Making my dream plant game! - Plant Tales Devlog 1

Welcome to the first devlog for Plant Tales! Consider wishlisting on Steam if you’re interested :)

https://store.steampowered.com..../app/3693970/Plant_T

I’ve been working on this plant game for the past year in my spare time (about 3 days a week) and it’s about time I show you all what I’ve been up to! This video covers up to month 7, and I’ll be saving the rest for future devlogs. Would really appreciate any feedback and thoughts about the game so far :D

As for the release date, I don’t want to make any false promises, so I don’t have a release date in mind yet. But hopefully it doesn’t take tooooo long

Also apologies if the video feels like it jumps around the place, I may have crammed in too much. In reality when developing, I constantly jump back and forth between features. So I did try to reshuffle the timeline so the video made more sense.

I also want to mention how amazing my experience with Godot has been! As you may know, I switched to Godot from Unity after the Unity pricing controversy. I honestly feel like I’ve been able to accomplish more in Godot over the past year than I have in Unity over the last 5 years. It’s probably also due to gaining more experience over time in general - but I'm super happy with the progress I've been able to make with Godot!

Some of you might also be curious what happened to my other game. It's going on pause while I complete this one, since this one has a much clearer scope and gameplay loop (I have since learnt the importance of both these things haha). Will probably return to it at some point though

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Music:

Intro music made by me - kinda nervous to put it in the video so hope u like it :)
Tomato Soup by Oneul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YykqogmOEec
Potato chips by Oneul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Qh8w_0c6o
Roommate by Oneul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Llh8cNRtc
Lazy mood by Oneul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUG1PGRj4sI&t=539s
Happy Avocado by Oneul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StPsgkanTIQ
Palm Tree by Oneul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHYXrmteQPw
Undertale OST: 055 - Can You Really Call This A Hotel I Didn't Receive A Mint On My Pillow
Good Things by Oneul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0PELBbu6G8
Outro music made by me

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Art resources mentioned:
- Artist inspo: https://x.com/4_9_13
- Pixel art tree tutorial 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLuKpgkOuKM
- Pixel art tree tutorial 2: https://x.com/frosty_rabbid/st....atus/175134245118326

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Coding resources mentioned:
- Windy effect shader: https://godotshaders.com/shade....r/2d-foliage-wind-ef
- Tilemap texture shader: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYlBociPwdw
- Water shader: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGOLstWBCDA

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Chapters:

00:00 - Intro
00:40 - Month 1 (the idea)
01:42 - Gameplay loop
02:11 - Creating the first visuals
02:41 - Month 2 (plant effects)
03:32 - Inventory/Hotbar
04:30 - Greenhouse
05:09 - Saving and loading
05:40 - Bed and sleeping
05:53 - Plant cloning
06:27 - Month 3 (grass, trees and exploration)
07:38 - Rudimentary procedural generation
08:30 - Player house
09:04 - Fixing bugs
10:07 - Month 4 (the shop!)
12:07 - Month 5 (plant watering and growth)
13:32 - Plant overview
13:50 - Month 6 (rainforest & town)
14:40 - Creating the town
15:39 - Month 7 (character customisation & NPCs)
16:32 - Creating the NPCs
17:21 - Biome generation
18:14 - Outro