Harvest Moon in completely different settings/gameplay, Don't take it seriously Options

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

So it's the 15th Anniversary of the series and that got me thinking... Five years ago was when Marvelous decided to go nuts and try something different with Rune Factory and Innocent Life... with a bit of lopsided success. Either way, both games took the series in completely new directions and introduced new concepts to the series. If you were going to have a complete departure of the HM setting to introduce new gameplay elements, what's an idea you would go for?

I think a post apocalyptic RPG could be fun, and also take the "futuristic Harvest Moon" gameplay to a stronger idea. Though don't let the "post-apocalyptic" bit throw you off. Though the genre is mostly known for dark humor and general grittiness, it's pretty easy to do lighthearted as it should be for this kind of game. For gameplay, I think it could introduce a different brand of farming by maintaining a semi-automated hydroponic farm to produce crops in an area with a suffering ecosystem. Instead of upgrading your tools to make the daily routines go by faster, you would explore ruins to find new modifications to the system to make it more efficient... which is basically the same, just done differently. In the ruins you'd likely fight mutations, gangs, and other such fighty things as Rune Factory presents it except with more abundant albeit smaller dungeons that may or may not yield reward and maybe even other settlements who's population you could absorb as your farm gets more efficient at maintaining a larger population.

So, what weird ideas do you think might be interesting?

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

Er. I guess I figured, you know, other people would chime in with something. I guess I can always throw out another one, though it'll probably be as bad as the last one.

Another setting could be a rural village caught between two powers during war time with you and your village being neutral until the armies came roaring to your doorstep. The first Rune Factory very lightly touches on this, but it could probably be expanded upon. The basic farming mechanic probably wouldn't change from what's typical for HM, but this time it'd be more important to know where it goes rather than just tossing it in the shipping bin. Maybe some extra stuff like the jobs in GBC3 where you have to ship a certain amount of a certain crop could be included also, to help keep both armies off your back and away from your village.

Of course, the setting comes into play when both sides start with the fighting and whatnot. Then it'd take on a base defense/strategy RPG type gameplay where you control all of the villagers to defend town from both armies (with your efforts to appease both sides affecting how much spillover you may receive or if an army just tries to cut straight through) as well as fending off war-time profiteers trying to rob the town in the confusion. Further things can be done in battle to increase/decrease reputation with the armies such as capturing enemies instead of killing them, talking to them instead of attacking at all, allowing some of them to hole up in an unused building, or letting them take some things if you can live without it. The ultimate goal would be to just make it through the war, ideally with your actions with both sides leading you to be an intermediary in ending it sooner than later.