I was really impressed by how clear, polished, and engaging your Sprint 2 slideshow and showcase video turned out. The overall vision comes across immediately, and I think the focus on teaching players about invasive plants while helping them learn to identify them is a really strong and meaningful concept!

I really like the realistic vibes it has. It seems really well thought out! As a fellow companion has mentioned, the Papers Please vibes are really strong. I think both the gameplay and the aesthetic alongside the narrative presented here synergies really well with the call to action. It's both informative and interesting. I would like to see a clearer vision of your production plan and how much "days" will go by until the botanist returns. This might indicate your scope better.

 I'm guessing that as you introduce invasive plants, the botanist tells you about how they are seeing them all over through their trips. I really get the vibe of "chaotic" decisions locking you into "bad" endings. I love the idea of the hopeful future you imagined for the game, where society wants to be sustainable and work alongside nature. I think the impact of showing the players how a sustainable future would be like, where everyone actively works with their communities to care about the space they live in is a very powerful thing.

Best of luck and I'm really excited for this!

This game has the vibes of Papers Please! I really like how you are exploring the mechanics of invasive vs non-invasive plants! I am excited to see how you tackle the location and how to plants are going to look to give the indication of whether or not they are invasive. Very exciting keep up the good work!

Like the concept of this game and interaction looks pretty cool. I think you guys have made very good progress so far my only critique is there are really no reward system or something for the player to want to engage in making these decisions. I know the goal is to make sure the plants are safe to plant in the Center but other than just researching and deciding maybe add in a rewards goal like money system or something every wrong decision made you lose funding and every right decision you receive more. Other than that the concept is looking good and the gameplay is solid.

Like the concept of this game and interaction looks pretty cool. I think you guys have made very good progress so far my only critique is there are really no reward system or something for the player to want to engage in making these decisions. I know the goal is to make sure the plants are safe to plant in the Center but other than just researching and deciding maybe add in a rewards goal like money system or something every wrong decision made you lose funding and every right decision you receive more. Other than that the concept is looking good and the gameplay is solid.

I like how this game has an educational side to it at the forefront. I think that's pretty rare, and it allows the game to be more than just for enjoyment but also to help the person playing it understand more about conservation. I do agree with some other comments, it could have a bit more "spice," as right now the gameplay looks like it could get old quickly. 

SO COOL!!!! I love this twist on the 'deciphering' game genre(idk what to call it) and I love how it offers actual facts that coincide with the gameplay! I also suggest thinking of unique ways (that fit the theme) to spice up gameplay as you progress through the game.

the gameplay looks pretty intuitive and unique, although aesthetically it seems pretty directionless at the moment. i hope you guys are able to come up with something nice for the aesthetic though, as i believe in the idea as a whole. my main concern for this project would be to ensure that it's a game and not purely informational, and have some way to challenge the player even if they can identify the plants perfectly. overall a really cool idea though, looking forward to what it becomes in sprint 3!

• -Gameplay – Does the project have clear mechanics, win / lose conditions, and player progress / interaction?
  • Very clear on the mechanics, very reminiscent of games like Papers, Please, and That’s Not My Neighbor, especially with the idea of inspecting plants based on their field guides. The gameplay demo also is very helpful in identifying how certain gameplay aspects will work.  
• -Aesthetic – Is there cohesive visual, audio, and/or narrative direction?
  • Ngl this narrative could work with imo any visual direction, but with the described anthropomorphic animals as NPCs and the shown Saharan Mustard, it seems like you all are taking it in a somewhat handdrawn/cartoon-ish perspective, which is really cool, and I’d be excited to see.
  • YOU HAVE AUDIO DETAILS HECK YEAH!!!!! Didn’t see the GDD in Sprint 1 for the specific sound style and scape, but based on the fact that your production plan talks about references for songs and lists of sound effects, I have full confidence you know exactly where you’re headed when it comes to audio. Especially helps that your composer knows middleware.
• -Synergy - Do the game mechanics and artistic decisions support and enhance the project's intended theme and call to action?
  • Idk call to action but if I had to guess it has something to do with identifying safe and unsafe plants for certain environments, which is neat. The gameplay is definitely supportive of that and the themes of like building a botanical encyclopedia of the region’s plants.
• -Scope – Is the scope of the project reasonable for the timeline of the jam?
  • Haven’t seen the GDD, so not sure about the scope of the full game, but from what I’ve seen so far in the demo it seems like the main gameplay is definitely well-implementable and is really just a matter of adding the field guides, which I’d guess are static and a one-time implementation, and iterating on different plants and NPCs that can show up in the game, which is very scalable up and down.
• -Production Plan – Is there a clear path to completing the project?
  • Production Plan at the end of these sprint’s slides seem very solid, looking forward to this project. :3

I'm really blown away by how concise, effective, and engaging your sprint 2 slideshow and showcase video are! The vision is incredibly clear with an incredible call to action of educating people about invasive plants while also learning how to identify them.  My only real note is the worry that the gameplay will feel a little repetitive after a while. With this game being similar to that of Papers Please, I wonder/hope that the narrative of the game will drive the engagement for players that aren't the BIGGEST fans of just solving puzzles. Amazing stuff so far and I can't wait to see more!

This seems like quite a fun project! I like the focus on biodiversity and educating players on different kinds of plants. One thing I am curious about is how these mechanics might allow for a difficulty curve. Will plants later in the game be harder to tell apart? I also don't have a very good idea of the game's aesthetic direction (at least, just going off the materials that were submitted this sprint).