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Club of a Seed Merchant Game Design
Project Summary
Before pursuing a career in the gaming industry I had intended of becoming an ethnobotanist (a scientist that studies the use and impact of plants in cultures). Inspired from this, I began to experiment by creating a crop growing game with a twist. Crops would have more than one harvest stage and there being seed scarcity within the game.
While it started as an experimental piece with a vague design concept, it was developed further through trial and error. This I took from my own gameplay as well as observing my family experiences to it. This was added to from research into the UI design and layout of other games within the same genre.
Skills used
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C# coding
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Researching & application
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User testing
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Adobe Illustrator UI art creation
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Time Management
Project Objectives
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Create mechanisms found in a farming game
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Develop C# coding knowledge focusing on Events and Scriptable Objects
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Create 3D scenery from Tile maps within Unity
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Experiment with player movement
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Develop UI art creation techniques and assembling these in game with layout groups
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Experiment with UX principles
What went well
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A functional game was created at the end based on a strong plant growing satisfaction loop.
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I was able to create adaptive and recyclable UI assets with the technique of working in greyscale before applying a single colour behind the asset.
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There were opportunities to use UI mechanics such as coding button interactions for purchases, missions and other actions.
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I was able to achieve my project objectives.
Footage showing the crop growing cycle
Challenges
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On first creation it was an experimental piece which didn’t have any concrete plan of action. This led to clashes requiring the code and structure of the game to be organised. For instance, having the ability to buy seeds when they are supposed to be scarce, this feature was created initially in earlier prototypes for functionality before being adapted to helpful power items.
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As the game developed and more action features were put in place, the UI layout started to become crowded and less clear in the original V layout. This impacted on the sunflower design sowing panel in the bottom centre which was to act as a focus point. Also the layout lead to greater time delay between actions due to a greater mouse distance.
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Player movement using a forward and back movement and a separate rotation keys became confusing during game testing after observation in person with family and online with friends. This would work for vehicle movement where it is expected to steer but didn’t work well for generic player movement.
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The monochrome brown UI assets creation was less appealing and scored poorly on colour contrast ratio regarding visual accessibility. Also these tended to blend into each other and not stand out.
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When applying Enums for the different crop stages it became harder to manipulate this with the rest of the code compared to other techniques.
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Whilst working on the UI buttons I found it complicated to code whether a button should be interactable or not until I discovered there was an in-built feature that solved this problem.
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Saving and Loading feature required a lot of code reorganising after discovering issues with JSON compatibility with Scriptable Objects.
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While the system of growing crops and missions gave a sense of satisfaction and a relaxed feel to the game, it felt like there was a lack of challenge or pressure to the strategy aspect during game play.
Learnings, outcome and improvement
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Planning decisions ahead of time rather than within the moment would help a lot in avoiding problems and providing a direction of when the project was finished. This became more important after the initial goal outcomes were met.
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Every aspect of a game such as UI, VFX, and action sequences plays an important role to the emotional and satisfaction game experience.
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After considering Fitt’s law and the hierarchy patterns referred in Gestalt Principles, I decided to adjust the layout to a Z shape and where all actions buttons were based along the bottom of the screen. These were split into a help and main in-game actions at opposite ends of the screen. This created a more structured and clearer user experience.
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I was able to experiment with some different accessibility features such as having a tutorial, left and right handed UI option mode, and colour changes for the stamina bar and player.
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For the colour change using a spectrum leading from blue rather than green to red. This would help those with red-green colour blindness to have a similar experience whilst using a common convention of blue referring to high stamina and red as low.
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Weather, seasons, stamina, and day cycle mechanics were introduced as some of the latest features to the game. It helped improve the strategy aspect of gameplay while retaining a relaxed experienced. This added extra excitement and challenges on how you managed in a dynamic environment.
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The UI assets were adapted by adding black or white outlines inspired from observations in icon designs used in Song of the Prairie. This helped with making the UI more clearer and distinct.
Demonstration of the player and stamina bar colour changing as energy decreases from actions.
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