I was asked if you are allowed to show Plantcore in a video on youtube.
My answer is: Yes, as long as you don’t claim that you have developed this game or do other illegal things with it, you are free to use footage of Plantcore in any way you want. You can also monetize your videos, but it would be great if you could link to Plantcore’s IndieDB site.
I’m very proud to announce that Plantcore just released on IndieDB for free!
Go download it now!
if( youHaveJavaInstalled) {
} else {
Download Java-integrated version(); }
And here is a little release trailer, I hacked together 🙂
Plantcore started in February 2012 as a very simple 2 player game where you had to plant some seeds and then destroy the plants of your opponent. The scope of this little project was perfect for the break after the first semester of my computer-science studium. I could finish it and learned very much about Java and games programming:
But this was only the first step on the way to a much bigger goal. I fantasized many hours about this great game I wanted to make. It should be a combination of my favourite games like Spelunky, Terraria and Clonk. And there should be a big ecosystem with many different plants and animals which fight each other and of course it would be a really, really great game and maybe even the next Minecraft. So I used a lot of my free time to work toward this vision. Even the time in a surf-camp on the Atlantic was used to create design-documents..
Half a year later I had developed many new objects, systems and another little 2 player game that showcased creatures which I called “flying unicorn-snakes”. But the development took longer than I had planned and in January 2013 I realized that I had to change my plans. The completion of my dream game would have taken years at this speed and so I abandoned it and transformed it into a short puzzle platformer. This was probably a good decision because the commitment to a project that takes multiple years is a huge burden and I had great fun with the creation of the puzzles and the map. But after the world was basically complete (June 2013), I lost slowly the motivation to work on the game, although there were still a lot of things to do (like controller support, sounds, music, better graphics, better level design and bug-fixing). In spite of wanting to sell the game at the end of October, I worked only 5-10 hours a month on it. So I decided to cut many features, ignore some bugs and make the game completely free. I really like Plantcore, but I’m tired of working on it and I don’t want to sell an “unfinished” game.
If you want to get notified on the game’s release (end of October) follow me on Twitter or like Plantcore on Facebook.
In my first post on this blog I want to explain what Plantcore is and what you can expect in terms of playtime.
Plantcore is a tight 2D exploration platformer on which I work since February 2012.
You play as a little, cuddly creature and explore an open world, in which many different kinds of plants are growing. These plants grant you new abilities and by cleverly using them, you will be able to discover the holy stone tablets, which provide you divine powers. But you have to be careful, becoming a god is dangerous and there are threats that you will never have seen before in a videogame..
I think that the average time for the first playthrough will be about one hour. Additionally there are many hidden secrets and challenges. To solve those you will need to acquire a deep knowledge about the game-world.
If this sounds interesting to you, keep an eye on it on Twitter or Facebook.
Take care!
Plantcore 