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[Conker534]

Mystic Garden is a game inspired by one of my favorite games, Harvest Moon 64.

^{game will be scaled 200%}

This game starts off as your father dying, you come to take care of his farm instead. There is a small town, and a little world to explore. There will also be a few girls you can marry, and eventually raise a family.

-NPC Friendship Bar:
Each NPC will have there own Friendship bar, depending on how you act to that person, they will have different feeling at you. For example, give a NPC a fruit, and the bar will go up a little, but if you do rude things it will go down.

-Girl Love Bar:
Same thing, but this time its the love bar.  Each girl will like different things, for example "Sarah" likes apples, but hates carrots. "Amy" likes tomato's, but hates pears. *keep in mind these girls likes, and dislikes may be changed.*

-Director:
I will have a director running the game, so during winter, a snow storm could happen, or a NPC could fall and get hurt, or something like that. It will make the game very interesting.

-Festivals:
This town will have certain events, or festivals on certain days. It is a great way to do things with the other towns people. Ex: A fruit festival will happen on the 25th of each summer, so make sure your best fruit is ready.

-Seasons:
Each season will have 30 days, you will have 30 days to grow that seasons crop. The seed store will sell different crops on different seasons.

More features will be added, those are just whats planned.

I will keep this topic up to date. I would really appreciate feedback, and I would LOVE to see some people follow my twitter, because I'll be updating that as well, with details on this game!

Thanks for reading!
~Conker

[Mitiz]

I shall follow this. Very interested in how it will turn out.

[Conker534]

I'm thinking about adding a Co-Op mode, where your "brother" comes to help you farm as well. It would work like this.

On a single computer (for now) you can run to your phone, in your house. You will have a address book and you can call your "brothers" over, then he arrives and your buddy helps you raise the farm, animals, and what not. The "brother" will be a custom character that your friend can make, so say your friend Joe comes over, he wants to play with you. You go into the address book and find "new brother" you click it, let him customize his character, then the brother is made. Each brother will have his own NPC Friendship bars, but he cannot get married to any of the ladies. Hows that sound??

[gimymblert]

I approve this thread

[andrew-101]

I used to play Harvest Moon on the SNES all the time, so I'm really keen to see this progress.

I really hope you put some time into giving the player the ability to customise their farm as thats always fun.

I'm not sure that co-op would really work on a game like this though, maybe you could do it more like the Sims, where other players become NPCs while they're not playing. You could even be able to visit their farms.

[Conker534]

Go into more detail about customizing the farm please! 

[andrew-101]

Well, this would be a dream and a half, but it would be so awesome if you could actually build the farm house. Maybe just if the player could lay down the exterior wall and thats that (I mean, whole games are based around building a house). Also being able to place furniture down like in animal crossing. You could get furniture and stuff from town.

But more along the lines of the original harvest moon games - breaking up the farm land with fences would be a staple for customizing your farm. The addition of gates would be nice as would paths/stepping stones - something to break up defined "walking space". Water sources (bores, wells). I think you should study the workings of a farm and see what other kind of stuff you can chuck in there, never really been to working farm, so I don't know what really makes one up!

Organizing/laying out the farm was one of my favorite things to do in harvest moon, and I'm sure the same is true for many people so you should really invest some time into this aspect.

[Conker534]

Alright. Thanks!

(I love animal crossing )

[Conker534]

Sorry for the double post. I got house art done! ^_^

[Halcyon]

Cool, I like the sound of this, will definitely be following your progress. 

[Conker534]

I've found a nasty BIG bug, and until I fix it it is impossible to move on in the game. I'm trying hard, VERY HARD, to fix this bug.  Again, I'm going to beg for twitter followers. I'd love the support! Hehe.. 

Going to come up with a "company" name to publish this game under soon!

[tsameti]

It looks cute. I love the idea of farming sims but haven't gotten too deep into them.

What would you say is directly inspiring your mechanics? Are you pulling from Harvest Moon style stuff, or...?

[Conker534]

I'm pulling from HM, and adding features I always thought would be fun in a HM game. :D
I hope that answered it. xD

[Conker534]

YES. Fixed the bug! Thanks to my friend I can move on.   Three day bug is finally over!
back to work!

Edit:
Mystic Garden is the title for now, like or hate?

[Conker534]

Sorry for the triple post, but nobody is really posting here so I have no choice, i know about the edit button, but it doesn't bump it. lol

Anywho. I got the day/night cycle done! Each day is a few minutes, when I release a alpha (soon) I'll ask you guys if its to short.


I'm so happy, I also got the day/season system done.  After 30 days the season changes, but nothing visible yet. I'm now going to work on tools, like a hoe and stuff like that.

[Conker534]

Alright.

-Tool Engine is done. Right now you can use the hoe and seed item, the hoe allows you to plow more dirt up, while seeds allow you to plant more. Its not that great yet, but it works. The dirt is on a grid so it comes out perfectly.

Alright, I think after I finish the town shop, I might release a little demo.

Lets hear some feedback, please?  

[Halcyon]

Good to hear you got the bug fixed, looking forward to the demo. 

[andrew-101]

With the day night cycle you should tint the colours based on the time of day. Such as a blue tint for night, a yellow tint for morning and orange for dusk. The day time wouldn't really have a tint I guess. Currently the image sequence for your day night cycle just looks like a storm is coming or something.

Also, what are you using to make this?

[Doktor_Q]

From my personal experiments, a bit of a red orange for evening, darkening plus a faint blue for night, and a slight darkening plus a faint green-blue for morning work the best. Naturally, day is untinted.

[Conker534]

Thanks for that suggestion! I'll do it.

Game Maker 8 GML