Homegrown 0.5.5 - New Tree Features!

Over the last month I've been implementing various tree related features, including cutting trees, raking up leaves, and growing saplings! Originally this was going to have more of a connection to the town area (hence it's part of the "Town Gameplay" update that I'm currently working through) but I ended up changing my plans a bit. Oh well - I decided to implement these tree features now anyway because I'd been really looking forward to them!

You can see how I implemented the trees in the latest devlog video.

Gamer Tier+ patrons can download and play Homegrown here.

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

Gamer Tier+ patrons can also try out some simple mod creation here.

Cutting Trees

First up, I've added a way to remove trees from your farm, which you might wish to do to make more space for growing crops. Just buy yourself an axe from the tool shop and get chopping!

Different trees take different amounts of time to cut down. There are only two tree types currently in the game but I'll definitely be adding more. In order to cut down the higher tier trees you'll probably want to upgrade your axe a bit first, which you can do at the upgrade shop in town.

Selling your Logs

A new shop has opened up in town: the Raw Materials shop! Here you're able to sell any logs that you've gained from cutting trees, along with other raw materials which will be added in future updates.

I tried out a slightly different building style for this shop's model. I'm still not completely decided on what the buildings in town should look like, so I'm experimenting with a few options. I quite like the look of the roof on the new shop, so perhaps I'll switch to that style for all the other shops too. Once I'm finished with all the gameplay features I'll be doing another big graphics update, so I'll finalize the looks then.

Falling Leaves

Now that there's the option to cut down trees it might seem like the obvious thing to do; just cut down every tree you come across to make more space for farming and sell the logs. That's a bit boring though, so I wanted to add some sort of benefit of keeping trees in your farm so that it would provide the player with a more interesting decision to make.

In the end I decided that the tree could act as a good source of "plant waste" - an important resource in Homegrown as it's used to make compost which many plants require to grow. Most farming actions already give you plant waste as a by-product, but the trees will be a useful renewable source of this compostable material.

They do this by dropping leaves every now and again, with the leaves collecting at the base of the tree over time. You can then use the new rake tool to rake them up into your inventory. There's a maximum number of leaves that can collect under each tree though, so you will need to rake occasionally to keep the source of leaves flowing.

Upgrading your Rake

Homegrown is all about scaling and growth and that applies to your need for compost as well. As your farm expands and you grow larger numbers of higher tiered crops, your compost requirements are going to increase quite significantly. In order for the leaf dropping feature to stay relevant, there needed to be a way for the leaf supply to scale up as well.

One way that this will naturally occur is that you'll acquire new trees as you purchase new plots of land for your farm. This will certainly help, but it won't scale in the exponential way that your need for compost will.

So to help with this, I've added an "Efficiency" stat to the rake which can be upgraded. The higher your rake's efficiency, the more plant waste it will collect when raking up leaves.

Saplings and Growing Trees

I also added tree saplings to the game this week, so you're able to grow your own trees. However, I'm still undecided about how and when you should receive these sapling items.

I'm not sure if buying them from the shop would be too easy, and it might be hard to scale properly as your farm becomes more and more profitable and the sapling prices become easier and easier for you to afford. I'll probably add them to the reward pools for the restaurant task system and the vegetable competition, but for now the only time you get them is when you cut down a tree.

When a tree is chopped down you receive one sapling for that type of tree. This means that removing a tree is not permanent - you'll be able to grow it again. However, the saplings take ages to grow (currently around 30 mins, but I need to do more play-testing and balancing) so the downside is you'll be without that source of falling leaves for quite a while. I thought this could allow the player to be strategic about when they cut down trees, depending on their current compost supply situation.

Coming Soon...

Just a few more town features to do before I move back to the home area to implement the final farming features. Next I'll be working on the villagers, then I have a few more shops to add to the town, and to finish I'll be revisiting some of the earlier town features such as the farmers' market.

Thanks for reading, and thanks as always for your support!

Karl