Homegrown Version 0.4!

Before moving on to the UI update I wanted to spend one week adding content into the game, to make use of all the gameplay feature that have been added over the course of version 0.4. So in this update there are three new vegetables to grow and a whole load of new items available!

Gamer Tier+ patrons can download and play Homegrown here.

And for Programmer Tier+ patrons the code is available here.

New Vegetables

There are three new vegetables this week: broccoli, sweetcorn and beans. The broccoli and sweetcorn are fairly standard vegetables but the beans are a bit more interesting. Like the tomatoes they can climb up supports, so if you provide them with something to climb they'll be able to produce more beans. You can then use the secateurs tool to harvest the beans without removing the plant, so you'll be able to get multiple harvests from them. The plants will eventually die of old age though and will then need to be replaced.

There are also some new changes to the plant support system. When you remove a climbing plant from a support there's a chance that the support will break. The chance of breakage now depends on the weight of the plant and the strength of the support used. As an example, I've made the beans much heavier than the tomatoes so if you use the basic wooden support you'll find a lot of them breaking when you remove your bean plants. The broken supports have to be replaced which could become a bit costly.

Therefore, you may decide to invest in the "sturdy supports" that have been added to the tool shop in this update. These are more expensive than the basic supports but are five times stronger, so won't break as much. If you can afford the initial cost they'll turn out to be a good investment in the long run, and will also save you a bit of time as you won't need to keep replacing them.

New Fertilizers

The compost shop has received a big shipment of new fertilizers! There are still only four types of fertilizer for now, but each one is now available in three possible tiers. So as your farm becomes bigger and more profitable you'll be able to invest in the higher tiered fertilizers to receive more powerful buffs for your plants and soil.

One thing I still need to sort out is the system of applying these fertilizers to your compost. For now, if you try to apply two fertilizers of the same type to your compost it will only use the higher tiered one. For example, this means you can't create a compost with both the Moisturizer I and Moisturizer II buffs - it will only take the higher tiered buff.

Balancing Changes

There have also been a few small balancing changes this week. Nothing too drastic, just a few changes to shop prices, growth speeds and things like that. The change you may notice the most is that plants need a bit more watering than before, especially the slower-growing plants. 

The reason for this is that previously almost all plants just needed two waterings in their lifetime: one to get them started and another half way through their growth. This made the Water Retention buffs (such as the Moisturizer fertilizer) a bit pointless; you could delay that second watering but ultimately you'd still be watering each plant twice. Now that each plant needs watering more often, the water buffs are much more effective in reducing the amount of watering you have to do.

New Collectible Trophy

Finally, there's another new collectible trophy available in the tool shop - a statue of the bunny from Equilinox. Don't forget to copy across your achievements.dat file if you want to keep any previously unlocked trophies. All unlocked trophies will spawn in your house storage when you start a new game.

Up Next...

So, it's finally time for the long awaited UI overhaul! This is going to be a large update and I'll most likely be working on this for the rest of the year. Some of the topics that will be covered over the next months include:

• Visual overhaul for the entire UI
• Main Menu
• Improved UI content (item descriptions, more information + stats, better feedback to user)
• Inventory/storage system changes
• Item upgrade system improvements

First up though, I'm starting this week by implementing an audio system, because I'm going to want the UI to have some sound effects!