Hey everyone, it's been a while! I hope you're all doing well. We intend to continue updating Pinball Gardener with tons of new features, but while that's a work in progress, we updated the alpha prototype with a bit more functionality and tweaked the game feel (thanks Matt for dealing with untangling the terribleness that is game jam code!)...

Ramps finally work! In the initial Ludum Dare build, we had to forgo lots of features that are staples of pinball and farming games in favor of simply making something "playable" within the time limit.. one of those features that ended up getting scrapped during the game jam were the ramps. We initially wanted one ramp to give you water and the other ramp to either give you seeds or grow your crop(s). Unfortunately, we weren't able to get to it in the time limit, but the v0.0.4 build adds functionality to the ramps and makes them easier to hit as well, with some tweaks to the board and aim assist similar to a real pinball board (they use magnets to influence the velocity of the ball)!

Props to anyone who was able to hit the ramps in the original build. It was really difficult :)

You might also notice that we added particles! ✨ You still have yet to see the most important feature we added, though...

There's a hat.

PATCH NOTES

• Functional ramps! You can now hit the left ramp to gain water, and the right ramp to grow your crops.

• Slight tweaks to the board. There's a clearer line of sight to the ramps now.

• Re-coded the spring. So, when converting the GMS2 project to the newest version, the ball just... fell through the spring. Amazing! (It's fixed, though. By the way, don't ask Kiana about the original way the ball was launched or she'll faint from laughter.)

• Re-coded the flippers. Apparently the GMS2 default physics' math is not quite right and there's no way to simply add a vector component of velocity. Also amazing!  (When we finish overhauling the whole physics system with our own version they'll feel better, but for now at least you can somewhat consistently get the ball where it needs to go!)

• Adjusted the physics.The ball is a bit slower and easier to control now. It also doesn't change velocity quite as abruptly as it used to in certain scenarios.

• Particles! Crops sparkle when growing! ✨ Money particles when buying and selling! 💸

• Hat. Now you can spend your hard-earned money on something truly valuable and useful! Completely worthwhile!