Game Designer
Farming Aint Easy
Personal Project
Build Date: 04/09/22
Introduction
Farming Ain't Easy was a project made under the constraints of a week. I initially made the game inside of Unreal Engine 4, however halfway through the game, Unreal Engine 5 was released. I decided to convert the project which made the project more stressful, but by utilizing UE5 I was able to create a fun quick experience.
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Made in UE5
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Play it here​​​​
Project Details
What I did:
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Took Game from Ideal to Release on Itch.io
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Created an Interaction system
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Created a timer and simple UI elements for the game
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Created a fun VFX using Niagara
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Implemented simple AI to add variety to the gameplay
What I had help with:
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Stack o Bot provided by Epic Games
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Dreamscape Nature: Meadows By Polyart
End Result
Key Takeaways
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How to update a UE4 project to UE5
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Migrating Assets from one project to another
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The importance of being flexible with an idea during a game jam environment
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Familiarity with Landscaping Tools
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Incorporating a scoring system
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Scalable Interaction System that allows for the same Interface with multiple actors
Design Decisions
The theme of the game was "Explore the Universe" so how did I end up with an arcade farming game. Well originally in my brainstorming I wanted to have these minions who would explore something and have a chance for success and failure for you. I was torn between a clicker game (minions would increase click per second) or a farm wherein the minions would do all the farming for you.
I ultimately felt that a clicker game while a cool concept would require more art/music to really bring the idea to life, so I created a prototype for the farm minions. After iterating on them I tackled the planting of crops and ended up with a pyramid that changes colors to illustrate the different stages of growth.
Picture of the Minion
Seeds Growing
The timer over the crops reminded me of the Crazy Taxi series, so with that as my inspiration I decided to focus more on a fast-paced time attack game. I added a timer and really enjoyed the added pressure of the game. Although I feel in retrospect that I strayed a bit too far from the original vision of the game.
Retrospective
Converting Assets from Ue4 to Unreal Engine 5 made the project a lot harder to use. The flat static meshes, in particular, that have two-sided materials require some adjusting in order for the material to work properly. Learning this took a lot of development time for the game.
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Music was a problem. Originally I wanted to use Bosca Ceoil to make the music originally however, time constraints prevented me from doing that. I decided to use MetaMusic in order to quickly make a loopable track for the game.
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I also feel that the implementation of the arcade-style of gameplay needed more iteration to get the minions feeling like a necessary part of the game loop. The player can survive a long time without even using that mechanic, and the intention was for both to be used together in order to succeed. I know with more time I could have come up with a better solution. The short fix was to shrink the map a bit in order and give the bots more speed in order to allow them to return faster.
Level Design
