Rustic Tales

[grem333]

(Here we go guys- My first game thread! I finally feel comfortable with posting my game's development progress!)

Synopsis:


(A story will be added later- I'm still brainstorming for ideas! Help would be welcomed. )
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Your grandfather has passed away, and you end up inheriting his old farm. Fix up the farm while meeting and befriending an interesting cast of villagers, who have their own problems and obstacles to overcome. Explore the beautiful Valley and maybe even find that special someone. Inspired by the old (what some would call "good" or "best") Harvest Moon games (like HM64 and FOMT) and also by Stardew Valley. Will be rated PG for alcohol and some mild verbally abusive situations.

Features:​

- Play as a boy or a girl!​

- A working farm system! Plant different crops in Spring, Summer, and Fall! Also, trees!
- Go mining for ore and gems in Slate Mountain, and maybe find old artifacts from times long past!
- Or spend the day fishing in many unique locations!
- Explore the Valley and Pewter Village. Meet your neighbors, give them gifts, and become friends!

Screenshots:
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coming soon (see newer posts if impatient )

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Planned Features:​

- Tons of unique events with the villagers! Dating and marriage!
- Raise animals, including cows, sheep, and chickens! Maybe even pigs!
- Buy a boat to sail to a tropical island with several new characters and unique tropical crops!
- Participate in seasonal interactive festivals!
- And more! I will post updates periodically in this thread.

Credits:
- Enterbrain
- Celianna
- Yanfly
- Selchar
- Vlue & deilin
- Galv
-TheoAllen
- Hime
- Zerbu
- V
- PK8
- Neon Black
-eugene222
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Progress:​

Maps: 30%
Story: 0-10% (Still trying to come up with ideas!)
Dialogue: ~5%

Thank you for reading! I've been working on this game for about a year so far. I have no due date in mind, as I make games for fun. When this is finally released, it will be free. I may post a demo eventually, but I would really like to complete at least the majority of dialogue and random events first. Obviously, criticism and/or ideas would be appreciated! Just a disclaimer, I have no drawing skills, so the portraits you see in the screenshots are probably as good as it's going to get! And I can't script, either, so thank you to all of the amazing people I listed above, and also those whom I may have missed.

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[grem333]

Update Log: 5/15/16

EDIT: These screenshots are out-of-date, but I will leave them just for fun.
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Hooray! My game submission got approved, and it's been three days so I can post an update! I will be posting updates every week or two if I make good progress, even if no one responds to the thread. I suppose I'll think of this as a journal or a development log. I always enjoy reading updates in other games' topics in this forum, even if I rarely commit in the topic, so... Here we go!


I just about finished the long and arduous process of converting Pewter Village to a parallaxed map! There are still some passability issues I have to work out, but it looks a lot better so far! I am trying to come up with ideas for seasonal decorations: Winter is the easiest, of course. I am also going to be fleshing it out a bit more, as right now, the paths are a bit empty. Here are some screenshots:


This is the outside of Slate Manor. The Slate family is ready to grill up some burgers for a pool party- or they would be if Oscar Slate could find any time away from work to hang out with his family! I will change the door later, as I am aware how weird it looks.





This is a small park and gathering space located within the village. Picnic, anyone? Hooray for hand-placed shadows! I hope I didn't forget any.





And here is the outside of the general store and library in the Winter. They obviously shovel the streets! I loved placing the winter decorations all throughout the town! Placing decorations wherever I want them is probably one of my favorite parts about parallax mapping. In case you were wondering, my least favorite part would have to be setting up the overlay layer (including those cursed shadows!), as I almost always mess it up in minor ways.





The town is a bit empty without villagers, but for the next couple of weeks, I will be working on finishing up at least some of the villagers' dialogue so I can place them in the town! With my town map just about finished, I also caught a minor bug: I have been showing NPC portraits with a picture ID of 1, but I also set the overlay picture layer of my parallaxed maps to an ID of 1. So I basically am going to change the NPC portrait picture ID to 3 (or something like that), so the NPC portraits appear ABOVE the background image when you talk to them.


I hope you enjoyed reading this,


Grem

 

[Iliketea]

Looks lovely, but you should change the name ....

 

[grem333]

@Iliketea I know haha. Especially since it's similar to Stardew Valley. I will try to come up with a catchy new name!


EDIT: I changed the name to Rustic Tales! I wanted something kinda of generic, yet quaint.

 

[rpgmakerxp]

Forgive me moderators if this is counts as a necropost.  I just wanted to ask the OP how the progress is doing with this game?

 

[grem333]

I'm here! I recently got my PhD and started a new job, so I haven't had time to work on Rustic Tales lately. However, when things start to slow down at work, I will be able to dedicate more time to it. As awesome it would be to develop games for a living, I only do so in my free time. I'm sure I'll get a strong urge to work on it after the next Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons games come out!

 

[rpgmakerxp]

I'm here! I recently got my PhD and started a new job, so I haven't had time to work on Rustic Tales lately. However, when things start to slow down at work, I will be able to dedicate more time to it. As awesome it would be to develop games for a living, I only do so in my free time. I'm sure I'll get a strong urge to work on it after the next Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons games come out!

Oh ok, good luck with all of that! I'll be keeping an eye out on this as well.

 

[grem333]

Update Log: 2/13/17

Hi everyone! I'm back and I have the hankering to work on my game again!

Just a quick update: I am going to be slightly changing my game: The premise will be the same, but I decided that, for now at least, parallax mapping was too annoying and time-consuming. I will therefore be using the editor for my maps. I also am doing a complete over-haul on the characters and am cutting the number of characters to a more reasonable level so I can finish the game sooner. Don't get excited: I've still got a LOT of work to do and, again, game-making is just something I do for fun, so I take my time with it.

Anyway, here are some maps I made in the editor recently. Instead of parallax mapping, I basically made use of a semi-custom Tile E. Here you are visiting your grandfather's grave:

And here you are in front of the Town Hall (I haven't made my semi-custom Tile E for the town yet, so it's pretty basic right now):

On a more basic level, I have functional farming system, mining system, and fishing system. Later this week (after I finish the Ranch map), I will try to add a functioning animal system. I am planning on doing the basics: cows, chickens, sheep. This is mostly because I can't sprite, so I am stuck with using whatever came with the Rural Farm Tiles.

I'll get around to updating my first post later with current images. So long for now!

 

[fizzly]

I agree that the name isn't fit well...but love the concept and always YES for farming games!

 

[rpgmakerxp]

@grem333 Glad to see you're still at it! There is something I've been kind of wondering though. I've noticed many people have unique looking menus such as the one you have on the top left. Is that a picture or edits of some sort done to the window/menu?

And yeah, parallax mapping...I wish it didn't take so long haha.

 

[grem333]

@grem333 Glad to see you're still at it! There is something I've been kind of wondering though. I've noticed many people have unique looking menus such as the one you have on the top left. Is that a picture or edits of some sort done to the window/menu?

Thanks! That menu (along with the majority of the graphics I'm using) comes with the Rural Farm Tile pack by Celianna.

 

[grem333]

Hello everyone! It's been almost a year since my last update, but I am still slowly working on this game in my free time. I'm still working on a LOT of dialogue, as interacting with the villagers and love interests has always been one of my favorite things about Harvest Moon games.

I am planning for each villager to have a set of "Character Progression Events" that are activated as you get to know each character and may slightly influence the characters' lives depending on your input.

I have a working chicken raising system in the game now, which was actually easier than I thought to implement.

I also am working on the NPC portraits. I am using "Anime Face Maker 2", as I have no drawing skills, unfortunately. Here are some samples:

This is Eva, one of the bachelorettes. Her and her father used to be rich, but now they run the Diamond Pub in town.

This is Harris, the mayor. He is growing forgetful with his age and likes to complain about things that bother him.

That's all for now! I will feel like the game is more complete once I insert all the villagers into the game (they are lined up on a separate map awaiting their dialogue, currently).

P.S. Sorry I suck at inserting pictures! haha