Homegrown Devlog: Fruit Bushes, Fences, Tomato Canes!

Devlog video about "Homegrown", a casual farming game I'm creating using my own engine. This week a whole range of new features, including multi-tile plants, fences, and support poles for tomatoes to climb up.
Support the channel on Patreon and get access to the code for Homegrown, the city-builder, and Equilinox:
/ thinmatrix
My previous game "Equilinox":
store.steampow...
You can follow the progress of the game on my social media:
Twitter: / thinmatrix
Instagram: / thinmatrix
Facebook: / thinmatrix
Trello: trello.com/b/W...
Email: [e-mail]
Background music by Jamal Green:
open.spotify.c...
Outro music by Dannek Studio:
/ dannekstudio
#devlog #Homegrown

[@killianlomax8237]

Can we all just agree that this is coming along verrrry nicely? I love the simplicity and the undeniable beauty in it. Please never stop sharing your progress.

[@1PlayGam3sChannel]

Agreed, but I can't really see how the game going to inplement 'fun gameplay', for me it feels right now it is going in the directiin of a cookie clicker

[@airsoftbeast11234]

Same, seems more like a little art demo. After the first update where you can plant and harvest, the rest is just the same thing with graphic improvements and better UX. Def a cookie clicker game for farming ad revenue

[@gigabit6226]

I think it just needs a little bit of a gameplay twist to make it more interesting.

[@ph03beuwu]

its just a chill farming game, they dont all have to have action@@1PlayGam3sChannel

[@360McCarthy]

You know it's a good day when a Thin Matrix video drops 😊 keep up the great work and can't wait to play it!

[@UnidayStudio]

Hi, Karl! Best thing that could happen on a Sunday afternoon is getting notified of a new ThinMatrix video! :)

[@pirateKaiser]

you could substitute that huge switch-case with an array, simply return the relevant index from the method. Awesome progress, and wholesome as always!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks, and good point! I'll do that.

[@AzidHouse]

It is awesome to witness the progression on this game!

[@_Yulico_]

It could be fun to add birds that fly around an area and after a while decide whether to land or not, and if they do land they decide if they just want to see your garden, eat your seeds or just drink some water so you can create a scarecrow to scare them off, or a fountain to deter them. That, or just add birds to give the game more life and add bees :D

[@RobLang]

A charming, relaxing and informative devlog. Personally, I get a lot out of hearing your design decisions and how you put on hold things that you don't like until a more suitable time. Thank you for sharing your progress!

[@cammacthecammac8142]

I really like your idea of reusing the équilinox models in this game as collectibles!

[@blockappella]

It has been very fun to watch this move from 'hey this looks like another equilinox' to 'this is its own game and I am so excited for it' specifically mostly in the art style. I loved the artistic choices in equilinox and I think I have to say I love them in this game even more

[@Dean_Irwin]

ThinMatrix, I’ve been watching you since Equillinox was started, and I just wanted to say thank you for being a consistent motivation for me. When I see all of the cool stuff you’re able to build, it reminds me that it’s possible to keep moving forward with my own projects. I was a patreon back a couple years and I was able to learn so much from the source code. I am graduating with my CS degree and I have a software product as well now, and I think I might have given up on building that product without these videos, so thank you! You are a rockstar!

[@darenn-keller]

I love those small slice of life sequence between the development parts. 😊

[@chasehunter694]

Love you videos as always! Been watching for years :) I have always admired your project management in Trello. Would you ever consider making a video on how you use/structure Trello?

[@TheShadowblast123]

Hey, can you do us a favor and never stop uploading? You give me hope that maybe one day I can find my love for creating games again. I went through a depressive episode when I went to university. I felt so lonely and as a young man I felt like I couldn't tell anyone how I was feeling. I isolated myself. It took a lot of time to get better but I, after five years have finally dabbled in programming again. I couldn't do it for a long time because I associated that time with programming unfortunately. During this time, I still watched you and others build games. I recently started learning python (which is a disgusting heresy) and I myself started a project. I haven't touched in about two weeks, but then youtube decided to recommend me your video and I opened it and I'm sorry if it's offensive, but the immediate rush of nostalgia compelled me to type this while watching the video. I know what I'll be doing after I finish my homework. P.S. I don't know if this is a feature you'd actually want to add to the game because it'd be kind of annoying, but really the reason why we make tomatoes grow on a post is because as a vining plant it will 'crawl' on the ground. Being on the ground the tomatoes are vunerable to the fungi, bacteria and viruses that could be in the soil meaning less produce and at the same time they actually take up space. If you wanted to replicate this in your game, you could make the tomato plants take up nearby tiles. P.S.S. Noice raised bed! Good on you for using that lining too. It'll keep the wood walls in good condition for years.

[@landru27]

My own situation is different, but I feel your frustration and disappointment. The word of wisdom that keeps me going (from Lost Relic Games, I believe) is this : "People overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a year." When I remember this, it helps me avoid being disappointed by doing less day-to-day than I expected to do, and helps me realize that if I keep going, day after day, in time I will have something which shows real progress. Best to you, in all that you do.

[@landru27]

A quick correction to my earlier comment : the overestimate / underestimate quote seems to come from Matthew Kelly, from the book "The Long View". I first encountered it in a viewer comment on a Lost Relic Games video, "My Most Valuable Game Dev Tip". Lost Relic Games has a "no zero days" philosophy, which meshes well with the overestimate / underestimate idea. Be well.

[@SDev]

I am aware this may be unrealistic, but it would be SO COOL if the plants grew procedurally (The mesh enlarges, extends, and separates into branches in realtime). I know this will take a lot of time, but it would be really impressive

[@paolocompagni9952]

I love how brick by brick this game is starting to piece itself together. Great job so far!

[@shlopt012]

I remember watching the first devlog for this game. what a journey from then! Its so cool that you are also interested in gardening in real life.

[@AgsmaJustAgsma]

The game's presentation already looks spot on. I'd low-key love to see the models 3D printed so that we can buid up dioramas.

[@Skeffles]

Love seeing the fences snap together and the idea of canes as gameplay to get more harvest is great!

[@aditya95sriram]

I love how your real life updates (like the new planter you bought) are getting kinda indistinguishable from the game updates itself. It almost feels like I can certainly trust you to make a farm game 😊

[@konnyb7659]

Just wanted to say thank you for your Videos. Going through tough times at the moment and your Videos always bring a smile to my face and I can blend out the stress for a moment. Thank you!

[@ttime9723]

It's coming along nicely. The game looks beautiful! I can really feel your passion coming through in your work. Well done!

[@rubenbrouwer6897]

I remember watching all your old series every day they came out. Lovely to see you are still going strong and uploading.

[@imbenzenker]

It would definitely be cute if some little cute bunny rabbits were hopping around trying to eat your plants, hence the fences

[@peronohaynada]

Good progress, slowly taking shape. Just a few comments, take or leave. Implementation over extension, just a recommendation. Revisit solid principle. And another one (not an expert, just consumer taste): imperfection makes perfection. The path tiles feel to perfect, same with the grass trail. Keep up, love the updates, cheers!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you :) And I agree, I'll try and add some more imperfections to the terrain meshes at some point.

[@ChimpsRS]

Been watching since Equillinox beginnings... amazing stuff. Would be really great to see you implement more regenerative farming and permaculture techniques in the game!

[@Palpus_X]

Blue bree. Love your project! Can't wait to play ❤

[@EsquisseBeats]

For a « better way » of doing your rotation/model selection of fences, you could make a lookup table, mapping each of the 4 sides to a bit in a 4bits number and index your array like so. You would still have a big array somewhere but at least your code will not need to have a bunch of if or a switch statement

[@seventyforest]

Good job! This is very inspiring! 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳

[@Silversun08]

Love the chance of the stick supports breaking on harvest - defintiely brings more balance! Another great update, can't wait to see what's next! :)

[@caden5936]

Love this devlog!! Though I gotta say, some of my favorite parts are the IRL gardening bits, and I was wondering if you’d ever want to do a video dedicated to your own garden? Maybe like a showcase of your plants, tips for maintaining, etc.

[@Joern290]

Love the update 😊 you are so creative and talented!

[@kylemason01]

I always look forward to these dev logs. Your game is coming along in strides and bounds. Keep up the good work!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you!

[@a_shmiggy]

Bit masking should make the fence situation a lot cleaner. Looking forward to the finished game. Keep up the awesome work, always a great inspiration.

[@User-Kam13]

I love the atmosphere and calmness of your videos I do personally like to code a lot but I can't get a coding session longer than 10 minutes as a result of my short attention span

[@GamerMickey87]

I found this comment super interesting, because in my case it's the other way around. I have a short attention span and I get bored super fast from almost anything, including playing videogames, watching Netflix or even going through social media. The only thing that I can do for hours without losing my attention is coding. I sometimes wonder if I am autistic or something lol.

[@mkrichey1]

Love the progress and the chill vibe of your videos, looking forward to playing down the line!

[@evanrobison567]

Every devlog gets me more excited for the game! Great work!

[@catkook543]

loving how the game is coming out so far! could be interesting if you combined the systems you've set up for fences and for posts, maybe there could be a sort of special fence that you can use to support certain plants, like for example a grape vine growing on your fenses

[@micecone]

Hell yeah! Love your devlogs :) looking forward to watching!

[@apocalam1]

Hearing you talk about soil quality got me thinking. It would be awesome if the starting world gets different soils with different nutrients fitting different types of plants. In that way you get to expand into particular locations because you want to be able to grow particular plants. Maybe those plants give you more yield or there are quests for tomatoes and you need more tomato plants.

[@LifeOfMohammed]

Man its looking awesome as always!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks a lot ^^

[@aldeezy1]

I wonder how scope creep it would be to implement fences as a makeshift lattice for viney plants in an adjacent tile to grow onto..... maybe produces about as much yield as an early-game pole as shown in this devlog with the tomatoes, but exposes the plant to animals or something... Excellent update, I love watching your games come together!

[@JuhaniViitanen]

Really nice devlog!

[@martingogaming]

Great video as always!

[@UkrainianDev]

Hi! Thanks for your work and devlogs, this one give me inspiration to start my own

[@holyshiftstudio]

Wow, it's really coming together now.

[@kanethedev]

Glad to see how the game is coming together nicely. Keep up the good work!

[@unspi554]

Nice video as always x). It can be an educational game, on how to begin with gardening ^^. Adding mulching to prevent frosting, and decrease the need of watering, etc... and learning plants synergy.

[@artisticgoose2609]

So happy to see a video, brightens up my day. The game is looking great, cant wait to get this. Keep up the good work.

[@Szczurek15]

Besides loving both your game and the Chanel, I really like the little parallaxes you are making while listing the patreons, so perhaps consider making the same parallax effect with your patreons farms in the main menu or credits, of the release version? Great work!

[@MaxHDeveloping]

Sweet! Love to see the progress!

[@JoyFerret]

It would be a nice idea if you could plant aquatic plants on the water tiles. It could be used to attract specific fishes for the fishing mechanic.

[@neozoid7009]

Yeah🎉. love Your Devlogs

[@bordex.gamedev]

I love the enviroment that you are coding in, the plants are awesome. I wish that I will have a studio like that one day.

[@TomaszJakubKusienicki]

Amazing progress! Thank you for these lovely videos.

[@CurtisDoesADig]

This is coming along so good! Great job!

[@BrinkHouse]

Great progress! Getting more and more cozy vibes

[@fuseinabowl]

I always love these devlogs :) I especially liked the style of the fences, they look very handmade and natural. If you wanted to add even more handmade-y variation to them you could try warping them by a random amount seeded by each vertex's worldspace position. That would make them bend and be less uniform for long fences, but they'd still line up as the seed is the same on each of the connected border vertices. Don't know if this fits your vision or if it would work well in this art style though

[@realtitedog]

Loving the progress! I think a neat update for the future could be built in modding support where you can write lua scriots to add your own tools, plants, etc

[@FriedMonkey362]

I wonder if the game releases i might be able to mod first person so you can play in first person and potentially in VR

[@Menji_x]

I love seeing this progress! Keep up the awesome work!

[@antoniocs8873]

It's really impressive your level or organization. I've never managed to get to anything close. Congrats!

[@NullPointer]

If you orient the UVs vertically in blender, you could make the tomato plants slowly grow by using it as the alpha component

[@Ash_18037]

Just FYI these tomato plants are untextured so UVs are not used/relevant. Also an alpha component is a single value in a color vector used to control the opacity over the texture, so again not relevant due to no textures, you also can't use a 2D UV as an alpha component. I agree it would be interesting to see the plants grow gradually though. It could possibly be achieved using a simple animation system to slowly transform vertices from one stage of the plant to the next.

[@NullPointer]

@@Ash_18037 My guy, you have no idea what I meant with my comment, check my profile before trying to teach me what a UV coordinate is

[@kostiapereguda]

That can work, but I think it will be inconsistent with the rest of the game, because the rest of the objects grow with stages. You can’t use the same trick for example with bushes. I think it should either be implemented for all objects, or for none

[@GamerMickey87]

That's a very interesting suggestion! But, at the same time, I don't think no one is going to stop and watch how the plants grow in real time haha, so maybe it's not worth the effort. Good input tho.

[@NullPointer]

@@GamerMickey87 yeah that's true, I was thinking more about the quick transition between stages though, Instead of just popping into existence or growing to the next stage instantly, but keep each stage stationary the rest of the time

[@FacemanArt]

As always love your devlogs - keep up the wonderful work its looking great!

[@pekkert]

Love to see a video about the gameplay in Homegrown

[@ThinMatrix]

I'll definitely do some gameplay videos when the project is closer to being finished :)

[@clickchapman5240]

MOM THIN MATRIX UPLOADED A VIDEO. CANCEL THE DENTIST. 😍

[@_gamma.]

Townscaper has an excellent autotiling algorithm that would work well with your set of fence pieces, it’s offset by a half tile to calculate

[@zejugames5045]

He implemented Oskar's dual-grid system in a previous devlog! kzbin.info/www/bejne/mKaugp2hlsllf5I

[@popcorny007]

Awesome progress, and looking forward to that planter being filled! For the if statements at 10:00, I would loop from 0 to 3 over the following if statement: if (neighbours[i]) type += (i

[@FreyjaInternet]

totally agreed on replacing the switch-case with a constant mapping of "typeId" (which I think I'd actually call "neighboursBitmap" or something similar) to the model index & rotation. ...oh i have a horrible idea: because it's a bitfield, the rotation can actually be represented by rotating the bits, and counting how many rotations you have to do to get to what I'll call the "nominal" rotation for a particular model. So you need an array of and your rotation-finding algorithm could work by doing (pseudocode, and almost certainly not making the same assumptions that ThinMatrix is about): modelBitmaps = [ 0b0000, 0b0001, 0b0011, 0b0111, 0b1111 ] rotations = [UP, RIGHT, DOWN, LEFT] for i in 0..3: newBitmap = neighboursBitmap

[@kthuludev]

great work thin

[@jakubroncak3324]

Beautiful work :)

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks!

[@KateVR_Dev]

Really greate progress. Keep it up

[@aaronkrugel4471]

The game is coming together greatly, love your videos. I‘d love to see a possibility to drag to place. For fences and paths I think it could get pretty tedious if you want to place alot of them and have to place each one one-by-one

[@Yshtola.]

looking poggers dude

[@StarContract]

Hi ThinMatrix, do you plan adding features simulating the biology of the plants? For example, allow the player to create different breeds of plants that will have combined characteristics, add disease and parasites, add random mutations etc.

[@GamesBySaul]

Such a great devlog! Everything just felt super chill, especially the game! The height / support changes for plants are great, I love how in depth that feels even for something which seems so obvious to add! Some things I was wondering! Do you think you might add a way to customise the fences around your house that are automatically added? With paint, or just changing the style of it? Also for those collectable items we definitely need a trophy of the first crop you created for the game! (A trophy for the first crop a player harvests would be cool too 👀)

[@spir013]

Can you make a video sharing with us how you created your game engine? I find it to be fascinating! The first thing they taught us in university was “do not invent the wheel”, but I feel like making your own engine or frameworks can teach so much, can make you improve your skills, learn a lot, and make something that is suited perfectly for yourself and your needs and it sounds fun! 😊 love your videos

[@TheExtremeCube]

He has a whole series of tutorials from years ago. He's using the Java framework called LWJGL afaik

[@spir013]

@@TheExtremeCube thanks :)

[@peterdenham]

I would love to see some more technical videos on your games engine as i find that super interesting.

[@Zawazuki]

It's really coming together!

[@kranzaklilu496]

bro makes a lot of progress in his day and made me think what I did today😂

[@lestradicpaul6044]

Awesome video !

[@ross2905]

As usual, lovely style of video - you're truly an inspiration! The game is looking amazing and always appreciate the music Jamal made, its soooo good. Will you be hiring them again for this project?

[@falcowinkler2429]

the background music always gets stuck with me :D

[@andrewpullins8817]

You should look into Electroculture and add copper antennas to your game. It's an old world technology that people believe helps their crop grow bigger, quicker, and reduces the need for pesticides. You could have three levels of antennas, each getting bigger, doing one more thing from that list of benefits and aiding more plots the antenna surrounds.

[@SevenStonesStudioOfficial]

I love the style!

[@gigonio]

You actually made me make my homework faster so i could watch the video haha

[@ezrakornfeld8436]

Woooo new vid

[@raulsantandertirado4400]

Woah! This looks amazing! I like the fact that you made your own engine. In what language did you made it?

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks! It's made in Java.

[@realbrickbread]

I love this devlog series Btw, are you planning do something with the water? Like fishing or even water agriculture?

[@Fray-bentos-george]

Love a new thin matrix video. Have you thought about introducing seasons? With certain vegetables growing better at certain seasons?

[@shis10]

Amazing 🤩

[@zxcaaq]

my sunday is saved!

[@spir013]

10:21 instead using all those cases, you can maybe do the stick and the connectors as 2 variables where the connectors existent depends on the stick when a stick is on the white state. The stick has 4 directions that when it’s on the white state, it checks if there’s any near connector to the direction, if there is, put a connector on that direction. Once you click, you get out of white state, and no checks would needed anymore for that stick - because the next connectors will be added only with the next stick added :) will be more efficient and more readable in my opinion 😊

[@spir013]

And if you do that, you can just use 4 “if”s instead of cases and “else”s, because each if will only add a connector. When you delete a stick, you check existence of the connectors in the directions and delete them accordingly. So that way the connectors has nothing to check and they cannot manipulate themselves, only a stick in the direction can - so according to data you are actually doesn’t make any change, and according to time you get less checks and stuff to do for the same result

[@spir013]

So if you for example wants to make more kind of fences and connectable objects, it will save you modeling and data memory for models types. Instead of making 4 models and calculating 16 and transform the 5 objects every time that can cause a bug that checks all the other existing objects on screen - you only make 2 models, and calculate 4 (rotate the connector) and only add or delete 4 objects instead

[@Mordi]

This devlog series is top notch. Quality editing, super chill mood and fun to follow. Does anyone know what type of dog ThinMatrix has? Looks a lot like our dog, which is a Bichon Havanese.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks! My dog is a Havanese :)

[@johannswart9859]

hey loved the video. the tomato for visual can you flip the tomato model so that not all of them are growing counter clockwise or would that just look messy? with the tomato poles would you in the future add a horizontal pole if 2 poles are next to each other? and will you add grapes where you first need to place down the grape "fence" then the grapes? and can we expect to see life stock like chickens I know the game is homegrown but we have bees right? and the chickens you have to protect against fox , don't really know if that would work well, bit would love to farm animals like chicken, cattle and pigs with a muddy enclosure or something. loving the videos.

[@mekafinchi]

I saw a few people suggesting replacements for the switch at 10:10, but instead I have more of a style improvement - if you're on java 12+ you can use a switch expression like this: return switch (typeId) { case 0 -> new Tuple(...); case 1 -> new Tuple(...); etc they're very nice for these sorts of lookup tables

[@Duke6598]

love your vids

[@Speiger]

At 10:20 you could use Bit for each side to connect and then just construct the number and setting each bit based on what should be connected and what not. that way you don't need a giant switch statement.

[@FlukierJupiter]

A good idea for plants that take up more than one plot would be pumpkins

[@nicknick-dev]

Great work as always!

[@CC1.unposted]

Your progress is the progress I do in one week because I code roughly than use AI to optimize sometimes I just do //TODO and AI do it It makes code to load from 8 milisecond to 5 Milisecond!!! While after loaded refresh takes 3 Milisecond so just 2 milisecond of loading files

[@steve_gatsis]

I really like how this game is evolving. I think that it would be so good if all the actions were done by some farmer going to the location and actually pwerdorming the task. I feel it could be implemented at least as an optional feature. Of course that would be better to implement at the end of the development, so that testing the rest of the changes is faster