In need of help from longtime fans, wow time has passed between me making this account and posting... Options

[Tales-Of-A-Fan]

Ok, I won't beat around the bush, I'm working on a fangame.
If your thinking I'm looking for team members, or graphical/programing/audio help, that's not what this thread is about.

Note:

Spoiler:
It is in an extremely early stage, I'm developing in java and am working on databases and systems before anything else, this means that for the longest time I won't be able to have any screenshots to show of it (if I do get that far), I may however post some early stuff I'll have ready that'll play as a text adventure more than anything else designed to test that these systems interact well.

Currently this occupies my time as a marginal hobby I am using to hone my skills with java, and I can't promise I'll get any far on this project.

What I am intrested in is people's opinions about certain things in most harvest moon games, particularly some of the systems at the base of them, the one however that promted me to post today was the inventory.

What type of inventory do you prefer in Harvest Moon games? One with limited space (ie: friends of mineral town) possibly expandable with backpacks of varying sizes, or an unlimted sized inventory like in a wonderfull life.

While this may not seem like much this is very important for me when it comes to the development of the game, whether or not I can predict the maximum number of items in the players inventory has allot of weight on how the code is written and getting this out of the way now could potentially keep me from having to re-write and re-debug the whole inventory at a later date.

Also, my petegree when it comes to harvest moon games boils down to Friends of Mineral Town, A Wonderful Life, Magical Melody, and the original Rune Factory so if any of the other games had any particular stand out features/fixes that anyone would want to see me implement in my project I'd be glad to hear about it (heck, even if you have any other ideas as to things that always bugged you in harvest moon games, or any other ideas in general I'd be glad to hear them).

[Mizukithepanda]

You could have the ending of the game set at around 3 years and still achieve the effect you want without making another ending by just making it a "random" event. (Random events are never really random. They always have triggers.)

Also, I don't know why you seem to think that cutting the months in half actually makes the game shorter or is the equivalent to half the number of 30 day months. If AWL (probably my least favorite HM gameplay-wise) was anything to go by, making the months shorter did not make the game shorter. If anything, AWL felt longer and more drawn out despite only having ten days in a month. Just pick a set amount of days and stick with the terminology that goes with it. Don't keep telling us it's "2 1/2 years in a 30 day/month game" because it's not. It's 5 years in game regardless of the number of days per month.

As for divorce and remarriage, I'd really like that. It could be interesting, though if you also include rival marriages it could very well be rendered completely useless.

Any chances that you'll put same-gender marriage in this game? I always pick the female farmer when I play due to wanting to be a kick trumpet farmer chick, but then realize far too late that I hate all of the male candidates and want to marry one (or more) of the girls.

[Tales-Of-A-Fan]

Also, I don't know why you seem to think that cutting the months in half actually makes the game shorter or is the equivalent to half the number of 30 day months. If AWL (probably my least favorite HM gameplay-wise) was anything to go by, making the months shorter did not make the game shorter. If anything, AWL felt longer and more drawn out despite only having ten days in a month. Just pick a set amount of days and stick with the terminology that goes with it. Don't keep telling us it's "2 1/2 years in a 30 day/month game" because it's not. It's 5 years in game regardless of the number of days per month.

First of all, I really appreciate the insight (most of what I'm doing is ball-parking at this point).

I don't try to mean that cutting the months in half means the year equals half game-play wise, it's more of a general indicator for the amount of time I'm hoping to try and squeeze in, I'm still relevantly early on in the project for the total amount of years to have any short term meaning, but what it really comes down to is how much content is packed into each day.

Whereas AWL's ten day cycle focused on visiting many different people during the course of a single day and repeating several actions in a day, I'm hoping to aim more towards a more limited FoMT like approach in regard to the amount of activities one is encouraged to perform.

And I must still stress that the whole years system is just a general thing at this point, most of my code work is working out the nuts and bolts of farming right now, and the calendar system will likely end up being determined by early testing of early builds, I'm just looking for general patterns to give me an idea for what to optimize my systems for.

As for divorce and remarriage, I'd really like that. It could be interesting, though if you also include rival marriages it could very well be rendered completely useless.

It's just a general thought right now, I'm more or less focused on locking in those features important to your first year in the game, it's just a funny little idea I've had in my head.

Any chances that you'll put same-gender marriage in this game? I always pick the female farmer when I play due to wanting to be a kick trumpet farmer chick, but then realize far too late that I hate all of the male candidates and want to marry one (or more) of the girls.

A relatively far down the line subject, maybe is the only answer I can give right now, it depends of several different factors, none of which I can be sure of right now.