We Built This City - Farmer Edition

Introduction: 

A Farming Sim and a part of a multi-game project to simulate all of the important roles in a typical High Fantasy Medieval Village. This one has all 4 seasons, a day/night cycle, and It takes one hour to get through one whole year. It has 3 food groups with at least 3 different foods to grow in each group and a balanced economy to sell the food in. Rome might not have been built in a day but it certainly wasn’t built on an empty stomach.

What Went Right:

Crop Balancing

I made it unlockable by level;

Level 1

Potato

Wheat

Wild Berry

Level 2

Carrot

Onion

Apple

Level 3

Strawberry

Pumpkin

Level 4

Banana

Corn

Level 5

Peas

Blueberry

Orange

And each level it doubles in base price to accommodate for higher upgrade and level up cost. Also each one of those grows in a different season. I kept it all as realistic as possible without breaking the balance which was a little difficult. I had to make a spreadsheet. 

That took me a whole night to do. In short, the crop balancing worked out just fine.

Seasons

There are four seasons, each with its own weather and each weather has its own effect on the crops and how you grow them as well as the environment itself. This took me a couple days of the time. But it worked out pretty well.

Level Design

I saved this relatively for last in focus of the actual functionality. That said, here is the mood board for the level itself;

Here is the level;

Personally, I think I did pretty well. At any rate, the level looks good and is functional all things considered.

Documentation

I made a post on Itch.io detailing what I had done that day and what I planned to do the next. I also made videos on YT with video proof of the results of each day.

Day One:

Day Two:

Day Three:

Day Four:

Day Five:

UX Design

I think that, overall, UX Design went pretty well. I made a pretty immersive environment and a pretty detailed UI that doesn't clash with the theme of the game. I also added a way to tell both what season it is and what season crops grow in. I even added a sound effect for every UI Interaction. I spent a decent chunk of my time focused on User Experience(UX) and I think it paid off.

What Went Wrong:

Major Bug

Randomly when you try to water a crop it won’t work. It will soft lock you into this UI and there’s nothing you can do to change it. I have no idea why and I tried for two days to fix this bug and reached my deadline with no idea how to fix it. That said, I gave players a way to escape the bug by restarting the game. It’s not perfect but it work s and it is the best that I can do.

Tick Events

I tried to have the crops grow on tick so the players could harvest multiple times a day but it didn’t quite work out. It ended up lagging so hard, after just ten crops, that I couldn’t even move. I fixed this by removing all tick events except in the Game Mode and Level BP and made everything grow when the day ends and added a way to skip the day.

Conclusion: 

I think that in the grand scheme a lot more went right then wrong and I can be proud of the game I made. I hope that the next one turns out better than this one like this did with its predecessor.