Making an Immersive Farming Sim in 48 hours - Game Jam Devlog!

Maelstrom.exe is a farming simulator controlled by console commands. You plant, grow and harvest crops to sacrifice to the Rain Sprites, who slowly bring a flood to end the age of Man. It is my submission to the GMTK 2020 Game Jam, who's theme was Out of Control.
Play it here! wintrmut3.itch.io/maelstromexe
This devlog documents my process of making it as well as some thoughts I had along the way. It's the most complex video I've edited so far, and I had a fun time making it :)
It's a calm, albeit melancholy experience that will take around 10-15 minutes to play. It is accessible via browser, but the PC version (Windows Only) can be played in fullscreen, 1920 x 1080 resolution. Please use headphones.
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Edit: Software used in this video:
Storyboarding: Krita
Pixel Art: Aseprite
Game Engine: Unity 5
Code Editor: Visual Studio Code
Digital Audio Workstation (DAW): Audacity
VSCode Theme: 1984 - Fancy/Cyberpunk
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#gamejam #gamedev #gmtk2020 #farmingsim

[@WintermuteDigital]

I also have a website, where I've written up a brief postmortem on the game. I also have a few Unity tutorials and a heck of a lot of Blender ones, all free. www.wintermutedigital.com/post/gmtk2020_postmortem/

[@BaconWatct]

Hi

[@SolemnlySolemn]

May I ask, what application did you use for creating your tileset? :)

[@mikethegamedev]

WOW NICE

[@maistrogaming7911]

Which engins you used

[@skelly_context]

@@SolemnlySolemn search "asesprite" in google (the name is asesprite)

[@ravenstormcliff4656]

"I'm not depressed, I just like rain a lot" is a huge mood

[@WintermuteDigital]

Ahaha

[@ravenstormcliff4656]

@@WintermuteDigital oh and also, of course: great game mechanics, I really like the idea :D

[@ValentineC137]

Rain is just awesome

[@vektor451]

rain is so relaxing :)

[@honeyleaf2499]

Possibly to make this into a full game when you beat it you can “ascend” where your progress is reset, but you get more space, and it take more rain to submerge the world. More plants would be cool. It would be awesome to have a infinite version. It’s a very relaxing game.

[@WintermuteDigital]

That's a super cool idea! I think a prestige/NG+ system would be super cool to implement, and I'll add it to the list of future ideas :)

[@edsonluizbrasilfilho3840]

i smell cookie clicker farm

[@applepuncher804]

@@edsonluizbrasilfilho3840 Yeah I had that in mind this whole time! Very good video none the less!

[@danrayson]

I wanna grow plants on clouds and on Mars :D

[@too-many-choices]

@@danrayson *do it* I mean nothing’s holding you back..

[@chen_dll]

The vibe is really atmospheric and I enjoyed your game a lot! Keep it up:)))

[@WintermuteDigital]

Thank you so much!

[@waporwave5066]

@@WintermuteDigital I'd think the same thing if I didn't remember the opening song from one of H3H3's old skits

[@waporwave5066]

@Tyler Baker in common modern english, vibe can refer to something like "atmospheric" but it can also mean "the feel of something" so more verbose, they are saying "the feel of this video is a very chill mood" instead of "The chill mood of this video is a very chill mood"

[@ruanali]

Game development so next level that he coded and did the art at the same time

[@golzaye3393]

Did ya win, son? No seriously, did you win the hackathon - the game is amazing

[@WintermuteDigital]

I actually did pretty well - like 260th / 5K in overall, and 59th for presentation! I'm really surprised at the result, thanks for asking !

[@blazen_gaming3290]

Nice

[@b0b1goat2]

@@WintermuteDigital that's awesome! Congrats!

[@seumemel]

Congrats, man! Amazing work

[@julz19]

no

[@joeybellas5830]

Cool idea. Would love to see ab expanded version where you can increase the size of your grid. Maybe with more plants and stuff. Dig the music track.

[@VuVuuInc]

The art is very nice for the plant tiles, I like the slight movement of the tiles up and down!

[@Lern2Read]

Impossible that anyone is really this talented. Amazing job, going to go play now!

[@russiannotation]

It's one of the most unique projects on this year gmtk jam. Awesome!

[@ethanhooper6680]

That is a really cool idea. I love the console control aspect of it. Allowing the player to use functions, loops, and what not would be a cool and unique take! I would buy it. Either way great job and keep up the good work!

[@ScottHillberry]

What a simple and well executed idea. Love the result! Looking forward to seeing more from your channel in the future.

[@WintermuteDigital]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@Zuzelo]

Whenever I see such a cool game made in this game jam, it makes me even sadder that I missed it :( Great work!

[@fletchercutting7301]

I love the effect of the plant beds bobbing up and down and the pixelated shadow growing and shrinking. It breaks the rules of pixel ever so slightly, but in the perfect way.

[@Kiddakong]

The pixel art is incredible! I like all the gradients and calm colours that gave the game a great atmospheric vibe B)

[@WintermuteDigital]

Thank you! I'm glad that you got that sense from my game.

[@jacobewert2250]

Love the game! SUPER relaxing :) Awesome job!!

[@geno5952]

This is awesome, I actually always think about this little game you made and it motivates me to learn C# and unity. Thanks for this video!

[@advega]

i love this so much, the vibe is amazing. carry on :')

[@Callie_Cosmo]

Dude your transitions are so cool and visually interesting, of course the whole video is really cool but hot daym those transitions!!!!

[@jpzarde8734]

Very insightful commentary on your development process. I learned a thing or two by watching this video, and I thank you for that. I Also gave Maelstrom.exe a try, I quite enjoyed it, I thought you nailed the immersion part. To anyone reading, this game is best enjoyed in a dark environment in fullscreen.

[@RugbugRedfern]

Subbed! Awesome game, looks amazing too. Love the command line idea.

[@spartianaleck]

Really cool project! Good job! :)

[@ardauner4274]

Thanks for the instructional video James! Also happy birthday buddy hope u have a good one man 🎉🎉

[@kaustubhkulkarni5991]

The video was damn fun, Keep up the good work :)

[@dipKBC]

This is one comfy looking game. 10/10 :)

[@absolutelynothingherelol]

this video was really entertaining, such a good youtuber with a cool game too! i hope you end up like Dani or any big game dev youtubers.

[@level1gg]

Not gonna lie, the art, look and feel is really nice! :)

[@triximix2924]

I like the vibe. Great job !

[@alexnoman1498]

Ooh, it's like the Kekujira aeromancy card in Underhand, but a full game! Neat, I always loved the idea behind wishes gone bad. Very well done!

[@zackunderwood7163]

I wish more games had what this has, the console with commands. its so cozy I love it. plus I love the rain!!

[@zax8634]

Realy love the concept man I spent a whole hour playing around with it

[@WintermuteDigital]

Wow! That's longer than I've spent playing it! XD

[@ZJC_music]

Nice work, love the idea!

[@kristinawaldt]

Super cute game! I need to check that out later. I love the mix of a farming game with computer elements. I'm surprised that you wrote the plot stuff in a switch instead of a ScriptableObjects with a string array (which would have also removed the need for a switch in the first place), but... late nights do weird things to all of us. You did great completing your game! I also like your video style. Very calming.

[@XyloBetaGames]

Hello fellow game jammer! I'll go give your game a shot, I wish I'd seen it earlier so I could've rated it. It looks really nice, your pixel art is fantastic! I'm going to go try it out right now :)

[@twizzlers7274]

I am definitely going to try this out it looks amazing!

[@MaxAndersonFilms]

The game looks quite fun. Will have to give it a play this weekend. Enjoyed your video except for the strange transitions and self deprecation. Boost yourself up with positive thoughts instead of calling yourself an idiot. Good luck as you continue your journey!

[@magickymajk]

I really like your voice. Low, calming, sincere.

[@chaoticrevenge7950]

The best part of these gamejams is watching all the devlogs that come out if it

[@theraaaa]

This video just showed up in my feed and I'm realy happy it did. The game concept is realy cool, but i missed the out of controll element. I will watch the playthrough next though, mabe it'll get clearer then. Also the style of the video was great, the only things i'd criticise were some of the transitions which were to flickery. You definitly got my sub :) Oh apparently the playthrough isnt out yet. I'll wait then :)

[@WintermuteDigital]

Thanks! I recorded a playthrough already but I'm not sure if I should be talking over it. Thoughts? Also I will try to suck less at editing next time.

[@thefatnav]

You did so much work in 48 hours!

[@insanecomicdude]

This is the kind of content I like on KZbin.

[@KallMeQul]

Just played it! Really do love how it looks and sounds, and you've already gotten a million notes on the gameplay itself so I'll refrain from that. My own problem was that I was harvesting a ton of plants and then mass sacrificing a ton of them at the end. You said there were around 20(?) bits of story and flavour text but I got so preoccupied with managing the little garden that whenever I sacrificed, I'd skip like 8 story bits or something and ended up missing most of it (I got like 3 pieces of unique dialogue, not counting the beginning one). It was very sad. 10/10 on the relaxation and chill factor though!

[@WintermuteDigital]

Sorry about that! I have all the dialogue snippets on my website to compensate for this bug at wintermutedigital.com/post/gmtk2020_postmortem/. Of course, it doesn't feel the same, but yeah that's one of the larger things I'd like to fix when I get around to updating this.

[@KallMeQul]

@@WintermuteDigital Wow, I wasn't expecting to get a reply! Thanks for caring about your players, and I'm definitely curious as to what future games you may also make!

[@DescendDab]

Forreal Weathering With You is amazing!

[@indianakernick3788]

13:12 What's an array? Seriously though. This guy can do programming, art and music. So talented

[@indianakernick3788]

@kivi Engel My question "what's an array?" was sarcasm...

[@timo1294]

+Video editing

[@cegrndmster3030]

a list of elements

[@Max-ui5gc]

Click on the time code

[@BoJaN4464]

Yeah, I usually just ToArray() the list/enumerable whenever I want to remove items while enumerating. If I'm only removing items based on a condition, there's also RemoveAll(predicate).

[@Neymgm]

I’m so glad this showed up in my recommendations. Did anyone else keep hearing a sort of phone ring in the background music. It kept me really anxious throughout.

[@WintermuteDigital]

Glad you liked it! That was my home phone, sorry about that. I didn't want to rerecord the lot xD

[@Yazidevmov]

Really good job mannn !

[@cosmocorner]

This turned out cool!

[@cupofdirtfordinner]

his voice is very calming, so glad i found this

[@anderssteen_]

This looks like a great jam game, nice devlog video! I started using LMMS as a DAW for this jam, and I'm pretty pleased with it, so you could look into trying it. Also, when enumerating through ordered lists of elements and removing elements, the most correct but complex solution is to use iterators, but the easiest solution is to just go back to front through the list.

[@WintermuteDigital]

I appreciate the suggestion! And I've had several suggestions about enumerating through lists, the back to front thing is brilliant and I've just recently understood how that works because of people like you so thank you :)

[@anderssteen_]

@@WintermuteDigital happy to help, keep learning!

[@ZerofeverOfficial]

Super relaxing to play. Im thinking of implementing text interface in my game because of this. I think more games should have this.

[@WintermuteDigital]

Best of luck! If you have any questions let me know :)

[@EricIsntSmart]

I have never seen you before in my life but your game is cool so ig im subbed now

[@victornoagbodji]

🙏 🙏 😊 thank you for making this video. this is actually very inspiring!!

[@SuppaflyZSM]

I love the idea of this, you should keep working on it and make a fully fledged game.

[@WintermuteDigital]

Do you have any ideas about where to go with this? The game loop is a bit limited, and I don't really know what direction I should/could extend the game towards. Perhaps a currency system/shop? Combat? Crafting? It seems like there's a lot but I don't really know which way to go in. I'd be super grateful if you had any thoughts about the direction I could expand in!!

[@gazzagreen6993]

@@WintermuteDigital if you added a system where you could sell the crops you grow to buy seeds and have like an economy with limited money and seeds i think it could be interesting, thats just me though lol, i would honestly love to play this! :) good job

[@terragming8471]

Look rly nice i love that they have commmand qn the sprite are ammazing

[@tryit_]

Why are you so underrated?

[@ArcaneWorlds]

Nice!!! We're adding a farming simulator element to our game too! Going to steal some ideas :P

[@vitekprchal8608]

Really like the concept. Rain effect feels good, since everyone knows when its raining, you dont have to water plants (and there is no water option). I only miss some kind of "story" or further interaction with the game. To build relationship with it (as a player...). Thanks for sharing.

[@WintermuteDigital]

I think that would be awesome to add some more story/interaction. If I do work on this further, it's definitely something I'll do. Thank you for your thoughts and ideas :)

[@katsuo973]

Esta muy bueno, inspira bastante! Cheers from argentina :D

[@tiredfox519]

Hey, just wanted to let you know that in C# you can do int [ ] [ ] and int [ , ]. Just don't forget to initialize the arrays :)

[@WintermuteDigital]

Thank you, I was just messing about with the code and I should have checked on that more thoroughly.

[@LuaanTi]

Note that the two are very different. One gives you an array of arrays, the other gives you an actual two-dimensional array. Both have their place, but you'll probably usually want the latter.

[@sacredgeometry]

Ahh I should have guessed someone else would have noticed.

[@TheGeniziz]

came to the comments for this

[@karthiknallan559]

I really enjoyed watching this. id just like to point out though, the transitions felt a little jarring in the video, but other than that, the content of the video was very entertaining and i thoroughly enjoyed it! keep up the good work!

[@WintermuteDigital]

Thank you! I appreciate that, and I did go a bit overboard with the transitions, but in my defense I animated them myself and I was excited to try them xD I promise to use more restraint in future.

[@mahbubmaleksyed5301]

*video starts* oh this looks like a cool farmi- watermute: SACRIFICE TO THE RAIN SPIRITS

[@ruinmasters]

Loved this! Commenting to feed the algorithm 😊

[@WintermuteDigital]

Glad you liked it! Thank you for the bump :)

[@TheDragonCat99]

“Let yourself become immersed” I see what you did there

[@alcejaylos.4257]

I love the rain as well!

[@devmoth9274]

Really nice video it really inspired me and I hope that I'm good enough to participate in the next years gamejam aswell :) There are multiple ways to remove items from a list in c#: The easiest way in your case might been the RemoveAll() Method if you give your plants a boolean property to delete, if they should be sacrificed. (The bool property is not necessary but might make it easier) Example: List Plants = new List() {some amount of Plantobjects }; Plants.RemoveAll(plant => plant.IsSacrificed == true); //this removes all plants which have the bool-flag set to true. Other bool statements can be used here aswell (like plant.Age > 5) Another simple way is using a second List. Example List Plants = new List() {some amount of Plantobjects }; List PlantsToRemove = new LIst(); foreach(Plant p in Plants) //this foreach-loop is just for demonstration. There can be another logic to fill the PlantsToRemove-List. { if(p.IsSacrificed == true) { PlantsToRemove.Add(p); } } foreach(Plant p in PlantsToRemove) { Plants.Remove(p); }

[@karjedav]

we will watch your career with great interest

[@TheGrimmy]

I feel like you, me and another artist I know could rule the whole god damned world... xD

[@athuum]

This is awesome! Great Job! Would be even better if it would be a wallpaper in wallpaper engine

[@chasemiddleton8088]

This is great!

[@GuntWastelander]

Weathering With You was such a great movie :,)

[@d33pblu3]

This game looks like a beginning of one of those supercomplex games that reviewers like Sseth reviews.

[@falxie_]

I like that you animated the drop shadow separately

[@lleytonmorris6305]

Enjoyed the video heaps tbh, Died on the inside looking at the inconsistent curly bracket newlining and no space between for and "(" ;)

[@WintermuteDigital]

Hahaha I will try to reduce my inconsistent convention following and also show less code next time XD

[@GuRRay3]

the game style and the coding style throughout the video give me some ideas i like this art and peace, thanks

[@YourTrailsTours]

I would absolutely love to see this as a full game

[@WintermuteDigital]

Perhaps someday. I will have to think about how to make this more fun though, as it's more of a simulator than a game at this point. Code refactoring, bugfixing and some other improvements will come first to polish this project and then I might expand on the concept, though I'm not sure how much potential this ultimately has as a game. I'd appreciate some suggestions about how to expand this project into a game, if you have any :)

[@SuppaflyZSM]

@@WintermuteDigital Make the farming sim a smaller part of a larger survival sim. maybe on mars or something.

[@jinjinjinrou]

@@WintermuteDigital maybe turn it into a rogue-lite planting sim? Would be awesome to merge those two genres.

[@WintermuteDigital]

​@@jinjinjinrou That is an incredible idea wow! Definitely something I'll think about more.

[@jinjinjinrou]

@@WintermuteDigital Yeah, it is a fresh idea as of now. Looking forward to your project.

[@k1ngTony]

well done :)

[@CJ-jl6hf]

Amen to the intro.... I tried to develop my first game with too much in mind and lets just say it didnt go well lol... now im scaled way back to 2d projects which im finding way more enjoyable for solo deving

[@saschken]

Good job, keep it up. Maybe you could edit your voice over and redo some of the "hick ups" to get a consistent flow through out the video.

[@archbox8593]

Awesome game ^^

[@JoshuaVillarreal009]

Talk about wild, thunderstorm started when I saw this just now

[@Inderastein]

I like the athmosphere

[@RobLang]

I love the idea of using the CLI as a controller. I wonder if a fun game could be made using Linux-like piping to chain commands together. 🤔 Love your channel style and edit, sub'd

[@SunSailor]

Basically a text adventure. The Infocom and the Magnetic Scrolls parsers already used command chaining back in the 80ies.

[@WintermuteDigital]

Really? That's pretty cool! I've already stolen some Linux commands (eg. Cat to display the description of a tile) but piping would be on a whole other level. My console "commands" are very hardcoded at the moment, and I have no idea where I'd even start with chaining or what use that would have at the moment, but it's a really cool concept to think about and maybe use later!

[@vinayakwizcrafter8971]

what can I say man. If you know math and physics, you rule the world.

[@pepsi_or_orange_juice]

Unlike other youtubers, this guy reads all of his comments. literally im not joking take a look at most of his comments.

[@tomlever]

Your video is as nice as your very pleasant game. 🙂👍

[@vulnoryx]

cool game i love it

[@sm79165]

using related words. org I see you're a man of culture as well

[@sharkycat1096]

Awesome game! However the transitions in the video are a little weird and out of place, but I subscribed!

[@WintermuteDigital]

Haha I'm working on it, I was experimenting with making my own transition masks in Blender, but clearly that hasn't turned out :P I appreciate the sub!

[@TooAwesomeToDie7331]

@@WintermuteDigital The transitions are what convinced me to completely watch the video. Tastes are different 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@WintermuteDigital]

@@TooAwesomeToDie7331 Haha I'm glad but honestly I was placing them very randomly 😅

[@AskeKLange]

@@WintermuteDigital Sorta like em, however, the kerning on the text, is, well, not good:) Nice vid, however

[@WintermuteDigital]

@@AskeKLange Yeah I agree, the Bebas font looks really nice imo but the kerning is awful. I can manually adjust the kerning inside Unity using some plugins, but unfortunately Blender doesn't have that option when video editing, so I have to insert 2-3 spaces between words XD

[@OscarHines]

Oof tried to play on mobile thinking I could just open up the keyboard on the text box but totally forgot about the press space bar to begin prompt. Great game and video though :)

[@WintermuteDigital]

Sorry! I wish I could make this for mobile :( Maybe someday.

[@DrNabeel20]

الفكرة عظيمة ومبدعة، أعجبتني التجربة ككل لكونها ملهمة ومحفزة للعمل على مشاريع مماثلة

[@WintermuteDigital]

(: شكرا

[@abstractsophy]

Nabeel nizam ليش تكتب بالعربي؟؟

[@DrNabeel20]

@@abstractsophy ليش لا؟

[@abstractsophy]

@@DrNabeel20 عشانه اجنبي؟

[@DrNabeel20]

@@abstractsophy لاحظت أنه فهم مقصدي ؟

[@jaysonbunnell8097]

that’s some serious switch-caseage

[@olofandreasson9814]

Got any tips on how to create the console you used? Im super inspired by this game and want to create a game with the same type of console!

[@myrvolly]

man that transition hurt my eyes but nice game :o

[@r0y4l69]

very interesting, good job #QualityContent

[@billdimz]

Nice

[@klausbdl]

this gave me inspiration to try to make a similar game using c# console

[@WintermuteDigital]

Good luck! I hope you update this with a link to your game sometime :)

[@ansarimohammednaveedmohamm7325]

I can't believe I heard mention of a fantastic anime in a not so fantastic video LMAO Jk video wasn't bad but I was about to stop then didn't when you mentioned the name

[@v1ntage_804]

YES. I'VE FOUND YOUR GAME. I USED TO PLAY IT FEW MONTHS AGO THEN I LOST THE GAME'S NAME. FINALLY I'VE FOUND YOU

[@WintermuteDigital]

ladies and gentlemen, we got em

[@v1ntage_804]

@@WintermuteDigital Good Video and good game! Thanks for creating the game.

[@yafetbefkadu6334]

I totally enjoyed ur video but the transitions bothered my eyes it was too flashy sorry 😊 did give ur video a like tho

[@WintermuteDigital]

Thank you, and I apologize for the transitions. That was the result of a misguided experiment with transition masks and I will look up a tutorial next time.

[@BarneyKB]

@@WintermuteDigital I think they're cool but could be toned down a bit to be a bit less jarring

[@gdjosef]

this is really cool and I like it. though the editing feels a bit off. anyways, still a great video.

[@WintermuteDigital]

Thanks! I will make the edits less crap/experimental in future.