Ezekiel: the Towns default cook (kind of need him for a game like this), I want to make different aspects of feeder and feedee dynamics so a restaurant owner would be a good fit, taking cues from tree of tranquility line of the harvest moon/Sos series I was thinking of putting a part time job system (nothing major just when the prompt is selected fade to black and then after 6 in game hours you will get a small amount of money based on random chance)
Cedric: the “homeless” character, same idea with Ezekiel but this guy is of the bad influence feeder won’t actively push but the amount of snacks he will offer will cause some damage.
Gillie: the Carpenter talk to her to upgrade your home and have a use for lumber.
Nora: the town blacksmith talk to her to upgrade tools.
I am planning to have at least 2 characters done relatively soon dialogue written, I also know that the way the current save system functions adding new NPC’s might break things so I will work around that so you can keep the save and enjoy the new content, as usual I hope you enjoy what I make in the future.
Game Details for version .0001
After All this time I finally got a Vertical Slice done!
Surprised I could get this much done in 4 months of work. More details are on the Itch.io Post but if you want to see what I have posed here first then have at it.
there is an error with the player holding things floating out of their hand I don’t know why this is happening but I feel when I work the models over this problem will go away.
Seeds & watering can don’t deplete there is a problem that came up with how the extra areas of effect on tools function and I have to fix that I’m planning to overhaul how the soil in this game works to not only help with speeding up the game but also better handling how tools work.
music isn’t seamless until I develop my own music thats just going to be how it is sorry…
starting the game may result in it not responding. optimizing the game will be how to fix it but I don’t want to keep dreading over this game not getting set up right.
tool animation doesn’t work, the way the layering system in unity works goes against how I animated the character so it will have to be absent for the time being.
camera clipping is just going to have to be a thing I am planning to over haul how the camera works later sorry.
sprite doesn’t change when character state changes. this is resolved when you talk to them without giving them stuff but for now again sorry.
when talking the game will tell you that space [-] or the south face button is to continue but thats false it’s [x] or the east face button. (Fixed)
Seasons don’t cause environmental changes (I’m only human)
Future planed features
character homes
more fleshed out schedules (I have to make a better schedule creation system that will allow me to have the NPC have more to do faster and easier.
weight base dialogue ( there is dialogue when they are full but I want to add more to that later on.
a real options menu with audio mixing.
more fully rendered weight stages for sprites and all of them having different emotions.
event cutscenes (this one is going to be a challenge for a while…
lighting and environments that fit the characters (this will either be next or WayLater.
Holidays and character birthdays
character customization, (name, birthdate, equipment visuals).
Recipes and crafting . (I already made the function I just need to set up how to get recipes)
more character animation this will also be (Way Later).
Food Items giving buffs as well as adventure zones to go to. This will be both hard and easy to make.
Livestock (
Town building and (think animal crossing villagers moving in but you can evict them if you desire)
That being said there will be set NPC’s in the town but I will make it that you can choose where to put them.
changing environment look.
Crop model Overhaul, for better optimization and general look of the game.
Current build
as of right now there are 4 characters including the player character that you can watch grow. you can give them food as much as you want in this build no matter how full they get but this could be featured to change later.
all crops are available to buy and grow. there is also the favorite foods to give to the characters available in the shop. To buy and feed.
characters have changing dialogue for what state they are in, this dialogue is bound to change for when I have a better concept for how I want these characters to be.
Saving is in but, let me know if it doesn’t work I hear some functions get lost between downloads sometimes.
Character sprites have 5 weight levels as well as a stuffed version (40 drawings in total) :^|
Let me know if window size is too big I will change it later on. for monitors that cant handle 720P.
Support
as of right now I am in a state of live or die (not literally) in terms of money. if nothing changes I am going to have to put this project on hold for the time being.
To help with that I have Commissions open on my Ko-Fi . I also have a Patreon any help will always be appreciated and patrons will be able to help influence the game as I have options in the works.
I hope you can find time to enjoy this game this was suppose to be a Saturday release but last second issues came up when developing the build
This looks like a super promising project! I’m definitely going to keep an eye on this as it progresses.
The rune factory gameplay loop fits with weight gain so well, and the little map draft and character designs all look fantastic. Curious to see how they’ll translate to 3d, but 3d games are seriously lacking here so that only makes it more exciting! Best of luck with this and thanks for sharing!
Ah Rune Factory Frontier, the one game that I could never finish because of those damned Moondrops never growing right. I don’t want to admit the amount of hours I’ve spent researching and growing them…
At least the other two games I played were great, Rune Factory 3 (the one where you turn into a monster), and Tides of Destiny. Hope you pull more inspiration from those games as well as the others.
Yeah, I will admit frontier has some really obtuse stuff to progress in the game, like locking half of a dungeon of behind a level 6 heart event. I’ll do my best to avoid that.
I’ll also look at some of the quality of life stuff the later games came up with
Oh yeah, also make sure the farming isn’t strange either and is responsive to a degree. Frontier had those spirits that really messed up the farming completely (see Context, warning it is long and somewhat a rant…).
Context
In Rune Factory Frontier the main map is filled with these spirits that just float and do nothing. The thing is each spirit (there are four types) have certain wants and can either explode in growth or shrink to nothing in the span of a night.
Why is this important? Well this ties directly to farming, as if the areas on the map are unbalanced then your farming takes a hit in making crops take longer. Just one unbalance area alone will cause it to take an extra day, imagine the whole map going bad.
The issue is there is a lack of knowing when an area is balanced, or whether you need to intervene or not. The thing is even if you do nothing all of the populations will die off, so it’s a Catch 22 (do nothing and lose them or try and help to only accelerate the decay).
So that issue with the moondrops becomes even worse as they too are also affected, and the best way to make income in the game is ruined as you can’t rely on farming to give you big yields. In short you can only really make money by selling food, weapons/tools, and other things you can craft. However
However you can only go so far and progress is as JM1 says, very obtuse and infuriating as you don’t know when something will unlock. To make matters worse the moondrops are needed to open the rest of the dungeon and reach the end of the game.
100% this is made more difficult by the fact that you have a choice between two characters for one to stay (locking the other out- also you have to go through completing the main game AGAIN for the other one). I can’t remember how many need the game to be completed but it is at least two, if not three times! Who designed the game like this!?
Sigh… sorry, I just spent so long trying to complete it but never coming close. To this day I still have no clue what is needed to unlock the second dungeon (the timing for me is never the same) or how to progress the game after reaching the furthest point in Whale Island before being stuck on the fin. The only good thing is I manage to get a few waifus in my several attempts (there is a chubby girl in the game, her name is Eunice and you can marry her thick).
No clue about the farming in the first and second games, or the one with the wind dragon or even the new one that is coming out. Just if you’re going to go with the Frontier farming, please give players an indication on what is needed to balance or ways to fix something with money or material. There’s a guy who I think can tell is something is wrong with the spirit population but never specify exactly.
Not going any further on this, just Frontier had some good things but failed in one of the main cores of the game (at least to me). It will be a game that will elude full completion possibly for good in my case, maybe someone else will get lucky…
Don’t limit yourself to just Rune Factory, there are plenty of other games that can also bring ideas.
The complexities of a 3D game design with mixed modes of gameplay are such that I strongly, strongly recommend approaching this game conservatively; identify the core of the game and avoid trying to add in every single mechanic, system and asset that might be found in full commercial games. Especially if this is a solo project.
For instance, rather than have a big open 3d overworld, identify the most important locations for gameplay and have them act as separate areas; probably something along the lines of
Farm (buildings important for the farming game loop)
Town (locations for interaction with people outside the farm)
Wilderness (locations for missions/offsite combat)
A problem I’ve seen with a lot of farming games is the amount of time spent as a walking simulator. If you have to physically walk from one side of the map to the other then you messed up, especially when weight gain is involved. Solution: cut out hauling items from gameplay. If you order something, it is delivered without your direct involvement. Besides, if the farmwork is a form of indenture, then the MC shouldn’t be spending time off the farm without approval.
Mind you, all of the above plus most of your OP has been about gameplay and features rather than setting, narrative and story. I’d be happy to help out with that if you’re interested, it’s been a while since I’ve written for a game, but it’d be a nice change from what I’ve been doing lately (mostly comic/graphic novel scripts).
I would like to give updates every week or so, sadly it’s still mostly technical stuff done, weather is now in and I have the NPC schedule coding done, for the most part it’s just making assets. in the meantime have a little sample of the renders
If there is any details you would like for me to expand on let me know I want to know what other people feel this genre needs to feel better or other general quality of life stuff
Those renders are looking incredibly high quality! Really loving the character design and how expressive she is. Personally, I’m happy to hear about the technical stuff too. It’s nice to get some insight into the development process and hear about what is being worked on. Keep up the awesome work!
Updating to let you know and just giving a general question to ask.
As it stands right now with the models I am currently working on the expanding rig (the way it works now I just have to get the weights paints to distribute properly ) but I would like to know which would people prefer?
To get the character models ready but no expanding models but with images that show the gains or get the models to properly expand and do the images later.
Other than that leaving you with this little gift, JM.
I’m asking if people would want for me to make the dialogue sprites show the gaining and the models stay the same or make the models show the gain while the sprites don’t.
As far as making the game is concerned, the only art assets that should be needed right now are the minimum needed to cover the early game design process. Odds are that no matter what work is done now on sprites and model morphs, things will have to be changed later on. Refining, polishing, etc of visuals are all things best set aside until the last stages of development when the game itself is more or less in place.
I know it’s not the most popular or flashy advice but that’s my 2 cents.
