Kickstarter Announcement
It's official! We're launching a Kickstarter! Many members of our community have been asking for ways to back Farm Folks and/or reserve their copy of the game early. The idea of launching a Kickstarter campaign has been something we’ve seen from fans - old and new. So, after running a couple community polls, we realized that the demand was high enough to launch a campaign that can lead to a more expansive game than any of us initially dreamed.
You can follow the Kickstarter pre-launch page here. Be sure to help spread the word as we'll have plenty of amazing rewards in store for backers! And don't worry, if you had previously backed the game with the original dev team, you will still receive your tier rewards or you can select a new tier equivalent for shiny new goodies from the new Kickstarter. Read our Kickstarter FAQ here.
Now, let's get into Part 2 of Devlog #5.
Resources and Materials
To build the farm of your dreams, you’ll need a number of resources and materials. Lucky for you, we've been working on exactly that! You’ll find an abundance of useful resources scattered around the island with multiple ways of acquiring said materials. Initially, you’ll need to craft tools such as pickaxes or an axe. Using these tools, start mining, chopping trees, or even cracking rocks beneath your feet. Since Farm Folks takes place in a near future, we will be able to introduce technology that you can only dream of in our current time.
Copper Ore
Iron Ore
Stone
Quartz
Don't worry. You won't have to collect resources by hand for too long as we'll incorporate Automatization options for these routine tasks. You'll simply be able to install Resource Extractor Stations that will mine resources from the installation spots - automagically!
Automatization
There are several farming life sim games being released on what seems to be a daily basis. With Farm Folks, we really wanted to be innovative and bring something new to the genre. Something unique. In our quest to do so, we decided to merge game mechanics from your favorite videogames that naturally fit into our Farm Folks vision. We chose to give you detailed construction and customization options with a level of detail never before seen in farming sims.
- Customization and construction systems inspired by The Sims, Raft, Valheim games, and Animal Crossing.
- Automatization and resource management systems inspired by Factorio and Satisfactory.
- Life simulation and farming inspired by Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and Farm Together.
Stations
Miner
This machine mines natural resources for your convenience.
Organic 3D Printer (Extractor. Concept and model still in production)
A 3D printer that produces animal products such as meat, wool, and milk by scanning animal DNA. Love steak? No need to harm any of your animal friends!
Packager
Combine individual farm products into a neat looking package. Packages can be customized to match your desired farm brand. You can even choose your colors and add a customizable farm name on it. Some NPCs will require only packaged products later in the game.
Examples of Animal Products and Packaging:
Mixer
This station mixes things - duh! Mix multiple products to create something new and exciting! For example, mix Sugar, Flour, and Salt to yield Dough. Send it to the Cooker with some berries to start a berry pie production. In Farm Folks, you’re not only able to make products in single quantities, but you’ll be able to set up mass productions. The entire island may come to rely on your production of food and other farming products. We think doing so will be a lot of fun!
Smelter
The Smelter is, of course, a furnace that melts things into other things. It can be used further down the production line. For example, the Smelter can make Iron Rods out of Iron Ore or Copper Plate out of Copper Ore.
Fabricator
This station will produce technological materials and parts that can be used in construction or building technology. It can produce items such as Bolts, Wooden Planks, Wire, etc.
Assembler
Manufacture complete technologies using our Assembler! Here you’ll be able to produce Scooters or make Water Sprinklers that can be used for watering automatization on your farm.
Cooker
It cooks! Add farm products, select a recipe, and our Cooker will do the rest! Produce delicious dishes that can feed the entire island (and keep their taste buds happy).
Examples of Recipes/Dishes:
Sewing Station
Everyone needs pants and you can satisfy the demand by building Sewing Stations that will stitch them together. Pants = profit. Sweaters, shirts, blankets, and other cozy products can be produced with this machinery.
Hydraulic Transportation Rails
All Stations can be connected with one other via Hydraulic Transportation Rails (HTR). These rails transport goods from one place to another, similar to conveyer belts.
These rails can be merged and connected at almost any point to give you flexible access to the goods delivery system. This system will utilize our custom pathfinding algorithm that will allow merging multiple rails together and separation later on. This ease of directionality will allow for a simple delivery of resources either directly to the station or to storage containers.
Crafting Table
Will allow you to craft useful materials manually. It doesn’t require electricity to function and can be used at any time.
Note: inventory icons are placeholders.
Plant Breeding Table
Here you’ll be able to breed plants! You can even mix species to create something very unusual. We will talk about this station more in the future as the game design and concepts are still pending.
We want to have only green, self-sustained energy in the game. Everything that you produce on the farm is harmless to the environment and the life around you. You won't see dark plumes of smoke coming out of machines during production and animals won't suffer. We produce meat and other animal products utilizing our organic 3D Printer Station. It scans animal DNA and prints products related to the animal. Peace, love, and harmony are going to dominate your farm. 💛
With that said, all of your stations need to be powered by electricity. There are a few options for how you can generate electricity in Farm Folks.
Energy can be delivered to machines via Electric Poles.
You can build Wind Turbines or Solar Panels to generate electricity which can then be stored in large Battery Banks or small mobile ones. Small batteries can be used to power some of your mobile farm machinery like your Electric Scooter or Motorollers.
Scooters
You can own your very own electric scooter! How cool is that? You know what’s cooler though? You can actually have your friend or an NPC ride with you! You can purchase a Scooter in Town on the Main Island.
Animals
On your farm, you’re not only going to plant crops and build beautiful structures, but you'll also be able to tame animals, breed them, and produce animal products for local Islands and NPCs.
We’ve been hard at work modeling, rigging, and animating our animal friends. You’ll be able to make nearly all animals your pets. Your pets can travel with you around the world or - even better - you’ll be able to ride them. Check out the animals we've already modeled:
All animals can be found and tamed in the world or purchased from local NPCs. Animals will have color variations and rarity. You’ll be able to breed them to yield unique color variants.
Animations
It all comes in stages. First and foremost, we have to develop a concept for our Characters or Animals before our artists make it into a 3D piece of art. Once we have a 3D model, it is then rigged and animated. So far, we have created over 100 unique animations for our characters and animals. Check out some of these models below.
New Crops
We will talk more about farming systems in our upcoming updates but we can tell you that we plan to have an excessive amount of crops in the game. Crop growth will have a dynamic link between environmental conditions and moisture. Each plant can produce a different amount of goods and yield a specific harvest based on its treatment during its growth period.
VERY IMPORTANT: please let us know in the comments if you've come across a crop planting system in the past that you really love. We would love to hear your thoughts! Also, join our Discord for further discussions here.
Carrots
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Eggplants
Corn
Cucumbers
We’re also exploring the possibility of crop cross breeding which would allow you to mix crops together to get a very unique breed. For example, you can mix a Potato with a Watermelon and yield a Watertato.
These kinds of crops will have a higher value and will also require more attention from you during its growth period. We will cover more about this system in the future so make sure to sign-up to our email updates if you don’t want to miss it.
Inventory
Oof, this one is a challenge for sure. You know how you play games and never question how certain systems work if they work well? Sometimes, these systems look simple and straightforward but they are actually very complicated! A character's inventory is one of those systems. It’s one thing to make this system work for a single-player experience and another for co-op games. For co-op games, we need to ensure the system is synced with the current world you’re in. We're working tirelessly on this system and we think it’s shaping up nicely.
Note: inventory icons are placeholders.
Plowing, Seeding and Watering
We’re working on the implementation of our Water Spray Gun which you can carry with you everywhere! In your inventory, you can store water bottles that you can craft at the crafting bench. These bottles can be refilled with water at water ponds. You can also share water bottles with each other in co-op mode.
Additionally, our faming system is shaping up nicely! As you can see below, planting seeds is going to be extremely satisfying with our advanced watering system. By keeping your plants watered and happy, you'll be the prized farmer on the Island in no time!
Thanks for tuning into Part 2 of our Devlog #5! Stay tuned for Part 3 and be sure to follow us on our social media channels like Twitter and Discord for daily updates!
Wishlist and follow Farm Folks on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/895160/Farm_Folks/