Hello all, more than a few things to talk about this time around, so strap in for the excitement of game development. This was basically the first month where I spent the majority of my time actually working on code. Some random things came up that needed to be done, but generally I was coding. Personally, I think the results are about what could have been expected given recent changes.

While progress wasn’t slow, I’m certain still in the throes of learning a new engine. Generally, that means looking lots of things up and reading. Not a big deal but it does slow things down. As for what was actually done this month I can briefly list things. The player can move, the camera now functions correctly, time has been implemented (as in days pass in game), the inventory system is implemented and functioning, including the ability to manipulate items and stacks as well the description system when hovering items. The hotbar is working, and the shell of the system to allow the player to use tools is in place. This system is sort of built piecemeal, as I add tools in their functionality is added. The item database has also had its framework set and is being filled out. Lastly, the start of farming has been put into the game. At the moment, you can really only till ground but everything else should follow quickly.

As I said before this month was sort of slow. There were two big issues that I came across, well, one issue, and one learning experience really. If you don’t care for tech jargon maybe skip this and the next paragraph. In short, the issue was with the camera. Because of the nature of graphics and pixels there was basically an issue with sprites moving at subpixel positions, which is impossible. If you try to do this it results in some really bad looking jitter when you move around in game. This took a bit to figure out but the solution was ultimately pretty simple. In short, just, you know, don’t do subpixel movements.

The learning experience was just GUIs. Things like the inventory and hotbar and any GUI are created in a specific way in this engine. That method is basically different from how everything else works and very weird to tackle when you are unfamiliar with it. Sort of a different way of thinking I guess. Ultimately, the way this engine works these things is great, it’s just that learning it is sort of a jarring moment that took a while to get used to.

All things considered I think, as I’ve said before, the pace should only increase. There is obviously tons to do but I can tell I’m getting more comfortable with the engine which will speed the process. Also, while a lot of this month was figuring out GUIs which involved new ways of doing lots of stuff many systems won’t have that issue. A lot of basic logic from the old version will still hold up in the new one. So its not so much reinventing the wheel as it is making tweaks.

Other stuff to discuss, just two things really. First is farming. I’m obviously creating the system right now and I thought it might be good to touch base on some changes to see what people think. So, much of farming is the same really. The bigger changes are mostly how you get crops and how they function.
At this point the plan is that only a few crops will be available to the player at the start during each season. There will be a new machine? Object? Thing? I guess machine, that you can get early on that lets you create hybrids of crops. So basically, you drop two seeds in, they make a new crop. Once made these seeds will become available for purchase in some way so you don’t have to do this every time you want seeds. I hope this will add a little bit of progression to crops instead of just dumping like 12 crop types on the player at the start.

Another thing that I’m being more cognizant of is crops that grow in all seasons. I think most of these changes were already made in the old version but I’ve added a few. Things like sugarcane, wheat, tea leaves, etc. Stuff that you primarily use in cooking will last all year. This means you can plant it in spring and it will stick around and regrow until winter. That said I’ve also added winter wheat. It’s the only crop you can grow in winter but if you really want to farm during that season you can. Oh and winter wheat just turns into normal wheat when you harvest it so it isn’t like a separate crop.

Compost is also being added as something of an alternative to growth powder. Effectively it will do the same thing making crops grow faster, but it opens your choices up a bit so you don’t have to pursue alchemy if you want that.

Aside from composting, milling seeds is more relevant. You’ll have the option to turn most crops into multiple seeds of that crop so given some time you can duplicate your plants if you chose to instead of buying them.

Another slight change is harvesting. At the moment crops basically give you one of that crop when you harvest. I’ve been tinkering with the gold systems in an attempt to normalize item prices and such. One big issue is food. Because you can buy food that you can cook the price of the food you buy has to be more than you can sell it for, otherwise, infinite gold. However, many dishes use crops to make them. Crops sell for a lot by design because they have to make up for the seed cost. So basically, something has to give. There are a couple ways to go, but I figure when you harvest something in real life you almost always get more than 1 of the crop. So the solution at the moment, unless I have a sudden change of heart, will be to lower the value of crops but you’ll harvest multiples of them.

One more tiny change is to irrigation. Currently an irrigation pipe takes up a whole tile. I’m planning to change that so it goes between two tiles. I think this will look better and consume less space.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, is the change to I guess, growth? As it stands right now, most crops in the game grow once, are harvested, and they are gone. While these crops will still exist I’m changing some to another type of crop, aptly named perennials. These will be slightly more expensive, but will function in a similar manner to trees. You plant them once, they grow to maturity and then give a repeating yield. They go dormant in their off seasons, but effectively you can set out fields of these crops and have less maintenance at the start of seasons. The trade off is that land is in permanent use. I figure this will be a little something to mix up crops.

Most of the point here is to just add some variety. Farming in real life is complicated. While I hardly want to make things realistic I figure this stuff adds a little more player choice to the system rather than just mindlessly planting swathes of the most profitable crop.

The other thing to discuss is much shorter, and more a reflection of how I want to proceed. In the current game many things are half done. If you’ve been playing this game for any amount of time you’ve probably run into something where the plan is to finish it at some point in the future or a system is just missing entirely. Admittedly, in some cases like map areas not being available, this is somewhat unavoidable. In many others though I don’t like the idea.

Two examples of this are zones missing content, and NPCs. Every zone in the current game exists but is missing some key form of content, whether it be battles, secrets, characters, resources, whatever. NPCs have the same issue. They exist in a basic form. They have quests, although sometimes not all of them, and their basic dialogue. They are missing unique topics, storylines, cutscenes and romances.

I want to change this. While there are certainly going to be minor things that I can’t fully do without going down a rabbit hole, I’d like to implement systems more fully this time around. The most apparent example is likely NPCs. When I add an NPC I plan to have everything regarding them written and implemented. There are a few caveats to that, mostly with some topics that you won’t have a way to unlock yet. Regardless, I want to try and stick true to it as best I can. I think it will give a better impression to anyone playing the game instead of having half-finished systems everywhere.

One thing to mention plainly here regarding NPCs specifically. Romance. Currently I’d like to write it in and add it along with the NPC. I’m going to see what happens with this particular system. I want to do it at the same time as a character is added but I won’t deny that it’s a huge system. Simply writing everything and putting in scenes is a lot. Then you have to think about everything regarding how they act post marriage, children, etc. So I just wanted to be transparent on that particular part because if there’s one thing I’ve seen people request its romance.

In any case I think that’s all for now. Plenty to do, but hopefully there will be more progress in June than in May as that’s the trend that should be happening. As usual, thanks for your patience and sticking with the game through this process.