One thing to avoid!

I think something to be wary of in games like Harvest Moon is button presses. It’s a game about doing repetitive chores, usually, which can be relaxing in a weird way. But in some of the HM titles, every seed you planted required selecting the soil, opening a menu, selecting the seed, and confirming your selection. Which was ridiculous, as players spent the vast majority of their play time (which, for me, was shortened dramatically by how dumb this was) selecting things in menus.

I know that by default RPG maker doesn’t have a Stardew Valley style task bar, but there’s probably some ways around that.

Rather than have us plow fields tile by tile, you could have there be preexisting fields, that we can plant, weed and harvest all at once (like, you know, a real farmer does, as opposed to a gardener). Maybe only let us get to using 1/4 of those fields until we, I don’t know, buy a tractor or a mole girl farmhand. This would all probably be easier to implement than till-anywhere tiles, from what I can tell.

All I’m saying is, keep in mind that the more button presses we need to do to complete our chores, the more tedious and un-fun they become. Whatever workarounds you can figure out for that, whether it’s hotkeys or a slight reimagining of game play, will be grand.

I’m keeping that in mind, keeping everyhting extremely simple.
Farming won’t be a very big component, and I’m not even sure if I will be including it in the game; it’s probably going to be mostly breeding and resource managing.
If I do include farming, it’s probably going to be a quick way to make a little cash.

Cool. Sounds like the game will be less Harvest Moon, and more, like, Monster Rancher.

Any thoughts on including things like scheduled contests? (Either… fighting tournaments for your monster girls, or like, county fair prizes for weight and breeding?)

County fairs will be in, absolutely (maybe one or two each month). Fighting tournaments sound interesting but don’t really fit cow girls.

Sumo Wrestling / Cow Push / Tug o’ War.