Deybrek05/22/2019
Yo. So. Creating a space for post a pic farming questions:
Namely, where do you diverge from stardew in badlands? Do you have skill rolls? Randomness? Skill challenges? Random "events" like zombies are my damn cow?
Can you forage in the wreckage of civilazation for canned beans when the farm is failing?
How much combat? We discussed having very little but I do love the idea of being able to tame HORRIBLE THINGS and repurpose them for farming.

Malathyne05/22/2019
https://karkitty.tumblr.com/post/184921795838/apathetic-revenant-you-know-what-i-want-a
saving this for posterity
as the original inspiration
as far as randomness goes: i only really like it in terms of loot/items/rarity stuff like how stardew does it. stardew actually generates a LOT of the random stuff at the start of a new save so it doesnt need to be generated during play
and i dont end to like skill rolls in video games? i tend to prefer "i either meet the criteria or i dont" instead of "i need to savescum to get the result i want"
i do like the idea of random encounters though, similar to the way fallout does them
but not necessarily "zombies ate my cow" or anything that would take a hit to your hard-earned resources, thats always a drag when it happens randomly and can suck the fun out of it
i dont know if i'd want you to be able to scavenge food from ruins, though. scavenging new types of seeds would be cool but unless we aim for a specific fallout-esque "it had hella preservatives" (which ties into the Thematics™ of fallout honestly so i'd want it to be equally significant) idk if i'd want being able to dig up edible fancy lad snack cakes
... a special rare fruitcake item thats still edible would be hilarious though
you make a point about taming horrible creatures though. bc if they dont pose an actual threat a la combat, theyre not really that horrible
so generally: im leaning harder on the way stardew/harvest moon does things than borderlands
Malathyne05/22/2019
something else we'll want to consider is if we want magic to be a thing, and how much of a thing if yes. bc thats a staple in the harvest moon games as well as stardew, and honestly... with studio ghibli being such an inspiration and cornerstone for me......... but mainly we'd wanna figure out if thatd fit into what we wanna do
bc like. ages and ages ago i saw this and its encapsulated a lot of #me http://zandraart.tumblr.com/post/183774305946/forest-of-wires

Deybrek05/23/2019
Ok, I think im getting an aesthetic idea. Last 2 q before I pass out for the night. Firstly, and this ties to the do you want magic thing... What KIND of apocalypse was it? the aesthetic here can inform a lot of decisions
And secondly... What kind of advanced goals do you have? In harvest moon/stardew you want to collect a lot of money and maybe boink everyone. But the money thing... doesn't really work necessarily?
Maybe the size of your area and the number of people it can support?
Basically a thing that means I'm WINNING beyond maybe just still being alive, a key thing for bleak art post apoc.
Also, I must say this.
THAT PICTURE IS GORGEOUS
I love the sacred beast imposed over the powerlines
That does a lot for me.

Malathyne05/23/2019
if you look, there are normal deer there with it
which just enhances the whole thing

Deybrek05/23/2019
I SEE THEM NOW
as;doighaosihga'sd
k

Malathyne05/23/2019
its SO GOOD

Deybrek05/23/2019
...I like it
ah, I remember you saying more distinctly ghibli
sorry i had forgotten
so, technology bad, nature good, flying machines best.
...that does inform aesthetic

Malathyne05/23/2019
as far as type of apocalypse -- im thinking maybe war, but maybe so long ago no one knows what the fighting was really about? esp if we factor in princess mononoke/spirited away/harvest moon/generally shinto style magic like in that pic

Deybrek05/23/2019
ok, that makes sense
So, its like a post post apocalypse

Malathyne05/23/2019
humans shaped the world and destroyed themselves but nature is still there and lives on. there are things bigger and more ancient than you out there

Deybrek05/23/2019
I like it
Also brings in faeries for neat things to happen, and PLANT MONSTERY THINGS

Malathyne05/23/2019
very "now we have to live in this world that we dont dominate so we must coexist within it" (maybe "re-learn how to coexist")

Deybrek05/23/2019
which can be tamed, and farmed
Ok, that sums up the informed design very well.

Malathyne05/23/2019
my imagination is more japanese style spirits than fae but im also a sucker for fae shit too

Deybrek05/23/2019
ah, yeah. I'm a lazy shit so i say fae when i mean other stuff. sorry

Malathyne05/23/2019
LOL no worries

Deybrek05/23/2019
I do love that style of spirit. Basically small mischeveous thingies that have childlike minds and sometimes do cool stuff when treated well
or sometimes play pranks
those little scamps.

Malathyne05/23/2019
im not super big on the "tech bad" aspect tho as much as... the fallout thinking of "its what the people who use it use it for"

Deybrek05/23/2019
haha, fair. Was just kinda chanting the ghibli mantra

Malathyne05/23/2019
portia has a conflict between the two styles of thinking

Deybrek05/23/2019
I STILL NEED TO PLAY THAT

Malathyne05/23/2019
the church is very yevon-like TECH BAD and then theres the scientists going "please chill"
but its very polarized and i want it to be more shades of gray than that
and i dont want tech vs nature to be the theme of the actual game, but maybe part of the lore backdrop of pre-war stories
and have it not influence gameplay at all so its down to personal interpretation of it

Deybrek05/23/2019
I like that as well. You said yevon
IM DOWN
...obligatory noojie woojie comment...
cough

Malathyne05/23/2019
yevon wrt portia to clarify
also as far as goal goes: the state of the farm/community was what i was thinking for win condition
setting up your farm/community/house/decorations/clothing how you want

Deybrek05/23/2019
Ok, nice. It just feels good to have a visual reminder that you are doing very well, even if it's a money number

Malathyne05/23/2019
getting married, etc
yyyyyy

Deybrek05/23/2019
especially when you are in post apoc
I like it
Also yes. Decorations = y

Malathyne05/23/2019
i figure the Numbers satisfaction will be skills

Deybrek05/23/2019
Ok, sounds good.

Malathyne05/23/2019
and resource numbers maybe?
food/water/happiness/defense/etc like fo4

Deybrek05/23/2019
See, that's good. Was curious. Since you don't have the Sell to company thing like in harvest moon and stardew
like, maybe you can just send it to a community silo
and since you're providing basic necessities, other move in
like gather wood, get a carpenter

Malathyne05/23/2019
yyyyyy

Deybrek05/23/2019
gather enough food/water/feed? horse seller

Malathyne05/23/2019
and if you dont want to lean as hard on the community aspect, those numbers could be about supporting yourself/your farm instead

Deybrek05/23/2019
True.

Malathyne05/23/2019
advancing the state of your farm

Deybrek05/23/2019
I like it. Allocate too much, others get hungry and don't show up/leave

Malathyne05/23/2019
yyyyyy

Deybrek05/23/2019
i mean, everyones gotta eat

Malathyne05/23/2019
plus like we GOTTA have a nice cooking/recipe system

Deybrek05/23/2019
well, yeah
that goes without saying

Malathyne05/23/2019
so hoarding things for yourself and making nice meals for yourself (for stat bonuses?) versus sharing with the community

Deybrek05/23/2019
hm
I like it

Malathyne05/23/2019
and leaning hard on the community is valid too because if you get, say, cooking-oriented workers to make that stuff for you
so you can focus on other things
instead of putting the focus in the skill yourself

Deybrek05/23/2019
yyyy

Malathyne05/23/2019
also i feel part of the required ghibli inspired look is Moss
Moss Growing In Between Stone Walls etc

Deybrek05/23/2019
ah. yeah.
Deeply agree. and random glowy bits
is it the radiation? or forest spirits? YOU JUST NEVER KNOW

Malathyne05/23/2019
yes
sometimes its both and thats when its a real bad day

Deybrek05/23/2019
either way, maybe dont drink the water?
lol

Malathyne05/23/2019
if i can figure out how to make it work, the Dream is to have something that combines fallout grunge + ghibli nature + some pastel shit
bc thats the #mala

Deybrek05/23/2019
haha. Yeah, I like that combo aesthetic
A lot.

Malathyne05/23/2019
maybe making magic a lot of glowy pastel lights

Deybrek05/23/2019
dammit, google let me down. Put in FALLOUT + Ghibli + lisa frank
nothing
BOO
speaking of mala
as close to the above design as I can get
horrific mutated dolphin creature that still fires rainbows
wait no
theres more
https://youtu.be/cIC8Nlwr2jc
BLEVENTEEN

Malathyne05/23/2019
ncjzkamsmfm
Malathyne05/24/2019
so for marriage candidates i think something thatd be cool is if like... we had some pre-made characters, but then also had a selection of randomized npcs? and we could base their likes/dislikes off of an 'element' or 'zodiac' or etc type system. inspiration for that comes from helix waltz, bc each of the important npcs (named, etc) have an element attributed to them, and it affects the kinds of foods they like (so everyone of a fire element likes spicy food, for example)
or maybe at least do that for our filler townspeople... :thinking:

Deybrek05/24/2019
Ok, so. I love this, and would like to see this be based perhaps on the Chinese five elements, (for food likes ad personality) but... Since this is the first real "complex" data idea, we need:
A writeup of what an npc is, in order to generate them. Meaning, a list of nouns that describes traits we want (health, personality, name, stats, hunger, morale, etc)
And verbs for what they can do (eat, consider leaving, die, age, etc.)
If we can get that put together, then generating them is a thing I can super help do. Maybe put together a code tutorial if anyone cares, too.
Maybe a Google doc I can pin here if you make a link?

Malathyne05/25/2019
okay so amendment to the element thing, as inspired by convo with jacob on the way home
this will remove the random generation element and make more work for the character design side of things, but: what if we animal crossing it
that way there isnt the problem of "i'm attached to this randomized npc and i'll never see them again in future playthroughs" and can make town building more meaningful
i was thinking we can have, say, three or four 'categories'/'alignments' for the characters
element (for things they like), good/evil, lawful/chaotic, and faction
and depending on how the town is built and whats available there and how you decorate it, itll affect the likelihood of it pulling characters from the specific categories
so if you put a lot of flowers in your town and go very cutesy, you're more likely to pull characters that are wood element and good alignment
jacob suggested specifically a percentage system so that planting a flower raises the chance of drawing a wood element character by a small percentage
etc
this can also apply to how your town is governed for the law/chaotic types
also maybe we could do five alignments?? and add a "temperament" option (more similar to animal crossing personality types)
and since we'll have five elements, having five alignments would make sense
(and five might become our magic number)
Malathyne05/27/2019
idea: we can randomly generate the character info and design ideas and then write the animal crossing style characters off of that :thinking: so its just... random generation for ourselves but still

Deybrek05/27/2019
I do like this. I really need to start up or see a doc with the list above. As a side note, we can prob do just a bit better than animal crossing if we have a morale system.

Malathyne05/27/2019
yyyyyy i was thinking about what all categories to have

Deybrek05/27/2019
You know, little happy or mad emojis and changed dialogue

Malathyne05/27/2019
i do think that aiming for the number of villagers in the first animal crossing would be a good idea
i love the morale system idea

Deybrek05/27/2019
Fair. Not to mention assigning them jobs like the characters in harvest moon or stardew
Bartender, doctor, general store
Since the town was supposed? To be empty at first? Not sure
Also, and this is important, did you want multiplayer?

Malathyne05/27/2019
yyyyyyyy, i was thinking we'll have to decide what our job system was and etc before we could really start on assigning jobs (or maybe even designing characters, the setting also needs to have real development to be able to do that properly)
i dont think i want multiplayer
that sounds like an extra headache

Deybrek05/27/2019
Ok

Malathyne05/27/2019
like that can be slotted as a Future™ thing
just like a magic system for player characters to learn
as much as it pains me to not have one i dont know if it fits the themes of the setting so far + itd be an extra layer of complicated

Deybrek05/27/2019
Fair.
As for magic I thought RITUALS would be better anyway.

Malathyne05/27/2019
i say that but i also want the NPCs to interact with each other LMAO
oooo i like that

Deybrek05/27/2019
Like bring x items to y place for a weather or bonus

Malathyne05/27/2019
i like that a lot

Deybrek05/27/2019
Thanks, lol

Malathyne05/27/2019
rituals and like, making potions and using magical artifacts = good

Deybrek05/27/2019
Yeah.

Malathyne05/27/2019
spells to use at will = Sounds Much

Deybrek05/27/2019
Yes. It's also more of a combat system.

Malathyne05/27/2019
yyyyyyyy

Deybrek05/27/2019
The first GB harvest moon had an artifact umbrella you could open to make it rain. If you mean artifacts.

Malathyne05/27/2019
omg thats cute
stuff like that would be good. and bracelets that increase a luck stat or make you run faster or etc
stuff like that
i say once again
r e p e t i t i o n

Deybrek05/27/2019
Yeah, that sounds good.

Malathyne05/27/2019
anyhow, where do you think is a solid place to Start? i know we need to do  solid worldbuilding for the setting as well as deciding what kinds of crafting systems and how we want the townbuilding system to work
crops available
monsters
etc
like me practicing pixels (which i still need to start) is one thing but thats not really /gestures

Deybrek05/27/2019
hm. So. It's important to start with an MVP (minimum viable playtest). the absolute minimum, then you can slot stuffs into it.
trying to decide what is bare minimum. can use placeholder bad sprites, don't need art for it
like be able to move around a map? maybe Plant a Thing? if we are being ambitious for this. Then, we have a better idea how to slot things into it, and can see growth from there
if we get too ambitious early on, it will hurt
but organizing it into parts will make it waaayyyy easier
If you'd like my setting thoughts?

TehyrPhoenix05/27/2019
just make sure that you have a feature complete plan. It is much easier to add something late if you account for it in the initial design
Feature creep murders games

Deybrek05/27/2019
I REALLY like the ghibli fallout combo world idea
Well, yes. Hence getting it organized and Minimum feature complete. Then any features we add are just a bonus, and we at least have a working project.
if you get caught up in Features and don't get it base working, that is what murders games
...also the above assumes we have a tight deadline and are super crunching to make money instead of just trying to (for now) have fun practicing and making a game. If we can make something awesome, fugg yeah. But I'm still learning how to do this stuff.
so tight deadlines aren't necessarily a thing right now?

Malathyne05/27/2019
yyyyy pretty much
especially since art practice and shit is going to be necessary. theres no timeline. main goal is to just have Something Functional that at least vaguely resembles our Dream
also i'd love to hear your worldbuilding thoughts
i like the idea of doing little steps on things though. start with Have A House. Have A Person. Plant A Thing
thats the very foundation of it
which means one question is gonna be what platform are we gonna use to make things in? i do have one of the rpg makers on steam
VX ace, thats the one

Malathyne05/28/2019
what art style do we want, too :thinking:

Deybrek05/28/2019
These are tough questions. not ignoring, just thinking

Malathyne05/28/2019
there are So many pixel styles and its like... Which One
on top of platform which will probably dictate the size of the things
Malathyne06/01/2019
i want to make superorganized channels for this project so bad LOL
but i was thinking about location and what if its kind of remote, somewhere up in a valley in the mountains with the big old forest nearby and a small lake -- the location itself is nice, and not many people are in the area due to how difficult it is to get to (maybe have the mountains be very stormy/full of monsters?) -- the idea being that most of the combat will be with monsters and not people
bc i dont know if we can really keep it combat lite per se while still being able to do all the other things we want + keeping in the post apoc style :/ but we dont have to have raiders everywhere and a constant problem
...at least not where the game is set
the reason why i was thinking someplace remote/difficult to get to is because that will help explain why there really arent raiders up in the area
so characters can still have pasts dealing with raiders and maybe in the future as an update we could add a feature of "once you get your town established X far, a gang of raiders starts coming in to prey off you" or something
so that its something you dont have to worry about until you're well established and ideally by that point ppl who have played for a while will have new content to play with on their existing saves (all... very hypothetical but you get me)
Malathyne06/01/2019
also im going to hate myself for saying this but: if at all possible i'd love to have an animal-monster ecology thing going on
Malathyne06/01/2019
solution to killing monsters you like: once you tame one, you can use whatever animal product they produce and maybe some other stuff to put together into a recipe to give you a thing that makes those monsters not hostile to you :O
and from there making special wards to keep monsters from getting into your farm ?? if we have that be a thing?
i do like the idea of having multiple options to do the non-hostile mobs thing... maybe an option wrt farming the right components to make a recipe to do the thing. plus also when you bring in villagers some could help you make the recipes