Design Introduction - UQcsse3200/2023-studio-1 GitHub Wiki

Introduction

Gardens of the Galaxy will be a relaxed farming sim style game with an upbeat and fun feeling. Players will be in charge of growing and caring for various plants. They will be given smaller tasks or quests to complete with the overall goal of terraforming a new planet for them and their new alien friends.

Storyline

(We are aiming to develop a deep lore for this game. As that develops the storyline will become more fleshed out)

You have left earth and made some new alien friends. These friends need your expert gardening skills to help them terraform a new planet for you to co-exist on! They will help and guide you along the way as you work together growing and caring for new plants or maybe even discovering new plant species.

Best Storyline vote winner: The Race for Candidate 1

Earth as we know it has been ravaged by war and plague. Our reckless pursuit of technology and power revealed our presence to the greater galaxy, inviting a new challenger for a divided Earth to face. These new visitors waged a war against us, unleashing terrifying new energy weaponry against our primitive kinetic armaments. Although Earth is left a barren landscape, a tapestry of battlefields and massacres which has grown like a cancer across the planet, Humanity has persevered. We now look to the stars for hope, a new place to call home. We will find our salvation in Alpha Centauri, but first we must figure out how to get there...

Game play features

Players will have an overall task to complete which will mark the end of the game, however, players may also choose to continue playing and caring for plants. Players will have smaller tasks/quests which they will have to complete to reach the end of the game. Some examples of tasks would be:

  • Having your planet reach a certain oxygen level
  • Producing a certain amount of food
  • Researching and/or growing a particular species of plant

Players will be able to purchase and plant seeds, care for those seeds by watering and fertilising them and harvest from some plants. There is a research aspect to the game where players will have to conduct some research to unlock new seeds. Players may also have to protect their plants from some mean alien animals that want to destroy them.

Best Features vote winner: Casual Space Farming Sim

  • The game is continuous and real-time. You spend most time planting crops/plants, and caring for them (through water or fertiliser)
  • Planting crops - You must select a space or area of soil and plant the seeds
  • Caring for crops - All crops require some attention, some more than others. This most often involves ensuring all plants are sufficiently watered. Certain crops require different levels of attention at different stages of life. Moreover, certain crops do better when adjacent to other crops of a given type. Different crops require different conditions as well, such as the strength of UV light
  • Dynamic Greenhouses - You are able to change the strength of the UV lights in the greenhouses to match the requirements of plants. You may also have control over settings such as humidity, temperature etc. You may be able to request certain tools such as automatic sprinklers etc, which you are able to place and configure.
  • Expanding - As the needs of the colony expand, you may be given more greenhouses to plant your crops. Different greenhouses will have different allotted space, and can be used to differentiate plants with similar needs.
  • Research - As your horticultural skills improve, you will be able to research and genetically modify your crops to adjust their needs, yields and abilities. Perhaps you might find some plant which is able to emit a soft glow which warms nearby plants in a colder greenhouse. Perhaps you might discover a gene which makes the fruit of certain crops much larger. Perhaps there are some samples of soil from Earth that have remnants of plants common to the old world...

Art-style

[insert game name here] will be a colourful and high contrast simple pixel art style, drawing influence from games such as:

The design team believes that this style will help evoke a relaxed and fun feeling for our players while being relatively simple to implement.

Best Art Influences vote winner: The Race for Candidate 1