Hello gamers. It has been a while, and a lot has been changing. I think it is due time for an updated "state of the game" introduction post, but I will compile some of the changes that have been happening anyways, as I might save a full-fledged game rundown for the new site I am working on. This blog will be discontinued eventually in favor of it, though Weebly seems to keep these up forever, so who knows if this page will even get taken down. There is a lot to go through, and I'm afraid I will miss a lot of the changes, as I haven't been keeping great track of them and it's been so long since the last post. But here is a quick rundown of the insignificant things:
For the larger changes, I will start with combos. Variety Value has been removed, as it was ultimately a bandaid on a larger problem: encouraging planting variety. Variety Value was essentially slapping a flat sum of money on variety, but such a solution is not particularly motivating or engaging. I have resorted to other mechanics to help the issue, but many of the existing features like Variety Value are mere scaffolding of what I ultimately want them to become. It just takes time for designs to mature and it helps having other system designs equally developed so they can intertwine with each other in meaningful ways. The UI hasn't been scrapped, though, which is the crop icons/quantities you see here that display what crops you have harvested in the current combo. This UI is actually quite helpful for discerning combo limits (each crop can only add to the multiplier so many times), and has been repurposed as such. On a similar note, however, combo limits themselves have changed as well.
Old combo limits were as follows: each crop had its own combo limit, and harvesting that crop would add to the combo multiplier up to an amount of times equal to the limit. If a crop's limit is 10, I can only harvest 10 before it stops adding to my combo multiplier. While this seems okay on paper, in practice it is cumbersome. It is unreasonable to expect a player to memorize every crop's combo limit to optimize planting order, and counting the amount of harvests until each limit quickly becomes extraordinarily tedious. Optimizing combos becomes "plant 8 Eggplants, plant 10 Corn, plant 20 Tomatoes, plant 40 Rice, etc." and usually follows a specific order since combo limits overlap. New combo limits, on the other hand, are universal. All crops share the same limit (currently 30), so there is no memorization of individual crop limits. Combo limits are mutually exclusive as well, meaning up to 30 of any crop will be added to the combo regardless of order, which is much more intuitive and free than pre-planning specific planting orders--just plant what you've got until you have 30 of each. Overall both the UI and intuitiveness of the system has improved significantly, and the system no longer encourages its planting variety at the cost of player choice. The 30-crop limit is doubled if you're harvesting Quality crops, which drastically extends the potential of a combo as it takes significantly longer to "max out". The old combo system maxed pretty quickly, but now farming any crop is fairly valuable for a while until you've completely maxed at 60 (30 + 30 Quality). Quality crops are rarer, which means adding a new crop to your combo will add value faster than an existing one, which encourages variety over quantity. Combos also become far more valuable because you can build them bigger. Another large addition has been crop Statuses. Statuses already existed (e.g., Frosted and Malnourished crops), but hadn't been merged under a cohesive system. Now they are under one roof and are being broadened to include more as I go. Crop Statuses can slow a crop down, speed it up, prevent it from being harvested, destroy it, or many other things. Similarly comes the addition of Weather Anomalies (working title), which further diversifies the weather system. Weather is now comprised of three major components: temperature, weather, and anomalies. Temperature determines what can/can't be grown. Weather inflicts varying effects that change the playfield such as Rain, Heatwaves, or Frost. Anomalies occur independent of weather but also change the playfield with events like Mildew, Insects, or Fungi. This means days become exponentially more diverse, as any day can combine both a weather event and an anomaly. Anomalies were partially inspired by the long-aforementioned Free Farm Game, or what little of it I've seen. However, I plan on crops having resistances to certain Statuses and Anomalies. Most crops will have one or two resistances that separate them from other crops, which restores the depth lost by refactoring combo limits and some other old traits. These resistances will likely be shared with adjacent crops, meaning what you plant and where suddenly becomes very relevant and important. This is traditionally called companion planting, and it is a mechanic that is sadly absent from most all farming games, which I find disappointing. Most farming games lack depth to me, but I want this game to change that (without becoming too complex). Resistances add very little complexity (as it's not adding new mechanics, it's using existing ones) but add a ton of depth through how you choose to arrange and plant crops. I am working towards a decent vertical slice that I can forward to playtesters for some meaningful feedback, as feedback on incomplete systems isn't as helpful. Right now the largest hurdles are art, populating content, and balancing. Hey! Progress is slow, but not nothing. Motivation has been low for a while. The weather prediction UI has taken an upgrade. It used to be a bar that showed tomorrow's weather chances, but in reality this is useless information to the player--there's not much they can do with it without making guesses as to what weather will actually happen. Now it will literally show you the next day's weather, which is information the player can actually prepare for and utilize.
Some other UI has been tweaked as well, such as the planting choices temperature UI, the harvesting state indicator, season icons, and others. Nothing too worth showing--mostly common sense stuff I didn't get around to that improves consistency and clarity. Mutations are now gone! As per my last post, they are now a thing of the past and have been replaced with Special Currency (working title). Not a premium currency (amen), but a special, rarer one that isn't the same as Units (the standard money). Like mutations, you can get these randomly from harvests, but you can get these from Milestones (achievements) and other places as well. This has basically incorporated Mutations into an existing system, reducing complexity while increasing depth--which are my two tenets of great games. Since you can't upgrade crop traits directly anymore, the Upgrade system will be expanded as well. Watering has changed a bit, too. The old system was rather boring and linear: watering a plot filled its water timer completely with no in between. Now, water is more fraction-based. Watering fills half the timer (making the action more frequent), but working with fractions lets me do other things as well. Rain, for instance, now waters bit by bit instead of 100% like old watering, which with some tweaking feels much more realistic and less RNG. I can (and have) also added sprinklers, the first building to enter the game, which water crops at the cost of tile space. More buildings will come down the line, and I plan on having them affect (and be affected by) crops and other buildings. This means where and when you place things always matters, and how you use certain things affects your results; buildings are not just money generators. Some backend has also been improved. I refactored some things and cleaned up the project itself a little so it's more readable on my end, which will make me more efficient in the long run. Apologies for the lack of updates. I have a lot of things on my to-do list and there's never enough time in the world for everything. There's some additional depth in the works for crops, which will make them interact with each other and completely change how you think about planting. Sorry for silence, still been slow. But I've been mulling over Mutations and Genetics in that time. I'll admit it's a tougher task than I initially thought, but here's the rundown.
Mutations and Genetics sucked. They were a taste of a system that could be good, but ultimately they didn't accomplish what they set out to do for two main reasons:
The main goal of both systems was player agency (Genetics) and some feel-good randomness (Mutations). I intend on keeping both of those as they're important to the gameplay experience, but such made it harder to rework.
Anyways, thanks for your patience. It's been a slow road as of recent. Hey. We're back. I'm slowly starting to creep out of the slump I've been in for the past month or two. Apologies for a lack of updates, I've been managing a lot. Between work and a bunch of other endeavors and my own mental health, there isn't a lot of time to go around. I'm starting to think I may have just needed a little break to avoid complete burnout and focus on myself a bit. Either way, here's an idea I had a while ago. Nothing big, but I'm enamored with the results. Anyone who's read this blog through should know I'm a stickler for good UI and UX, so I'm always brainstorming how to improve mine. Today's feature is making the crop hotkeys UI a little more informative--their color shifts depending on the temperature. If the temperature is outside the crop's range, it will shift the UI color to indicate it is too hot/cold.
I do see a couple people who are still reading these posts, so thanks for sticking around. Long time no see. Wanted to keep everyone out of the dark.
Been busy and proactive with other things as of late, especially my main job. This is still a side project, after all. Though motivation has been a bit low, I've been spending what time I can brainstorming fixes for certain issues. The aforementioned Genetics/Mutation rework is quite a doozy. I've been refining some other ideas, however, and am happy with how they're shaping up. Apologies for the lack of development. My time is cut pretty short amidst many other things, and I've been pretty creatively drained as of late. It'll come back eventually, though. |