Homegrown Devlog - New UI & Mod Support(ish)

[@thislooksfun1]

Awesome progress! If you're serious about modding support, one example you might learn from is Factorio. Much of the base-game content is actually implemented as a mod that ships with the game, so anything it can do is automatically supported for 3rd party mods as well! The engine is still separate, but many buildings, crafting recipies, etc. are in the exact same format mods use. Helps to dogfood (test by using it yourself) the modding systems to make sure it's all working and featured.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll look into that, that sounds like quite a good way of doing it.

[@alfaproject0]

RimWorld DLCs are mods as well

[@soshman]

@@alfaproject0 Also the base game itself :)

[@azsoftware]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 also does this

[@CaioAletroca]

@@ThinMatrix Really, Factorio is basically the master of mod support, you don't need to go as far as they did, but taking inspiration on them will be useful.

[@LeBogo]

A huge thanks for that little mod review :D That pumpkin plant model took me ages btw.

[@ThinMatrix]

It looks great! I love the flowers and the curling vine. Thanks for all the help with the mod support!

[@k12moyo]

I’ll never get tired of you using the Equilinox ost for all your videos. The music is so beautiful.

[@bluesillybeard]

Same. To me, the music is a fundamental part of the ThinMatrix devlog experience.

[@Alchimistje]

I put on the album when i'm doing work myself. It's really soothing

[@LordDanielGaming]

The UI looks great!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks!

[@BucketmanAnimations]

2 years already?! Great work man! Keep it up

[@RecordsSam]

Doing all of this with your own engine is crazy.

[@hacep160]

The UI is wonderful, I am looking forward to more updates!

[@BlackBunnyGamePlay]

It feels so weird that time went by so fast, I have been watching you for many years now and so much has happened. It feels so comforting watching your videos over these years.

[@dvnim0045]

I've been learning Java and you inspired me so much to get into game programming from scratch. I wish to become like you thanks for this great content. Love from Malaysia

[@setaindustries]

That bread looked really great! I was about to ask for it but you already included it in the description lol. Cheers!

[@SvenWollinger]

What i love is the "minecraft" way, where you can (in resource packs) add your own things, but also replace existing files if you use the same name / path. That plus load order seem like a great way to do it

[@deefdragon]

one of my favorite things about adding mod support is it forces you to examine how you put everything together in the first place, and will often allow you to build/rebuild in a manner that's more extensable for yourself as well as modders.

[@manfrombritain6816]

your vids have inspired me to learn to be a more thoughtful coder, as well as to try and appreciate a properly organised life. I'd love to see some more insight into how your codebase is arranged. I'm not a game dev but I'm sure it'd be interesting a d useful... I've never worked on such big projects

[@akku8812]

your room is so beautiful i can work 10 hours straight right there omg love it

[@Oho_o]

Your home place and surroundings look very beautiful.

[@allyr02]

For saying UI isn't your forte, it looks damn pretty good and beautiful! I love it.

[@BarneyCodes]

The game is looking really great! As someone also making a game in their own engine, I can heavily relate to the whole "taking a while for things to get going because I have to set it up all the systems first" thing! As always, your videos are massive source of inspiration on my own game development journey, thanks for sharing!

[@tushanemclean]

I true inspiration, I have been watching for a while now and will be starting my game development journey so. Thanks for all your content and insight, can't wait for this game to come out

[@mkrichey1]

Loving the progress, a very calm looking game with a great art style!

[@AndersBreg]

Just my two cents, but I think you should consider closely the delay time on when the info boxes should appear. Having ~0.3 sec delay and needing to look at information on a whole patch of crops, might take much longer with such a delay. I think what is done in some games, if an info box has already opened up, and the cursor is moved to another element, the info box just changes, so that no more waiting is required. I've been playing quite a bit of Against the Storm lately, and I believe that is how it's working there.

[@ghandiwon]

Another common strategy is showing latest in the toaster then having a toggled drawer for the rest sorted by recency.

[@codeman99-dev]

First time seeing your devlog. I love time transitions sections. Please keep that up!

[@cybergen49]

The UI design is solid and really cute, I love it! Amazing work!!

[@GamesBySaul]

Amazing work as always, I think that adding mod support (ish) feels like such a curveball but I can see some huge creativity and fun coming from the community on that! (Also thanks for sharing the bread video I was about to ask!)

[@marks7502]

your own engine, wow!

[@Astralklinge]

The UI looks great, you are my favorite game dev KZbinr.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks!

[@jorgeguerreiro1013]

I love everything from ur dev station, your progress is so satisfying to follow... That clean setup tho, I have the same keyboard, and it looks so good on your videos. Thank you for the 5 stars content 10/10

[@GamerMickey87]

The mod integration is so great! The fact that you will also include the language modification file to make it so easy it's great. I work as a book translator, so, as soon as I get the game, I will try to create the Spanish translation for the game and make it available for anyone who needs it.

[@cameron_bowe]

Love to see your advancements of code & knowledge as a fellow Java developer, seriously inspirational.

[@Vhestale]

I really like the UI you designed! It goes super well with the style of your game. (Also wow, your bread looked so delicious!)

[@jumpkut]

Love your devlogs. You seem to have such good discipline and structure to work on your game and do this so well at the same time! Also your workspace is beautiful.

[@Skeffles]

Amazing progress on the UI. It's looking great. Also love the idea of mod support. I hope it gives the game that extra magic.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you! :)

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

Love seeing such good first-party mod support! I'm certain it will foster a dedicated community beyond your current patreons.

[@makalacc]

Oh man, I was a proper FarmVille gamer back in the time. This looks like a great game to chill on after work

[@ElianeGameDev]

So happy to follow what you've been doing for the past years! You're really inspiring. I wish you the best!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you very much!

[@datbubby]

Already three years? It's come along well. Happy New Year :)

[@Joern290]

Never get tired of your videos! You are such an inspiration, TM! :)

[@larryd9577]

This UI update really elevated the look & feel for the whole game. Amazing!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you!

[@maciejolczyk]

Hey! You are a true inspiration! Loved the Equilinox idea, bouncing animals and carnivorous plants. I would love to do what you do, sadly a bit old dog me in a wrong place. So I will stick with watching your progress. The Homegrown will be swell.

[@faizahmohammedaruwa]

Love the added mod support! ❤

[@helsontaveras7961]

So happy to see these videos and be a supporter of the channel 😍

[@ForgeAndFortuneVR]

awesome devlog and the UI perfectly suits the style of the game!

[@cameronstroebel3333]

Simplifying UI while keeping it effective is unexpectedly difficult, but I reckon you've done super well. It was also really interesting getting a peek into what goes on behind the scenes to include something like mod support

[@GrahamOfLegend]

The new UI is such a massive improvement! Well done! Also, that bread looks tasty 😋

[@PaahtimoGames]

Great video as always! Keep up the good work! I love the food clips, always makes me hungry!

[@UselessFodder]

Another excellent devlog! Making the change to just show the current negative statuses of each plant was a good decision I think, but it also made me think that having a buildable "condition monitor" entity might be a useful addition. Essentially, when built it gives the raw environmental data you were displaying before so the player can tell whats going on before their plants start to display negative effects. I imagine you could reuse much of the old UI code for this entity. Thankd again for another devlog!

[@booyagrandmma]

I'm not usually one to leave replies on youtube, but your progress and dedication inspires me every day when it comes time to work on my own cozy game. Love seeing your planning process and your ability to stick to your plans. Keep up the excellent work and as always, looking forward to the next one!

[@oOosupernicoOo]

This is fantastic to see! One thing i have to point out is that the delay before the pop-up is nice, but once the user needs to inspect a lot of elements consecutively, that extra delay can really tear away on the user experience! It can really be frustrating and make the game seem slow Just something to think about!

[@vincewa2142]

Looks great, amazing work. Also for the UI a lot of games do a small camera pan towards the object selected so that its more centered on screen and the text box is visible. Keep up the great work.

[@maxt7449]

Great to see your game come together! Although admittedly, Rufus, the sunsets and sunrises, plants and cooking are what keep me coming back! 🪴

[@michal_havlicek]

Very nice progress! It's amazing to see the game finally come together, piece by piece :)

[@Guigo-s]

Today is my bday, im so glad you post a new video today, i know i'm not special but you are very special in my life, because you i'm doing an scientifc research and building my own engine in Java, i'm watching your openGl series and that's help-me a lot!, you are the best, thanks for exist's!❤‍🔥

[@johnosei826]

Keep going, we all love this game!

[@motorsports76]

This is inspiring me to make a farming game to as I find games like this satisfying.❤❤

[@LeBogo]

If you're a Patreon supporter you can start modding Home Grown and add your own Plants

[@leonardsmith9870]

Really love these videos! The game is looking really good! Keep up the good work!

[@TheGeniziz]

Love the progress and the project! One thought I had is that perhaps there should be a little visual indicator near the plant to let the player know that they should check the health of that plant (a little warning sign or something), otherwise one could end up in a situation where you only notice once the plant has already taken a lot of damage to its health.

[@jonathanstrong9764]

I feel like the objects in the game would feel a lot more grounded with some ambient occlusion at the bottom of all the trees and structures.

[@ThinMatrix]

Yeah I agree, I plan to add AO when I next work on the graphics.

[@eliteonetube]

I get excited whenever a new video comes out.

[@jaylini2250]

YOUR DOG he is so cute I love him. Pls more dogcontent! Jokes aside, I really love watching you develop your game. It´s so interesting to see your designchoices and also a lot of codesnippets. Thanks for sharing your work. c:

[@finleyghost]

It’s looking so good! Can’t wait for early next year when it’s out

[@maindepth8830]

I cant lie, your work setup looks immaculate

[@sergiosev123123]

Your work is incredible, you are a great inspiration. Keep it up!

[@VNS-soloassassin]

Great game can't wait to see the project progress

[@akjir]

Great video. As always. Think early in mods is great. Trying to implement most of your own game as a mod (the base mod) will improve the things mods can do.

[@FriedMonkey362]

Yet another video, thank you Mr Wimble🔥🔥

[@_hallowed_]

The new UI is looking really nice! I think the style fits in very well with the rest of the world.

[@NeoChromer]

Happy new year, und einen Guten Rutsch wuensche Ich!

[@Keatosis_Quohotos]

I found that Inkscape was really useful for doing ui work. It's an open source vector editor that goes hand and hand with gimp

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out!

[@andrey6398]

​@@ThinMatrix Also I would like to mention a not very obvious thing about inkscape. Check out B-Spline pen mode in addition to bezier curves, it is more intuitive to create complex smooth shapes

[@deepthoughts169]

your home is in heaven. your desk placement is perfect. it surely helps you stay productive right?

[@smooll_d]

Idea, add dark mode to the ui or mod support for changing ui color (or both). It looks amazing, but a dark mode would be cool.

[@tscholze]

As a fellow (non-game) developer it is awesome to see all the iterations you are going through! Maybe you wanna do a behind the scene how do you do the filming, transitions and code views in you videos :)

[@ytohustler]

love those cooking parts of the vlogs

[@n64billy]

Looks really good! Nice work

[@toms2oo8]

With regards to making that OBJ exporter easier to use, honestly I don't think you need to worry about things like that. If people like your game enough to want to make a mod for it they will. Obviously releasing whatever you can to make things easier is perfect since no one needs to reverse engineer anything but releasing that CLI tool as it was would have also been fine. In no time someone would have created a whole way more user friendly converter.

[@darkwoodmovies]

That's a really cute game!

[@lazerlord_lance]

it's so weird, I always forget that you're living in Germany until I see the Weizenmehl standing on your kitchen counter :D

[@CosmeLeites]

Congrats. Excellent work👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😁😁😁

[@MrShkolololo]

Awesome work! IMHO, it would be nice to add the pin button for the popups stop them from dissapearing when the mouse is outside the message. It will allow player to monitor the most valuable and important plants or resourses status

[@roktoka]

love the new ui, so clean!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks, glad you like it :)

[@akatsukilevi]

Simply outstanding progress! Two ideas that may help to bring you some inspiration Plants that have something affecting it's health could get some sort of outline or indicator, so that if your mouse isn't hovering on it, you can actually see that something's up with the plant And maybe add a element of discovery to it? Like, if the plant has a problem affecting it's health for the first time, it doesn't *tell you* until you actually figure it out, then once you figure it out it starts telling you right away, because then you "already seen it before" It might lead to some sense of discovery, letting the player figure out something by themselves, could be rewarding and give a feeling of progression Maybe also to not make it too difficult, make it as part of 'difficulty'? (Thought part of me feels like it'd hurt the simplistic nature of the game)

[@e2000gaming]

Ah, another relaxing devlog. I had a thought about the UI/graphics: Is there already features implemented for the disabled such as color blind modes? Input remapping? I've watched quite a few of your devlogs, but I don't necessarily remember all the features, so apologies if I mention something that's already implemented. I also look forward to it's public release so not only can I play it, but if other KZbinrs like Let's Game It Out, Ambiguous Amphibian, and Spiffing Brit get a hold of it, they can find bugs you might have missed and also skyrocket the game's popularity. It would be awesome for those communities to enjoy all your hard work and an entertaining way to get more fans! Keep up the great work 😊

[@Morax]

Hi! I've been watching your devlogs for a while, your videos are great and the vibe is so chill. Your house-plant collection is pretty awesome now, what would you say about making a video explaining what they all are and how to grow them successfully? I've tried many indoor plants and always managed to kill them haha.

[@Genesis8934]

2:50 I've seen some game UI's (like a handful) that just slide the screen coords of the dialog box to keep it on screen until the center of the screen (in 3D space) is some distance away from the 3D coords of the object.

[@nilsgoeke7494]

Love the video and the ui Only thing i would change is with the composter fertilizers being either in one row or in two with two items each

[@КонстантинШишелов]

Просто фантастика, я восхищен вашей работой! Огромный труд писать такой серьезный проект, жирнющий лайкос!

[@FlaavioHeenrique]

Nice setup!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks!

[@crackedname3409]

Somehow I didn‘t realize you were a fellow German. Other than that I really loved this video, and hope to see more of this game and am hyped to play it one day.

[@rifkiardiansyah616]

love your workroom

[@HLD202]

for the text issue on the edges you can force the camera to move in that direction when the mouse is too close to edges

[@vetirs]

Awesome progress man! I would suggest to make the popups automatically on when there is a major problem with the plants since clicking on each one can be quite annoying in the later stage of the game

[@claudiosabitzer9316]

awesome work! i really love watching your game develop more and more, it makes me wana start my own game development journy! I thought i'd a good idea to your vegetable infobox... In my mind some experien e mechanic would greatly improve the joy from my perspective.. So starting of you basicaly have no gardening experience and therefore you dont know when your carrots for example are to dry and so you also dont get the info in the panel, even though it is to dry for them... so you could start figuring out how to grow certain vegis as you learn it along the way, as it is in real life :) I would love to hear your thoughts on that and keep up the awwsome work!!!

[@wcrb15]

Great work! Feels like it's really starting to come together and i love the updated style. Excited to see this through to the finish line with you!

[@neiizun4674]

The vibe makes me wanna put plants in my room

[@codehawkfalcon]

Love the new tooltips especially the health bar idea. Please share the bread recipe!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks! Here's the recipe: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kF7Lpqagj9Crftk

[@CSharp1991]

You should add Rufus to the game as a mascot so everyone can go for a walk with him.

[@MrCalls1]

11:45 I’m a big fan of ‘alternative tooltips’, where you have that simple Carrot + health as the standard, hover over tooltip, but if you hover then tap alt, or are in ‘alt-mode’ you see something more detailed, preferably closer to what ‘the game is seeing’. Rather than text which tries to be user friendly but often elsves me wondering but what is the exact inflexion point, what is ‘enough water’ in a number out of 100 sense.

[@Datdus92]

Good progress!!

[@MufasaYTR]

Nice work! I have one idea. Maybe add warning signal above a single field and then player will know something is wrong in this area. Then player would have to check plants.

[@Archmage_Steve]

You could just snap the camera over to the object you are accessing the ui for and maybe add a toggle in settings if people don't like it. Realistically a snapping feature for any entity/object would be good as an accessibility option.

[@kekaci]

Speaking as a Minecraft modder, Java is pretty much the ideal language to write a game in if you want mod support. Even if you obfuscate the released builds, modders will map it out eventually :P My suggestion for mods is to also support jar files with full access to the game's code (alongside plain resource-providing folders). You could then have an entrypoint such as the `ModInitializer` interface in FabricMC's toolchain. In my experience, letting modders have full access to the code (including being able to mixin to existing parts) is how to let creativity flourish the most. It's impossible to get the same ecosystem by providing a polished-but-very-safe modding API. Either way, I'm so excited about this game. It looks awesome!!

[@LeBogo]

I've already told Karl how to load resources and code from jar files and he responded that he'll look into it. This way, distributing mods is as simple as downloading a single jar and putting it into the mods folder.

[@kekaci]

@@LeBogo Nice. Looking forward to it

[@dianamiteee]

You need to make a cooking video! Everything you cook looks so delicious!