Engine: Unity
Language: C#
Hello. I started developing this project about a year ago. Went full-steam for about 3 months, then had to stop for day job reasons. Now I'd like to pick it back up again, but, after revisiting, decided that it would be a better finished game if I had help. I'm a developer by day, writer by night (and musician somewhere in between). So far the mechanics, music, and plot have been solely developed by me, but I can see where each of these areas would benefit greatly from more focus and attention. Having said that, I am also aware that to do this correctly would drastically drag out the entire development lifecycle of the game.
The idea behind the game has been (and hopefully always will be) to keep it simple, relaxing, and cozy. It started as a simple potion-mixing game where all ingredients were available up front, but I felt that having a cottage in a forest where you forage for the ingredients could still fit within the simple/relaxing/cozy if done carefully. I know there are many games going for this feel. But I feel that a lot of them have features that may seem simple/relaxing/cozy, but ultimately end up being a nuisance. I would like to incorporate several things for the PC to do and interact with, but keep the mechanics very simple. I would also like to add non-traditional mechanics like: I-Spy, sitting and looking for the sake of sitting and looking, evoking waldeinsamkeit, etc. All that said, I would like to err on the side of sparse and seemingly boring, than on bloated and tedious.
The basics of the game go like this:
- PC arrives at cottage shortly after purchasing it.
- PC meets Edgar the crow and discovers that the cottage is a wreck and that a witch used to live there. The witch used to sell potions to the nearby villagers to cure various ailments.
- PC agrees to take on the duty of potion-making in order to make enough gold to repair the cottage.
- Potion requests come in the form of letters delivered to PC's mailbox (named Babayog) and include hints for which potion the PC needs to make.
- PC forages for ingredients in the forest. Ingredients spawn at certain times of the day, during certain weather events, etc.
- PC uses hints from request in conjunction with the recipe book to brew the correct potion.
- Edgar delivers the potion and returns with gold.
- PC repairs cottage.
- Repeat.
Other things of importance:
- The plot is uncovered through scripted requests that spawn after every 3 random requests are fulfilled. There will be a handful of villagers that have parts in the main plot.
- The main plot hasn't been fully fleshed out (like much of the whole project), but goes like this: PC purchases an old witch's cottage and ends up fulfilling requests for potions. Eventually, the "evil wizard" of the village will request the same potion that destroyed the cottage (and the witch) before PC arrived. If PC makes the final potion, they will be transported to another dimension and the cottage destroyed again.
- The PC will be able to plant seeds and trade plants for seeds. This was added for fear of losing the simple/relaxing feel when not able to find the rarer ingredients.
- There is a scarecrow at the cottage that will ask the PC: "How are you doing today/tonight?" and if the response is negative, the scarecrow will give real-world advice on how to go about being happier or dealing with your problems.
- There is a day/night cycle with weather. I plan to make music that changes with time and weather.
- All assets are either purchased or gathered for free from Sketchfab. In a perfect world, I would love to create them from scratch...
Here is a link to what I had developed at the time that I last stopped:
If this seems like a project you'd like to help with, let me know.
Thanks for checking it out.
