Harvest Moon style Roguelike

[lunaticedit]

I came up with the idea to do a harvest moon / rune factory style roguelike. It's in early development, but I've already had a ton of interest and a few contributors right off the bat.
If you'd like to help or want to test, check out the github page at https://github.com/essial/harvest-rogue.

Currently, it builds on mac and linux pretty easily. Windows builds will come next week unless someone decides to port it earlier.
I'm trying to get as much feedback as early as possible to help ensurue the game is fun by the time it is completed. We also have a chat room at https://gitter.im/essial/harvest-rogue as well.

[Krice]

I think Harvest Moon had something to do with growing plants and stuff? A farming simulation. I think it's a nice idea if you can make it not boring.

[lunaticedit]

Yup! And there's also the rune factory elements of questing/fighting in dungeons to get materials and finding more land and such. It won't be just about growing crops so no worries.

[akeley]

HarvestRL, similar concept from last year`s 7drl compo: http://gamesbyaqua.blogspot.ca/p/harvestrl.html

[lunaticedit]

Yeah, glad I'm not the only one attempting this style 
I'll check it out next time I'm in windows and see if it has any ideas I haven't thought about yet!

[lunaticedit]

More progress!


Also, working on an SDL frontend with tilesets pretty soon as an artist has joined the team.

[AquaTsar17]

As the creator of HarvestRL (which I'm still working on to some extent) I thought I'd offer some suggestions. Note that I have not tried your game yet, so these comments might already be resolved.

Although Krice could be trolling with his comment, potential boringness is actually something to take seriously. For example, in Harvest Moon/Rune Factory you use a tool by pressing a button and the direction in which you face. So, your character is facing left, he's holding a hoe, and you press a button to till that tile to the left. Then you do this X many times and you're done that task. I attempted to automate this; in HarvestRL, you equip a hoe and then walk onto a tile to till; if you can till it, your character automatically does so. Likewise with watering and harvesting plants. The effect of this is that the task of watering/planting feels much different than in the original game, most obviously because it is faster. I'm attempting some other improvements on making the farming aspect "faster" in terms of button presses and such.

Part of my concern is: if I remove those actions then what is left of the game? Did players enjoy the grindy feeling of repeatedly pressing buttons to water/plant? Or was there something more they enjoyed? While it is definitely possible to just take Harvest Moon and add procedural generation to the landscape / dungeons, you may want to consider how the farming itself is done.

Oddly enough, many of the arguments surrounding the grind of Angband and such games are completely applicable to the non-combat aspects of Harvest Moon. Is it fun to "improve" relationships with townsfolk / potential spouses by repeatedly "talking" to them every in-game day? Could something else be done to make that more fun, or is Harvest Moon enjoyable specifically because of that grind?

There's another game (whose name I forget) that is a farming simulator / tower defense (not Plants vs. Zombies). You farm so as to gather food / materials that are used to strengthen the town and improve the defenses of your farm, and then fight off zombies during particular times. This is not Harvest Moon, but it is something that tried to add on to the farming aspect to make it more interesting / enjoyable. I'm not suggesting you use that idea, but that you consider the "why" behind the farming, even down to every button press that needs to be made. As much as I love Harvest Moon, I quickly tire of the grind; I suspect other people feel the same way. HarvestRL I wanted to enjoy without the grind and I'm still figuring out how best to do that.

[Krice]

Although Krice could be trolling with his comment, potential boringness is actually something to take seriously

Most roguelikes rely heavily on combat, it's the main thing. If you leave that out, you better create something even closely as interesting. Although stuff like farming can be interesting to some people, the kind of people who like to build miniatures etc. or collect stamps. My big plan is first create an interesting game without monsters or combat and then add combat to make it even more interesting. The older I get the less I like combat, weapons, killing and all that stuff, so creating something else is obviously going to be the answer to that.

[AquaTsar17]

Since the author also knows about Rune Factory, combat is a viable option for this game. How boring the farming part becomes depends on how much players like the original grindiness of Harvest Moon (which could be added to this game) and how much the farming connects to the rest of the game. As much as I liked Rune Factory, the farming parts tended to be disconnected from the combat. At best, you used the farm plots to get money, advance the storyline (and open new areas), or recharge stamina. The latest Rune Factory may have added other stuff here, but it would be interesting to see farming take on a stronger role.

Alternatively, the farming could itself become more of a puzzle. Perhaps you need to plant things in a way that protects them against disease or provides optimal growth. Perhaps you need to arrange the farm plots so that they get water from limited sources or are defended against wild animals. Maybe what you plant one season affects what else goes there. And so on.

In Harvest Moon, farming itself was usually the goal instead of a means to obtain something else. In most roguelikes, combat is a means to obtain the goal (getting the shiny object back or killing the final boss). So the farming could be made more interesting by making it the means for obtaining some other long-term goal.