Today, Steam finally approved my request to publish the store page! Let's take this opportunity to review the current state of development. Don't forget to add the game to your wishlist!
What is the current state of the game?
The game is fully playable. It's short, but the core gameplay loop is functional. Many mechanics are already implemented on a technical side and now just need content. This includes items in the in game shop, various buffs/debuffs. etc.
So what is really in it at this point:
- Purchase grass seeds. Plant grass. Watch it grow. Harvest it. Sell it.
- Grass grows in 100 seconds as a base value currently.
- A single daisy. It gives you a 5% chance to obtain extra grass when harvesting grass that is planted near it.
- You start with a watering can.
- Alternatively, you can plant near the small lake in the marshy area.
- Both watering methods set the grass to a 'watered' state, decreasing growth time tenfold. Meaning it grows in 10 seconds only!
- Weather
- Sunshine
- Light rain
- Medium rain
- Heavy rain
- Internally, rain intensity is represented by a value from 0 to 1, with 0 being sunshine and 1 the heaviest rain.
- Grass growth accelerates with light rain but slows with medium to heavy rain. Excessive moisture can 'drown' your grass, halting its growth.
- This drowning process starts earlier with plants that are considered watered. Watered plants do not get any speed boost from rain and immediately lose growth-speed even in light rain.
What am I working on right now?
I'm working on implementing DOTS to improve efficiency. Currently, I can plant about 10,000 blades of grass without experiencing lag. Some testers had their limits down to 1,000 blades only. That of course is not enough so I'm trying to gain performance early before the code gets too convoluted. This requires me to learn a completely new technology, making it a significant task.
Okay, but this isn't gonna last forever, so what's next?
My top priority will always be addressing simple-to-fix and game-breaking bugs. And after that the plan are the following features:
- In-game shop items. Add more seed types, some buildings, and of course functionality for them. Including but not limited to:
- Flower seeds: Allowing you to plant flowers strategically to provide specific buffs.
- Various buffs: Enhancing sale value with certain flowers, increasing growth speed with others, and introducing higher-tier flowers (e.g., sunflowers providing a 10% yield boost instead of 5%).
- Building plans: Introducing new structures with unique functionalities.
- Carports: Protecting your grass from rain.
- Rain barrels: Providing a convenient way to refill your watering can.
- Lamps and other light sources: Eliminating debuffs caused by darkness.
- As mentioned just above - various debuffs. Starting with the existing drowning debuff from rain, going to others like lesser quality grass from being planted in shadows, or inability to grow due to being planted on bad soil/in caves.
- These debuffing places will have other qualities. Caves will get the ability to plant special mushrooms, giving stronger buffs to nearby grass than flowers. Bad soil might not be affected by drowning.
- Mountains and caves. Some flowers only grow up high. Others only in caves. Each come with their own challenges.
- Re do most UI elements. Right now they only serve the function to work. Most of them aren't particularly pretty, so a rework for them is also in mind.
- Engaging with the community to gather ideas and implement your suggestions. This game is very much open for any feedback any of you might have. The best way to interact is by joining the Discord server: https://discord.gg/bz5hP2P
And as a last thing, but something that might not happen depending on who is going to play the game: Speedrunning integrations. I love speedrunning. I love minmaxing. So why not foster a community that does both at once. So, if there is any kind of demand there will be in game features for speedrunners, like connecting the leaderboards, in game timers, and whatever you guys come up with for categories.