Grove Keeper

A submission for the GMTK 2025 game jam. Made by one developer over three days.

- Hand drawn art
- Programmed from scratch
- No sound

The Theme was Loop, and I attempted to stick to it by having the main mechanic be to manage the life cycle of the villagers - plant seeds, harvest villagers, they create more seeds, etc.. Additionally, being a wave survival game, it is quite literally a loop in the sense of enemies coming in waves every night. Additionally, the single level the game takes place on has a limited number of planters that have the player moving back and forth, looping between them in order to manage their growing population.

Controls:

• Move - WASD
• Attack - Left Click
• Interact - E

The goal is to survive 5 nights of Mushrooms trying to destroy you, the village altar, and the villagers! You can plant villager Seeds in Planters, and they will go over time. When they are ready, you can harvest them to gain a new Villager. Villagers will help you protect the village, and will also reproduce give you more seeds to plant.

You start with a nice, easy to manage two seeds and the first night isn't too difficult. All of that changes quickly!