Dev Log #2 (Flora's Potions and Sundries)

Uuuuuugh. Holidays, man. Nuts. I've now finished family things for the next few weeks (anniversary is coming next month...). My twins had their third birthday on the 11th. Honestly, birthdays should be days where children beg their parents for forgiveness and then go to their room and meditate for 24 hours. That should be how we celebrate birthdays.

Anyway, I've been building things. Something I've learned over the process of making the locations in this game is that whenever I make them simple, I always find a reason/need to improve them later, so this is the first example of an environment that I am making "complete" from the very beginning. I took a base model for the structure and made completely unique textures, added things, changed things, and the final shop is thus:

(Please note that I have not yet added it into the city and the lighting is strong so that I can see what I'm doing)

So, Flora came to town about ten years ago and purchased this old building. It had been standing unused for decades, so the roof was in dire need of repairs, and the flooring of the second-floor loft space was rotten to the core. She decided to take the entire second floor out, leaving a relatively tall store in the bottom level (she lives elsewhere, so there was no need for the original live-in section of the building).

The interior is where I spent a great deal of my time. The display counter is a custom model, the potions use some stock assets with custom textures (and a few custom bottles). The actual building interior is also custom-made since the building I used for the outside is slightly too small for my purposes. The rug is custom (obvs).

This location is going to be one of the places the player can spend money once the game expands, as well as find special items to impress some characters (during dates or so forth). It also plays an integral role in the early story (if nothing else, it's a clue location).

The bookshelf is stocked with bartered goods. You see, Flora deals in potions and scrolls, so her main customer base is traveling adventurers. In the event that said adventurer needs a potion but can't pay, she allows them to barter with items they've collected on their travels. If those items are simple equipment, she sells it to other merchants, but if it's unique or otherwise interesting, she'll keep it in the store. The player will find some very interesting potions here.

And I think that's pretty much it. I have 90% of the coding finished for the next update (it'll be small as far as content is concerned, but once all of the environments are in place, I can focus more on expanding content). Other than that, I'm going to spend some time rendering Lani's first affection scene and building out the environments for the final patrol clue. If all goes according to plan, the next game release should be this time next week.