconsequential days.

my entire first day was spent on the tutorial while I was taking notes for the review, so unsurprisingly the end-of-day roundup was an empty screen. the tutorial is the only place where non-rebindable controls (another dealbreaker) are shown. wasd and undocumented arrows to move, e to interact, i for inventory, j for journal, esc for phone (shop, orders, etc.). the mouse isn't mentioned but bothering it moves the camera, wheel zooms. no tooltips at all, as if it were made for mobile, then lazily ported to pc, so gotta click everything for more info. main storage has filters but the store would need them too, going through all the seeds while not necessarily looking for them every time is a pain.

the journal is not too bad. the more you grow something, the more info will be filled in, but you can do it yourself after the first harvest. for the carrot I got water need filled in but could figure out the rest (category, soil type, light need, growth stages) and there's no penalty for guessing, then you get a bit of extra info.

there are lots of plants and a greenhouse for winter, you can dig up relics, buy scratch cards to try your luck, can even take a loan. sounds good but it's pretty much wake up, water plants, go to sleep, repeat until they're ready to harvest, there's nothing else to do and the bed is upstairs, adding more another dose of tedium. it's all just wasted potential, and as a student project it's unlikely to improve over time. it's probably the same for the people behind it, so let's hope they'll never make a game again, and if they do, won't make the same rookie mistakes.

cute game, it feels a bit like a mix of animal crossing and stardew valley on a very small scale. Definitely feels like a student project and needs a bit of polish, but I think it can be more if the devs keep working on it :D

Side note: I don't quite know what the other review about not being able to save is about, at least for me it saves just fine after going to sleep.

It doesn't save. everytime you start the game you have to start from the tutorial. this so sad