Programming the Health System for my Farming Game

[@kylemason01]

One suggestion would be turn dead plants into compost via a compost bin, so instead of dead plants just being dead weight they can be used to restore dying plants, so the player doesn't feel like they have completely failed when a plant dies.

[@hugius9016]

Recycling plants 😂

[@catkook543]

@@hugius9016 compost is a real thing

[@masonb9351]

Just add that as a feature for the easy difficulty and then plant diseases/permadeath for hard difficulty :p

[@jacknesbitt240]

I was just going to comment this! It would mean there could be some strategy in killing off certain plants in order to produce compost to help other plants grow/produce more!

[@catkook543]

@@jacknesbitt240 wouldn't quite be very efficient though, more so just a way to utilize food scraps or salvage failed efforts

[@geoffp8366]

This game looks like a perfect opportunity to implement Liebig's Law Of The Minimum: a plant's overall health is determined by whichever factor is currently least favourable.

[@twistedsim]

it could be fun to unlock the ability to see the plant stats progressively as you get better at farming

[@Florin_A]

THIS!

[@concepts_]

Glad you are still at it. You and old Dani inspired me majorly in my programming journey and you both are a big part of where I am today. Thank you.

[@plebisMaximus]

I let myself get inspired by Sebastian Lague and now I just feel like a complete failure lol.

[@theburgerbox9576]

@@plebisMaximus That is very relatable

[@someonewithsomename]

@@plebisMaximus he's very oool! But he also did not release a single product. So in this terms you are as much a failure, as Sebastian is. So nothing to worry really, =D

[@rebel6809]

Where you are today

[@amstanek]

@@rebel6809 we are outside your place of residence

[@motyfokol5392]

i love this human being. whenever he posts my week becomes so much better. i get my food and watch it while eating and just feel revitalized. thanks for existing hon

[@gabyflorian5602]

I'm usually pooping.

[@perelium-x]

@moty fokol Me too

[@stgggs]

It would be cool if there were a bit of random genetics in the plants so that each one, even of the same vegetable, might be slightly more or less drought resistant. Maybe you could even selectively breed plants to get an entire garden of hyper drought resistant plants.

[@catkook543]

could probably also use the code from equilinox to implement a feature like that too

[@funcker9195]

I approve

[@timbonator1]

The game RUST has a great system like that. Each plant has i think 5 genetic points. Each of them can be one of the 4 genetic variants. There are 2 good and 2 bad (green and red). There are these 3x3 planter boxes and you can crossbreed plants. So if you have like 2 plants that have 4 green genetics you can crossbreed them to hopefully have a plant with 5 green genetics! Defenetly go look up a quick tutorial on youtube about that! It's absolutely great and give your game a bit more depth for those who want it :D

[@Hughsie28]

@ThinMatrix Your plant at ~ 00:48 have a check at its roots, maybe its outgrown its pot and needs something bigger (I have a similar problem with my Calethea Rufibara, its grown so massive its suffering a term called "Rootbound" where the roots form a ball stopping water getting down the soil preventing it from absorbing water causing it to have problems). You can check it by pulling it out of the pot carefully and seeing if there is large quantities of roots around the edge of the rim where they should really be in the soil ball

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks, I'll check that!

[@jean-naymar602]

5:46 that was a nice transition

[@ThinMatrix]

Hehe thanks, I was quite proud of that one!

[@rebel6809]

😂

[@kylemason01]

I also think hovering over a plant should show some icons to show at a quick glance if a plant needs watering or whatever trait is affecting the plants health. Just a nice quality of life thing.

[@ThinMatrix]

I have been considering doing something like that, I agree it could be useful!

[@kylemason01]

@@ThinMatrix I think it just helps players who cant take as much information in at once and need just a slight helping hand at a glance.

[@zombieslayamr]

Really love how the game is coming along. One small suggestion, instead of using the word "dying" and "dead", I would instead used "Withering" and "withered." Sounds a bit less harsh.

[@paliszarok]

The game's state is keep getting better! I really want to get my hands on this game in the future! 🤩

[@thomasdam7438]

me too

[@hugius9016]

I am definitely going to buy this!

[@alexanderrotmg]

I can't wait to get my hands on this. I just imagine myself coming back home and checking in on my plants.

[@danisob3633]

You aren't alone in this, I feel you. May your plant rest in peace.

[@CoreggonOfficial]

I love these videos, so relaxating and even more so since I am a programmer, Good job!

[@captainufo4587]

Since overwatering is a thing, you could make provisions for that. I can imagine a player doing a swoop watering of all the plants regardless of their actual need to keep the meter high.

[@null846]

Just love the effort you put in into your work ! This series is by far my favourite on your channel !

[@RhysPatterson]

Perfect screen-to-camera transition @ 5:45 👌

[@timbelion3765]

Great progress, it looks good. Can't wait to play the game!

[@gavin.d.m]

Love your video style Great to see a bit more of a glimpse of you, it's okay you don't feel the need to be the star of the show, that's your work 😀 The only thing I don't like about your videos is the immortal words "that's it for today"! You leave me wanting more, great compliment. 🥳😀👍

[@Boriex]

one of the best devlog i've seen in a while, it feels the effort :)

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks! ^^

[@LmAnubis]

I suggest that plants don't lose health unless the factors are below half more or less, from the initial look I personally would be constantly stressed that my plants are always losing health.

[@HappyDwarfGaming]

The game looks great already! Keep up the good work with the videos and the development!

[@KamranWali]

Awesome video as always! :) The progress is looking really good. Really like the health feature of the plant. Also the dead plant can just turn into a darker/black colour indicating that the plant is dead. It will give a quick visual feedback to the player. Keep it up! :)

[@_CJ_]

I admire how you come with plan and turn it into reality. Great job. Keep it going! :)

[@DBProds96]

I wonder if its worth having a little icon that floats above the veg to show their state. E.G. a little skull icon floating above all the dead veg etc

[@janoschalze623]

I think that would help a lot. But I think it would make sense to toggle this view on and off, to admire the beauty of your garden and not have a health bar over every plant.

[@cincinnaticats77]

Yes, I was thinking of this. I am color blind and green vs brown does not stand out at all.

[@Janpetervogt]

@@cincinnaticats77 good point here

[@OKayD3N]

@@janoschalze623 bunch of back seat developers

[@martintoilet5887]

And the seed can be buried under the ground with an icon indicating it instead of just putting them on the ground

[@MartehTech]

Please PLEASE also make it that if you overwater your plants, the leaves will also turn brown. This is the most common mistake with every plant owner and the symptoms of over- and under watering are almost the same. I love the series, keep it going!

[@sketchyconditions]

It might make more sense to just have a hand tool with context sensitive actions. Or specific tools for harvesting specific plants

[@Joern290]

Congrats to 200.000 subscribers ❤️!!!

[@the-pink-hacker]

You’re my biggest reason why I want to be a game developer. Thank you so much!

[@adrianterencehand]

Loving watching this game progress. Vomitus ideas you already had: seasons/weather mechanic, passage of time when you’re away (come back to your farm after two months away and everything’s dead/overgrown), display of health and stats only as optional easy mode (or hiding them as optional hard). Amazing to see things develop mate, git er on early access, you’ve got to get paid!

[@angais]

You have a lot of skill and passion. Can't wait to try out this game!

[@lukehibbert3000]

receiving these progress notifications are hands down the best part of any day

[@youngartifact]

One neat mechanic would be to don't know much about the state of a plant at the beginning but learning these infos the more you grow that kind of plant. I think that would also work well with a breeding mechanic of some kind. That said, I know this will likely not fit to what you have envisioned for that game. Anyway, you are doing great working on this project and I hope you are doing great in general too!

[@BlackxesWasTaken]

Really nice! I had an idea about the "General health" based on the sub factors underneath in the UI. Maybe you like the idea that some factor have more affect on the general health than others. Basically a different ratio than 1:1:1. Say water for example is crucial and would have a ratio of 7 in a 7:1:2. Compared to other factors. This would make other factor a little less attractive but it would feel more real since not everything is equally important to a plant.

[@liliyaversus4051]

These videos just make me feel good Some dreamy calm nice vibe to them..

[@noiretan]

Have a fig plant that had only 2 green leaves left because he was neglected. Stripped off all the dead ones and made sure to water it, and the little boy bounced back. Love him and still feel very proud about the whole ordeal. Named him Fargo

[@thesolbusaur4693]

One of my favourite mechanics in Equilinox is some of the conditions of the environment that have an effect on a plant/animal's satisfaction which differ from species to species, resulting in a careful balance of surroundings. Have you thought about the player controlling the contents of the ground carefully for each plant to maximise its satisfaction? For example, using different patches of your land, different fertilisers/compost to balance out each plant's access to minerals, the acidity of the soil and its water retention, etc.

[@Zer0Flash]

your devlogs remind me of devduck with like a slice of irl and not just the game or a codewall, amazing devlog as always

[@isaacbecker9767]

Possibly you could further indicate a plant's health by rigging up the leaves so they'll start to droop down as the health decreases, and then become more obviously welted once the plant dies

[@themrfj]

Will you implemented over-watering? I feel like I kill more plants by drowning them, than by starving them :p

[@joseffakeberg1943]

Looks like even his real plant suffers from over-watering. Yellow leaves are a strong indicator for that.

[@chr1ss99]

You could make the fruits of the plants slowly turn dark brown when the plant is dead not only indicating a dead plant but also making you loose the fruits

[@Skeffles]

Great health system! It's sad to see the plants die but awesome to watch them grow!

[@DJTechnostyler]

You should not only care about too less of something but also about too much of something. For example spring onions do not like too much water because their roots will rot. So you could also take the ground into account and give it some properties like water drain. A ground of clay will hold the water and fertelizer better than a gound of sand.

[@agusplayer3801]

You could also add that sometimes it rains and it waters all plants, which can help the player.

[@codehawkfalcon]

Love your videos. It would be cool if you added seedling! Have to plant seeds -> grow seedlings -> plant seedlings. You could learn how to plant real plants this way!

[@jorgegomes83]

To add some more challenge, it would be nice to add variations in the weather and bugs, along with ways to prevent/protect against them. Talking about weather, a season system would be perfect. The game is very good, even in this early stage of development. Since you are very fond of growing plants, I hope you're enjoy the making of this game. Cheers!

[@JonathanGoodchild]

This is incredible, you should also add another element to the plants that determine which animals eat them in the environment. Not just weeds but pests, insects and animals. like if you have birds you need shade netting or they will eat all your fruits as they begin to develop seeds, that goes for flowers as well, specially sunflowers. Awesome game! :D

[@Gymomanen]

An idea to give the game some more gameplay is to not reveal all plant-health info from start, but rather that you can unlock health info about plants by harvesting them, or purchase info about certain plants in the store. I think I really like the idea of for example ”Harvest 100 cabbages” which unlocks i.e the compost or water-info bar for cabbages. Without unlocking these, growing them would be harder as you may risk overwatering (resulting in mold and plants becoming rotten), or overcomposting (resulting in a lot of weeds growing). Love the potential in this game. Will be nice to see how it turns out.

[@justsaying4471]

I feel you. My plants also seem to die for no reason, at all. It’s not that all plants I have die, but those that do, do so for no reason at all.

[@Eghizio]

You could add flies flying around the dead or unhealthy plants, or just some bad smell indicator :D

[@massimogalliano8337]

As usual, I love your videos! I want to share a couple of ideas I had in mind that I think could be nice to have implemented in the game: for example, having the possibility to consult daily or weekly weather forecasts. So based on whether drought, light rain or a storm is expected, the player must be careful to dose the watering: because he could risk finding his plants drowning.

[@cineblazer]

Yay! My saturday couldn't have started better than getting a notification about a new thinmatrix devlog

[@otoS97]

Your Saturday just started? Where do you live?

[@cineblazer]

@@otoS97 california

[@chaoslab]

"Even the house is unhealthy" - You should become a New Zealand landlord. /sarcasm For plant death, a brown / dark gray color and shrinking the model 5-10% so it looks like it withered may do the trick.

[@lamnhan]

I also laugh when I hear "Even the house is unhealthy" :D

[@steel0tsunami]

Thinmatrix could have additional models for wilted or dying plants.

[@markoap91]

Yeah, everything turning brown was legit funny :D Changing the scale of the model and the color to make it look dead would be great for now, but in the graphics update dead plants should have a different model where the leaves are shriveled and sagging and the plant looks differently than the living plants, even the ones in bad shape.

[@2wheels2]

one suggestion i have that will make the game more difficult/ interesting and investable is to implement the ability for people to over water and fertilize and so on so forth. just like in rea life where if you are to put too much water or fertilizer, the plant would die. also in this "hard mode", make it so the bars are replaced with the value it self and you could provide a data sheet for every plant so people could add the right amount of water and stuff. this i think would make it so people could actually learn from this game and do it in real life too.

[@GamesBySaul]

Great work on the game and the video! Definitely wish we had a plant health UI in real life, I could definitely use it, my current plant is at a state where I can't tell if it's doing alright or on the verge of death! Being able to use dead plans as compost which others have suggested definitely seems like a good idea, could lead to players then buying the cheapest and quickest selling plants to use as compost material

[@bueddl_]

I really enjoy watching your devlogs! One minor suggestions would be to use string identifiers instead of a plain number as keys to identify translation strings (e.g. entity.beehive.name instead of 34). This way places where translated strings are used would be much more descriptive.

[@JosephHenryDrawing]

Nice as always! It would be nice to also see some code architecture stuff sometimes because it's easy to learn on game programming :)

[@RileyReilly]

Should make birds eat unwatered seeds to stop it being used as extra inventory slots, nursery might be a cool mechanic too.

[@marcisimon2944]

I would put the compost value as a stat of the soil, not the plant. If a plant dies, the player can have 2 options, leave it, which means it decomposes slowly, increasing the the quality of the given soil tile a bit, or to remove the plant and put it in the compost heap, where it could be turned into compost at a better pace and rate, giving the option to use it on other tiles

[@ConorDrew]

A couple of suggestions that you may have thought of, having the ability to unlock information about the plant, so lets say 5 items affect the health, but you can only see how wet the ground is, and something else, the others will impact the overall, but until you unlock what they are, you can only guess how that plant thrives. And overwatering is an idea, Too much of anything is bad.

[@GabrielTopolog]

Excellent update!

[@Ina0Piou]

For your plant irl i agree with comments i saw. These type of plants (my mom has 3 of them) grows quite a lot. So a biger pot might help :)

[@jamaker4244]

I'm always super excited to watch your videos! Highlight of my day ❤️

[@ahsanullah6326]

Suggestion: Add disease to plants which are specific to some plants the disease can spread if there are surrounded by the same plant and also pests would be a good balancing thing too

[@ThinMatrix]

I'll definitely be adding pests and disease at some point :)

[@rebel6809]

It's a really good suggestion

[@caroliarasil]

Great job!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks :D

[@tbage2210]

Not sure if this is your plan or not, but having a "grading system" for healthy plants would be cool - like really healthy tomatoes are Grade A, they sell for more because they're bigger, tastier and more colourful. As for your dead plant issue, if adding an extra model stage seems too much you could just make it so the entire plant goes even darker (including the bits that previously didn't change colour)

[@prototy]

The progress is amazing! Love seeing the updates! Are there going to be a veg and flower stage for the plants where maybe the water consumption is increased and so on? :) I wonder if that would make things too complicated or add some unique challenges.

[@kylemason01]

Just an add on to my other idea. Compost could be used to increase a plants yield as well. Maybe you could combine compost in some kind of machine to make super compost which increases this yield even further. Maybe rare or golden versions of produce could be found only when using a super compost on a plant.

[@benrex777productions9]

I started reading a book about plants. Now I find them more interesting. Nice game by the way.

[@GetaVe]

Awesome work bro.

[@exotit8104]

Maybe already planned but I didn't see it on your trello board. You could have some kind of weather system that could water plant / dry plant quicker and add a bit of planning ahead with maybe a buyable barometer item would be really cool also seasons are a nice addition to this.

[@Kant0sh]

Also i would like the concept of different harvestting tools for different purposes, like a spade, a fork, shears, glove, depending on what kind of plant you are harvesting and how...

[@hugocardoso1488]

Great video as always

[@eboatwright_]

Looks great!

[@mokason]

Could recommend to add resting phase for soil. If not, for rotation could add some plant that revitalize the land, for example soy beans.

[@markoap91]

ThinMatrix: *Talks about plant health in game* Also ThinMatrix: *Feels the need to call out his plant for dying*.. *twice!*

[@TheGamingSeargent]

May already be fixed, but at 4:13, the entity information text overlays the inventory, while everything else is behind the inventory

[@quentinquadrat9389]

You should also manage the sun orientation to have more or simplest zones to make growth plants. And what about real mathematics models of plant growth ?

[@zollogamecenter1045]

tnx 4 motivation!

[@alexyoung8185]

Just found the channel and I'm loving it. Currently a CS major and self learning game development and these videos are interesting and informational. Random question though, what chair do you use? My back would appreciate it. Keep up the great work!

[@NeilRoy]

Very nice work.

[@rubenwardy]

Nice video as usual, I like seeing all your plants! Using integers as ids (for the entity names, for example) seems a bit error prone. I'd recommend using strings as programmatic ids. If this is for translation, then another thing you can do is use monolingual translation. Store the English text in the entity file, and then use that to look up other translations. Tools could then generate translation templates from English text in the code

[@ThinMatrix]

I agree, I need to change that at some point. I've already changed all the other IDs in the game to Strings, it's just the language system that got left behind. I'll do it soon!

[@DanDarger]

Cool stuff. Thanks for producing these. I know it'd be a lot of work but I think it would add a lot of visual interest to the health aspect to make the plants wilt. Make them feel less like rigid models and more like real, living things. Perhaps you could do this dynamically through the engine somehow, so you wouldn't need to model different wilting states.

[@gustavoaraujo8710]

maybe some randomization on the vertex shader?

[@WysherTV]

In addition of having health system you may also consider adding allelopathy to your game. To put it simply - some plants effects other plants nearby positively or negatively (depends on species). I think it will fit into "Home Grown" nicely.

[@ramunator5622]

You are making huge progress

[@Jan-vw5cg]

It’d be nice if the seed showed their growth progress where health bar would normally be for fully germinated plants.

[@Kaikaku]

From my experience ficuficus benjaminas 🌱get rid of some leaves at end of winter / in spring. So it is possible, that everything is just fine.

[@vast634]

Currently the game looks like some side-mechanic used in things like survival games. The gameloop is still very simple : plant, tend to, harvest, sell. The game needs some more interesting metamechanic to sound interesting. Some mechanic with an opposition (traps for invading pests), some more resource management like limited action points. Side tasks / limited time orders. Gaining more gardening realestate over time...

[@ThinMatrix]

Yes, I agree! Many of those things will be getting implemented in upcoming updates :)

[@TheBendixSA]

You should add basic genetics for plant seeds, just a very basic one like they have in the rust game. This would allow the player to breed plants too, for improving a seeds water usage or growth time, or hardiness or even how much it produces.

[@wesleyvandeweerd2625]

Love the comedic factor of youre dead plant 😅

[@kat369-mine]

The plant next to you looks like a ficus. Which Do Not direct sunlight. It scorches the leaves. Also it needs more humidity, especially when in a sunny window during winter. The heat is on and the window is warm. Needs more water and a sprayer to mist.

[@Nothing-f8z]

Would love to see the soil and compost nutrition, so buying different types of compost could effect the health, and if the player don't diversity the crop rotation, the soil might become toxic or lacking. Specially at different root levels like real farmers do. You could also add hyperaccumulators to help with the soil maintenance.

[@leonivitchify]

Amazing tool

[@andredias5061]

please show/explain your trello workflow, it's outstanding how organize it feels

[@DJSAYBR]

A future goal that would be cool is plant health and all the options are upgrades you can buy as you continue through the game. Have a school you could pay to go to for "upgrading" your plant knowledge?

[@AndreaDev3D]

Maybe a use of the dead plants could be make them into compost, which help fertilizing the rest of the plant's.

[@kylemason01]

Would be a nice touch if when you clicked on an entity there was a key to push to refocus the camera back on the entity just encase you have moved away from what you had highlighted.

[@ZakAndrews]

Hi, I'm a latecomer to this journey, but I really like the direction your going in! 👍 If I could make a small suggestion, it would be cool if the beehive entity was renamed to apiary. If you did then you could maybe even have a beehive count per apiary, and that could factor into cross pollination rates/honey production...? Just a thought 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@neozoid7009]

So relaxing 🤤

[@Laflamablanca969]

Your real plant might be root bound. The pot it’s in looks small for the size of the plant. Maybe try repotting it into a bigger pot with fresh nutrient rich soil