New Project - First devlog!


Récolte

First prototype - First devlog

So, when is the good time to start a devlog? 
When brainstorming ideas? When writing the first lines of codes?
I picked the "When there is something somewhat playable" option.

The initial concept

I have been programming 2D games for almost five years now, and I wanted to move to the 3D world! My choice went to Unreal Engine 4 for the engine. I thought about a farming game with 3rd person gameplay. I didn't want a point and click style game. I wanted the player to actually control the farmer. It's a very different feeling, and a different level of involvement. With a point and click gameplay, for this kind of game, you are always in the expectation, while when you control the character, you are more in the action.

So I wanted to make this 3rd person farming game, and I wanted to add a more developed simulation aspect. The initial concept is probably to technical, but here is the initial idea:
- You have to plant plants (of course!)
- Each plant has it's own caracteristics: Planting season, growth duration, water and nitrogen consumption.
- Each ground portion has variables such as water level and nitrogen level.
- The water level of the ground decreases with time. The decrease factor follows a cosine function with it's minimum in winter and maximum in summer.
- The water level of the ground also decrease according to the water consumption of the plant that is growing on it.
- The nitrogen level of the ground decrease according to the nitrogen consumption of the plant that is growing on it.
- The nitrogen level of the ground increase when the ground is set aside.
- You have to take care of the ground: Water it when needed, set it aside when needed. Ultimately, use the crop rotation method.
- On the character level, you would have to you would have to take care of the amount of water in your watering can, and go to the well to fill it when needed. You would have to take care of the level of filling of the basket where you put the harvested crops, and go to the market sell the crops when its full.

Phew! Are you still here?


The actual concept

In practice, after prototyping, the concept became much simpler, otherwise, it's simply not playable:
- Now there is no nitrogen level to deal with.
- The watering can is the equivalent of Marry Poppins bag. It's a bottomless watering can. You never need to fill it.


Progresses so far

I started this project on January 4th 2019, so almost 3 months ago.

First days
I started from the side scroller template of Unreal Engine 4, which provides a character, a camera that follows the character and the possibility to move left and right, and also the possibility to jump. Below you can see the first gif of the game, after 5 days. I implemented displacement forward and backward and a detector that returns the objects that are close enought to interact with.



First month
After one month, a lot has been done!
I am no longer working with UE4 models. As you can see in the below video, I created the 3D models of the character, watering can, corn, I animated all that.

I coded the interaction of the character with his environment. The gameplay is very simple. Only one button: SPACE BAR.
The character decides what the most appropriate action to perform:
- If there is a fully grown plant on the soil: Pick the plant.
- Else if the soil is dry, water the soil.
- Else sow seeds.


Second month
While the frist month was dedicated to implementing the base mechanisms of the game, the second month was dedicated to enriching the world. Making it less empty, more alive. As you can see in the bellow video:
- Now time is passing. A yearly cycle has been superimposed to a day/night cycle: Morning = Spring, Noon = Summer, Evening = Fall, Night = Winter.
- The environment change according to time: In addition to the sun light change, trees evolve according to the season.
- Now the character wears a basket were he can put crops in.
- A table, that is the first draft of what will be a shop, is present to sell the crops.
- 2 new plants have been added: Wheat and pumpkin.
- The HUD as been created.


Third month
This month I am focusing on feedback to the player. I still don't have a video (I plan to publish a monthly video, and the 3rd month is not done yet!).
What kind of feedback to give to the player?
Warn the player when he it's not the right season to plant a plant as you can see on the below (high quality) gif:

By the way, the HUD also gives this info: When it the season to plant, the plan will appear in color, when it's not the season, only the outline of the plant is displayed.
A message is also displayed when the basket is full and you can't pick other crops.

Another important feedback for the player is an outline around the ground piece the player will interact with. Sometime, when you are between 2 ground pieces, it was not very obvious which one the character will interact with. Now it's clear:

Other very important feedback: An objective! Yes, for now, the player plants plants, harvests crops, and bring them to a shop...
Now, there are objectives at the shop, displayed on slates. Like "4 corns", "6 pumpkins"... And the player will earn points according to supply and demands. I aslo added a NPC, the merchant, that will update the objectives!
All that can't fit in 3 mb gif, so here is a picture of the shop, with the slates and the merchant:

Finally, I added a pause menu, that displayes info about the crops, such as planting season, growth duration and water needs:


What's next ?

The To-do list is huge, as you would expect.
But now, what I want to do is:
- Add weather events, that could bring advantages - like rain that would water the whole ground at once - or disadvantages - like a storm that would distroy plants, heat waves during summer that would dry the land quickly...
- Add the possibility to buy things in the shop, like new seeds, more land to cultivate...
- Add a new kind of plant: Fruit trees. Plant them only once and pick the fruits at the right time of the year.
Also, I could work a bit on some balancing, but that's probably too early. The problem is that, so far, if you download and try the prototype, you will see that you spend a lot of time watering the ground. Thus, there is probably some work around this problem.

So that's it for this launch devlog!
Now go download the prototype and plant some plants!

Files

Récolte.7z 66 MB
Mar 23, 2019

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