Make your own Compost! - Homegrown Devlog
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2022
- Devlog video about "Homegrown", a casual farming game I'm creating using my own engine.
Support the channel on Patreon and get access to the code for this game and the city-builder:
/ thinmatrix
My previous game "Equilinox":
store.steampowered.com/app/85...
You can follow the progress of the game on my social media:
Twitter: / thinmatrix
Instagram: / thinmatrix
Facebook: / thinmatrix
Trello: trello.com/b/W3zkIJTM/farm
Email: thinmatrix@gmail.com
Background music by Jamal Green:
open.spotify.com/artist/50jTM...
Outro music by Dannek Studio:
/ dannekstudio
#devlog #Homegrown - Ігри
9:08 "I've just got a few little chores that I want to do on my balcony."
That was a prime opportunity for a "I have some plant matters to take care of." joke xD
Few ideas I just had while watching your video in terms of atmosphere:
1. Country road at the front of the house where a typical farmer walks by with his sheepdog as an event to sell you unique items.
2. Neighbours either side who you buy the land from with cash, or with a stream of food of their choice over a period of time.
3. Invading rabbits who eat your crops. You'll need to invest in a humane trap to catch them, which you can then sell to neighbours.
I do plan to add a road at the front of the house at some point and I like your idea of occasionally being able to buy unique items from passers-by! Buying land from neighbours is also already planned, and my mum has been pestering me to add rabbits for ages so I guess I'll have to implement that at some point too ;)
Buy your neighbors entire house and tear it down so you get more land?
@@ThinMatrix mommies always rule !!
@@ThinMatrix Mother knows best.
Maybe Lawn mowing to turn ground into farmland or something like that. To make the ground not look so flat.
Your videos are so relaxing. Whenever they pop up, it’s the perfect break for me from work / life. I’m really happy to see your progress updates overtime! It’s also very motivating for me seeing how clean your code is and hearing you talk about your thought process through various challenges. Thanks for making these videos!
I'm glad you like them! ^^
Maybe instead of clicking the house to access storage you could have a garden shed that you can upgrade over time to increase it's storage size.
Damn, the transition at 5:52 was clean. Nicely done.
It's so clean, I didn't notice it until now 😃
Came here for a city builder game, stayed for the good vibes & content!
I think you need to add UI Tooltips when you have the mouse over certain components, like for example when you mouse over the compost heap it tells how much is in it/how full it is, and other tool tips for other things
I implemented something like this a couple of devlogs ago: ua-cam.com/video/o8yL2lYZTOE/v-deo.html
You can click on an object in the world to bring up information about that object. Haven't specifically added information for the compost heap yet, but I will! :) I'll also be adding a similar thing for the items too, to give you info about them when you mouse-over or maybe right-click on them.
at first I wasn't sure why to put non-dev stuff in a dev vlog but these breaks are really nice and relaxing. I like this style :)
I think it would be interesting if you could create the special compost by putting other plants into the compost bin, making it a choice between immediate reward of selling the plants, and long-term growth. It would also add an element of discovery to find every compost recipe by experimenting w/ different plants
I think the gameplay needs more character, more personality. I know that many details follow later, but maybe you could for example add a little pet minigame to it. The player picks a dog or cat at the start of a game and then has to take care of it while they grow the garden. I think it would be cute to see your little pet explore the garden and maybe it will sometimes find something useful to help you. It would also make the world feel a little bit more alive.
Maybe the dog could try to follow the cursor over the screen occasionally.
Thanks for the idea! And I totally agree; I still have a lot more planned that will hopefully add more life and character to the game :)
@Loyalty doesn’t matter do a better one :)
@Loyalty doesn’t matter how is this game worthless though it is a display of effort and time
@Loyalty doesn’t matter Do you even understand how making a game works? It's not like you have an idea, write 10 lines of code and there it is.
Especially if you build it from scratch and have to do all the art and game engine by yourself.
You have to set everything up bit by bit, draw every art, animate every movement, code every action (sometimes 10 lines for one simple action), debug (for hours), etc,...
Currently, there is no game. There is an idea and it's being developed.
I've checked in Multiple times to see if i missed it, we are glad you're back!
The screen in and out with the camera is perfect. You have truly mastered it
Hey, I'm a big fan of your content! Yet another idea for your game (I know you receive many in the comments): the option to "hire" workers. Once you hire a worker, you can give them a tool they will start to use that tool. For example, if you give him a watering can, he will start walking through the dry fields and watering them. Of course, at a limited speed. With this feature, the user's farm can grow "exponentially" instead of "linearly". I mean, now, more crops mean more user clicks, so there is a ceil on the size of the farm. But, with workers, more crops -> more money -> more workers -> more crops, etc
I love this devlog! Apart from the soothing yet entertaining videos, the game itself is pretty impressive, especially considering that you are building it from scratch.
This looks fantastic! I like the decision to make the tarp a manual action each time, rather than making it automatic or kept on the heap.
This was a first pass at the feature so I'm jumping ahead a little, but some feedback to indicate when you get plant matter would look great! Maybe a generic function that lerps a little picture of the item from your click location to the location on the hotbar. Loving the series!
omg im just about to add that to my own type of game! what a coincidence! Love the video as usual.
8:25 i love how he shows him doing something in a speedup video and you think he did a lot. then you realise he just clicked the color and made it darker XD
Haha, it genuinely took at least half an hour to place all those little stones on the surface of the compost!
Virtual compost! Brilliant. You made game dev so chill
Love your videos.. You were the start of my 3d game developing ... keep up the devlogs
Your video just made my day. Man I love you honestly.
I can clearly see that you want everything in the development process to be just right and I think you'll have a lovely game when it's ready for public release.
I can only imagine what you have planned in future add ons. The game has a tremendous amount of potential.
I would make a shed object to replace the house as storage place. Also you should implement scrolling through tools with the mouse wheel. Additionally I think it would be nice if the game makes a distinction between tools and non-usable items, so only the tools show up in your toolbar and you don't have a bunch of carrots in there it something.
Yay a new vídeo 🤩 It’s always a pleasure watching your videos!
Lets go, another devlog, been waiting so long,
continue the awesome work!
How about adding a shed for storage instead of the house? That's where people usually store tools and it would let you buy/build and upgrade for more storage
I'll be adding sheds soon :)
Great devlog as usual. Keep up the good work.
Thought on the composter... It sounds laborious to keep track of the tarp item in storage/inventory. I would keep it rolled up on the compost bin, when not in use. When the plant matter is fully built up, you'd then "activate" the composting process which would unroll the tarp. That way, the player doesn't have to worry about the tarp and it's always ready to go
I thought the exact same thing, the only reason i can think to leave it like that is that you could use the tarp item to cover other things or some other use besides covering stuff
I'm glad you posted again, I had seen quite a few of your videos in passing but forgot your channel name. Subscribing now so I don't miss the next one.
I think it would be very cute if you added some kind of little character representation for the player that goes about their day as you play and you can fit em out. Love these! Happy to see you back
I'm enjoying this process, cheers.
I love the great editing and content! I think birds and maybe a scarecrow could be nice small addition. Keep up the fantastic work!
I really like the look and feel of your game. Makes me want to create my own game with your engine
Loveyour chilled vibe!
Perfect video, as always!!
You are a great teacher bro, well done!
Love watching these dev logs! I'm sure it's on the to-do list, but you should totally add some particles (like dirt specks flying from the ground), when shoveling and/or weeding --- I feel like some sort of feedback system while using tools would make this so addictive to play.
I watch your vids just for your fabulous lunches and way of life - and that bay window!
Great move with the inventory bar, sounds a lot more user friendly now. Awesome work my dude!
Thanks!
Nicely done! Really enjoying your progress so far.
One side note: quickly changing tools with the scroll wheel is a must!
Thanks!
I'd like to add a scroll wheel function for the inventory, but the problem is you sometimes need to have multiple items selected. For example, when planting seeds you can equip the seeds that you want to plant, plus a dibber tool that allows you to plant multiple seeds at once, as shown in this gif: imgur.com/a/Pj43Bq7
So I'm not sure how selecting multiple items would work with a scrolling function.
Really liking the progress of the game. The compost feature is spot on and I really like the idea. The UI for selecting the tools looks really nice. Also you could use key bindings for the tools like the numerical buttons so that players can quickly select the tools rather than moving the mouse over it constantly. Anyway, awesome video and Keep it up! :)
Made me chuckle that the extra storage for tools is in the house, since bringing my tools in the house is regularly a sure fire way to get my ass kicked! Love seeing the progress ♥️
I definitely think a shed makes more sense, and could allow for players to pay for more storage (and occupying more space)
YES! I have just found this! I have started recently making a farm simulator video game but based on trying not to starve and even with a bit of enemies. I am very glad I found this.
This is the first I'm seeing of this, but it already looks really relaxing
hot key inventory toggles would be very good i think... honestly wouldnt even be bad to have slots that are dedicated to the selected watering can, compost, and shovel to decrease the mouse movement required to switch between (this also helps make the game more accessible for people who have a harder time using the mouse)
Good idea, I'll add that :)
A new subscriber in here. I'm liking your content by the day.
Thus looks so dope!
A few ideas I have for the house!
1.If you ever plan on having the player be able to expand his plot, the house would get in the way. A workaround would either be having the house be in the center of the plot, or at the very beginning of the game the player gets to place down his house.
2. With it being a storage container, when players have enough money, they can choose to upgrade their house. It will look prettier, and increase storage size.
3. And then for more structures, if players need more storage, they could buy sheds to place around their plots, which would be especially helpful if you could expand the land.
Definitely give a satisfying feeling to be able to spend money to make everything look better. Awesome job!
Thanks for the suggestions! Ideas 2. and 3. are actually already planned, so you'll be seeing them in the game at some point :) As for expanding the garden area, I was just planning on not allowing the player to expand to the north. I was thinking of having a road there anyway which would connect to the house. But that still leaves 3 other directions for the garden to expand so I don't think it's too much of a problem.
@@ThinMatrix No I like that better too! That is much more intriguing than the classic "expand anywhere" that every other simcity has done. Great work! I'm not sure if you've got it covered or not, but I am a music composer, and I would love to add music to your games. I'm a very empathetic person, and I write stories with my music. If you would like to hear some demos please DM me or reach back out however! Have a good one!
Really nice devlog as usual :)
One thing I would say about the tarping mechanism would be that it would be a quality of life fix, if you could have the compost bin keep the tarp on it when you go to fill the bucket. You could make left click with the bucket to fill it up and right click would close the tarp again at any time. One reason you might want to keep the tarp down is if you add rain, it might ruin the compost? Or you could keep the compost fermenting and after a random interval it gets upgraded to the next tier of compost which has one of the additions from the bought ones. Just a thought really
Can't wait till we see some form of cross species genetics, like you did in Equilinox.
As I saw in the Video, like me, you also like to work out new ideas and concepts on real paper ;) For some reason, I find it very satisfying to have a concept on paper and then seeing how it gets realized in software step by step. Great Video as always und viele Grüße aus Köln
The vibes in these videos is immaculate
Hi there, i trust that you are well. I have been following all your devlogs over the few years. I am beyond impressed with your dedication and just how you stick to your guns. I was wondering if you would be willing to produce a video on how you go about planning your development and the stages, for example your workflow and process on Trello. I find it very intriguing, my planning has been terrible - even with a Trello board and I often get frustrated and drop projects.
Love your video's, very relaxing to watch!
Just for the sake of fun, some (hopefully) fun suggestions:
-Make the shop a real building where you might add: some animations, discounts, quests, unique items that pop up at some times (maybe as a reward to buy after a certain quest);
-Be able to build a pond: just for the aesthetic or maybe add a possibility to buy and add fish / frogs;
-Hotkeys for the top 5/10 tools;
-Round or corner pieces for the plots (mostly aesthetic, maybe some use later);
-Add crows which pop up some times to sh*t on your crops, that slows down the rate of growth. You can then lower the times a crow visits if you add a scarecrow (or expensive item, or a quest reward).
I hope you can use some of these ideas, or it will give you any other ideas!
Thanks for you vids anyway!!
Thanks a lot for the suggestions! Most of these are planned already (or something similar) so you will hopefully be seeing some of these in the game soon :)
You should see if making the inventory scrollable (Scroll wheel cycles through each item) or even making each slot have a shortcut, 0 through 9 and possibly some other symbols such as "=" or "-" would work well to work towards less clicks. A good example of this being used in games with a similar user interface is Stardew Valley, you could take some inspiration from that inventory system.
I dont understand english very well, but i really like this devlog! Your videos have a wonderful atmosphere! You and your videos are the best!
Thank you!
Hello there. Thank you for your great videos - they're alway a pleasure to watch! I'm fan of your work since the beginning of equilinox (bought it ;) ) and a gardener - so i'm realy enjoying watching your new project.
I had some thought on composting to give it a little realism:
- maybe you could make it a 3 chamber system (1 for filling the greenmaterial; 2 for letting it compost; 3 the processed compost)
- the pile of greenmaterial should be quit a bit higher then the processed compost
- the weeding happens on the gras as well (actually it would be the major source) and maybe you could build in a curve to the impact, so if the weeds reach a certain hight the spread like wildfire (seeding!)
thanks for your work and greetings from switzerland
Awesome! I'd finish the main game loop next before adding more features.
What should make the game fun to play?
Not sure if that's a good idea, but I would actually make a tarpaulin to be the part of the compost heap itself. I think this will make it a bit easier for the player to use the system, especially if the only usage of tarpaulin will be to cover up the heap. But, if the intension is the same tarpaulin can be used in other places, then I would make it a "detachable" part of the compost heap. So that you can explicitly attach it to and detach it from the compost heap, and that process is separate from covering the compost with it. So if you want to cover the compost and tarpaulin is already attached to the heap, then you just right click on the heap, and it will cover the compost, but if the tarpaulin is not attached, you will need to attach it first (by selecting it in the inventory and clicking on the heap in the world).
I considered that (and am still considering it), but so far every item in the game only has a left-click action, and I was kind of hoping to keep it that way for simplicity's sake. Currently everything else in the game just requires a left-click with a certain item (or items) equipped to carry out the action, so it felt strange to make an exception for just this one situation. But in the future if I find that more items could benefit from having right-click option then I'll definitely reconsider.
Love where this is going. Maybe you could buy more storage space with gold, so you could start out the game with a few inventory slots and then use your gold to buy more. Maybe the house model also gets better as you buy more and more slots. Keep up the good work man!!!
Also you should let the player buy worms to add to their compost heap to both make the plant matter convert into compost faster, and to improve the quality of the compost. You could also then have a compost screen item that can sift the worms back out later for re-use, or even for sale as a vermiculture byproduct of the farm.
Fantastic progress this devlog! I really like the composting system although I wonder how obvious plant waste collection is at the moment. It just seems to be a by product of playing rather than something the player collects. Perhaps it could all appear next to the compost bin and the player needs to click it to collect?
Looks awesome! :D
I think it could be interesting to have a reason to use paths in your garden. I can see people running out of room and just turning their entire plot into one big garden aside from where things like the Compost are.
Compost is great! It would be awesome if we could also use it to create no-till beds, tilling is very harmful to soil in the long-term.
I look forward to every video from you! They're all so calming and interesting to watch.
I do want to ask, are you planning on diving more into animations for this game? I seem to remember Equilinox not having much in the way of animations, and I could be wrong, but I'm curious what your plans for this are. I know little touches like the tarp unrolling would add quite a lot to the game. :) Keep it up!
I would like to recommend that the tarp wouldn't be a separate item but rather built into the composting bin. Because now it looks like that the tarp is very tied to the composting bin and this is its only use. I think that by making the tarp builtin and just making a button on the composting bin when you want to cover the tarp would make it much more user-friendly.
An idea I'd have for that compost heap would be to maybe have the ability to either have multiple types of plant matter you can add or generally have some more stuff that you could add to the compost heap, which depending on what you throw in could affect the properties of the compost you get from it
Your food looks really nice so i think you should make a cooking game!
nice one
10:45 If you add a Progressbar, it would be "smart" that it doesnt roll back automatic, but you need to click it, if it finished and if you click it and it is finisched you get the Tarp back
This is incredible. I love UX design and player feedback design so I thought if these:
I’m not too sure if you have planned/said this but could you use?:
Mouse wheel: changes size of item usage (watering can size, seed planting size (bigger size, more area of planting seeds)
Ctrl+mouse wheel, to go through inventory
❤️
Love the new composting models! I do wonder if adding an amount of plant matter below the level needed to visually update the compost (i.e. a smaller increment) might be slightly confusing as far as confirming that the action worked, but I guess seeing it deplete in your inventory would be enough. Are you considering implementing a bear into the game?
Yeah true, I guess the addition of sound effects and maybe a slight particle effect would help with feedback in that situation.
Loving it :)
The game is coming along great so far!
I have one recommendation about the inventory, using the mouse wheel to change the item you currently have in your hand would probably make it easier to use.
But I believe the mouse wheel is used for zooming right now so maybe the keys 1 2 3 4... can be used for quickly selecting the inventory slot, which wouldnt be as efficient as the mouse wheel but still an improvement.
Thanks! I'll definitely implement hotkeys for the inventory. Using the mousewheel would also be nice, but some tools allow you to have multiple items equipped (e.g. when planting seeds you can equip both the seed packet and a dibber tool: imgur.com/a/Pj43Bq7 ) so I'm not sure how that could work with the mousewheel.
@@ThinMatrix Yeah you're right, mouse wheel would complicate things in that case. I'm glad to see that you liked the hotkey idea tho :)
Again, great game so far keep the good work up :)
man i wish i could play this game. looks so fun!! do you think you'll eventually make this available on steam? if so when do u recon it'll be finished?
Great progress! May I suggest to just leave the tarp on the compost bin? Like, not make it a separate item at all? So when you build the compost bin the tarp is already fixed to it and it doesnt fall off when you gathered compost.
I wonder if you could reuse some of your animal models from equillanox to add animals to this game. Like after a certain in game event you could unlock farm land next door to the house to start growing animals, which could produce stuff for you to sell or use to make rare plants etc.
Finally a video
Just fyi compost needs water so maybe having the player needing to water the compost so it doesn't dry out might be a nice little mini game? Love the process so far btw
yey! homegrown! and dauphin updates :3
This looks like a cute game, very much in support of less clicks to use tools though, I was watching you do it and just thinking "my wrists say NO THANKS to that!" I think it would be really satisfying to click and drag tools all over those patches though.... Maybe making it so that they'll automatically only use resources/durability on untouched squares so the player doesn't have to be as precise wit their movement?
I love this :)
Was hoping for another devlog soon and there it is! Absolutely love watching your game progress and really appreciate the fact that you read feedback and take it into account.
Does the current system let you add plant matter while there's compost in there? If not, might be useful, ie. you've got excess plant matter but you've made a bit of compost already.
Thanks! At the moment you can't add plant matter when there's compost in there - I thought it would be simplest to separate the two states completely. I just couldn't really decide how that would work. For example, if your compost heap is half full of compost and you add a load of plant matter to it, what should happen? Does the amount of compost directly increase, suggesting that the plant matter was instantly converted? Or does the compost heap somehow contain both plant matter and compost at the same time? How would that be represented visually and when would the plant matter get converted to compost? It probably would be possible but it definitely complicates the implementation a bit.
I don't think it's too far from reality though - I think it's quite common to have multiple compost heaps in a garden, so that you can be filling one up which taking compost from another, and I think that's how people will use it in the game as well.
@@ThinMatrix Implementation does make it a lot more complicated, so your reasoning & system makes sense so that's fine. Thinking about it though, you are right - I lived on a rural property and we had two compost piles so it's realistic for sure.
so for farming irl there is an alternative to compost, that being cover crops
i did some surface level research, but from what i found there are 3 general types of cover crops
cover crops that you plant to insert nitrogen into the soil, which from further research i found that tomato's and peppers take a lot of nitrogen
cover crops that maintain the soil neutrons level and reduces soil erosion, examples would be a variety of wheats.
Then there are cover crops that loosen the soil, this makes it so you don't have to till the land an example being a radish.
im not entirely sure how you'd implement cover crops, you'd probably have to set up a bit of infrastructure for it to work like soil neutrons level or seasons sense cover crops are traditionally grown in the off season when the rest of your crops cant grow, like peas for example can add more nitrogen to the soil and be grown in the colder seasons like fall
though then you might have a bit of an issue with feature creep if you want to deal with all of that
you might be able to come up with a simpler version, just thought i'd let you know about cover crops
Thank you
I love watching these videos
I think you should be able to upgrade storage by having a shed. 😃
That's exactly what I'm planning! Storage will be split into multiple categories (produce, seeds, tools, etc.) and each category will have a limited storage space which you can increase by getting the relevant add-on for your house (e.g. adding a shed gives you more storage space for tools).
How long does it take for you to make lunch? Your food looks fantastic. Also I'd be interested if you did a video on the plants you're looking after as I've recently started taking care of my own, too
Would you mind sharing the recipe to that food you were making? It looked simple, nutritious and delicious!
Accessibility note: when the plant matter in the inventory had an orange background, reading the number in front of the icon was very difficult as it had low contrast.
For that topic, he could actually write a grey-shader mode (removing all colors) to view the game in development. This way those issues stick out quite quickly, indicating where there needs to be contrast added to the graphics.
Great video. I think the plant matter should go straight into the compost bin. If user doesn't have a compost bin, nothing happens when they do weeding. But if they do have compost bin, plant matter goes in when they weed etc.
That was actually my original plan but I ended up doing it this way because I thought it might be a bit more satisfying to actually receive a useful item in your inventory as a kind of reward when you're doing chores such as weeding. I thought it would be a bit more tangible than just having the numbers in a compost heap somewhere off-screen ticking up. But I'll keep it in mind and can always change it in the future if I find that having to add the plant matter to the heap just becomes an annoyance.
@@ThinMatrix thanks for the reply. Yep makes sense. Great to read your thought process here, love hearing how these things evolve.
I would suggest making the used compost connect
For the tarp item, maybe show the tarp folded up.
Legend!!!!!
For the compost bin, consider having the tarp permanently attached. either rolled up or covering. No need to have it take up an inventory spot. That will just cause the player annoyance considering they see it rolled up and out of the way alreadu.
Just found your channel today, binged the entire city builder and this series in one day LOL. thanks for the amazing content. Also, although I am not a vegetarin, I appreciate you demonstrating what a proper vegetarian diet it. So many Americans here claim to be "vegetarian" or "vegan" but just eat pasta and chips everyday and are still obese and/or very unhealthy. I love your IRL clips and salivate at many of your meals, haha.
Hi, i love this project and have some suggestions
- Animated menus
- Hotkeys
- Smooth transition betwee tilled and untilled grass
I was wondering, do you plan on adding lighting, as in multiple light sources, to the game at some point, or is this a limitation of your engine, that you are not planning to eliminate?
You've probably thought of this already, but instead of a progress bar, have the tarp automatically roll back when the compost is "done cooking" that way you have a big visual indicator that it's ready for use.
hey, can i ask what displays you are using? They look awesome!
I suggest changing the tarp icon to a folded tarp
Already watching. 🤗
how did you teach yourself to be this good at making a game? or even coming up with the algorithms to implement the terrain or basicly everything...I keep finding myself searching for stuff everytime I want to add something to a game and I wish I could figure out how to do it on my own...got any tips? I have been following since you added post processing to equillinox I think...and I keep being inspired by you
I think it's just something you get better at as you become more experienced. I'm often building on stuff that I previously implemented for my old games, and I often look back at my old code when I'm solving similar problems in my current game and then try to improve on that old code. I do also sometimes look on forums or read articles to see how other people have tackled similar issues in their games, to get ideas from that.
might be a good idea to allow players to sacrifice items they would normally value to produce more or better compost. like keep the basic chaff item probably, which would add a tiny bit to the compost, but have them like reinvest a few carrots to make more/better/faster compost. like an investment with returns. then they can game the crop market and be like "strawberries arent worth selling but im gonna grow them to make better compost" or something like that. some reason they would want to consider using the items in a bit of a different way. something pulling them in another direction.