Rainy Day, High Tide, And A Drop of Moonlight
Day and Night
Fireflies at Night!
The little things in video games makes a huge difference when you’re trying to enjoy your game. So, there’s fireflies at night! In every tree you see!
Plus the day and night cycle which is very important as it affects animals, aquatic life, and plants!
The fireflies don’t have any purpose other than being an eye candy, but don’t you like them?
High Tide and Low Tide
High tide and low tides play an important role in Harvest Island. They allow you to explore new areas based on the time of day!
Along the beach shore, you can wait for the tide to lower and a new path opens up! I took this inspiration from Le Mont Saint Michel. It’s a castle that is surrounded by sand and when the tide goes up, the castle is inaccessible and it’s surrounded by an ocean! Pretty cool, huh?
And if you notice, when the tide is low, you can pick up or gather sea critters and seashells on the ocean floor! This feature highlights the importance of collecting items from the island. Which is very important in order to progress through the story. I’ll be adding other things on the seafloor to collect like a horseshoe crab!
Harvest Island Weather System
It's Raining!
The weather system is pretty important in Harvest Island. It creates new dynamics in the game. For example, when it rains, the animals hide. So you won’t be able to find them anywhere. But you’ll be able to find other critters coming out when it rains.
For now, I’ve added worms to the game where they will only pop up when rain falls to the ground. There will be more to add but for now, this is what I can showcase.
Adding a weather system ups the game feature a lot. It makes the world more dynamic and gives you options on what you want to do during the time that you have in that day. In game developer terms, you’re giving more life to maps. In gamer terms, more content that you can play.
Ecological System
There’s an ecological system that I have implemented in the game. Where animals are dependent on the time of day. Just like how the weather system affects the animals in real life, so does the game!
Nocturnal animals will come out during the night such as a raccoon but during the day, you might spot a deer in the forest grazing on the grass. They will only come out during the day.
The ecological system is pretty dynamic in change the environment and changing the animal’s behaviors.
Aquatic animals that you can find at the beach shore are very dependent on these ecological strain that the game is providing. Certain starfish comes out at night and others during the day. Crabs will only be out during the day, and sometimes they will hide under a rock. Sea lions will come out during the day, and different types of fish will come out during the night.
Harvest Island Trailer
The Effects of Weather and Day System
I’ve added a couple of screenshots of the game where the day and night system affects certain sea life. From the top two images, you can catch fish during the day near by the bridge but at night, they’ll be gone. But there are opportunities to catch other sea life when it’s at night! For example, shrimp! In order to catch shrimp, you must craft a fishing net, then toss it near the beach shore and after wrestling with the net, you’ll be able to catch shrimp! Which you can use shrimp as bait to catch larger fish!
Harvest Island Progress
Follow us!
So interesting thing that happened with Harvest Island. I was offered a publishing deal for my game. A publishing deal is where the publisher takes some revenue from the game in exchange to fund the game as well as market the game which is what Harvest Island needs!
But unfortunately after days of trying to agree to terms, the publisher couldn’t offer what I needed. They asked for 50% of the game revenue and wouldn’t provide distribution, manufacturing, finance, age rating, dev kits, legal finance, and advance pay which is standard of the publisher to provide in the gaming industry.
The only thing they were willing to offer is marketing and quality assurance (Game testing). I talked to my lawyer and he said it’s one of the worse deals ever. He gave me a number of what the contract was worth. “Not even 5%” Wow. I think I dodged a bullet if I had signed that contract.
So that happened and that has set back Harvest Island just a tad because of legal fees of paying my lawyer to review a publishing contract. On the bright side of this, I’ve learned that I will self publish Harvest Island and will not work with publishers. What that means is that I’ll continue to write blogs, keep you updated on the game development and make sure this game is released for you guys to play and enjoy without legal problems or unexpected hold backs!
Even though the game is needs exposure and marketing, I believe this game will shine when it gets released.
So, to help me with the marketing, join all of my social medias for updates, new, and planned features! And wishlist Harvest Island on Steam! Make sure you check out my other blogs from Harvest Island if you haven’t read them!
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