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).

[Baby]

The unlimited is a really great tool, but it takes the challenge out of collecting, perhaps make a purchasable unlimited bag after a certain amount of upgrades? I think for the sake of coding the unlimited is the simplest method. That makes one line of coding and not a bunch per rucksack.

[EBWonder]

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).

Personally, I prefered the ones where you had to earn your bigger bags. if you had unlimited space, it made making money easier and not as much of a puzzle (for me at least). I think that a weight/size ratio would have made the games more fun (I.e. a large heavy object would take 4 slots as per the following charts

1. Size
   1. Tiny - stackable up to 50 of the same item - 1 slot
   2. Small - stackable up to 25 of the same item - 1 slot
   3. Normal - 1 slot
   4. Large - +1 slot
   5. Extra Large - +2 slots
2. Weight
   1. Minute - X0
   2. Light - X1/2
   3. Normal - X1
   4. Heavy - X2
   5. Extremely heavy - x3

[Celia]

Limited, like FoMT.  There's no point of refrigerators or tool chest if you can carry absolutely everything with you.  Part of the 'fun' was trying to manage your items.

[Tales-Of-A-Fan]

OK, I decided it's probably best to stick with the limited space system, although something similar to a weight system would kinda contradict a pretty big element in the project (one I'm not quite ready to reveal yet), so I'm just going to work off of volume instead.

What I'm working on is a system where the player starts out with limited space, (9 slots maybe) with some smaller items (grasses and such) available for stacking.

New questions:

-I was thinking that for seeds and planting I'd use a system where there bought in groups of either 9 (a large seed bag) like in FoMT and in bags of 4 where planting would occur similarly to in FoMT, except unused seeds would simply stack in bunch of up to 9. Does that sound any good? the initial field is going to be relatively small (about 5x5) so its enough space for one large seed-bag and four small ones exactly.

-how many in game years do you usually spend on a HM game before moving on to the next? (The project also has an element of beginning and end for the player charter (IE life to death) and the amount of years most people spend would be what I'd use to round out a lifetime, this a relevantly simple thing for me to change at this stage, but it could account for how long I make seasons, weeks, and days in game).

[Charmy]

- I haven't played Friends of Mineral Town and am too lazy to understand.

- For me, it all depends on what brings me back to play it again. If there's lots of events/scenes to unlock, interesting family, good festivals, fun farming system and story and all that I'm sure I'd get a year done in a few days. I like the 30 days per season set out the most, and if it's faster-paced than A Wonderful Life, three years is usually the best length, I guess. Like in Back to Nature and 64 (Two and half, close), unless you can keep it interesting for a long time.

I hope the best for your may-not-be-finished game. ^-^

[KittyOtaku]

It depends on how the game is set up. For DS Cute, it takes me around three-eight years before I just give up. I'll play AWL or MM all the way through. I also prefer thirty days to a season.

[Tales-Of-A-Fan]

Ok, from what I've managed to gather 5 years of 30 day seasons is about the regular amount of time an average HM fan will give a regular harvest moon game with 30 day months.

Now, given that I want to give players who stick to the game to the end a reward and a challenge, I'll go for about 7 30 day season years for the final ending.

If I instead of using 30 days (and instead of resorting to Awl's 10) I go for between 14-15 day long seasons (I may go for a 5 day week meaning I want a number of days in a season not divisible by the days of the week). This would technically give me about 14 years of play until the final ending and lets take out two to offset some event fatigue.

That leaves us with about 12 playable years with seasons of between 14 or 15 days (give or take, I think ending on the last day of winter is a bit too neat for my liking) spread across a couple of chapters similarly to AwL representing about 50 years. This number isn't in any way final, but gives me a good framework for what I plan to do (especially when working on such things related to children and aging).

Also important to note: This project will be in 2d, I have nowhere near the resources necessary to make this 3d, and it probably won't exceed such titles as harvest moon for the snes or any Gameboy Advance era Games graphically.

New Questions:
-What shops do you find most important in each game? / Which do you visit most?
-If there were any shops / places you could do without (even some exclusive to certain games) which would they be?
-What is your opinion of the inclusion of a rival farm(s)?

[Harvest Moon Rac...]

Q's
- Seed Store, Animal Store, Bar/ Resturaunt if stamina is an issue, and I think the addition of a furniture store done like in AP would be nice. Though it depends on how much you'd want to do with it.

- Not sure

- I very much like this idea. Rival farms gives you more of a reason to put more time into work.

[Mizukithepanda]

Ok, from what I've managed to gather 5 years of 30 day seasons is about the regular amount of time an average HM fan will give a regular harvest moon game with 30 day months.

Now, given that I want to give players who stick to the game to the end a reward and a challenge, I'll go for about 7 30 day season years for the final ending.

If I instead of using 30 days (and instead of resorting to Awl's 10) I go for between 14-15 day long seasons (I may go for a 5 day week meaning I want a number of days in a season not divisible by the days of the week). This would technically give me about 14 years of play until the final ending and lets take out two to offset some event fatigue.

That leaves us with about 12 playable years with seasons of between 14 or 15 days (give or take, I think ending on the last day of winter is a bit too neat for my liking) spread across a couple of chapters similarly to AwL representing about 50 years. This number isn't in any way final, but gives me a good framework for what I plan to do (especially when working on such things related to children and aging).

Also important to note: This project will be in 2d, I have nowhere near the resources necessary to make this 3d, and it probably won't exceed such titles as harvest moon for the snes or any Gameboy Advance era Games graphically.

New Questions:
-What shops do you find most important in each game? / Which do you visit most?
-If there were any shops / places you could do without (even some exclusive to certain games) which would they be?
-What is your opinion of the inclusion of a rival farm(s)?

That sounds like a really long time to have to play. The most you can pull out of me is about three years. I generally get bored and stop playing regardless of whether I've finished the plot of the game or not. By stretching it out that long you may have a lot of people that won't finish the game at all. (Though "finishing" in Harvest Moon is relative anyway.)

Important shops would be:

Seed Shop
Livestock Shop
Tool Shop
Carpenter's Shop
Medicine Shop (To buy medicine to keep yourself from getting sick when you work too hard)
Restaurant/Cafe/Bar (to buy food to restore your energy so that you can keep working)

Shops that are irrelevant:

Accessory/Clothing shops
Furniture shops
Library (unless it's someone's house)
Artisan's shop (Again, unless it's someone's house)
Fishing shop

Rival farms are always interesting, but I'd like it if there was actually some sort of competition - like the townspeople are the ones that buy your produce and you have to raise your cows and crops to be better than your rival's so that the townspeople will buy from you instead of your rival.

[Hasfusel]

Some sort of competition system with a rival farm would definitely be good, and I'd set the plot ending for about three years, four at most. It'd have to be a really good game to keep me interested for that long, though.

Extending your house and farm is always nice. Try to have a lot of different new buildings or house extensions available, or things to buy to put in your house. They don't even have to be particularly useful. You could have owning some as a requirement for marriage or having children, too. Oh, and It'd be worth making them expensive. A problem I always have with HM that getting rich often feels pointless since there's nothing to do with my wealth after about a year or two, and so there isn't much incentive to improve crop or animal quality or whatever.

Also, maybe make winning love points or whatever it'll take to get married tied more to winning competitions, talking frequently (lots of dialogue for potential spouses would be nice to keep this interesting), inviting them on dates, etc. Gift giving every day to raise affection is boring and dumb and I reckon it should only be effective on birthdays and festival days.

[Tales-Of-A-Fan]

Ok, still not ready to reveal exactly why I needed the "useless" shops category (is secret)

But I think based on some of the feedback I've got that I might have two endings two the game, similarly to how the credits played at most harvest moon games when you got married, one at around the 5 year mark (about two and a half tears with 30 day seasons) and a rather more secret one some years later, after the "first" ending most story elements will gradually slow down quite a bit, leaving room for one to play until the "official" - "Final" ending.

Also: Divorce and re-marrige? (opinions needed)

[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.