HomeGrown News: Gamescom, New Graphics, Logo, Fruit Trees

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates recently - I had to wait until I was allowed to tell you this news and talk about what I've been preparing for over the last couple of months. But the lineup is now official, so I'm excited to tell you that I'll be exhibiting HomeGrown at this year's Gamescom in Cologne!

I've spent much of my time recently preparing for the event, both in terms of development and on the marketing side of things. Read on to find out about everything I've been working on!

Gamer Tier+ patrons can download and play Homegrown here.

And for Programmer Tier+ patrons the code is available here.

New Graphics

After my application to Gamescom got accepted I shuffled around my development plan a bit to prioritize things that I needed before the event. I had to provide promotional screenshots and a trailer for the game recently, so I brought forward my planned graphical update and have been polishing up the look of the game.

Most of the models in the home area of the game have been reworked, including almost all the vegetables, the trees, and the house. I've also had another go at the colours and lighting in an attempt to make the graphics more vibrant and appealing.

Not all the artwork has been completely updated yet, so you'll find the occasional object looking a bit off and some plants missing a growth stage model or two. The whole town area is yet to be updated, so it looks a bit different to the updated home area, and appears slightly gloomy in the new lighting conditions. This will of course all be fixed very soon!

Harvesting Effect

As well as polishing up the graphics, I'd also like to get the tool actions feeling as satisfying as possible before Gamescom. With that in mind, I implemented a new effect for when you harvest your crops, so that they now fly from the ground into your inventory.

I initially tried implementing this using a physics based approach - applying gravity and a pulling force to the flying vegetables. However, I found that to be a bit unreliable and they would sometime fly right off the screen or go into orbit around the inventory.

So I switched to an interpolation based approach, essentially creating an easing function that smoothly moves the vegetable to it's target position. That way I was able to ensure that the vegetable always ends up in exactly the right position, at exactly the right time.

Fruit Trees

This version of the game also includes the fruit tree update! Currently there's only one in the game, the apple tree, but more will be joining it soon. These slow-growing crops can be planted on grass, and the fruit can be harvested periodically using the secateurs.

The fruit trees have a new farming mechanic associated with them, which is pruning. Every now and again excess branches will grow out of the trees. If left there, these will slowly have a negative effect on the plant's health. So if you want to get the best out of your fruit trees you'll want to cut these extra branches off using the new pruning tool.

Promo Art and Logo

In preparation for Gamescom I've been working together with artist Sibylle Hell (@nomnomroko) who has been creating some of the art-work I'll be using for promoting the game. She's created a lovely logo for HomeGrown, as well as some promo art (such as the illustration above) and the banner that will be the backdrop of my Gamescom booth.

Music, Website, Steam Page - Coming Soon!

There are lots of other things in the works at the moment as I prepare for Gamescom. Jamal (who also composed the music for Equilinox) has started working on the HomeGrown soundtrack. I've also begun designing the website for the game, and the Steam page will be ready fairly soon.

That's all for now! Thank you as always for your support, and I hope to see some of you at Gamescom in August!