survival horror farming game

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.
User avatar
Kam
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
Posts: 4096
Joined: Jun 20, 2009 1:52 am
Contact:

Post  Posted:

So holy « Cow Poopoo » like 8 goddamn years ago there was a thread where me and some others were putting together ideas for a horror-themed HM game, and lately I've been turning the idea of a survival horror farming game over in my head again and I really, really, really want to make one. The problem is I have no idea how to make a video game lol. So, I figure I'll make a post with some of the ideas I've come up with so far and if anyone who does know how to make video games wants to help, or anyone who just likes the idea and wants to help develop it further, can chime in and lend any talents/ideas they may have.

Basic Scenario:
Spoiler:
The game is kind of a two-parter. There's a one year prologue featuring the basic random-young-person-moves-to-random-backwater (in this case, an island) to start a farm. Things are pretty normal for the most part, save for some creepy shadow monsters deep in the mine and a Blood Moon Festival on the 15th of Winter where you have to go home and stay there before it gets dark because it's the one night of the year when the monsters can leave the mine and they'll kill you if they catch you outside. There's a kind-of-in-the-background story involving a little homeless boy called Isaac and a cop who is very interested in him and will occasionally tell you stuff about him that may or may not be true (like claiming that he killed his parents, or that a shopkeeper who's missing two fingers had them bitten off by him; « Cow Poopoo » like that. you'll have an option to ask him about them when his fp his high enough, but all he'll say is 'the townspeople like stories'), but for the most part it's a pretty standard farming sim. If you can manage to befriend Isaac by the end of year one (a non-trivial task because he doesn't trust adults and you are an adult), you'll get a scene during the Blood Moon Festival wherein he'll pound on your door when you go to bed and tell you 'the shadow people' (which the player will probably assume are the monsters, but are actually villagers in black cloaks) are chasing him. There will be a sequence where you have to get Isaac to a boat so he can leave the island, while you stay behind to distract the bad guys. he'll escape but you'll be burned at the stake in your field.

If you don't befriend Isaac, the only thing that'll happen (at first) is after the BMF, he'll stop showing up. If you talk to the cop, he'll make a joke about the monsters getting him before theorizing that he decided to leave the island on his own. From the day Isaac disappears onward, the monsters will start spawning higher and higher in the mine, your crops will rot more and more frequently, and fish will bite less and less, until you cant mine, grow anything, or fish and you get frustrated and quit playing.

Part 1.5 (I guess) is a flashback revealing how Isaac came to the island. There's no farming in that section. Instead, it's more of a stealth-horror type deal where you have to escape and avoid recapture by the bad guys.

In part 2, you'll be playing as Isaac about 15 or so years later, but he'll be going by an alias so you can input whatever name you want (save for Isaac, obviously). If you call yourself whatever you called yourself in part 1, you'll start with negative FP with any characters who were in Part 1.

Part 2 starts with Isaac washing ashore on the same island, but it's been deserted, the monsters now come out every night (you cannot and will never be able to fight them, but you can drive them off for a few seconds by lobbing sunflowers at them), and the soil of your field is almost completely unfarmable, save for the area surrounding wherever your part one character was burned. That area is also the only safe zone you have to start with (aside from your house) where the monsters cant attack you. After a short section where you find all your old tools and repair a boat to go to a nearby island where the townsfolk from part 1 relocated to after their island became uninhabitable, you start working on ways to fix the soil and everything and rebuild the island.

At some point, you'll dig up an old hard drive which will start a long quest chain where you build a pc, repair the drive, and start fixing files on it in order to find out what was up with the villagers trying to kill you and planning a way to get revenge on them for successfully killing the nice farmer who saved you
Basic mechanics for befriending Isaac:
Spoiler:
he only shows up at night to either rummage through garbage cans, steal crops from your farm, or just wander around. he's skittish and if you approach him too quickly (ie by running) or from the back or sides he'll run away. The only way to talk to him is to wait for him to notice you, then wait for a couple of seconds of ellipses to turn into a question mark, then you can walk up to him and chat, though at first it'll mainly involve a couple dialogue boxes of him staring at you before he runs off. if you startle him, you wont be able to approach him at all for at least three in-game days; he'll run off as soon as he notices you. Sometimes the ellipses will turn into an exclamation point instead and he'll run off, usually followed by another randomly-selected villager walking onscreen behind you, but not always; sometimes he's just having a bad day and doesn't want to deal with you.

There will be random times where you'll spot him just standing still and will have to talk to him a couple of times before he'll respond (if his FP is high enough he'll talk a bit but seem kind of out of it; otherwise he'll run off), and a random event where you'll return to your house after dark to find him stealing food from your fridge (a la murray from awl) and can decide whether or not to let him keep it. he'll run off with it either way, but if you don't make a fuss his FP will get a slight bump.

He also doesn't trust the cop, so if your FP with him (the cop) gets too high Isaac will decide you're not trustworthy and will always run away until you lower your FP with Cop.

There will also be 3 or 4 scripted events throughout the year that'll trigger if your FP is high enough, such as one where you help him out when he gets sick, or play with him, or other cute bonding moments
Some ideas for gameplay features:
Spoiler:
-tilling and watering will work as an irrigation-trench like deal like in tott where hoed squares are connected and when you water the waterll spread to all the connected tilled squares until either theyre all watered or you run out of water
-there may be sprinklers and/or tractors for tilling in part two
-there are some basic upgrades you can do in part 1, but most of the game opens up in part 2
-sunflowers are gonna play a big role in establishing safe zones. like you can grow sunflowers in a border around areas and the monsters cant go in there. or something
-naturally, this will only work in summer, but you can set out potted sunflowers in other seasons that have aoe protection and you can have them overlap
-you can also set out potted sunflowers when youre mining to give you some protection, but it only lasts for a few minutes at a time and you cant do it in part 1
-mining works like in ds/cute and ioh/si where you have a big mine with ore stones you smash for random stuff and pitfalls to go down faster
-in part 2 you can buy fishing nets and rent boats for ocean fishing, though itll take up a whole day
-you dont grow crops in winter
-animals will be the basic cows, sheep, n chickens. grazing will work like stardew valley where if you leave the door open they'll go in and out on their own. if you leave the door of your coop open overnight in part 1, there's a good (like 30%) chance you'll wake up to find missing eggs, cause isaac'll go in and steal some
-in part 1 you'll start off with a small barn n coop with their own built in grazing areas, but in part 2 you'll have to repair them before you can start keeping animals again
-if you leave the barn/coop doors open overnight in part 2, shadow monsters can get in and carry away your animals, unless you have potted sunflowers set out by the door. pregnant ones are not immune and in fact more likely to be stolen
-the townspeople wont set foot on your island until it's more than 50% or 75% (i haven't decided; maybe it'll depend on the townsperson and/or your relationship with them) restored in part 2, so you'll have to do some basic building upgrades yourself, but anything smaller than a building you can buy from a shopkeeper.
-providing materials will get you a discount, and there are some things (mostly cosmetics) that can only be unlocked by shipping certain amounts of specific things (for example, potted sunflowers are unlocked by shipping 10 sunflowers, etc)
-time doesn't pass indoors or in the mine
-5 seconds irl=10 minutes in-game
-you can interact with your bed to make time pass, restore stamina, and/or reduce stress.
-when selected, your bed will give you the option to relax, take a short nap, take a long nap, or sleep.
--relaxing makes time move forward an hour, reduces stress by 15%, and restores stamina by 25%. however, if you relax while your stamina is lower than 25%, there's a chance you'll get a dialogue pop-up saying 'i'm so tired...' If this happens, you'll end up taking a short nap instead.
--a short nap makes time move forward 2 hours, reduces stress by 20%, and restores stamina by 50%
--a long nap makes time move forward 4 hours, reduces stress by 30%, and restores stamina by 75%
--sleeping makes the day end and you'll wake up the next morning at 6am with full stamina and stress reduced by 80%
Possible methods of revenge:
Spoiler:
-beat em to death with your tools (note that this one will get you a game over since you'll get arrested lol)
-trap em in the mine to get killed by shadow monsters
-trap em outside during the Blood Moon Festival to get killed by shadow monsters
-give the fully repaired hard drive to trustworthy law enforcement
-help one of the marriage candidates start a farmer's union (since my current theory for the Why is Money so they're probably currently engaged in « Snuggly Bunny » you over financially)
Stress:
Spoiler:
-both parts have the standard stamina and fatigue bars, with certain items and/or accessories available to increase both, but part 2 adds a stress meter
-at high levels of stress your character will randomly stop responding to player input for a several seconds at a time
-as stress increases, the music becomes louder and more distorted, the edges of the screen become blurrier, and character dialogue becomes more likely to turn into gibberish
-you'll have a medication you need to take once a day to reduce a good chunk of stress. If you run out or forget for 24 in-game hours, your stress will start to slowly build over time at a rate that increases exponentially every 24 hours until you either remember or the meter fills completely
-if you take too many before going to bed you'll take a hit to your stamina depending on how long it's been since you took the last one (so if you take two in a row it'll cause more damage than if you just decided you'd rather take it before bed than as soon as you wake up)
-if you take your medication until you run out of stamina, you'll wake up in the hospital and lose increasing amounts of time. after the fourth time, you'll get a game over
-stress is increased by spending too much time around monsters, characters you have less than 1000FP with, and bad guys and/or characters who were adults in part 1 before you find out who the bad guys are; or by working too long without a break
-stress can be reduced by taking your mediation as directed, fishing, eating, talking to characters you have at least 10000FP with, visiting the doctor, hanging out at home, or interacting with certain objects
Trust:
Spoiler:
Aside from this being a thing separate from friendship and affection that builds differently, i haven't quite worked out how it's gonna work and all that.
The Farmers Union:
Spoiler:
Until you help Audrey start the farmer's union, you'll have to buy seeds one at a time from the seed shop, and any crops grown from those seeds can't be used in the seed maker. After, if you decide to join, you'll have to pay 2000[whatever currency this game'll use] per month, but as long as you do you'll be able to buy seeds in bags of 9 for only 5x the price of a single seed at the shop (so, for example, if a single lettuce seed goes for 50 at the seed shop, you can get a bag of 9 for 250 through the union), all of your crops (regardless of where you get the seeds) will sell for somewhere between 20 & 120% more (i don't want it to break the game but it should be enough to make the monthly fee worth it), and the union will host a monthly farmer's market where you can get rare ingredients and/or seeds
Last edited by Kam on Jul 15, 2019 8:49 pm, edited 9 times in total.
User avatar
Kam
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
Posts: 4096
Joined: Jun 20, 2009 1:52 am
Contact:

Post  Posted:

CHARACTER INFO:

Protagonists:
Part 1: Default name Yuu. An androgynous blank slate young person who came to the as-yet-unnamed island to start a farm. If character creation is a thing you'll be able to make them look like and have whatever gender you want, but if not they'll be a brown-haired enby.
Part 2: Default name Ishmael (and he thought he was very clever for thinking of it). 10-years-older Isaac who returned to the island under an alias to find out what was up with all that « Puppy Doodoo » in part 1 and find closure/exact vengeance. Somewhat neurotic, prone to holding grudges, and a bit mistrustful of strangers, but hard-working and usually does his best to be a decent person. Usually.

Marriage Candidates
AKIR: he/him. The town doctor. Most of the other characters call him Akira, which he finds hilarious for reasons he will inform you as you befriend him. A big black guy who emits a calming aura (for real. Your stress is temporarily lowered by 5% whenever you're around him, going back up to wherever it was when you or he walks away). Laid-back and laughs a lot. The first time you talk to him each day (regardless if he's at work or not) you'll get three dialogue options: "I don't feel well" (he'll assess your stamina and fatigue and recommend you an appropriate restorative item at a discount), "I need to talk" (an hour will pass in-game and your stress will be lowered by 80%, or "Chat" (the normal dialogue option). After that you'll just talk normally. Rival for Skye.
Spoiler:
Favorite Gift: Coffee Cake
Loved Gifts: coffee drinks, energy drinks, wild plants
Liked Gifts: sweets, milk
Disliked Gifts: spicy dishes, eggs, trash
Hated Gift: Rice Omelet

Gifts for Player: coffee, donuts, coffee cake
AUDREY: she/her. A young woman trying to start a farmer's union. Passionate and driven. Rival for Matt.
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
CAYDA: she/her. The only marriage candidate introduced (as a child) in Part 1. Tsuntsun toward people and deredere toward computers. Runs a computer repair shop and can give you advice to help you along with the hard drive quest chain. Not a rival for anyone.
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
MATT: he/him. Shy boy who produces a random food item to give you when you talk to him a second time, even if you've just met. (It's literally like *talk to matt* 'Hi.' *talk to matt again* 'Here.' *matt conjures up a plate of spaghetti and hands it to you*) Eventually he'll inform you it's because you're 'too skinny'. As he's befriended he'll start telling completely deadpan jokes. Currently unemployed because he's too shy to get through a job interview, but there'll be a quest chain wherein you or Audrey helps him get hired at the restaurant. Rival for Audrey.
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
SKYE: they/them. Dandere lighthouse keeper. One of the first new permanent island residents in part 2. Overweight and wears glasses that usually keep their eyes obscured. Rival for Akir.
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
Villagers Introduced in Part 1:
ISAAC: The little homeless boy you have to befriend by Winter 14 in order to get to the second part. About 8 or 9 years old. In part 2 you'll play as him.
Spoiler:
Favorite Gift: Stew
Loved Gifts: sweets, milk
Liked Gifts: the sorts of cooked dishes kids generally like (spaghetti, hamburgers, etc), seashells, gems and ore
Disliked Gifts: trash, weeds, vegetables
Hated Gift: pizza

Gifts for Player: seashells, flowers, low-quality gems and ore
JOHN OR BRYAN OR AUSTIN OR WHATEVER: The blond-haired, blue-eyed cop who is interested in Isaac. May or may not be a bad guy. May or may not depend on whether or not you manage to befriend him enough before the end of part 1.
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
THE SHOPKEEPER WITH TWO MISSING FINGERS: A shopkeeper with two missing fingers. JOBOAOW claims he lost them because Isaac bit them off. One of the bad guys.
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
others coming eventually

Villagers Introduced in Part 2:
THE LESBIAN BARTENDER: the bartender, who is a lesbian. she's the same age as the marriage candidates, but not a candidate herself, due to being a lesbian. may or may not be a rival for Cayda
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
THE GROUP OF REBEL TEENAGERS: a group of teenagers who refuse to talk to adults as a sort of political(?) statement. you can get them to talk to you if you befriend their spokesperson
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
THE LEADER OF THE GROUP OF REBEL TEENAGERS: the boy who leads the group of rebel teenagers. lives with his uncle, who is either one of the bad guys or connected to them. they don't get along.
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
THE TEENAGE SPOKESPERSON: a member of the group of rebel teenagers. she's the only one who will talk to you at first
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
others coming eventually

Other Characters:
MOM: Isaac's mom. Introduced between parts. Her name is Mercedes but her name tag will always say 'Mom' because as far as Isaac is concerned Mom's name is Mom. She lives Elsewhere but she'll visit you every year on your birthday and stay for three days. If you regularly fail to properly care for yourself (either by maxing out your stress or getting sick too many times) she'll come get you to take you home and it'll be game over. You can reduce stress once a week by calling her from the phone in your house.
Spoiler:
no gift info yet
others coming eventually maybe
Last edited by Kam on Jul 15, 2019 7:55 pm, edited 10 times in total.
User avatar
Kam
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
Posts: 4096
Joined: Jun 20, 2009 1:52 am
Contact:

Post  Posted:

ISAAC FRIEND EVENTS
Meeting Isaac
Spoiler:
Requirement: Met JOBOAOW and TSKW2MF. Sunny day.
Enter town at night from any direction to find Isaac rummaging through a garbage can. He'll spot you, watch you for a couple seconds, then run off. JOBOAOW will walk up from off screen and tell you his name and suggest you be careful around him because he can be dangerous, before asking if you've met TSKW2MF. He'll leave and you'll turn to look curiously in the direction Isaac ran off.
others coming eventually

HEART EVENTS (which will probably be renamed something else eventually lol)
AKIR
Spoiler:
coming whenever
AUDREY
Spoiler:
coming whenever
CAYDA
Spoiler:
coming whenever
MATT
Spoiler:
coming whenever
SKYE
Spoiler:
coming whenever
OVERDOSE EVENTS

RANDOM EVENTS, PART 1
coming eventually

RANDOM EVENTS, PART 2
I HATE PIZZA
Spoiler:
involved characters: Matt
conditions: you've met Matt
If you talk to Matt and the random dish he produces is pizza, Isaac will hold it over his head with an expression of disgust instead of putting it away automatically like he normally does.

MATT: What's wrong? ....Don't like pizza?
ISAAC: ................Not really, no.
MATT: Wow. That's surprising. Most people like it.
ISAAC: ...........................
MATT: .............................
MATT: .........What do you like?
ISAAC: ..........Stew.
MATT: 'Kay.

Event ends. The next day you talk to him he'll give you stew and you'll get a slight FP boost.
more coming eventually

OVERDOSE EVENTS
FIRST TIME
Spoiler:
You'll wake up in the hospital. Akir will ask you if everything is all right, then tell you to be more careful about taking your medication properly before suggesting you get the Timer Bottle if you have trouble remembering if you've already taken it. If you've already gotten it, he'll wonder aloud how you managed to take too many, then order you to get some more rest. After the event ends you'll wake up the next morning in your house.
SECOND TIME
Spoiler:
When you wake up in the hospital, Akir will ask you some more pointed questions about your general well-being then decide to have you stay a day for observation. You'll miss the rest of that day and all of the rest before returning to your house.
THIRD TIME
Spoiler:
When you wake up Akir will tell you that twice can be an accident but three times is a pattern so he's sending you to another hospital for a while. You'll lose a full week. If you're married or have high FP with any of the other villagers your crops and animals will be tended to and anything that was harvested will be in your fridge when you get back.
FOURTH TIME
Spoiler:
When you wake up Akir will tell you that he's worried you've been struggling too much so he called your mom. She'll come to take you home and you'll get a game over.

If you're married to Akir he'll suggest you sell the farm and move to his old house, since he makes enough money that you don't have to work, anyway. A bit less embarrassing, but still a game over.
Last edited by Kam on Jun 28, 2019 6:37 am, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
Kam
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
Posts: 4096
Joined: Jun 20, 2009 1:52 am
Contact:

Post  Posted:

SHOP INVENTORIES
NOTE: }{ = temporary currency symbol until i decide on a currency for the game to use

Clinic
Spoiler:
Timer Bottle (unique item): 2000}{ (full price); 1500}{ (discounted). A bottle for you medication that tells you how many hours it's been since you last took it.

Energy Drink XL: 450}{; 400}{. Completely restores stamina, adds stress
Energy Drink L: 350}{; 300}{. Mostly restores stamina. adds some stress
Energy Drink: 250}{; 200}{. Slightly restores stamina

Black Tea: 400}{; 350}{. Eliminates fatigue. Reduces stress
Green Tea: 300}{; 250}{. Greatly reduces fatigue. Slightly reduces stress
Herbal Tea: 200}{; 150}{. Somewhat reduces fatigue and stress
Seed Shop
Spoiler:
coming soon
Farmer's Union
Spoiler:
coming soon
other shops coming eventually
User avatar
Googaboga
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
Posts: 9238
Joined: Sep 27, 2010 2:34 pm

Post  Posted:

Oh wow, those were the days, haha. This sounds really awesome, though!
Guest
Anonymous Fish

Post  Posted:

wonderfully detailed :heart:
User avatar
Kam
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
UNoT Extreme Mooomber
Posts: 4096
Joined: Jun 20, 2009 1:52 am
Contact:

Post  Posted:

it's been more than 10 days buuuuutt...

i added some new characters to the part 2 villager section, including a bartender who will probably be an non-marriageable rival for Cayda, and a group of teenagers somehow connected to the bad guys, as well as some info on an intermediary part between the two main parts of the game

the tentative/working title for the game right now is Blood Moon (since, yknow, it's relevant to the plot), but once i have some gameplay images n « Cow Poopoo » i'll have to check with natsume to make sure they wont sue me lol

also i started taking some programming classes on skillshare. idk how much time i'll have to work on them since i have a full time job and i should be going back to school next month, but y'know. i am working on this thing beyond just brainstorming vague ideas lol. new info on characters n plot n such are gonna be really few and far between until i get into the actually-starting-to-program-and-script-the-damn-thing stage lol
User avatar
nightshade2010
Huggy Chickens
Huggy Chickens
Posts: 299
Joined: Mar 27, 2011 10:49 pm

Post  Posted:

isn't gleaner heights (or something closed to that spelling) sort of horror based ?
Post Reply