First of all, sorry this is a day late. Pretty ill right now. :( Anyway, enjoy the update, back to bed for me!
Update time friends. This week I’ve been playing with farming as I said I would, and I’ve also been playing with some new art! Winter has arrived in the land of Samphi! Maybe we need to give it a name? … I also want to share some ideas with you. I have tones of ideas for Samphi, but since it’s just me it takes an age for them to reach the game. I want to just dump a couple of my ideas here so you guys can see where I’m heading.
Enough rambling, let’s just get to it.
Let’s start with work that’s been done on the current build before we look forward.
I’ve wrote previously about the animal farming system: it’s there, but is buggy as hell. Well no longer, that’s been sorted. The animal farming system is seeing a complete overhaul.
For starters I’m fixing the bugs. When you place fences close to each-other it creates a boundary that once animals wander into they shouldn’t be able to escape. That’s the theory anyway. Here’s what it used to look like with the old sprites and hidden boundaries made visible:
The fences look a bit poop and the animals never actually respected those boundaries and stayed in the pen! That’s now fixed, and here’s what the new fences look like:
Much nicer! Fences now have a bit of detail and animals, once lured in there with a rope, will stay put! We still need mechanics like re-production so sustainable farms can be created, and that’s next on my list!
If you read this update every week you’ll know I first showed a work-in-progress tree sprite weeks ago. I said then that it takes me ages to do art because it just isn’t my forte … well, I’ve finally finished it. You saw it in that last image, but here it is next to the old tree:
I’m really happy with this new design, I hope you are too. Throughout development I’ve always had an aesthetic in mind that I’d like Samphi to have, but always lacked the artistic skill to achieve it. This is much closer than anything else so far!
A bit of a fun update here. Since the next update will go live December 2nd it’s only right that winter rears its head in Samphi. I’ve wanted to do an Xmas update literally ever year that Samphi has been available (like 2 or 3 now) and have finally gotten around to it! Here’s how the game looks!
It’s SNOWING! Throughout December the world will look like this by default. If snow isn’t your thing, then you can revert it by enabling custom textures. This will replace all sprites with their defaults unless you’ve implemented your own custom textures. :)
Just a fun update for Xmas, and more will be coming before the new year!
Onto some quick jotting of future ideas I have. Quick disclaimer, all of these are just ideas, nothing more. I’m merely presenting them to start a discussion. :)
Let’s start with a calendar. I want Samphi to have a full 365-day persistent calendar, with seasons and all. Days won’t be as long as ours, they will remain the same length as they currently are, but there will be a cycle where seasons come and go, and that effects gameplay. For example, in winter crops won’t grow so well so you’ll have to find other sources of food etc. I think a system like this would add a lot to the game.
Now what I mean by persistent, and this is totally just a freeform idea, is that if you don’t check your world for a month you should be able to tell. The grass should be overgrown, any crops you had planted will be long dead, and you house decayed somewhat. I want the world to feel like it is always running, and this would be one way to do that. Food for thought.
Somewhat off the back of the calendar idea, it’s about time Samphi got some weather. Working on the snow has made me really want to pursue more weather systems, and bring some variety to the world. I think I’ll start simple with rain, but this will likely come after December as I feel the snow should be there always! Who doesn’t love snow, it’s Christmasy!
So the next update, due December 2nd, will bring this Christmasy update, new tree sprite and updated animal farming mechanics. I’ll demonstrate them properly next week. I want to have it so that animals can be used as a sustainable source of food much like crops can. Once food is sustainable, then we can look at plugging in the player stats more, making things like health, hunger and happiness have a real effect on the player.
That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading, see you back here next week for the Xmas Update!! Ciao
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