Designing the Town for my Farming Game
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- čas přidán 5. 12. 2022
- Devlog video about "Homegrown", a casual farming game I'm creating using my own engine. This time I'm creating the town area where you'll go to access the in-game shops!
Support the channel on Patreon and get access to the code for this game, the city-builder, and Equilinox:
/ thinmatrix
My previous game "Equilinox":
store.steampowered.com/app/85...
You can follow the progress of the game on my social media:
Twitter: / thinmatrix
Instagram: / thinmatrix
Facebook: / thinmatrix
Trello: trello.com/b/W3zkIJTM/farm
Email: thinmatrix@gmail.com
Background music by Jamal Green:
open.spotify.com/artist/50jTM...
Outro music by Dannek Studio:
/ dannekstudio
#devlog #Homegrown - Hry
I guess a cool extension of your scene sweeping animation would be to sweep white clouds models, and to add paralax effect with different speed for deeper cloud layers
Yeah that could be nice, maybe I'll try something like that when I next work on the transition :)
Basically, Clash Of Clans?
A Zoom like GTA could also work.
@@TwoTeaTee That's literally what came to my mind when I read his suggestion! I was like wait a minute that sounds like clash of clans😆
the island transition in islanders came to mind for me, basically pan the camera and it loops along some shared repeating section of map, and once the next scene has finished loading, move the camera to that one in the same place and move the camera onto the new scene, maybe with some screen space fx with clouds or trees or whatever else. and maybe the shared repeating section is a path that would take you between the two places
the grid base system looks nice!
@@Barquevious_Jackson I'd argue this game isn't attempting to replicate real-life geometry, but rather providing a stylized, artistic representation of reality. Given that, the rigid grid layout *does* complement the aesthetic nicely.
The compost shop is literally eadible. So cute. I wouldn't bother changing the look, the grid base approach looks perfectly cute to me. Plus, it's cohesive.
the art style REALLY shines with the town scene you've created. it looks really, really, good. I love the rounded corners a lot. Well done !!!
Thank you!
Really love this art style! Only tip: maybe instead of one big lantern in the middle of a square have some sort of a monument or a fountain and have a few small lanterns around the town?
Was thinking the same.
Also the buildings feel a little too clustered together for me, I think it would look a little more breathable if they were closer to the current edge of the square
yeah for me the lantern was looking a little too sharp and detailed compared to the surrounding art style
Yes I wish more games used the style it's slightly cozy looking
Honestly, I love the town area. It has a unique and charming feel. In the beginning I was a bit sceptical about the grid based idea, but it turned out very nicely.
Thanks, I'm glad you like it!
Thank you, always so happy to sit back, relax and watch a nice ThinMatrix video
Same feeling 👌
Couldn't agree more
Idea for the scene transition could be a little bike bell sound and a silhouette of a bike rides past with the wipe to show you are going off on a journey to the shop and reverse it for the journey back.
Could even have ba graphic of the farm and the town and showing the bike or character moving from one to the other :3
love the first idea
I really like the look of the town! I feel the grid version matches your overall game design. I think if anything the rounded fertilizer building sticks out more so because everything else is squared off. Could potentially look into more building variants for the shops to even out the visual discrepancies. Very pleasant project!
What would be great is if two scenes are more connected gameplay wise. It just does not feel natural for you to collect crops and immediately switch between the scenes, open the shop for selling and sell the crops 1s after you collected them. You could implement something like Farm Frenzy where you have a cart car and limited storage of the things you can pack in it. When you fill it up you send it to town, it takes some time for it to spawn on the other scene and when it does, driver maybe goes to specific place for selling where he/she sells the produce (this takes a bit of time too) and then returns to base with money. Selling does not have to be any complicated mechanic, you could maybe just make a progress bar above the driver and a cart, and while the bar fills up, you can see the boxes are disappearing from the back of the car, of course town people walk by everywhere, they are "customers". This adds more tactic to the game and prolongs gameplay time.
P.S. The town looks great.
I think making like loading screen with a character moving in car animation would be a great transition from town area to home.
Since the town has paths between the buildings, you might want to add a path in the home scene as well, so it does look like it actually belongs to the town. Also, somebody mentioned clouds, I think cloud shadows would be a cool idea (the camera is not that high to actually display the clouds top-down)
I just don't understand how one man can do and know this much You are amazing
he is been doing this for decades i's like everyday habit for him to work on indie dev, i like how he chill and also the peaceful environment.
Hotloading is huge for efficiency. It's one of those things that you didn't realise how much it helps until you get it, like dual monitors.
Looks amazing! LOVE the art style and the smooth edges!
With the farmers market that pops up, they could give you special contracts where you need to grow amount of seeds and you get rewards from doing the contracts
The colour scheme, shading and curved corners of your game are just... * chefs kiss *
One of the most aesthetically appealing games I've ever seen.
One thing to consider: Make the players house and garden visible in the town view, or at least have it just nearby in the same scene. That way the player can feel like a part of the community instead of living all alone and travel to some random town all the time. It would also make for a fast and intuitive transistion when clicking town button, because you are already there - a small zoom and pan would be enough.
Can't believe I watched your channel about 8 years ago about developing a Java game in opengl, and now here you are, nothings changed but you've gotten better. I hope life has been treating you well, and I congratulate you on how many subscribers you've gained.
I really like the clay-model look that the town has. And the gird works nicely, especially with the big rounded corners.
Love the placeholder items on the houses at 4:21 , developer art is always so goofy lol
I think you should go "off grid" for the Town area. The farming scene with the grid makes total sense because you only want to be working in a grid when farming, but the assets around it (house, fence, vegetation etc.) are way more free form, and it doesn't look weird or clash. I think the non-grid approach in the town would also help emphasise the difference between the gameplay styles of each scene.
Amazing work by the way, this looks like a exciting project!
This is coming along really nicely. Perhaps every Sunday the farmer's market pops up, which is the only time you can sell your produce. Each week you could set certain targets to meet e.g. sell 100 carrots, that would influence how you go about farming.
I'm loving every second of this. The orange-ish color of the lamp post reminds me of lamp posts at night. In my opinion a yellowish tint might suit the lamp post better. Looks great!
I like the grid layout to keep the continuity between the farm and the town. Here's an idea, might take some time to do though - add in a truck on your farm that when you click on, it enters a 4 second animation of the truck traveling on a road, then you appear in town. Maybe the truck parks in a small lot just outside town with other vehicles? When you want to return to the farm, you have to return to the lot and click on the truck. Love the art style, keep up the good work!
It might be quite a technical challenge, but a 'sweep' from one scene to the other (like in physical space) would be awesome!
Yesss!! I think that would be perfect
Doesn't feel very logical.
Woot love these videos. I’m a self employed web dev and it’s so nice to see someone else flourishing with this type of work. ❤
This art style is crying for a day and night cycle, especially with that lamp post in the town. Imagine have your plant growth rates affected by amount of light, soo at night the plants growth is slowed and some plants stopped. Such a system can be an expansion of your manure system in that weather can also have buff effects on plants along side lighting conditions...That way you could also implement green houses where players can control climate. Love you work
Related to the grid in the town, I'd say that the river doesn't need to follow the grid but paths and building placement do.
i like the grid idea better. it provides opportunity for some goodies later, maybe as a minigame you could get the job to create a flower patch in town or go rogue.
The town looks really awesome!
I have a few suggestions:
-add bloom/post processing
-make the water bob with a sine wave and have reflections
-make the lamps emissive
-wisps of wind?
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm planning to add post-process effects when I next work on the graphics and I'll add a water shader then too :)
I really like the grid based town and even prefer its rounded corners (both in the paths and the few new models, except the lamp) to the angular look of the main farm.
Thanks, and I'll be adding the rounded corners to the terrain in the farm area soon too. It will just take a bit longer for me to implement that because they need to be procedurally generated in the farm area when the player is digging/placing paths.
I am amazed each time you release a video. What you are doing is amazing! 🤩
You should add bunnies walking around the fields and if you feed them, they will dig up coins for you.
It is really coming together now. The town looks very nice, make the farm match it and you are golden.
Thanks :) I'm going to be working on the layout/scenery of the farm area very soon, so hopefully they'll match after that!
The town area looks amazing, your videos always makes for a good inspiration
I always get excited when you post a new video! Thanks for sharing your creative process with us
Loved the video! It's such a joy to see a new video of yours showing more content of the game. I've always enjoyed harvesting games, and I'm very excited to see the final result of your project. Keep the good work! Looking forward to admire new changes :D
A cool transition animation could be focused on that you're traveling somewhere else. So maybe a bicycle going past with a little bell sound playing or some other kind of transport? Also might be nice if the animation moves in the opposite direction when traveling back to the home.
It looks absolutely amazing, and I love that you spent a lot of time on the shop even though you weren't planning on it: shows you like what you're doing!
it's all coming together so nicely! Can't wait to play it!
Always a joy looking at the devlogs. Such quality, it's inspiring! Thanks Karl :)
Love these chill devlogs! The town turn out fantastic, really looking forward to seeing more of this game! :)
woow. its funny seeing you doubt something that looks so finished and polished. - i mean the town area - as a person who just sees this for the first time- its perfect!!
Ah thanks, I'm glad you like it :)
The town looks great. I definitely think a tile system would help keep the game consistent but that doesn't necessarily mean the environment (the river) needs to be blocky. Just that the way you interact with the world can be based on tiles.
What an awesome video! I always love to watch these
I really like the idea of having town buildings to be menu buttons, but I think having a menu button to switch between areas just adds more clicks to open a shop, and still has the user clicking a UI button.
Maybe the shop buttons could still be included, and would transition to the town *and* open the UI for that particular shop.
the farmers market is a brilliant idea, looking forward to see that!
Hey Karl, maybe put a jerkinhed roof on the fruit and vegetable store? That would keep the base of the building looking exactly how it is but make the roof look a bit more natural.
Thanks for the vid! Interesting as always. I've also always liked the background music as well. Same for the Equilinox music. All tracks nicely fit the casual game feel. Good job on choosing the music for your games!
With multiple scenes possible it makes me think of the ability to buy larger and more featured farms. I think starting in your backyard, eventually moving to a large farm with a silo and a pasture could be a fun expansion mechanic.
Usually follow abandoned building series. Time for a game dev one! :D Awesome vid and very relaxing
The visuals are looking superb -- it already feels super polished so early in development!
Awesome progress! Really loving this series man. Great work so far. 👏🏼
For the fade between you should just pull the camera out real far, and then zoom into the shop area.
Omg this starts to look amazing! Can't wait to see more and play it!
Actually having the animals and evolution system from Equilinox would be a nice touch.
The town already looks fantastic! Definitely looking forward to future iterations!
Your modeling has gotten so good. I’m super impressed!
i'm a year late, but i feel like the grid based aesthetic is a really nice style, so keep it for the town looks nice too
I've been struggling seeing what the progression is, been following since day one, in this game (I'm sure you have it figured out though). But after seeing that you can have multiple scenes, one thing that could be cool is to be able to buy different properties, (bigger farmable area, new backgrounds etc). think it would add a nice cool touch.
Love the work! The scenes had me thinking for the future It’d be interesting to see different farms in different environments that each have their own modifiers!
[TM] This channel and your videos seem so wholesome, when you mentioned what sounds like multi-player environment and player owned/run stores, I immediately wondered if you have had any thoughts or already made design choices on gameplay mechanics balance or mechanisms to detect or limit players abusing the same?
Maybe something that can be done later, but pre-planning something might make it easier.
Your videos are always delightful, I think I like the grid system for the town. It looked strange before you added details to the landscape but with everything more built out it looks very natural
I appreciate that you always have solid progress on the game, it's really nice to see things coming together.
I love how this game is turning out! I can’t wait to play it!
WOW the town looks release ready already! Awesome
i'm more impressed by the fact that he's doing all of it with his own engine in java
sim game ambition and extension has no limit. it could very well turn into a SIMS/age of empires kinda game. you could design both a market world/scene like a neighborhood in Sims where you literally go out to get food etc. or like in age of empires 3 where you switch scenes and a 2.5d port scene appears (literally a 2d scenery that moves ever so slightly in parallax. your bank, bazaar, sell/buy point etc. are all 2d visuals of the scenery). so you could very well choose either road but i would go for sth in between. like in here where it already fits your world's aesthetic so far (grids etc.) but do not let the player walk around or go into shop buildings etc on this stage, a humble suggestion.
your videos are really well done love the style of mixing both real life and game progress into one video
Love the equilinox music in the background
I love the way the town is coming together! Looks awesome mate!
Another transition idea:
Make a little car model which drives away from the garden house and then reappears in the town scene
I think you should make each building unique. It would make it more interesting and would prevent people from getting used to a single model. Would make people more lasting. Otherwise I love the style, and you definitely have the creative skill to do it, so I think you should give it a go.
It would be cool for particle effect to leave the particles/remanence behind instead of them disappearing right after the animation, for instance when digging it should leave the dirt around and then you should be able to clean up and bring it to the compost bin.
I think you should attempt to implement the towns rounded-ness into the grid system, as in, how edges are beveled on paths and rivers.
I'll be doing that soon :)
This game is giving me still so much Wurzelimperium vibes and I'm loving int!
The art style and town looks SOOO GOOD!
that bings so much more charm and depth to the game. it's really coming along!
Don't know if you have ever mentioned it, but adding animals in a later stage of the game might be a very nice feature to have. For example you could get manure from cattle to use as fertiliser instead of compost, which has its own pros and cons. Also maybe another cool idea is to have production facilities. This way you can turn milk in to cheese or wheat in to bread for example.
The town looks so good! I loved the transition from your first draft to then having the bridge, tree and flower models. An possible feature of the town could be some NPC's (maybe in the farmers market) that give you tasks i.e. request a certain number of some crop or another, and reward you with better returns than the normal shop's, or a unique items :)
OMG that is so beautiful. I just found your channel "on accident" and I can't believe what you did all by yourself!
I was just searching for a couple of Videos about Java and then I saw this. My mind is actually blown.
I'm a complete beginner in Programming and I already fail to make a .jar file clickable, the best way I found was writing a .bat scrip that opens the program with "java -jar /path/to/.jar" and when I try using JavaFX even that doesn't work. I mean if I create a GUI, I don't want to open it using a command, that's basically the whole point of a GUI.
Really coming along now, nice!
TIP: When you hover mouse over a shop, only the gate should Glow or if you want more details then you should do an animation to open the gate as well!
Looking really great. The town is fine as it is!
Woo! These devlogs are my favorite
I really like the look of the town! Good job!
love this devlog keep them coming!
It's looking so nice! just a sugestion, for the transtition on the town to the farm you could make the background of the button grows until it covers the screen up, then the scene changes and it goes back normal. but anyway, good work!
I hope your game has lots to do and explore! GL
Looks so good!!
Your roof stucture is just missing ridge tiles upturnd v shapes at the point where two sloping surfaces meet. the ridge overlaps the main tiles on each side, all tiles always overlap to help water run off. Hope this helps.
I wasn’t totally sold on the grid pattern for the town until you rounded off the corners, I think that makes it look a whole lot better while still matching the look of the farm scene
this is looking really great!
The town area looks great! I really like the rounded grid style, I think it would look great in the farming area too because it's more organic.
I like the fade scene transition effect more because I think it fits more to the "chill" mood of this game.
I am looking forward to the next devlogs :)
You mention the town needing to be placed on a grid to match the normal farm area. You may consider keeping the grid, but allowing for pseudo curves of some sort. In Factorio, they solved this problem for their train systems by having parts that are curved that still fit onto the grid (e.g. a 90 degree train track turn). They also made their floor tiles create 45 degree angles when staggered. May want to check that out for some ideas, not sure.
These solutions work well for both town and farm settings, so no discontinuities are necessary. Adding curved paths to the farm area doesn't sound like a bad idea.
It looks REALLY nice!
Great work! 🤩
The game already looks extremely polished!
Looks sick! Grid system for Town is nice and love me those rounded edges