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[Ninety]

I've been busy with art.





I post pixelart most days on my Twitter. If you're interested in watching the art develop that's probably the best place!

[Ninety]

It's been a while, TIGSource. I've gotten slack about updating this thread! Here's what we've been working on:

The main development since my last post above was character animation. Homestead has upwards of 30 characters, so it's important I get the animations right. I'm not sure that they're quite done yet, but it's definitely a solid foundation. Check it out:



I've also been working on the cast, and other characters.


Today I made these fairy helpers. These little guys can be recruited in the endgame to help out on your farm. I thought about each potentially having a different ability, so that you'd have to use them strategically.


My main goal in the next few weeks is to begin conceptualising and spriting the main NPC cast. Lukan is also working on some bug fixes and we've both been working on the story and design. There are a lot of new features coming your way, so stay tuned!



 

[RujiK]

I've seen it all on twitter, but it looks way better than the old stuff! The color palette is especially pleasing.

Minor suggestion on the middle chick in the white dress:
The center of her feet are a literal gradient from dark to light (6 pixels vertical) so it makes her feet look kinda blurry. The pixels all make sense on their own, but together they give off that "smudgy" look.

Still though, great work.

[Ninety]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I'm thinking I'll give her some off-white shoes to avoid the gradient look, maybe flatten the skin tones too. I also feel like her feet/legs need to be a little skinnier, although I don't want to turn her into a twig so I'll experiment a bit. These were more mockups than final art, so there's still a lot of revision to be done - the clothing on the far right character in particular needs a rework, I think.

[Ninety]

[Lukan Spellweaver]

A WILD UPDATE APPEARS!

Developermon uses DOWNLOADS!
WINDOWS
ANDROID

NOTICE!: Developermon used LINK UPDATE!
Now points to a fixed version!

It's SUPER EFFECTIVE!
 
Homestead Users fainted!

Several crashes have been obliterated, new artwork has been added, and a new track for the Beach has been implemented. Fishing has also been introduced, finally!
I hope you all enjoy this small update!

[NineTattooedDragons]

This is really coming along nicely. Looking forward to it

[Ninety]

More art!





This last week I've been making placeholder sprites for what's left of the basic art, so that we can finally move away from the old style. It's a lot of fun to be diving into tile sets again, without worrying too much about getting it perfect first try. Remaining in the placeholder art is the player characters, plus a couple of NPCs and a few odd sprites here and there. I'll leave you with a preview of some new characters:

[Ninety]

An update to the barn art:

[Ninety]

Exteriors for the barn and shed, which you'll find on your farm!

[Ninety]

[Lukan Spellweaver]

Ugh, I'm awful I know! I haven't updated the topic in 5ever, sorry!
I missed the 2nd anniversary of Homestead! It was on the 17th!
I'll try and get an update out soonish with some tasty bew stuffs!

[Ninety]

Farm Friday #1

Welcome to the first cheesily-named Farm Friday (which is actually Saturday for me)! Each week I’m going to be posting a little progress update showing what we’re working on and how the game is coming along. I thought it’d be good to have a more regular schedule than the current “post whenever” system, so we’ll see how it pans out.

This week, I thought I’d break down how the game currently stands. Some of this is probably old news to regulars, so bear with me!


Where we’re at

Homestead was designed as a farming RPG inspired by the likes of Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing. It’s planned to have a strong story focus, with interesting, diverse characters and quests, as well as the classic farming gameplay everyone knows and loves.

We’ve come a long way from the jam version way back in October 2014. Back then, Homestead looked like this:



I said a long time ago I was redoing all the art, which hasn’t quite been finished yet. We’ve ended up redesigning and expanding huge parts of the game which set us back a bit with the graphics. However I’m still working on it, and it’s slowly coming along.



The basic gameplay is mostly in place. The NPC engine is well underway, but the full NPC cast aren’t in yet. The main story is also yet to be added (but rest assured we have one… hopefully you’ll like it!).


What we’re doing now

Lukan (lead developer and programmer) hasn’t had time to work as much lately and nor have I (stupid university taking up time!). However right now I’m diving into character design and bios. Here’s a little preview:



I’ll expand on this in a future Farm Friday, but for now rest assured development is full steam ahead.

~~~~

That’s it for this week. Follow us on Twitter for regular peeks at development (Lukan, the lead developer, or myself).

I’m also setting up the Homestead subreddit, where I’ll be posting these updates. Head on over and subscribe, and keep an eye out for Farm Friday next week!

[The Armorman]

I believe in you. 

[DuskedSky]

Wow guys, this is some amazing work! I'm in love with the art style. It has such a warmth to it. This gets me really excited! Hope you guys keep at it!

[Ninety]

Wow, thank you! Don't worry, we're going steady!

[The Armorman]

the Stars DEW make me want to play this under a Harvest Moon


secretly though, I yearn for suicide. I wish this genre were more popular

[Ninety]

Farm Friday #2

Welcome back to Farm Friday, our series of weekly progress updates!

This week, Lukan was trying out the GameMaker Studio 2 beta. I also did some work on GUI, tiles and character design.


GUI

Homestead’s GUI has been through a few revisions as the game evolved.



It’s functional, but I think we can do better, especially since the game has become much more complex since we began. This week, I worked on some more concepts:



I’ve also been drawing up a detailed design document for what the GUI will show and how it will control, which will give me a better idea of what to pixel.

I’ve never really worked on a GUI before, so this is all new to me. It’s more work than you’d think. One thing I’ve learned from studying others, though, is that a good GUI is unobtrusive. I want navigating Homestead’s menus to be simple and intuitive.


Tiles

Tiles are fast becoming the bane of my existence. It’s not that they’re hard to draw, but rather that they need a lot of planning so that the layout is versatile and doesn’t look repetitive. I drew a few concepts this week, and I think I’m getting closer to something workable:



Of course, the final game will have a lot more variety in the environments. I want the art to reflect the variety of biomes you’ll travel through. Each area is should be unique and easily recognisable, from snowy mountain peaks in the north to tropical beaches in the south.

(I’ll do a full writeup on tiles in a future update, but I thought I’d show what I’d been working on!)


Characters

As you may know by now, I’m working on sketching out portraits for each character before I commit to spriting them fully. I find this helps me to get a sense for their appearance and lets me prototype clothing and hairstyles quickly. For many of the marriage candidates, I already have a clear idea of what they’ll look like, but some of the other townsfolk are pretty much completely unknown. This will be a slow process, but I think for a game of this size such planning is essential.

I was never good at drawing characters, so I’ve been practicing a lot. I’m still no da Vinci, but I think I’m approaching a point where I can get a basic, readable sketch done fast enough to make it worthwhile, if not particularly pretty.

Here’s two of the bachelors, who you can marry if you so choose! I chose these ones to show because you’ve seen their sprite versions before.



I might show a few more sketches later down the road, but I don’t want to spoil everything. You might have to use your imagination instead!

~~~~

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 on the GameMaker Community.

See you next week!

[Ninety]

Farm Friday #3

Welcome back to Farm Friday, our series of weekly progress updates!

This week wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped on my end, thanks to real life getting in the way. Lukan however was trying out the new version of GameMaker Studio and working on the in-game map.


Engine port

As some of you know, the new major version of GameMaker Studio (which Homestead is developed in) began a limited beta about a month ago. A couple of days ago they decided to make the full (non-trial) version available for purchase. GMS:2 brings a lot of updates, most notably to the room and tile systems, but features some changes to coding and is priced differently to the previous iteration.

I briefly mentioned last week that Lukan had been trying out the limited beta, but since the full release he’s been working on transferring Homestead into the new version. It’s going well! It looks like we might be able to move forward with the new engine.


Farm layout

Lukan also spent some time adjusting the layout of the farm you’ll manage in the game, as well as adding new buildings to the town.







This is still a work in progress and subject to change, obviously.


What I’ve been working on

I mentioned earlier that this week was a busy one for me, so I haven’t as much to show for Homestead this week. I spent a lot of time on behind-the-scenes stuff, tidying up design notes and so forth.

I have, however, been working on a couple of new assets:



Some of you may have seen on Twitter that I had a play around with some of the new tiles (although I can’t really pretend it counts as work, heh).



I also did some work on the music. The soundtrack has been on the backburner while I focus on design and art, but every so often I stop to sketch out a few ideas. Perhaps soon I’ll preview what I’ve been working on.

Incidentally, I’ve been listening to some GDC talks this week. They’re great background audio for pixelart.

~~~~

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 on the GameMaker Community.

See you next week!

[Ninety]

Farm Friday #4

Welcome back to Farm Friday, our series of weekly progress updates!

This week, I did some more work on characters, and Lukan expanded the map.


Map updates

Lukan spent some time adding new buildings to the town map. He made a video of it, have a look:





This is a temporary layout, but it lets us test new features and the newer tiles. With this done there’s only a few assets left in the game from our previous artist.


Lighting improvements

Lukan also did some work on the lighting:






Character designing

In Farm Friday #2 I showed off some of the character designs I’ve been working on. This week, I got several more done! I said I was going to avoid spoilers as much as possible while we’re still at this early design stage, but here’s a preview I showed a few days ago on Twitter:



I’m now moving into the characters whose designs I don’t have a very clear idea of yet. A good opportunity for experimentation!

The characters I’ve shown so far are based on concepts by Lukan, by the way. However, there’ll be some completely new characters soon! I’ve mentioned before that one of my tasks when doing character designs was working out relationships and family trees, and I found that adding a few extras was necessary to build family units and flesh out the world (for example, by adding characters of different ages and professions). Some are still just notes for myself (“XYZ needs a wife”, for example) and it’ll be a while before they’re at all interesting to read about.

Once the characters sketches are finished, I use them to make these “character bios”. Here’s Hamilton, whom you saw a few weeks ago:



The bios include the character’s sketch and pixelart sprite mockup, descriptions of their role and personality, and any reference material I find represents them well. For Hamilton here, I’ve included hairstyle and clothing references. (Note: I do not own these additional pictures!)

All the bios are a work in progress and none are really finished yet. However they’re proving very useful to keep all character information in one place!

~~~~

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 on the GameMaker Community.

See you next week!