OPS2: Space to Grow [Sci-fi][Farming Sim][Raising Sim]

[qirien]

Our Personal Space 2:
Space to Grow

Title screen 1.1

Game Info:

• Release Type: Commercial (?), Open Source
• Projected Release Date: December 2018
• Genre: Sci-fi Farming and Raising Sim Visual Novel

Synopsis:
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: 85%, 92,000 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: 70% 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: 30% We have picked a style (acoustic guitar solos), and we have some songs picked out for different types of events. One artist we're looking at is Jeff Wahl.

Game Features:

• 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.
• Take charge of a community with several factions, each vying for the resources of Talaam.
• Science fiction setting that blends modern technology and old-fashioned frontier improvisation
• Open source code licensed under the GPLv3 and other licenses.

Soundtrack:
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.

Farming Gameplay
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

Growing the same type of crop in the same square year after year will decrease its yield, while rotating nitrogen-fixing crops and goat grazing will increase the yield. You can also clear new land to get more space for planting 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

1. 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?)?
2. Does this sound fun/interesting?
3. 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?
4. I want there to be some interaction between farming decisions and parenting decisions; any ideas about that?
5. What kinds of parenting issues/dilemmas would you like to see in this kind of game?
6. What kind of tropes/ideas have been done to death and you hope not to see in a farming/parenting game?

I appreciate the friendly, helpful community here and look forward to seeing your responses!

[Godline]

Yay! This is so exciting! <3

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?)?

>>> Not really, but one of the attractions of the first game was having lots of lots of choices and variations on what could eventuate.

Does this sound fun/interesting?

>>> Yeah, it's cute. Simming parenting is so much more fun than doing it IRL. Haha.

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?

>>> Makes me more eager to play really.

I want there to be some interaction between farming decisions and parenting decisions; any ideas about that?

>>> Whether you raise your child right to work on the farm? More harvest, more money, more choices on expensive stuff for the the child. IDK.

What kinds of parenting issues/dilemmas would you like to see in this kind of game?

>>> Real dilemmas faced at different ages. The screaming stage, the no stage, the rebellion stages... etc.

What kind of tropes/ideas have been done to death and you hope not to see in a farming/parenting game?

>>> I've never actually played a game like that before, so it's all new to me!

[YossarianIII]

Oh, cool! The farming/parenting angle sounds like an interesting idea for this sequel.


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?)?
Yes, I did! Honestly, I think I played to see 2 different endings anyway, so I really wouldn't care if the "canon" reboots to something other than what I chose.

Does this sound fun/interesting?
Yes, I liked the day system from the first game, and this one sounds like a cool update. I'm particularly interested in longer time frame of the story. I don't think I've played a game before where you go from young parent to middle-aged. Outside of obvious examples like the Civilization franchise, most game stories I know take place over short-ish periods of time.

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?
Nah, I'm down for whatever when it comes to protagonists.

I want there to be some interaction between farming decisions and parenting decisions; any ideas about that?

There could be a conflict in where you spend time (i.e. more time spent on the farm means less time spent with the kid)? I don't know what you plan on doing with the Calorie and Nutrition variables, but you could do something where not enough of a certain variable leads to sickness (like Papers, Please or This War of Mine) or where good Nutrition helps other stats grow more quickly.

(I say all this as someone who won't have to actually code the thing! )

What kinds of parenting issues/dilemmas would you like to see in this kind of game?
Not to get political or anything, but recently, I've seen a lot of parents online who are stressing out about how to explain bad events or tragedies to a child. Could be one angle. On the flip-side, I know a lot of great parenting fiction that just covers day-to-day stuff. (The movie Boyhood and the comic Building Stories both cover everyday parenthood over long spans of time.)

What kind of tropes/ideas have been done to death and you hope not to see in a farming/parenting game?
My main problem with Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley (both of which I love) was the constant repetition of dialogue. It kind of breaks the illusion if your protagonist is in love with someone and all they say when you talk to them is "Oh hello. Did you know Joe's favorite gift is cheese?" This is generally much less of a problem in visual novels, although sometimes adding little bits of continuity (like when a character remembers a previous decision in a later scene) can be a nice touch sometimes.

[qirien]

Thanks, guys! So nice to hear ideas from people whose work I admire.

Oh, good idea about Nutrition! Sometimes we forget about the hundreds of diseases caused simply by not getting enough of a certain nutrient (Scurvy, rickets, anemia, etc).

I think deciding how to talk about tragedies with kids is a great topic, too. Even though the game spans years, most of the decisions will be about small, everyday things (which we will then assume are representative of your parenting style as a whole). Just like love, it's the small parenting moments woven together that make up the whole...

[qirien]

Status update:
We have made progress! Things will probably slow down for me this summer as I now have 3 kids at home. But the game is coming along!

TEXT: 15%, 12,825 words so far! We have outlines for all 30 of the community and family events, and lots of different farming events depending on the player's crop choices. We know the basic mechanics of the game and now mainly need to fill out all the events with prose.

GRAPHICS: 5% We have started on some new backgrounds and sprites in a slightly different style (see below).

GUI: 50% We have picked a color scheme (dark green and tan), and have some of the interface customized.

CODE: 50% 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: 5% 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.

[num]

Hello, dropping in from neighboring thread! Also looking forward for this game!

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?)?
Never played the first game, I'll try to find some free time to play it!

Does this sound fun/interesting?
Of course it does! Raising sim type of game is kinda rare, so it's interesting to play anything new from the genre.

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?
Not at all! I personally like all kind of protags.

I want there to be some interaction between farming decisions and parenting decisions; any ideas about that?
Maybe something like a dilemma? farming generate more income, while parent - child relationship may deteriorate and vice versa.

What kinds of parenting issues/dilemmas would you like to see in this kind of game?
Different perspective on what's best for raising the child between both parents?

What kind of tropes/ideas have been done to death and you hope not to see in a farming/parenting game?
In the usual farming games (harvest moon, stardew valley, etc.) the child is usually just there as an accessories or achievement. I'd actually like to see more interaction and focus on the child since this is also a raising game.

[qwertyculous]

I made an account to tell you this: I really really loved the first game. Got me through a breakup, and I play it sometimes with max stats as a chilling game.

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?)?
Sad, maybe not, but I did feel like the doctor profession was the strongest and most fun route, so that's sort of my "canon" Kelly. The other things are minimal.

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 will play this regardless just because of the first one, but I admit I don't like playing male protags. Not sure why, but I have trouble getting invested. Maybe I'm incapable of playing something without hamfistedly shoving a self insert in.

I'm very excited to see this is a thing!

[qirien]

Wow, thank you for your kind comments! I'm glad you agree that the doctor profession is the best; we've decided that's the "canon" profession for OPS2.

We're having a lot of fun writing as Jack, and it's actually really interesting to see Kelly from his point of view. I think his decisions and dilemmas are something anyone can relate to, especially people interested in parenting and/or farming.

Also, I've updated the first post with our latest stats; we're making a lot of writing progress, and hopefully we'll have some new art to show you soon, too!

Thanks for the support!

[qirien]

Sorry it's been awhile! We have been working hard on writing, which takes a lot of time but is hard to show in a short update post!

Farm Planning Screen

One thing I can show you, however, is the current state of the farming minigame, where you lay out crops for the current year. You need to balance the nitrogen in the soil, and rotate your crops so you don't get too many pests, while also making sure your crops will provide enough Calories and Nutrition and not take too much Work.

Plugin Poetry poems

I've also created a minigame, Plugin Poetry, a magnetic poetry-style minigame for making poems with a given set of words. This will be used several places in the game (you know Jack loves writing poetry!), and the current idea is that you can post your poems to the community message board, and depending on what you write various people will comment on them.

Want to give it a try? If you do, post your poems here!