Getting caught up on what has been done, I'd like to take a bit of time to focus on the greenhouse. In the original concept, I played around with the idea of having it as an upgrade but I've since decided to make it available from the start. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the idea of season crops, however I want to affect the way they work in different ways than just killing them off. For now, let's put a pin in that and focus on what has been done.
Planters and Spring Plants
Currently you have 24 planters available in the greenhouse, allowing ample space for planting. There's 4 crops available to you during the spring season, these being:
- Operacots
- Heartberries
- Bun's Ear
- Fairries
Each comes with their own recipes and growth times. So far I've completed the item sprites and growth cycles for all of them. The only things left for this aspect are the baked good sprites and setting all the item values and descriptions.
Storage
Something else of note within the greenhouse are the storage barrels. Each one contains 36 slots, leaving you with a total of 108 storage slots within the space. These barrels can be sorted alphabetically, auto-restock the barrel or auto-restock the inventory all with the push of a couple buttons. This gives the player a place to store their excess harvests as well as seeds, so they don't overflow their inventory.
The inventory itself has a maxed out 36 slots at the beginning to avoid those pesky backpack upgrades and allow players to explore and gather to their heart's content. Currently there's only the one page for your inventory contents, but the backpack pages will expand with time to contain things like setting and heart levels.
Seasonal Plants: Food For Thought
When it comes to real world establishments, they'll often work with seasonal flavours because those items are cheaper at the time. This can easily be reflected in the shop by changing seed prices based on their flavour season. Think of being able to buy operacots all year round, however in spring it'll cost you 20g while in fall it'll cost 60g.
As well, we can reflect this in the sell values of items. Often times if you go to a market, goods will cost more if they are off season, meaning it may be more benefical to stockpile and sell later. Your baked goods may sell at a lower price due to lower interest, but you'll be able to sell the fruits for double the usual value due to outside demand.
Smart players may also stockpile seeds to grow at the end of each season, so that way when the new season begins, their produce has already grown and they can start baking with no wait.
Closing Statements
This of course is a rough idea still and will be fleshed out later when I start adding the other seasons and their produce. In terms of practicallity, the greenhouse will just allow players to grow goods to help increase their friendship or complete quests without having to wait for the appropriate season.
Another wordy update, but I thank you for making it this far. I'll see you in my next post, and thank you for following the development of Rose's Garden.
- Max
Let's start this off with a recap post. For those that do not know, Rose's Garden was my first major game project in college. The concept is you take over your sister's bakery after she falls ill, the gameplay being a point and click, side scrolling farming game.
The game itself has 3 "official" iterations, the first demo, my capstone demo and the revised version that I'm currently working on. (Pictured left to right.)
As you can tell, the game has been through many changes over the 2 year development period so far. While each time, I've only managed to build out the basic baking game loop, I'd like to expand it into a full game... Which is why it's here.
I've worked on this latest version for a couple weeks now and have almost completed the original game loop. With that in place, I plan to release the demo on Itch.io and continue to work. This is a solo project, I'm doing everything myself as I like the challenge and learning experience.
What I have left to get the demo ready for upload is:
- Creating a sleep system.
- Adding the baking system.
- Adding the selling system.
- Adding the shop system.
- Creating the background for downtown.
- Creating the background for the general store.
- Creating the background for Alice's room.
- Finishing the background for the Cafe.
- Adding the exisiting sounds.
(I'll redo these at a later stage.) - Adding the dialogue system.
- Creating the intro.
- Creating the tutorial.
While it seems like quite a bit on paper, I want to take the time to do these things as I never got the change while on my program's deadlines. Past demos have always felt rushed or incomplete to me, and I'd like to showcase what the game can be if given the chance. In theory, I think the demo should be about a week of in-game gameplay, but only time will tell.
If you made it this far, hats off to you. I'll see you in my next post, and thank you for following the development of Rose's Garden.
- Max
