Play Workshop
Bonsai Workshop's Apprentice's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #21 | 3.852 | 3.852 |
| Audio | #27 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Graphics | #40 | 3.852 | 3.852 |
| Overall | #41 | 3.434 | 3.434 |
| Theme | #50 | 3.630 | 3.630 |
| Accessibility | #50 | 3.074 | 3.074 |
| Controls | #52 | 3.185 | 3.185 |
| Fun | #82 | 2.778 | 2.778 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.4.1
Wildcards Used
Single Location
Use only once location
Game Description
Grow and decorate your own and unique bonsai garden.
How does your game tie into the theme?
You have to control the expansion of the trees in order to turn them into bonsais. The idea was also to expand the shop, but could't make it :)
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
jet_pistacho
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1
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Comments
It's cool to see the procedurally generated variation of trees! One thing is that I wish there was a bit more granularity to the pruning (like deciding where on the branch segment to cut) as I found myself at times wishing to keep parts of a branch. I also kept cutting the wrong branch accidentally T.T . But I think you did a great job curating a cozy environment and letting people decorate the workshop as well as picking colors for the trees as it makes it feel personal! I see a lot of potential for expanding on letting people customize their workshop and trees more, great job with this!
thank you so much for your comment!
Yep, I definetely have to polish the pruning tool because it is obvious now that it isn't accurate enough, also I will implement several suggestion that have been made in this jam. I'm sorry you lost some nice branches!!
thanks again! :)
This was the first game my teammate clicked on last week when the voting started (we're a dad / daughter team.)
Very cozy, enjoyable experience. Music and sound is great. The decorate option adds a nice touch. Good adherence to the theme.
wow, that must be the dream team for many of us!! :)
I can see why she felt inclined for this game, Andres, the artist guy is really into childbook illustration and stuff like this, so I'm really glad that she notices his art :)
thank you so much for your comment!
I think the art is fantastic and the music with it gives a really nice vibe. I think the prune mechanic works really well. I appreciated the leaf customisation. I can really see a cool direction for a relaxed incremental / shop loop for the game, and with the vive you had I think it would be a good mix.
thank you so much! I'm glad you like both art and music, w eput so much love into it!
And Ithink that as well! I believe it could be a nice little game with a nice little game loop, (I just have to do it right, and maybe its not the case hahah)
thanks again!
Such a great idea, it's really fun to control your bonsai. I encountered a few bugs (I think? difficulty to cut what i wanted). With a bigger space and a dezoom on the bonsai view, I could spend hours on this!
thank you!! :)
Yes I know what you mean, there are a few (or more than a few haha) things that need a good polish, I actually had the dezoom mechanic but wasn't nice and it broke the general vibe in my opinion. I focused specially in the growing mechanic, that is actuallya tricky one.
I hope to see you coming back for next updates so you can spend hours! (also you wil be able to save your game :))
thanks for your comment!
I like the growth mechanic. It's neat. It would be cool if the mouse snapped to the cuttable spots and would highlight what would be trimmed. I snipped a few things that I would have liked to keep. I may have built a pyramid out of tables before coming back to the tree for another try. Good work. I enjoyed.
first of all: thanks for sharing with your beatifully crafted piramyd of tables, I'm glad it didn't break the game, and that it stimulated your creativity hahaha.
about the suggestions. yep, youre totally right, I though of the highlight but not about the snapping, and I think it should be a mandatory addition to the game. so both of them suggestion are written down waiting to be coded :)
thanks a lot for taking your time and sharing the screenshot :)
This is such a cute concept! I really like what I saw, especially the fact that you can change the colors of the bonsai! It seems that your original plan was to make a shop game, and I'd love to see that come to fruition since I saw you said you plan to work on this more if reception is good! I'd love to know how you coded the procedural generation, I've only tried coding something like that once and let's just say it ended in a pretty big failure
wow thanks for your comments! we always try to aim for that cuteness (most of it thanks to Andres).
the color change of the bonsai was a last minute adititon (literally last minute xD) and KI think it is not really beautily implemented, I think it could blend a littel more with the rest of the UI, but I though that it was a must to have that mechanic, and i'm glad I finally implemented it :)
about the procedural generation, well, to be honest 100% I don't really know if I should call it "procedural as the definition of procedural" but "random with some rules" I have to go a bit deeper in the concept, so this is not yet a victory! but for you to have some "inspiration" my first idea was to implement LSystems, and for that I checked "The algorithmic beaty of plants" by Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz. take a look because it's f***ing beautiful!!
thanks again!
Thanks, I'll look into that for any future games I may work on!
Such a lovely little chilled experience! Would have been cool to see the shop but honestly, I personally don’t feel like I need it! Only extra feature I though might have been cool is to be able to place your bonsais around the room when you’re done with them.
Had a great time with this! Always cool to see an interesting procedural generation implementation - nicely done!
Thanks!!!
I'm glad you considerd this to be a "full" experience that doesn't need the shop thing.
About placing the bonsais, you actually can, when click on "finish" you can place them, but only once haha in the next update I will include the possibility to move everything you placed afterwards, because right now, you cannot modify what you place, or even undo, which I think It's a must in this kind of game, but time to time! also I think it could have been more specific with "Finish and Place bonsai" button instead of just "finish" same with "go back" should have been named "discard bonsai adn goback". More things to add to the next update!!
Thanks again!!
Neat concept! I remember seeing you post it in the discord!
Liked the decorating aspect, i could see it perhaps evolving into a plant store game, personally! growing and cultivating plants, selling them on/decorating the place. Chill vibes, that sorta thing!
Nice work.
yo thanks!!
you read our minds, THAT is the direction we'd like to take with this one, I think it's got potential to be a long term project, I don't know how good it can get to be, but at least I think it could have a few hours of content :)
thanks again! :)
Very nice game. Chill and relaxing. Although the performance was a bit slow on my end, that fact made me think: what if there were a setting in the options to make the tree have fewer branches, so you could enjoy the process more and have fewer repetitive actions of cutting? Great art and music-they fit and work together very well!
It's not only in your end, there are some performance issues when there are many branches being drawn.
all the tree is being drawn in every frame to get this effect that everythings grows with each iteration and that is something that needs to be redesigned, I will most likely rewrite 90% of the code to make it better in every aspect, performance included.
I will take that suggestion for the full version of the game, giving the player the ability to design new rules for the trees to grow. thanks ;)
Beautiful game made by talented team. It is polished and well thought out even the itch page is customized to the theme beautifully.
Thanks!!!
I Agree with you about the talent if we speak about the artist, Andres really did a great job, I just tried reeeeally hard until it worked xD
Cool, chilly game! Music is well match for game!
I like mechanic of growing tree when you RNG start point and then start expanding, nice approach to game theme!
Good job and congratulations on your submission!
Thank you so much :) appreciate that you felt the music was in the mood. I've been a musician for maaaan years and it is one of the first things I focus on, so I really appreciate when people put their attention to it :)
that specific mechanic you talk about took me waaaay more hours to make it work that I expected, I'm glad it turned out good hahaha
thanks for your comment!
This was such a charming experience. Everything from the hand-painted art to the gentle colour choices feels so warm and inviting. The UI blends beautifully with the environment and has this organic quality that makes every interaction feel relaxed and deliberate. I especially enjoyed the feeling of building something with care and attention, which suits the slow and mindful spirit of bonsai culture really well.
The expansion theme comes through in a really elegant way, not in scale but in depth. Watching the tree evolve as you make design choices mirrors that inner growth of a careful apprentice. And while Autumn is not hammered home visually, the entire vibe carries that same reflective energy. That warm afternoon tone, like sunlight through dusty windows, fits the seasonal mood perfectly.
honestly, I don't really know what to say, your comment is truly gentle and kind. It made me a bit emotional I have to say... even if most of the comment is about the art (which I didn't do), And I'm proud of AndresMartink for making it this beautiful.
I feel like you connected with the game in the way that we intended to, and even a bit further, which makes me feel that it's worth it, and that I'm walking the right path.
I tried for years to connecto with people through my music, but I think that making games is actually my "Ikigai".
So truly I'm really thankful for your words, they come just in time for somebody who really needed them :)
I hope we encounter each other again in the future!
I like it, nice cozy game :D
For a future update I'd love to be able to rotate the pictures to different angles to place them on different walls (like the back wall.)
thanks!! :)
we are planning to make it bigger and better, and that suggestion for sure will be included, thanks for taking the time!!! :))
Super cozy and short game, I reset my tree way too many times to try to make different cool shapes or just see what would happen. Fantastic work!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the tree creation!!
We are really thinking to make a long term project out of it with resources management and stuff (but always keeping a "free" mode so you can just chill and watch the trees grow).
thanks for your comment!
I really enjoyed the chill vibe that this game offers and it allowed me to sink into it for 5 minutes and forget my worries.
Nice work
Thanks dude!
I'm happy you took a while to play it and sink into in. We want to develop it further and being able to to mkae a game where you can spend a few hours, but that's a story for another time!
Oh wow, this game works so well! The audio ambiance and graphics are really cool and soothing. It was quite cool decorating this little room ^^
Very well done!
Thanks!! I'm glad you found it soothing :)
we'll be working on it to make it even more relaxing!!
This is exactly the kind of cozy game I like to play, the art style reminds me of A Little to the Left. Great background music choice and the sound effects are pleasing! My only issues were decorations getting stuck on each other & being unable to undo or remove but I noticed you will be updating that later on! Changing colors is a little difficult because the scissors cursor dot doesn't exactly line up to the actual cursor location when clicking. I'm looking forward to your plans for updates.
thanks for your comment, I really apreciate it.
I don't know A Little to the Left but it's already on my list ;)
yes, the issues are well known to me, I had to choose: making the growing system make sense, or fix everything else xD, I regret not fixing the scissors pointer thing thou, because it would have taken 5 minutes!! but I'm happy with the result. Also I'm really glad you enjoyed the music and sounds, I put a lot of love in the making
thanks again :)
The sound effects are really satisfying !
thank you!! I'm glad you found tem satisfying, that was my goal :)
It was very fun to do all the sounds in an "analogic" way, like foley for movies.
Really relaxing game, congrats! Loved the art and the smooth growing of the tree is also super nice!
Awesome work :)
thank you!! that was the point I think, to make a chill contemplative game, so I feel we accomplished our main objective! and I agree with the art style, AndrésMartink did a really great job :)
Really liked the mechanics shown here! The bonsai growing is really fun, and after playing it seriously, I had a lot of fun lagging the game by spamming grow and see what monstrosity I had created. Genuinely fun time, the decoration feature is cute!
thanks!! :) I should have put a limit to the number of grows you can do without pruning so the game doesn't crash buuuut, that will be for next update haha.
I'm glad you like the decoration stuff, I think Andres the artist did a great f***ing job :)