Hardin's Harvest

What started out as a simple farming game to develop my skills, turned into a 9-month project (and continuing) that I've poured my heart into. It's about a scarecrow called Hardin, who wants to restore the island to what it used to be before the previous inhabitants destroyed it. The beautiful nature of the island can be restored by discovering and bringing back the distinctive Crop Harmonies from each biome in the island.

The aim of the game is to bring the island back to life with new scarecrow villagers and restored biomes. This includes farming to improve the reputation of the town, as well as mining fossils to discover hints about the different Crop Harmonies. The player can keep track of the progress by checking the Harmony Journal, an in-game book with information about all the Crop Harmonies and the different biome collectables.

Player inventory

Including several tabs for storage, crafting, town reputation, Harmony Journal and relationships, it has everything the player needs to stay organised and fully immersed in the game world!

The storage part of the inventory allows the player to:

• Split item stacks

• Merge item stacks

• Swap items between inventory slots

These are some of the implemented features:

Farming

Includes the core farming mechanics:

• Plowing dirt

• Planting a seed

• Watering a specific number of days, depending on the crop

• Harvesting, including re-harvestable crops

• Buying seeds for the current season

These are also affected by weather and seasons, with crops withering in the wrong season

Crafting

Includes an intuitive tab-based categorisation of items, as well as icons of the different items that can be crafted. These items are greyed out if the player doesn't have the needed ingredients, and in colour if they do.

It also shows a dynamic UI when the player hovers over the item, clearly indicating what ingredients are missing or not.

Additionally, the player doesn't need to be carrying those items, as items in any chests are included and automatically used!

Shop

Includes previews so that the player can clearly see all the available items to buy. Then, the player can click on one and a dynamic notepad opens with all the information.
Additionally, it has different amount addon buttons so that the player can buy as many as needed!

Villager Schedules

Each villager has unique, dynamic schedules that changes throughout the day and season. Currently, there are two fully implemented villagers, with more in development. Their routine reflects their personalities and roles in the town.

Weather & Seasons

Includes the 4 seasons, with graphical changes in all tiles. Additionally, environmental collectables and crops are different depending on the season.

There are also 7 different weather types, including sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, drizzling, raining, storming and snowing. The chances of these happening depend on the current season.

Collectables

With five distinct biomes and four seasons in the game, I wanted to ensure that collectables never felt repetitive. To keep exploration engaging, collectables within each biome change based on the season, offering a variety of items to discover throughout the year. Each collectable also has its own rarity, making some items more rewarding to find.

Saving System

Main menu including the option to create a new save with a random or specific seed, as well as a continue and load button with a short summary of all saves.
To protect player's saves, each save is automatically backed up with a second file to make sure that the save can be recovered in the case of a file corruption.