Alright, before RHC coughs at me again -
Farm Friday #7
Welcome back to Farm Friday, our series of weekly progress updates!
This week, in our first entry of 2017, we have some new features to announce! There’s a lot of in-depth design talk here, so I apologise in advance, and I’ll try to break it up with pictures.
The problem with Homestead
Late last year, I got thinking about game direction, and how we could improve on the systems we had. Homestead wasn’t a bad game, but it was turning out to be less exciting than we’d perhaps hoped. There were problems with the design that, even at this incomplete stage, were already becoming apparent: the economy was entirely based around getting more money, and essentially enforced min-maxing; the player didn’t have meaningful ownership of their farm; most items served no purpose except to be sold; the world remained static and, after a few early-game unlocks, never changed. If you only play the game for an hour or so, these problems might never show up. But Homestead is a game with a big story and lots of content, and making the game playable in the long term is vital.
I spent a lot of time agonising over how to fix these issues and had a few long talks with Lukan, and we’ve come up with some big changes to the gameplay that (we hope!) will address these issues in the long run. So without further ado…
What’s new
Firstly, the old farm layout is gone. There will be no more default barn, no more shed. Instead, the player builds their farm from the ground up.
Many important items must now be crafted at workbenches such as these, using raw materials from the farm and around the map. Each crafting recipe requires a blueprint, which can be obtained in a variety of ways.
The player can now also place buildings on their farm. You’ll have to build these yourself, and they take a lot of raw materials. The advantage, though, is that you can have as many as you like — so with hard work and a bit of patience, you might make the ranch of your dreams, or a little suburb of sheds.
Of course, you won’t be limited to just buildings — fences, furniture and decorative items will all be making an appearance. With this development, I’ll also be looking at different building types and styles further down the road. But no promises yet!
Breaking down the new systems
Assembling a building isn’t a simple task. First the foundation must be crafted at the workbench; then, a space must be cleared and the foundation placed in the field. Each building must be worked on for a set amount of time before it is completed; a shed, for example, might take 12 hours to fully construct. You can work on buildings in chunks, but this means you’ll have to manage your time carefully.
Also, under the current plan, each crafting or building operation carries with it a stamina cost in addition to the raw materials (you can see a rough mockup above). This means you can’t craft or build all day; you must weigh the cost against the reward. It also means that eating and cooking become necessary if you don’t want to tire out before midday.
It had bothered me that I was usually done my chores by 10AM, and that I always had enough stamina for everything I needed to do. I’m hoping that these changes will make Homestead a more challenging, but ultimately more rewarding game.
What this means for development
…more of it, essentially! Lukan has been a marvel and has several of these systems nearly implemented, but I have a lot of art to do yet. It’ll also mean new items and a lot of new GUI/systems work. I hope this won’t extend development by too much, but it’s a possibility.
But that’s okay. It’s going to make the game a lot better, in the long run. And we think you’ll all be just fine with that.
Thanks to Lukan, a lot of these new features are already partially prototyped. And once they’re in, they allow so many more possibilities for what we can do with the game.
~~~~
That’s it for this week. You can read the previous update
here, or follow us on Twitter for regular peeks at development (
Lukan, the lead developer, or
myself). You can also follow our progress on the Homestead
subreddit or at
TIGSource.
See you next week!