The playtesting process is great, isn't it? Through iterating on the old demo, median playtime has gone from a tepid 6 minutes to a spicy 41 minutes. Wow!
Proto Garden's old fundamental issues stemmed from one place: free exponential resource duplication. This feature warped the entire game into its own image, hamstringing every other mechanic and severely limiting the design space. While somewhat appropriate for the idle-esque inital prototype I made in March, it wound up overstaying its welcome.
Core mechanic changes:
- You can no longer merge bees into swarms. They just go home instead now.
- Bees can hold a maximum of 16 items.
- Bees now drop 1 item when cloned.
- Buildings now cost the same no matter how many you have, rather than increasing in cost hyperexponentially. Freedom at last!
Building changes:
- The Space Hive now has a fancy new model I designed inspired by trying to cross a lunar lander with a beehive. I had a ton of fun making it, and I hope you like it.
- Crafting ambrosia now takes 1 pollen instead of 10,000 (what).
- 3 new crafting buildings. You can make wax and honeycomb now!
- 4 new utility buildings: Bouncy Buttercup, Stop Strawberry, Deposit Daffodil, Filter Flax.
Other changes:
- The new tutorial is lovely and smooth, compared to the prickly mess the old one was. It's less obtrusive than it was in the playtest, too. The simpler core mechanics made this possible.
- To be honest, I don't remember what the old demo was like any more. It's in the past now.