Space to Grow Game Info:
- Release Type: Commercial (?), Open Source
- Projected Release Date: December 2018
- Genre: Sci-fi Farming and Raising Sim Visual Novel
Jack and Kelly struggled through their first two years of marriage in the first game, Our Personal Space, and are now embarking on a new adventure - parenting. Be an authoritarian tiger dad, or a laid-back buddy dad, or anything inbetween while at the same time choosing your crops to carefully meet your family's and community's needs. Lead your community as you navigate between several factions: the rich megacorp R.E.T. from Earth and its miners, your fellow colonists, and a group of maverick farmers who split off and formed their own settlement.
Progress:
- TEXT: 50%, 50,000 words so far! Rachel is writing the community events and I am writing the parenting events, and we both help each other out to try to keep a consistent tone. We have events where you have to decide how to deal with new miners that arrive as well as family events where you choose your approach to potty-training, sibling rivalry, chores, allowances, and more!
- GRAPHICS: 5% We have started on some new backgrounds and sprites in a slightly different style (see below).
- GUI: 60% We have picked a color scheme (dark green and tan), and have some of the interface customized.
- CODE: 60% The initial farming interface has been coded, but lots still needs to be fleshed out. We have functions for getting/setting parenting style and variables for relationships and kid's development attributes.
- MUSIC: 10% We have picked a style (acoustic guitar solos), and have started sorting through to choose individual songs. One artist we're looking at is Jeff Wahl.
- Influence your child's development from baby to young adult through parenting decisions
- Experiment with a variety of crops to feed and satistfy your community.
- A community of interrelated NPCs with their own motivations, families, and stories
- Science fiction setting that blends modern technology and old-fashioned frontier improvisation
- Open source code licensed under the GPLv3 and other licenses.
TBD
Our Team
- Andrea Landaker: Lead Designer, Programmer, Writer
- Rachel Helps: Designer, Writer, Programmer
- Clarissa Helps: Character Artist
- Other team members may join for music and art as needed.
Each year, the player uses a grid diagram to plan what crops to plant where. The user will have to get a minimum number of calories and nutrition, and from there can try to maximize fun and minimize work. Older kids can be conscripted to help on the farm to increase the amount of work you can do. Different kinds of crops have the following variables:
- Calories - how much raw energy they provide
- Nutrition - how much nutrition (vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc) they provide
- Fun - how versatile, unusual, and well-liked this crop is.
- Work Required - how much work is required for one square compared to other crops
Parenting Gameplay
Parenting choices are heavily influenced by Baumrind's research into parenting styles. Parenting decisions will affect the daughter's development of three main traits: Attachment, Competence, and Independence. Different combinations of these at the end of the game will lead to different endings (sort of like Princess Maker). In addition, these decisions will affect later parts of the story.
Community Development
There will also be opportunities to influence the direction of the community's decisions and interaction with the R.E.T. corporation and its miners who've arrived to bring natural resources back to Earth.
Questions for YOU
- Did you play the first game? If so, would you be sad if some of your decisions did not carry over (Kelly's profession, hobbies, decision to have kids or not?)?
- Does this sound fun/interesting?
- The first game had a female protag, and this game has a male protag. Does that bother you or make you less likely to play?
- I want there to be some interaction between farming decisions and parenting decisions; any ideas about that?
- What kinds of parenting issues/dilemmas would you like to see in this kind of game?
- What kind of tropes/ideas have been done to death and you hope not to see in a farming/parenting game?