Modern Day Harvest Moon-Esque Mechanics

[CallMeKerrigan]

I wanted to discuss Harvest Moon mechanics in a city/suburb setting for the early 21st century. When I first started my game, I knew I wanted relationship mechanics, a time system, and a somewhat open world for exploring set in a coastal city. I set this up right away in my game, and walked away for about 6 months because I was stuck.


I didn't actually realize what I was approaching was a Harvest Moon type game. I've never played Harvest Moon.


A lot of farming sims are set on a country-esque farm that appears stuck in 1955 (World of Dawn, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley), and a lot of dating sims are set in Sprawling urban Jungles set in Japan or an unnamed concrete city, with not much in the way of exploration (Just let this Dating Sim Page on Steam speak for itself). 


So what would a game crossing these two genres actually look like? 


I think something to do is equate something you farm on a literal farm with something you could potentially farm in real life. I conducted a list of occupations typical of adults in my neighborhood.


Cashier


Attorney


Customer Service Representative


Police Officer


As you can imagine, this list did go on much longer, and I looked for opportunities within these occupations for the player to explore the town, craft items, deplete energy on, etc.


It could really be anything you want, but I settled on Freelance Writer. The player controlled my main character Eileen, to explore the city of beachdale discovering 'recipes' to construct freelance articles at the internet cafe (this is typically the crafting bench). She needed a camera that relied on her creativity skill to snap photographs (which would either be blurry or decent) as part of recipes. Some recipes called for food items, others called for interviews, others called for specific objects, and this made the potential for writing pieces limitless, as any NPC around town could request a specific article. 


However there is a twist. The farming aspect is just a small piece to the game. The biggest part is the relationship system. Eileen's "Skills" are actually topics that you can select when approaching eligible NPC's. Depending on the topic, you will either improve or deplete a relationship with an NPC. Talk to them too much, and you'll annoy them. You can even push certain NPC's to not talk to your character for the remainder of the game when annoying them too much. But just right, and you can potentially woo an NPC to fall in love with you. Each friendship grants Eileen bonuses to raise her stats.


Her stats are important because they equate to her ability to construct writing pieces, interacting with certain NPC's, and at the climax of the game, keep her mood and energy from depleting and killing the main character. (Charisma equates with Max mood, while Athleticism equates with Max energy).


Mood equates to HP


Energy equates to Stamina


Energy is constantly depleting, but Mood depletes depending on your interactions with the world around you, and eventually auto-depletes, leaving you very little time to do the tasks in Beachdale you need to do to keep up with day-to-day life.


When you feel you have accomplished everything you want in Beachdale, you can 'end' the game when you desire by speaking with an ally who eventually helps you defeat the dark force that is causing your leveling up to make the game challenging with each level, and that does end the game. Giving you a couple of selective endings you can choose right them (in a visual novel type interface), making what happened throughout the farm sim section of the game mostly obsolete.


This was the only way I could really find the story to compliment the farm sim and relation sim aspect, as all three were important to me to include.


I have this system in place for the most part (The only thing I have left is the menu and crafting system), but my question is, what are some modern day gameplay elements you could see in a Harvest Moon type game?

 

[Just Yeas]

I've put up a similar topic, so maybe I dont have the answer to your actual questions. 


I guess, as you said, there aren't many modern farming sims, and there could be good reason for that. personally, I used to play Harvest Moon and still play Stardew for the peace of rural life. Modern life doesn't have that same ''close to nature'' feelings that we associate to a farming game.


What you're striving for is unique, but yeah, you gotta be careful because it seems to look more like a ''Sims'' game than a ''Harvest Moon''


Now, to actually answer your questions --


you can add part time jobs that you do. That can give you a chance to meet more people through work life. The friends you make in your job can have friends (guys) who you can potentially date.


You can end the game with a marriage, maybe?


You can ''not make'' the NPCs cardboard cutouts by adding Emotions with variables -- not just the ''talking too much and getting annoyed'' part, but also the fact that they have their own life, their own past, and their own struggles,  they can get depressed, or be excited cuz they have an interview coming, or stressed becuz work life and life in general was tiring, ETC.  (for this, you can look into male psychology and make the relationships in game much more real and meaningful)


and hey, writers statistically have a higher depression rate.... maybe you can tie that sort of thing to your main character in the beginning. And slowly, as you progress through the game and meet more people and learn more -- your character grows as a person and empowers herself and the people all around them


sorry if whatever i said was either too complicated or too obvious. I hope this helps! 

 

[CallMeKerrigan]

It's funny because the actual inspiration for my game came from being bipolar. the point of the game is to live with a personified version of bipolar disorder that only the main character can see. doesn't outright say it, though. 


The antagonist Bianca makes life harder for Eileen to carry out normally.


I think youre right that a game with NPCS that had schedules and emotions would be awesome. it's not right for my game, but that sounds like an awesome RM experiment. 


And what I like about Harvest Moon isn't so much the country side, I like the reward aspect and seeing progress in the game because of me. I think that's easy to translate into any type of farm, and by farm I don't mean literal. 


For example, a player who does independent work at home that could take days to complete, needs daily attention and nurture. like breeding animals, researching a thesis, a home ran salon, developing photographs, even trolling forums.