Our monthly developer diary series will give you a little bit of insight into the development behind Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley. Fans have regularly asked us to “peel back the mysterious curtain” on game development, and we’re happy to share some of what goes into a game. JULYS DEVELOPER DIARY: THE NEW TOOL SYSTEM When we sat down to design Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, we wanted to really study what made the game fun. We wanted to maintain the core value of hard work leading to great rewards while minimizing what may detract from a fun game. So we took a long, hard look at the tool system and decided to go back to the drawing board. We came to the conclusion that gameplay should flow. So we decided to make the following changes to the tool system: 1. Make tools context-sensitive. When you are standing in front of a tree, for example, there are only certain actions you are logically able to do to the tree. You cant shear or milk the tree, so, if you have an axe in your bag, the game will automatically know that you want to chop the tree down. All you have to do is walk up to the tree, push the A Button, and you will chop the tree down! Now you dont need to open the menu to select and equip a tool, slowing down the flow of gameplay. 2. Instead of upgrading your tools, the Harvest Sprites now act as your tool upgrades. It can be frustrating hunting down the exact type of ore you need to upgrade your tools, as well as time consuming. Therefore, in this game, all you have to do is ask the Harvest Sprites for their help, and theyll be able to water your crops, mine material stone, collect lumber, and more. You wont ever have to worry about taking your tools to get upgraded, which will let you save time and explore the land! 3. Everything in your bag is at your disposal! Since you can stack up to 255 of each item, storage wont be a problem! You wont have to run back to your house, get items from your tool box or refrigerator, and so on, because you can keep everything in your bag. Therefore, when villagers need an item, you wont have to worry about not having it! Your trusty bag will help you save tons of time. Everything in Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley has been reinvented, renewed, and reinvigorated! In the end, it is our goal to make our hardcore Harvest Moon fans happy, bring back players of the series that haven’t played in a while, and introduce new gamers to the loveable, non-violent world of Harvest Moon! We want these and the other features to feel like a very small, smooth change that will have a huge impact on how players spend their time in-game.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 16:47:11 +0000
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