Bloom

I love this game so much! I discovered it after I'd had my playdate a while, but it's one of those I come back to pretty much every day, it's so chill and adorable but also real and emotional at times.

One qol improvement I'd like to see would be the ability to use the crank in the shop. Maybe scroll through flowers with crank, and holding b increases the quantity with the crank or something? At the very least increasing the quantity would save my right dpad a ton XD and maybe being able to use it to scroll through the contacts as well before selecting the conversation? Just my 2 cents, I love the game and love the current crank implementation but always like to see more :)

bloom has an atmosphere that is simply unmatched on the playdate, and whether or not you agree with the characters choices, the game does a great job at telling the story.  so people complaining about the price, ive spent easily over 9hrs in this game and iwll still pick it up from time to time just to be back in the setting... so $10? Heck yeah! this game is a gem! cant wait to get more from the dev!

OMG Thx for this gem!

I loved Coffee talk on steam and was hoping if it's possible to get something like it on the playdate. Bloom reminded me a lot about it. Doing your plant chores while having the conversations with other people and getting into this story.

Without the "outro" i would've been annoyed about midoris behaviour especially with her parents. The ignoring of reading the word "borrowing" the money and the lack of communication about her relationship that just gets her in more problems later on. But i think that's how it is sometimes in our lives.

What was crazy is that i learned two things for my personal life from the game:

• financial i did the same ingame as i do with my own company. I always buy and sell stuff without getting something to the side to invest. If the game had any part where her harvest would be destroyed i wouldn't have anything in my savings. 
  So i started a investment plan in my own life while playing. :)
  Thx for that.
• i learned something from how everyone communicated while texting. I normaly just get to the point and never chit-chat. But i think i'll try that from now on if it's possible or good for the conversation.

Hope we are getting anything similar soon again on the playdate! <3

I wanted so badly to like this game, and on the whole, I do think I had an enjoyable experience. It was pleasant coming back to my Playdate throughout the day to check in on my flowers and texts, because it gave me something small to look forward to whenever I had a moment of free time. Unfortunately, everything else about it feels like fumbled bag.

I found Midori to be an extremely frustrating character who is given several chances to develop, mature, and improve, but for the most part, she just...doesn't. I can't go into details without entering spoiler territory, but the writers seem to be very conflict-averse. Midori has some serious flaws that she needs to work on (how dismissive she is of her parents, shutting down communication when the going gets tough), but the story does very little to actually address them - she's not allowed to grow at all, especially in regards to her relationship with her parents. The ending feels sudden, half-baked, and SO thoroughly unearned. That said, the writer says outright that this is their first time writing a story, which makes some of these issues easier to understand.

As for the gameplay, the garden is SUPER cute, but I have no idea if it actually affects progression at all. I kept hoping the game would give me more reasons to make money beyond buying garden upgrades/more flowers, but it never did.

My gripes aside, I am looking forward to what the studio releases next. They have the potential to craft something real special, so I would love to see them stick the landing next time. 

Also, I think it's funny that they used Pixie's art from SMT/Persona for the Horoscope icon lol.

EDIT: I just saw that there's a post-game story. Will update my review after clearing the new content!

If you have a playdate. Buy it!

My money suddenly went down to 0 yen while picking flowers... Weird. I had about 1 bil. Glitch?

Just a wholesame experience. I need more of it - plllleeeaaase 🥹

Overall, I also really like the game and don't regret buying it. But I also feel with some minor improvements it could be even much better. I also think it's a pity that characters responses like "good morning / evening" going to school etc. don't match with the real lifetime with destroys immersion a bit. The gardening could imo be a bit more complex and be integrated to the story. Once, they even mention that the company wants a particular flower, and it would have been cool if you would need to plant this flower. It also doesn't make so much sense story wise that Midori is annoyed that she has to pay back 200k to their parents when I already had like 10 million on my account. And the loading times! It almost takes 40s to boot up the game, which is not so great for a game you like to pick up for only some minutes at a time. But like I said all in all a great game and a cute little story! 

congrats to the whole team - this game is really good. I played twice the whole game.  For v1.1 you mention that there are new characters at the end, what are they ? I am not sure I am seeing this new content. Thank you ! 

https://itch.io/jam/itchio-indie-gala-2023-bundle-submissions-

Do you want to join?

I’m on the fence about this one. The description is clear enough: this is a social sim. You watch characters type messages to each other. It does a great job of getting you to come back and follow along with the story. But there is not much more to it, and I’m feeling meh about it. Guess it’s not my genre. Regardless, I wish it would load in a few seconds max. The actual load time is 38 seconds. That is a very long time for a game that you want to play every day for several weeks to follow along with the story.

I love the music. Great in atmosphere, very fitting. Props to Pichuscute who made it.

Props for giving thought to accessibility as well.

I would recommend this to people who like social sims. For others, it might be fun to try this as part of a bundle or discount. At the moment, it is still sold at full price.

While I can see some room for improvement, I liked the game a lot! I would have wished for the gardening part to have an impact on the story part. Is there any way to start a new game without deleting the savegame? My girlfriend would like to play the game too but I would prefer not to lose my progress.

Looking forward to your next game!

I felt like Bloom was a big breakout hit for the Playdate in that it was one of the only worthwhile homebrew games that could compete quality wise with the games available in season 1. I felt justified in paying $10 for this game with compelling characters and story. That was at least until I got to the ending. The game builds to what should be a grand finale and yet falls on its face with a rushed ending that in no way closes out the story arc for any of the characters that have been introduced. You really get the feeling that the developers ran out of time as the ending of the game was being made. I'm very disappointed in this game and no longer believe it's worth the $10 it goes for. 

The best game on Playdate.

A genuinely astonishing bit of work.

Part visual novel, part gardening sim. You play as Midori, a university drop out who has opted to start a flower business. 

The game unfolds via text messages in semi-real time. You grow and harvest flowers, all with their own timers for seeding, watering, picking, etc, and each time you check back in to the game, snippets of conversation appear in a messaging app on your in-game phone. It's not quite real time, in that messages come through after time has passed as opposed to at set times, but with a little suspension of disbelief it still works great. 

Most effective are the way the writing handles events: texts that lead up to an off-screen event, then texts that cover what did or didn't happen at said event after the fact. It's an incredibly immersive way of framing things.  

The game deals with Midori's relationships with her partner, friends, and parents alongside her business, and there were moments of real gravity in the way these conversations were handled. The art is great, the writing is superlative, the music is a lovely set of lo-fi beats, and the structure of plant, water, chat, wait, repeat fits the little handheld incredibly well.

A beautiful thing.

Does anyone know the score tiers that lead to further texts with the competitive guy? (Sorry, I don't have my Playdate at hand to find his name.) I think the last time he wrote was when I broke 1000 pts. Are there any tiers above that?

Look cool, but price seems a bit steep, so will wait for a sale to get it.

I absolutely love this game!! Now that I've finished it, I miss playing it regularly. What are the chances that you can add the soundtrack video that you all made as a mode to the game? I would LOVE to have the 1 bit visual from the video with the soundtrack playing in the background while I have my playdate open on my desk  :)

Just bought the game and started playing. Very good narrative and frankly a bit addictive :)  I am having trouble with the graphics though which are very small - maybe my eyesight isn't the best but I need to use mirror to play.  A few things that could be done to increase size of graphics would be to have the right sidebar accessible via the menu. And reduce the size of the phone to show the apps only. Thanks.

My favourite Playdate game right now. Loving the concept. The only thing that is a bit off for me is that it's not really real time so events happen at weird real time of the day (I thought it was a bug at first because it doesn't match the description of the game). Hope to see a Bloom 2 with that fixed :)

Not sure what to say without overly praising or overly simplifying. Bottom line: one of the top 10 electronic experiences of my year. Played on vacation and somehow remember this game more clearly than my physical location at the time. Adorably engrossing stuff.

Just finished it. It was quite an enjoyable experience. It left me wanting more, but I guess thats a good thing :)

Fantastic little game that keeps me coming back to dig up my flowers and see what messages I've missed! Also really like the mini game, which helps pass the time while my flowers are blooming.

Only real niggle I have is that I don't find Midori a particularly likeable character.  I won't spoil anything for those that have yet to play it, but I just think she comes across as a bit entitled. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but I can't take to her. Perhaps it's maybe because I'm a little older than she is portrayed to be, but I just can't relate to her or her world view. Also, the game isn't fully "real-time". Sure there's a clock on display which is nice but sometimes people's actions don't tie in with the actual time of day - such as going to college at 11pm, and going to bed at 3pm? It just feels a little...off.

However, that doesn't spoil the overall experience. The use of the crank is thoughtful and there's enough to keep me coming back just to see the story develop (and for me to earn a ton of money :))

I'm glad I made this my first "bought" game for my Playdate, and I can't wait to see what RNG have in store for us next :)

Hands down my favorite game on any mobile platform right now. When my playdate arrived, I didn't expect to be picking it up multiple times a day to check in on my messages and tend to my garden. What a delightful experience.

Easily one of the best games on the play date at the moment and could have totally headlined season 1’s subscription service.  

I would have liked an option to speed up the text messages a bit because some conversations drag on. 

The mini game was a game in itself and it would have been cool to see that get fleshed out a bit more with conversations.  

The gardening is simple and effective and it would have been cool to be able to buy more things for your apartment/store.  Other than that this was an exceptionally well made and executed game and I hope to see more games like this on the play date

What is the 'global' high score I'm shooting for on the Starshooter Hoshiko minigame?  It might be helpful to have the 'global' score listed somewhere or embedded within a conversation.  

Bloom is BY FAR my favorite game on the Playdate, and the natural writing style propels it towards one of my favorite games of all time.  Thank you for making such a fun and beautiful game!

i like it..bloom has a nice artstyle and the bgm is  lovely 

I enjoyed this a lot! It's like a Japanese slice of life movie slowly unfolding via text messages.