Digging a path forward | Aardvark Agriculture Devlog #2

You can now dig in the ground for tubers (tubers are not in the game).
I know the last video ended with a teaser about cooking, but it turns out there was a lot more to be said about that than I realized at the time, and we think this stuff is a little more important to talk about first anyways. So next time I'll tell you all about cooking!
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[@nicolaspeters5980]

So as a gardener and game designer this free form gardening system brought a few ideas to mind. Plant spacing could be a fun and nuanced system and simplify the worry about art assets overlapping. When plants are closer together they tend to stunt each others growth preventing them from growing big (so art would never become big enough to overlap) this is esspecially noticable with root crops like carrots or beets. Plants close together also create microclimates that protect the soil from being scortched by the sun allowing for a flourishing microbial ecology, dampen wind that protects the weaker plants before they mature, but they also trap moisture with the lack of wind causing an increased potential for fungal and bacterial diseases. This coupd all create an intreging but freeform system of hpw you design a garden based on which plants you are currently growing and how much output you need from the plants. If seeds are given out based on fetch quests essentially instead of bought in bulk it would also prevent the mundanity of a large field of a single crop that is known and the solution easy by mixing up whats available both in seeds and space based on what plants you pulled up and there for need to fill that part of the soil. Anyways i hope this project goes well :)

[@EthanHayez]

Your artstyle is killer. Throwback to an earthy aesthetic that I dont see enough on the internet.

[@amorachinchilla]

Love the realistic expectations set! A lot of gamedevs (myself included....) get really caught up in "it's going to have THIS feature and THIS feature and THIS feature" right from the start, which can become really frustrating when you've been working for months and have exactly one feature finished, maybe even one that didn't really need to be implemented until much much later. All that to say, the structure of "this is the bare minimum we need, so we'll focus on that first" is wonderful, while still keeping in fun little attempts at something new and creative like with the tilling mechanic. Excited to see where this goes!

[@cawareyoudoin7379]

I like the idea of a more freehand approach to tilling! Looking forward to what you do next.

[@fishingfishka]

I have a bit of a fun idea about the cooking menu. In real life, cooking can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 5 hours, so what if you include that as time management? Combined with the ingredients requirement, it could be fun to optimise, something like "Okay, so my strawberries will ripen today, and my wheat will be ready the next day, so today i can spend about 2 hours collecting strawberries, 5 hours watering the wheat and then 3 hours making strawberry jam to go along with the bread i will make tommorow!"

[@AnnamatopoeiaArt]

I am SOOOO excited for updates to the game, the concept is so cool and gosh dang it I want to play a little creature! I also am interested in the free hand tilling mechanic, I worry that it might make the accidental placement of crops easier but it’s too early to say.

[@kbhasi]

(2:33) Following how I imagined your game having a 3D world but 2D UI and artwork, those little paintings look to me like they could be roughs for icons displayed within the game's UI if both of you did decide on having the UI be 2D. (4:27) I like that you're doing it freestyle instead of being locked to a grid. (1:17) (5:43) Ah yes! The temporary placeholder main menu! (1:11) (video) In my comment on the previous log you uploaded, I mentioned how the key art reminded me of picture book and illustrated novel illustration, but this time, I realise that the key art gave me ‘Frog and Toad’ and ‘Mouse and Mole’ vibes. I haven't read either of those book series, only saw some illustrations and art from those books, so I can't really identify what specific vibes I'm getting from your game art. (1:38) I didn't think about what the general gameplay loop for my game idea would be, but even though that would have different levels, I noticed one among some of my gameplay mechanic ideas and took note.

[@smolblockboi]

Love the lil' armadillo! Another possible solution for the free form tilling that might be worth exploring is having a subdivided grid. So you'd have your main grid for regular placement that the genre is known for and plots can snap to that but then you've got a sub grid of say half the size which, when there's overlap, allows things to also snap to that so there can be variation of placement while also avoiding micromanagement if things are slightly off. Kind of like Animal Crossing New Horizons has with furniture grids.

[@Sam-ub7dt]

Never played farming games, not really at least, but immediately intrigued by the notion of being a lil aardvark tending the farm and who can roll about So I think you already have a pretty significant hook!

[@Jhonxay]

I think using some sort of unlit shader to just use the coloring choices of your art would give the game a lot more life!!

[@NicodemusRat]

The freeform placement is an interesting twist. The idea that you don't always have your inventory fits with the character (nice animation!) but will that be good for gameplay? Perhaps if you are having to make decisions about carrying inventory vs carrying other elements it will create choices. Great to see the progress here and exploration! Kudos!

[@Stump-and-Stem]

I don't remember if I ever mentioned it before, but the choice to have no inventory is something that came from our early-Harvest Moon inspirations. It's kind of a pain to have to lug things back and forth, but when I played those games, I enjoyed the way it forced me to play slower and a little more methodically. Technically, having a big storage box you can carry around gives you more allowances right from the start than those earlier games did just because you can at least move the thing closer to you when you need it. And that loops back around to the decision making you mentioned, so yeah you get the idea! :D

[@NicodemusRat]

@@Stump-and-Stem Ah, interesting! Yeah, I was thinking that hauling and placing tools (if we count the inventory box as a "tool") will become an important element in your play flow. You've shown only two carryable things but you may have more in mind as well which could provide further choices. I look forward to seeing how this develops. Thanks!

[@AScribblingTurtle]

I like the Idea of farming tiles being "off the grid" so to speak. Makes it look more natural. You could still treat each of these circles you placed as kind of planting pot. That would mimic the Tile Grid approach, just without the visual / spatial restrictions. Getting rid of the grid also fixes one of my biggest gripes with the GB Harvest Moon games. That is, that you can't water the middle plant of a 3x3 field once the outer plants reach stage 2. Despite that you are only able to plant in a 3x3 pattern, which means either wasting seeds and/or growing time.

[@cawareyoudoin7379]

Well, Stardew for example solves this problem by letting you walk through most crops.

[@AScribblingTurtle]

​@@cawareyoudoin7379 Agreed, on a tile based system, that would be the easiest fix for that. However, leaving it to the player how to dig the fields would be a bit more innovative. It encourages players to experiment with planting patterns. People could still plant in a grid if they so choose. I may not like how Harvest Moon GB handled it, but on the flip side it made me think about how to arrange the fields. Thinking about the arrangement for how to water and harvest more plants per day was kind of fun, admittedly.

[@cawareyoudoin7379]

@@AScribblingTurtle Oh, I agree it's a fun solution! And if everything is too easy, there won't be a game to play.

[@guyinahat8930]

Really cool video! I might send this series to some people if they ever get curious what game dev is really like, since this series is (looking) really beginner friendly for game dev concepts like MVPs

[@frogvibesgames]

I love this little creature, so cute! Good video too

[@stefanolassandro886]

It's looking good! Keep it up, and good luck with the non-grid approach, I have a feeling it's going to be pretty difficult to manage... but it'd sure make a good novelty for the genre!

[@hjay5534]

An update! :D Looking good so far - and it's really fun to see the game planned out like this! Your plan for your mvp sounds very good imo. If you want it even more minimal, one idea could be to not have a timer to start with, but have the player choose when to sleep and move to the next day? Though, seems like you're well on your way with the timer, so maybe not worth it to not finish it. (Though, could be an option for a speed maybe? Infinity time in a day could be nice for a very relaxed game session). And although the freehand tilling sounds like a really fun idea, I just know I'm gonna line them up in a grid anyway =P I like patterns and clean lines too much haha

[@Porplefish]

Great stuff! Exciting to see the process and the different approaches to the tilled plots. Have you considered placing a spline where the plots are following the character, then you could just run a check for distance from one spline end to all nearby spline ends to see if they should connect maybe? I'm typically an Unreal developer, so I'm not sure how approachable this would be here!

[@MarthaWocket]

If you make movement fun that's half the battle and I saw the ball mode 🤩 I think adding a house customizer it can help with giving satisfaction loops

[@paigehoney9055]

This looks awesome, good luck with your MVP!! Thank you for sharing your process with us :D

[@MeMe-vz7dp]

This is something not super important at this stage of development - and I’m sure something you guys have already noticed - but something that sticks out to me immediately is just how pretty the hand-painted textures are in the blender viewport, and how much they are hidden or muddled up by the in-engine materials. It may be a stronger product to let the hand-painted textures stand on their own rather than be hidden under layers of overly reflective light and shadow and materials properties. I’m loving the game process so far!! Keep up the good work!! 😁😁😁

[@Stump-and-Stem]

Oh yeah, all of that is gonna change big time. We have a very strong image for exactly what we want this to look like when it's done, but there's a lot the two of us need to learn about lighting and shaders before that happens. This basic environment is serviceable enough to get us by for the moment while we make the rest of the game happen, but to be honest it's all probably going to be remodeled or repainted at some point. It may look "finished" by some standards, but to us it's all really just a proof of concept. Just something nicer to look at than a greybox, haha.

[@MeMe-vz7dp]

@@Stump-and-Stem Sounds wonderful! Yeah, messing w shaders is a whole journey on its own, the psuedo-greybox look is more than enough for now. The vids have been lovely and I can't wait to see more! 😁

[@Amaiguri]

Commenting for the algorithm. Keep it up!

[@Squiggl3art]

Oh I adore the free-form tilling concept! Not to complicate things as you're so early in the process, but how would watering work? Would it work something like the irrigation trenches in Harvest Moon Tale of Two Towns? In that game, you can make irrigation trenches as long as you like, but it will only water a number of tiles depending on units of water in the watering can. Or would it be more of an area of effect watering, where you water crops but its only from a certain radius around the character. That way, you can water a set x amount of times, since the water in the can would decrease the same amount per input. The first style would tie more into the free-form nature of your tilling and could make it fun to plan out the optimal distance for each row, where the second method is more familiar but might lead to grids if trying to optimize the maximum amount of plants able to be watered. Hopefully this makes some sort of sense, either way, I'm interested in seeing how you tackle watering and planting with the current method of tilling! Looking forward to seeing more updates, its been so fun to see your progress and different farm sim developments over the years on your blog :D

[@Stump-and-Stem]

THERE'S ANOTHER HARVEST MOON WITH IRRIGATION IN IT?? oh man, the ds games are a huge blind spot for me, I'm really excited to play that and see how they handle it. Short answer is that we have a plan in mind for watering that is also freeform like the tilling is. Out of your suggestions, its probably closer to AOE style. Long answer is... well eventually I'll have a whole video about it so I hesitate to say, haha. Thanks! It's a delight to see you over here as well :D

[@Michael-The-Composer]

Hi there, I'm Michael. I've been following this series since it started not too long ago, and I think this will turn out to be a cool game! I love that the armadillo does things manually, like digging, and picking up the backpack and watering can. It's a smart difference that makes it stand out just enough from other farming games. SELF-PROMOTION TIME: If you're looking for music for this game, I'm a video game composer. If you're interested, I'd love to chat!

[@Mythicalwaters]

this is so interesting i love armadillos. could you maybe reorganzie the playlist so that the oldest is at the top and newest is at the bottom so its easier to watch ❤

[@Stump-and-Stem]

ah shoot, thanks for pointing it out. Should be fixed now, but do let me know if it isn't!

[@lilyisfeet]

i really like the art and color choices for the game, but they get muddy when you actually put it in game :(