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[CrunchySushi]

Hello all,

I started a cosy little project called Willowbrooke Post a few months ago, which sees you in charge of your parent's home and livelihood, the local village Post Office whilst they're away on a year long vacation. I want the game to feel very homely, very nostalgic and I'm really going for that feel of revisting a place you lived and grew up in two decades later, seeing that same place all dusty and brimming with childhood memories.

I'm using Unity and am going for a first person perspective, with a slightly more detailed pixel art style than, say, Minecraft's. I'm currently blocking out/building the Post Office itself (and inserting some mysteries to be discovered later!) right now. It's so much work!

I have a crazy ton of ideas and essentially, the game is designing itself right now. I'm thinking of other activties besides the running of the postal business, like foraging, farming, cooking, mine exploration and crafting, sailing...maybe even running for local Mayor!

We'll see.

Okay, media coming soon!

[jctwood]

I love this concept. I would love to play more quiet, slow games. Look forward to more.

[CrunchySushi]

Media as promised!

Please excuse the 'Will Smith' notice...he's helping me test the customer entrance.  

The family kitchen, where you can cook, create recipes, store meals and keep that stamina up!

The downstairs fireplace, I think it'll end up giving you a buff of some kind. In the Winter months, it'll probably cost more to source from the town tradesman/carpenter, and be harder to source yourself.



Your old bedroom (WIP)

A view of the office from the view of the counter





The store room







Your Parent's room is currently locked (Animation)
https://giphy.com/gifs/l0Iy2bnDMUE3GTA7S/html5

Going into the store room (Animation)
https://giphy.com/gifs/3o7bufiqd9YI22djy0/html5

[Joeb Rogers]

Some parts of the art look very Majoras Mask influenced, like the stained glass door and the post box, I like! Always fun to play games about random mundane real world tasks.

[CrunchySushi]

You've made me so happy!  

Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are my two biggest influences for PL, especially the hotel in Majora's Mask!

The feeling of heart is very important to me. I want the feeling of community and relationships to be at the core of Legacy, so having a cosy, homely environment where that can take place is my core concern right now.

[MegaTiny]

Excellent to see a game about going home that isn't 'family has a dark secret' themed. I loved things like Gone Home and Edith Finch, but it's starting to become a trope! I also really enjoy games that involve engaging with a community of people, so the idea of running for mayor sounds really fun to me.

[jctwood]

I really like the art style! Can definitely imagine the warm feeling of seeing a familiar face coming through the door. When I saw the computer I was surprised, is the game set in modern day?

[CrunchySushi]

There's hints that it is, but apart from a computer and the odd phone and an old tv, that's about as 'modern' as it gets. It's a very rural game, with lots of little details that breathe life into this space (which you may not see straight away!) like cobwebs hidden under tables, or a wonky painting, left over pencil shavings around a ledger, weeds growing in through old brick work into the house, things like that.

How you run the post office is totally up to you also; you could even lock the door for the entire year and not let a single customer in! You could just spend the year farming, fishing or exploring the huge woods around the village. Obviously, your parents would hear about this upon their return and wouldn't be happy, but again, player choice is what I'm going after. Once you get those front door keys and you arrive at the village by train...you decide!

The family-employed postman 'Pete' has known you since you were a baby. He acts as your mentor upon arrival on New Year's Eve, and he'll collect the mail/parcels at 6am before you even wake up, but you can fire him at any time, having to hire someone else, or even cycling through town delivering them yourself and keeping the profits!

I'm going for a dynamic relationship system, where say, a villager who has become a bit of a celeb within the village comes in to order exotic ingredients every thursday, places his order and expects to come back next week to collect them. What's this? An awesome recipe that you've discovered that needs an exotic mushroom? I could choose to hunt for it myself...or...simply remove it from that guy's order...I could say it never arrived in the shipment!

And bingo; you've created a possible flux with that customer. You might get away with it once, maybe twice...but he might get suspicious and suprise you by coming in every day!  

This is just one example of a dynamic relationship I hope to implement. I'm going for thirty villagers, with some really good personalities. That's not to say that the post office itself doesn't have a few unique things about it just waiting to be found...

[jctwood]

This sounds wonderful and ambitious! I can't wait to see it develop. Can definitely imagine spending my year in the woods searching for new types of mushrooms.

[CrunchySushi]

There'll be a run-down garden that you can completely restore or just leave it to nature. You'll be able to sow crops and there'll be a mini pier which will be your gateway to river sailing and forest access. You'll have to wait for low tide though (usually every Sunday)!

[nathy after dark]

Lovely first-person pixel aesthetic. I'm into it. 

[CrunchySushi]

Super mini update: gonna remove the normal maps from the textures and go for a much smoother look. Not happy with the weird light artifacting and decided it didn't fit with the aesthetic of the game. 

[McMutton]

Looking quite nice. You said these are placeholder textures? I see a few instances of inconsistent pixel resolution, so watch out for that when the proper texturing begins!

Majora's Mask sounds like a pretty good thing to take inspiration from. It's be cool to see its detailed town/character schedules/low size-high detail stuff expanded into a full game!

[CrunchySushi]

Yeah, my pixel art skills are still fledgling. It looks nice now, but there's always tweaking happening.

I might need to find a pixel artist!

[CrunchySushi]

Slow progress today, but the bedroom wardrobe is opening and closing nicely, and has a neat little hanger rattling effect when you do so!

Still not 2000% happy with the internal lighting, it could be a lot better.

More media soon.

[CrunchySushi]

Should have some new media up today

[CrunchySushi]

So, a little update:

I've just tested all of the textures and materials without normal maps and although it gave the game a more smooth, Minecraftian look, I'm not sure I liked it.

The environment looked flat...maybe too simplistic? Hmm, so I put them all back on again. They're staying!

Constructing the furniture for each room and then animating/making it interactive is taking waaaay longer than I had anticipated. I'm still not 100% certain of the direction of the art just yet either. One day I like this pixel art style with a bit of detail inside each texture, then the next, I want to do a more accentuated edges approach and less 'internal' detail (like Fez). I'm seriously torn.

I guess I have time to test both approaches, but something is nagging me. I don't know what it is. The perfectionist within me is shouting something but I can't hear it!

[CrunchySushi]

Hello all!

It's been a little while since I posted up an update, so here's some new icons for some of the 500 items that will feature in the game!

Milk Bottle

Pepper

Blueberries

Bread

Raspberry

Parcel Order


I'd love to start grabbing a list of people who would be interested in some extremely closed Alpha testing? Maybe twenty would be a good number. You can always just send me a message and I'll add you to the list.

I'm about two to three months away from having a concept demo ready. Things are finally coming together!  

More soon, ya'll!

[Matdu]

Amazing, the feel this game has is catchy, nostalgic, it really got me, great job, looking forward to see more from your game and read more from your process of developing/creating stuff for it!

[CrunchySushi]

I've just created an 'official' Postmaster Legacy YouTube channel, where I'll be posting early gameplay footage. There's gonna be a lot of it over the coming years, so I'll just leave this here!