July 23, 2024

Hey everyone! Alrighty, I was able to get the web build working and online. Still having some rendering issues (you'll notice the black flickering on the main character model), but for the most part the game should be playable!

Play: https://everything-garden-37ed5b1a75e5.herokuapp.com/

Controls (ideally these would/will be in-game):
-Touch and drag to walk around while in Walk Mode (default)
-Tap the Shovel to switch to Build Mode (and the Shoe to switch back to Walk Mode)
-In Build Mode, you can select stuff to build, then tap in the world to build it (if you have enough coins)
-You can tap the Ghostbusters symbol and tap existing objects to remove them
-In Walk Mode, tap a grown plant to harvest it
-Harvested plants will be sold at the next pickup time (as shown when you tap the Box button)

July 16, 2024

We're back! I've had a lot of other work to catch up on in the few work days that we've been home from our trip, but for Everything Garden, I'm working on building out the web infrastructure to support a web build.

Using the Unity game engine, we can choose our "deployment platform," which can be iPhone, Android, Xbox, Playstation, Switch, or Web. Each platform has it's own requirements for publishing a game though, and Web is the only one that doesn't require a store page/app listing, so it'll be the easiest way to let you all play.

I think our plan now is to work on a few more User Interface elements, specifically the "you have earned coins" panels, and then we'll put the game online to assess the prototype and see if we're able to "find the fun!"

June 19, 2024

Sorry for being a day late on the update! We just launched a new game yesterday, which has unfortunately taken some time away from Everything Garden. So, sadly, I have no progress to share at the moment, and will be traveling for the next couple of weeks as well. With that being the case, I'm going to have to hit the pause button for a few weeks, but I will resume work upon my return!

In the meantime, if you wanted to check out our new game "21 Letters," you can download it here! https://apps.apple.com/us/app/21-letters/id6504524436

June 11, 2024

More User Interface stuff this week! I've been focusing on the Build Bar, which is where you'll be able to select which objects and plants you want to build in the world. You'll notice that they "know" about how many coins you have, and will update themselves accordingly (showing gray when you can't afford something).

Progress video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wAsYRrj0T78

June 4, 2024

Unfortunately no visual updates to share this week! It's been a pretty busy week with our other games, so I haven't been able to put as much time into Everything Garden as I would have hoped, but progress is still being made! I've been buttoning up a lot of the user interface elements that were less-than-functional in prior videos. In last week's video you'll also notice the nicer looking buttons on the main "walking around" interface - I'm transitioning everything to match this style, which should be a lot nicer to look at. I'll admit, working on user interface stuff is not my favorite thing in the world haha, BUT it is crucial to your communication with the player. Just as an example, you'll notice that harvesting plants causes them to fly into the shipment box button in the bottom-left of the screen. The game could function without that, but this tiny animation answers the question of "where did that plant go that I just harvested?" So, in short, I'll be adding more of that kinda stuff to show how the whole game loop works as you're playing, and if I do it right, you won't even have to think about it!

May 29, 2024

Starting the rest of the game art! I've been doing some art style exploration, which involves 3d modeling, 2d art, lighting, and color work - maybe not quite final, but definitely a lot closer than our grayboxing! You'll also notice I brought over the Tides character model as part of the style exploration work. I think it works really well, and has a good level of detail without being too detailed.

Progress video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wAsYRrj0T78

Next up is continued work on the user interface - gotta make those buttons look nice and clicky!

May 21, 2024

Economy is almost up and running! You can now sell your harvested plants for coins, which you will then use to pay for more plants/building blocks. These functions will be the core of our "game loop," in which players will have goals, progress, and motivation to play the game. Our UI (user interface, all of the buttons on the screen) is looking pretty rough at the moment, but not to worry, we're just building out all of the core game functions first, and then will do some polishing.

Prototype video: https://youtu.be/sMaE-5P1GBI

Next, we need to finalize the economy (right now you can build everything for free) to complete our game loop, and probably start work on our world art/models to replace the grayboxing.

May 14, 2024

We have strawberries! I've been working on converting the existing prototype to support our new gardening functions, and we're now in the phase called "grayboxing," where we ensure the gameplay features are all present. As you can see, the world will be similar to Minecraft, in that it's made up entirely of cubes (sometimes called voxels). We'll have different styles of cubes (grass, dirt, concrete) so the players will be able to let their imaginations run wild while constructing their garden.

Prototype video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lYfL9J-AnwQ

Next on the list is getting the rest of our plants in, and getting our economy up and running. We want to let players feel some sense of progression, and have goals to work towards!

May 7, 2024

All of the plant renders have been created! All of the ideas were so creative, and I had so much fun drawing them all out!

You can find all of the renders on our Concept Art Page.

Next up will be building the core game functionality. We have an old prototype that we'll be reworking - it already has the "walk" and "build" functions, kinda like a tiny slice of Minecraft, so we just need to add some plants in there! Stay tuned for next week's update!

Also, I forgot to mention, but if anyone needs/wants to contact me for any reason, my email is reid(at)shallotgames(dot)com.

April 30, 2024

Thank you for all of the super creative concept art! Your art has been scanned in, and I'm currently in the process of using it to create our in-game artwork. You all had such awesome ideas, I'm excited to start building so we can see them come to life!

April 26, 2024

Concepting has begun! Updates will be posted here every Tuesday.