If YOU were in charge of the SoS/HM development team...

SNES, HM64, BTN, STH, A Wonderful Life, Another Wonderful Life, AWL:SE, Magical Melody, Puzzle de HM, Tree of Tranquility, Animal Parade, Frantic Farming, Hero of Leaf Valley, My Little Shop, Seeds of Memories, Lil' Farmers, Light of Hope, Popolocrois: SoS, and Doraemon: SoS.
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Mikodesu
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I think drawings are a compulsion at this point. LOL I started my little writeup...then I got out my notebook with all my little character doodles in it...and before I knew it I was doing a little set of MC doodles.
Kikki wrote:I have a bunch of the possible endings for Gate of Dreams already in mind, some of which centre around getting very involved in your new rural community and making a strong co-op and would entail fixing up or upgrading town buildings. And this being me, that would include options to choose the style of the buildings and street and fixtures like light posts and so on. :) I love customization.
Me too! I wish customization wasn't such a money sink for the games, since SoS focused on it so much that they threw their entire plot into it. But it WAS fun. I spent probably embarrassingly high numbers of hours putting paths down and coaxing trees to grow around my little ponds. I think the way your customization works it would mesh REALLY well with mods. You could have a whole huge variety of models for all kinds of stuff that modders could make endless packs of skins for. :)

I don't think most anyone on the forum has the time for it but I think we could hash out a pretty awesome game based on the ideas so far. I'm still thinking on the animal side of things. Mechanically there's not a whole lot I would fix...

Actually! This just popped into my head. It would be awesome to see a system that teaches a little bit about grass-fed vs grain fed cows. It could get over complicated fast, but I'd love it if there were some sort of payoff for grazing animals that didn't have to do with stress. I think I'll edit that in! :lol:
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Shan O 123
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Okay this is bad but......yeah.

TITLE: ???
MAIN CHARACTER: customizable. The family would be customizable as well. Not just by looks but the lifestyle as well. (Options: single parent (or not) siblings (1 up to 3) gender wouldn’t matter)
SETTING: a basic town with a beach. Your farm would be large from the beginning and customizable. No more grid system holding you back. The house, two stories, also customizable.
MAIN PLOT: kinda like the Grand Bazaar, you’d be running a small shop in town (what you sell doesn’t matter). Your goal pretty much be like the town rank links, but only one town this time and plenty of town activities to keep you busy. Bake sales etc.
FEATURES: Not sure yet.
Ciao babe
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Post  Posted:

Shan, pretty intriguing title there...XD "What is the name of this game?" lol

I can't think of any features that I want...I've forgotten them.

Hmm...I like Kam's island setting too.
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Shan O 123
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Actually I couldn’t think of a name.
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Kikki
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I think only Mikodesu and I named our games so far. But then, taking an entire huge idea and cooking it down into one pointed title that encapsulates everything...I love it. One of my favourite parts of writing, lol...coming up with just the right title. I can write something, think 'gosh this is terrible!' but only really be disappointed because I gave it a neat title and then feel like I didn't live up to its promise, lol.

As for features it'd be nice to see return to the series, hand-fishing would be nice. I'd prefer it to trap fishing, which was such a pain in Trio, since you basically had to wait half the day and continually go back to Lulukoko to check it. Though otherwise fishing in Trio was awesome with only having to press A once to reel your fish in, ala Animal Crossing. I feel like that should always have been a feature. It'd make a lot of sense to be able to hand-fish in the various ponds in Gate of Dreams.

I'm not sure if the naiad would approve of you fishing in HER lake, though. I'd have to think about that :)
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Mikodesu
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Aaand here we go again. I was listening to a recorded GDC talk earlier on a procedurally generated game and it got me to thinking: could that be used in a Bokumono/HM setting? So from a day of keeping my brain occupied while I worked... :lol: I'd be interested to see if anybody could come up with something else/better in the same space though.


Title: Another Fantasy Harvest Moon
Setting: TBD
Plot: TBD

Features:
Takes from both Bokumono and Rune Factory, except that it features a partially procedurally generated world. The main hub/town of the world is the same per playthrough, but the rest of the world is divided into "spokes".
Spoiler:
sort of like « Harvest Goddess » of War 2018 (is that a spoiler? idk)
Each spoke is composed of hand-made elements that are generated into wilderness and even a long dungeon. (There could be multiple dungeons or a single dungeon that requires you to return multiple times, Metroidvania style.)

Farming mechanics are spell based. (Water, obviously, fire to clear fields. Etc.) Spells are gained over the course of the story. Some are basic, some advanced spells require quests.
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@Kikki you could probably add like a rival in your town that could marry the intended candidate. The rival could compete against you in festivals similar to story of season or they could just be there for show if your not into competition.

I love the idea of sprinklers, they were one of my favorite mechanics in stardew valley and a farm system based on spells sounds awesome. I hope if they ever do make another rune factory they incorporate the spells into farming.
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Kikki
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Ghostoast wrote:
Kikki wrote:
Ghostoast wrote:There are rival marriages with rival children as well as same « Chicken Hugging » marriage. Your twin will marry the intended spouse of your chosen candidate.
That's pretty ingenious, there :) That removes one of the major complaints that people who are against rival marriages had...that they didn't like to see the person who was your rival end up alone. Your rival system sounds great...I'd want to include it in my game too, but the Gate of Dreams MC does not have a twin! I would have to figure out my own rival system, somehow, because they really do add to the game, especially with having their own children.
@Kikki you could probably add like a rival in your town that could marry the intended candidate. The rival could compete against you in festivals similar to story of season or they could just be there for show if your not into competition.
Since my MC doesn't have a twin, I'd have to add a floating person who would just marry whoever ended up getting left out, lol. I don't know if that would satisfy the people who don't like the rival system because they think the candidate characters are a better match with their in-game pairing. I just think that if you have a rival system, having a twin who will automatically romance/marry the rival who gets left out by you sweeping up your character of choice would satisfy some folks who would otherwise have a problem with it. It's a pretty tidy resolution, at least as I am imagining it. :)

The complaints with the rival system are, as far as I know 1) people don't want their candidate to be 'stolen' before they can get to them 2) some people like the in-game pairings more than the idea of marrying one of the candidates themselves and would rather let them marry each other 3) occasionally there's jealousy/dislike toward the rival character for flirting with or being interested in their guy/girl of choice.

I don't think there's any way to make everyone happy, not ever, in any situation, because human beings come in too many varieties. (Natsume's tagline has always bothered me, lol...'Make Everybody Happy'. I think it's great to maximize your product's appeal, but there is no such thing as universal love or even universal like and I think you actually end up pleasing fewer people by trying too hard to please everyone.) But it'd be nice to be able to design a rival system that would minimize the complaints, somehow. Maybe instead of a rival system there could be a matchmaking system where you can influence who gets married to whom. Though that could easily just end up raising an entirely new set of complaints and controversy. :)

Still, I think I'd want to put in a matchmaking system. It feels like it would add both to replay value AND give you a lot more to do even if you only play through once. We are making the games we want to play ourselves, after all...and I'd love to be able to play cupid between some characters whose relationships catch my eye, sometimes. It'd be so complicated to mix that in with my child personality/genetics idea, though...too many specific children to dream up and make events for!
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Meriberry
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I actually am trying to make a game along these lines so here, have an extra silly idea I came up with for MerMay that has me in stitches.

TITLE: Undersea Life
MAIN CHARACTER: Customizable. You wanna be a caphelapod, you can be a caphelapod. Want frog legs, you can have those too! (You'll have to wear a top of some type, regardless of your gender pronouns. Just to be fair.)
SETTING: You're underwater. You're a merperson!
MAIN PLOT: Undersea life needs tending and caretaking, and you're the mer to do it! You've picked out a place among some of the coral reefs that need the most care, and havedecided that you're going to dedicate yourself to bringing them back to the glory they once were.
FEATURES: Grow various types of underwater plants, 'ranching' with tropical fishes, tending to sad and dying coral reefs, romance merfolk who live in the nearest colony to your patch of reef... and is that a human? Uh oh~

Yeah, it's a silly little idea that's poked me ever since I drew a couple of my SDV farmers as merpeople for the monthly art challenge.
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Kikki
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Oh, that's right, there were some folks who reeeeeally wanted merman candidates, iirc. :) Gate of Dreams has a naiad and if popular opinion demands it I would swap the dryad to be female and the naiad to be a guy...but a naiad isn't quite a merman, lol.

I wouldn't mind farming underwater! Actually that's one thing I'm looking forward to with Re: Legend, though I'm not sure how they're planning to make their underwater biomes work, yet.
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Meriberry
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Stars and sea I do not need more ideas for this thing, but I'm getting them anyways XD Give it a Magical melody style for gathering in people and picking out land. That was one of my favorite aspects about MM was being able to buy all the other parcels of land up that weren't already designated as someone else's property.
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Robinstar
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I had to shorten this SO much cause I pretty much wrote a whole book.

Title: Story of Seasons: Into the Pond

Main Character: Greta, who by default has brown eyes and a dark brown braid over her shoulder. And Gunther, who has slicked back black hair and emerald green eyes. Both are completely customizable though, name and all.
Family: Francis is MC’s older brother. He’ll always have dark brown hair in a low ponytail and green eyes, but his skin changes with the player’s.

Setting: MC is unsatisfied with their city life, so their seemingly kind older brother, Francis brings them to a farm that is in terrible shape. The farm is far away from the city, but close to several (I don’t know how many; I just want a big world) villages. Time for a fresh start.

Main Plot: The villagers think MC’s land is cursed since no one has been able to run a successful farm on it for at least 100 years. MC is doing okay, but things start to pick up when the player realizes they can jump into the Goddess Pond. This takes them to a whole village of magical characters, who are thrilled to find a human there. They stopped watching over the land when the villagers stopped giving offerings. So pretty much, by doing various farming and friendship related things, MC has to reconnect these two worlds.
But that’s not all. Francis keeps popping in to check on MC (after certain achievements), and seems almost disappointed to see how well they’re doing. Turns out, he tried to revive this farm himself, but failed, which very much hurt his ego, and makes him more competitive. With each visit, there’s events with right or wrong answers that will eventually lead to Francis getting over it, if done right.

Features:
-Since I don’t know how I really want them to have gay marriage work, I’d keep just the crossdressing thing for now but with some much needed changes. Nothing about customization is gender locked. That includes faces, clothing, hair, and let’s add facial hair. When you get married, you can choose between suits and dresses.
-There are 6 male candidates, 6 female, and 3 others that can be married either way.
-The Goddess Pond is now a portal to a magical world. Magical candidates included. Not sure how many yet or what exactly they are.
-Can have up to 3 children, one at a time, and all optional.
-Children take after spouse by default, but are customizable, with more options being added as they grow.
-Rival marriages and children.
-Your children can develop crushes and have best friends.
-One of the villages is like the place Amir is from cause bachelorettes like that need to exist.

(Still trying to figure out if this one would even work and it’s a little insane, sorry.)
-Once the Francis part of the story is over, you can build him a house in any human village or on your farm, and he’ll move in permanently. But his competitiveness is not entirely gone, causing him to become your rival in love if you’re not already married, even if that means going after bachelors. If you marry a human with a rival, he’ll give up and marry the regular rival. Again, even if that puts him with a bachelor. If you marry a magical candidate, he’ll end up with a gender-neutral human candidate instead, which won’t have a regular rival. Don’t really know what to do if you marry a gender-neutral one since I haven’t decided on if 2 are human or 2 are magical, and he can’t see magical candidates to marry them. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
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Kikki
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I also did not include anything other than the het marriage in my game outline, as I don't know how it should be made to work in other terms and I'm hesitant to put a foot down in the wrong direction...though as Kam said, just having all candidates be player-centric is the simplest version (ala Stardew). Though admittedly that feels rather forced, moving into a town where every eligible character can be romanced by you, I don't know how I would structure anything more realistic. Keeping it simple would probably receive the fewest complaints.

It's cool to think of a whole other world or town with all magical folks in it :) But I can't imagine having a sibling as an enemy! Not that I dislike the idea or anything, it's just that I have two sisters and we're all very close and have never been competitive with each other, so it's hard to imagine myself in that position. If that happened to me IRL I'd probably cry. I just do not fight with my cute sisters. I'd think I'd play Into the Pond as the default MC. :)

The circumstance with Francis chasing after the same candidate as you in an effort to continue as your rival sounds very complicated. And a bit psycho on Francis' part, lol. That's a slightly scary brother! :)
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Robinstar
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I’ve always wondered about magical characters since they all seem familiar with each other, and will mention some others that we never get to see. Might as well make a place for all of them.

When I started this, Francis was genuinely nice, but too much niceness gets to me. It felt too fake. So now he’s kinda scary, yeah. X3 But much more interesting if you ask me. It’s easier for me to write characters that have crazy issues. I could probably come up with some fun dialog if I mess around more with this. I’ve become attached.
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JayDucky03
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Well, I don't know many specifics I'd like, but more androgynous characters/marriage candidates would be cool.
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