RPG Maker Forums

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?