Natura

Welcome to the enchanting world of Natura! Step onto a tiny island paradise, where the air is filled with the sweet scent of blooming flowers and the gentle buzz of busy bees! You are the steward of a fragile ecosystem, a beekeeper tasked with creating a harmonious home for your winged companions.

Gameplay: around 5 minutes. 4 minutes, if you’re really good.

How to play

The world of Natura is changing very rapidly. Every season lasts only 60 seconds! The only exception is winter. Winters are short on this island, so they last only 30 seconds. Like every human, even you need to eat. Collect berries from flowers and apples from trees in order to survive. When you collect flowers and apples, you occassionaly find a flower seeds and tree seedlings. It’s the best to place them as quickly as you can, so your bee friends have more pollen to eat! If you want to, you can also steal some honey from your bee friends. However, if you do that, they will not breed, until they collect enough honey again.

Trees usually drop some old branches in the winter. Collect them with your axe and build a beehive for your bee friends, or shelter for butterflies!

You can do many actions. Switch between items either by using middle mouse button or by pressing 1, 2, … , 0 on your keyboard.

• 1: Nothing
• 2: Axe. Use it to collect the wooden planks on the floor.
• 3: Place flowers, if you have seeds.
• 4: Place tree, if you have a seedlings.
• 5: Put a fireplace on the ground, if you have enough wooden planks.
• 6: Build another beehive for your bees.
• 7: Build a shelter for butterflies.
• 8: Select honey for eating. Hold left mouse button to eat.
• 9: Select berries for eating. Hold left mouse button to eat.
• 0: Select apples for eating. Hold left mouse button to eat.

Do not be surprised that you need to eat a lot of quantities. This kind of food does not have that many calories, and you need many.

Keep in mind your goal, which is to try breed 100 bees as quickly as you can!

If you simply want to vibe and have a relaxing time, select Endless in the main menu. The game is the same, but it go forever (at least until you don’t starve to death).

Controls

• WSAD: Move like in all 3D first person games.
• Left click: Interaction with items.
• Middle mouse button scroll: Circle between items in the right menu.
• 1-9-0: Switching between items.
• Escape: Toggle pause menu. If you’re playing in HTML5, press Esc twice and then click on the Continue button with your mouse to focus it back properly. You can close the pause menu with Esc as well, and mouse should get captured in a second or two.
• Shift (hold): Focus. No sprint — you’re sprinting by default. You’re welcome!
• Space: Jump.

Tools used

• Game engine: Godot v3.5.1
• Aseprite
• Blender
• Audacity

Links

• https://dzejpi.itch.io/natura - Download or play in your browser on itch.io
• https://github.com/dzejpi/natura - Check the source code here.
• https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/natura - Ludum Dare page.

My commentary

This was a lot of fun, but was beyond my scope. That said, I will love to hear your feedback, since I can imagine actually finishing this after the LD. As always, I am rating all games back, so I can’t wait to see what you think about this!