30 Oct 2024
Today’s update brings several new features, improvements, and gameplay adjustments to Idle Garden. Here’s what’s new:
Soil Management and Fertility System
- Soil Manager: This update introduces Soil Plots. Soil will degrade over time as it is used to grow plants.
- Fertility Mechanics: Fertility plays a role in the number of seeds available for withered plants as well as the price for harvested ones. Depleted soil yields no seeds, while fully fertile soil provides a seed bonus (up to 10 for fully fertile and 5 for partially fertile). Selling plants from fertile soil also grants a fertility bonus, with alerts to notify players.
- Fertilizer and Consumables: Fertilizer is now available in the shop and can be applied directly from your inventory. Adding the fertilizer concept has let to a new Consumables system, which not only handles fertilizer but also seeds and harvested plants. Consumables are accessible from the shed for easy management.
Shed Updates
- Inventory Overhaul: The shed now organizes harvested plants into an inventory rather than a simple count, providing more options for future development.
- Shed Actions: Labels in the shed have been renamed, with “Harvested” changed to Inventory and “Seeds” to Shop.
- Visuals & Performance: With the significant additions of Inventory and Consumables, the previous system for handling the shed has become a bit janky. You will notice for instance that fertilizer shows it’s quantity in the same column as seeds. Ultimately, I’ll be working to completely rethink the intersection of Inventory and Purchasing. Because I’m a bit in between concepts programmatically, the performance of closing the shed is not as smooth. This will be addressed as I work out the kinks above.
Other Changes
- Plant Management: Plants are now tracked as objects rather than integers, allowing more detailed management of their soil plot associations.
- Save/Load Disabled: For now, save/load functionality has been disabled to prevent compatibility issues during development. I’ll revisit this once things stabilize.
- Sound Effects: New sound effects have been added and integrated into the Sound Manager for using fertilizer.
That’s it for v0.19! These changes bring more depth to the gameplay and lay the groundwork for future updates.
Happy gardening! 🌼
17 Sep 2024
Hey everyone! Version 0.18 of Idle Garden is now live. Today’s update is a big visual one! From the start, I’ve wanted to replace the AI-generated art used in the early releases, and with version 0.18, Idle Garden now includes only custom pixel art. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m no artist, so I won’t claim that all the art is perfect. But as I learn more about creating pixel art, I’m hopeful that things will continue to improve.
Switching to the new pixel sprites also results in more space-saving, reducing the overall game file size.
Flower Growth Stages
I’ve also made improvements to the growth stages for flowers. It should now be much clearer when a flower is ready to be harvested. This small tweak should make gameplay a little smoother.
There’s a minor update to the button sprites introduced in the last version, adding a slight drop shadow for better visibility. On top of that, I’ve been working on a major refactor of the UI handling system. This change will allow for more flexibility in the future, such as the new background animations you’ll now see across the game.
Bug Fixes
This version also fixes a bug related to loading, which previously caused the game to crash when shed assets were being loaded.
That’s it for v0.18! Stay tuned for more updates.
Happy gardening! 🌼
02 Sep 2024
Hey everyone! Version 0.17 of Idle Garden is now live, bringing several major updates and improvements.
Garden Shed
The biggest addition in this update is the introduction of the Garden Shed. The shed is where your harvested plants and seeds will now be stored. You can sell your harvest directly from the shed and purchase more seeds. A key change here is that plant and seed types are now differentiated. Previously, red flowers and blue flowers shared the same seed and were planted at random. Now, you can directly select which type of flower you’d like to plant from within the shed. Additionally, you’ll notice a new selection box in the sidebar to show you your current seed choice. Any auto sellers you hire will also now hang out around the shed to pickup your harvest.
New Looks
As I continue updating Idle Garden’s art to custom pixel art, it felt like the right time to choose a more fitting font. All in-game text now uses the Tiny 5 pixel font. I’ve also updated the buttons with new pixel art images, and I’m much happier with how they look compared to the previous design. There are still some cosmetic tweaks I want to make, though. The new design allows button images to be dynamically generated based on the length of the text. While this is convenient from a programming perspective, it does cause some issues with placement. So, for now, you might notice that some buttons don’t line up perfectly or look a bit unpolished. I’ll be working on a fix for this, but I wanted to get this release out as soon as possible.
Other Changes
- The score requirements for leveling up have been adjusted higher.
- Various sidebar labels have been removed.
- The global buy and sell buttons have also been removed from the sidebar.
That’s all for this update! Stay tuned for more updates.
Happy gardening! 🌼
20 Aug 2024
Hey everyone! I’m excited to announce the release of version 0.16 of Idle Garden. This update brings new character sprites and info for automators, a fresh intro screen, and several behind-the-scenes changes.
Automation Characters
The most significant change in today’s update is the introduction of Automation Characters. Previously, automations ran in the background with no visual indication. Now, in version 0.16, automations are tied to character sprites that will spawn on the screen and move around as they complete their tasks. Each automation type has its own unique character design. You can click on your automators to see their name and how much work they’ve completed in the garden.
Intro Screen
Version 0.16 also introduces a basic intro screen that provides players with some initial guidance on how to play. While this screen is pretty rudimentary right now, it’s a step in the direction I want to take the game. The intro screen displays each time you start a new game, but it won’t show up if you load from a previous save. (Note on Saves: As mentioned in a previous update, saves from version to version are not currently supported and will fail. I’m working on creating a save upgrading system, but that’s still TBD.)
Continued Refactors
This release also continues the refactor process I talked about in the last update.
Sound Manager
Music and sound effects were previously scattered throughout the codebase. Now, they’re contained within a new manager class. From a feature standpoint, this means players can now mute both music and sound effects. Plus, this setting is saved and will persist when loading from a save.
As more buttons have been added over time, the button class became unwieldy, managing too many concerns. Version 0.16 pulls button actions out into a separate module, making it easier to manage what actions buttons perform and simplifying the code that handles creating and displaying them. Players will notice that button text size has been increased for better legibility, and the sound for rejected clicks (e.g., trying to buy something without enough cash) is new and more noticeable. Buttons in the pause menu have also been reorganized, and the mute/unmute buttons now correctly update their text.
That’s all for this update! Stay tuned for more updates.
Happy gardening! 🌼
13 Aug 2024
Hey everyone! Version 0.15 of Idle Garden is out today. While there aren’t any new features in this update, there are significant changes under the hood that will impact the game’s performance and future development.
Game Class Refactor
As the game has grown beyond its initial concept, I’ve accumulated a fair amount of technical debt. The Game Class, which handles the core game logic, had become bloated and was managing too many responsibilities. With this update, I’ve significantly reduced the size of the Game Class by splitting its functionality into a series of Manager Classes (UI Manager, Plant Manager, Automation Manager, and Load Manager). This restructuring is a work in progress, but it already makes me feel much more confident about adding new features in the future.
Save / Load Game
As mentioned above, I’ve moved the responsibility of loading saved games to a new Load Manager Class. This should improve the process of reconstructing saved data over time. However, due to the scale of the changes in version 0.15, saves from prior versions will likely fail to load going forward. While the game is in active development, save/load compatibility might break between versions. I could spend more time ensuring saves are always compatible, but I don’t think it’s a good investment while the game is still evolving.
Major Size Reduction
Version 0.15 is nearly half the size of 0.14, which should especially benefit players on the web, as load times are now significantly faster. This reduction was achieved by removing a large amount of unused assets now that we’ve switched to the new pixel art spritesheets.
That’s all for this update! Stay tuned for more updates.
Happy gardening! 🌼