PrefaceThis is the start of a documentation project tracking the changes and additions to a (currently) untitled farming game I am working on. As a developer and designer, I have a great appreciation for other designers who textualize their thoughts and decisions and let others read them, as it's both fascinating to see the process and to watch how a game grows. That and (for those not looking to learn) it's just a fun read, or funny to look at how games start out. It's really rare to see the prototype of a finished game--the consumer side usually only sees the end-product, which is fun but lacks clarity. Devlogs are kind of a rising trend amongst indie (and often larger) teams, as they deliver extremely valuable clarity between players and developers, which is important for any game to turn out great. Curse words are also trending, so expect a tasteful amount of those, too. Keeps things real. I'll try and update this log every couple days at minimum, depending on how much I work on my project; otherwise I'll throw in life updates if need be or tidbits on my design ideas. Try not to judge the programmer art or game balance yet (please). Balancing a game that's unfinished is just counterintuitive, and my shitty two-minute eggplants look gorgeous. The gameThe game is best defined as somewhat of a clicker/RTS hybrid. Crops can be planted, grown, and harvested. LMB manually grows them faster, though they'll still passively grow. Crops are the core of the game, and gameplay revolves around them. When you harvest a crop, it starts a combo. The combo directly correlates to the worth of future crops you harvest, and has a timer. The value added to the combo, the timer, and other things depend on the crop you just harvested. (That last crop is "quality." "Quality" crops are RNG. They provide more worth and a boost to the combo timer, among other things). The combo can be incredibly valuable to keep alive, and a lot of the harvesting loop revolves around such. Crops and combos are the core of the game. Crop comboing, I guess. There are traits that add flavor, choice, and diversity to crops. Implemented so far is:
I have many more traits and other things planned, but that is the basic concept. Changing these values creates a wide variety of crops that all act differently and favor usage in different ways. Ideally, this variety supports both active and passive play and supports player Dynamics (MDA framework for the game design nerds) by enabling "builds" of crop setups. There are other things I've left out for simplicity, but I will mention them as I modify those systems in the future. For now, just understand crops and combos. Now, onto the recent changes: Placement UIImproved crop placement UI indicator. The outline now reflects temperature inadequacies above just can plant (green) and can't plant (red). Too hot to plant (orange) and too cold to plant (blue) are new, and are associated with a crop's temperature range. Currently, you can't plant a crop if the current temperature is outside of a crop's growable range. I've had thoughts about adding a "golden zone" temperature range where crop growth is boosted (and it would use this outline coloration system) but that's a topic for later. I love simple, informative UI. Too bad the rest of it is a (temporary) mess. UI design is one of my hidden passions ever since I took a course on it during my Game Design degree, because it makes me feel infinitely smarter even when the design choices are obvious. It's also just satisfying to pack a lot of information into extremely simple interfaces. Crop info panelMenu coding is a pain, but I'm reasonably happy with how this turned out even though it took a bit too long for my liking. I haven't coded in any additional crop menu rows yet because I'm lazy, but I'll get there once it matters. Either way, the columns (and the rows eventually) scale with the size of the window, i.e. adjusting the icon grid so it fits. This will eventually make my life easier if I decide to implement UI scaling down the road, but for now it's just clean code that works no matter what changes I make to the window. Building flexible systems is pretty miserable, but the end product feels great and the pain saved down the road is pretty monumental. It also makes me feel smart. Yes, the tomato is half the resolution it should be and also ugly. I made it like two years ago. It will be changed eventually. This menu just pastes the crop data in a readable format.
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