Magical Harvest News

[h2]Hello magical farmers! [/h2][p]It’s been quite a while — over a year now — since I decided to put the development of Magical Harvest on hold. Unfortunately, this hasn’t changed, and it likely won’t for the next several months (and possibly 1–2 years).

The overall concept is still on the table and my wife and I wish to make the world Hyldena real - in one way or another. But right now, our focus needs to be on finding stability and building a steady income in a tough game-development job market. Sadly, a large-scale project like Magical Harvest just isn’t feasible for us at the moment. I am really sorry and my heart aches each time I play the (early pre-alpha)-demo of Magical Harvest, because I think it was a great start for this game.[/p][h3]
Hexavale[/h3][p]In the meantime, I’ve been working on a smaller, cozier game on the side - Hexavale. It’s a relaxing puzzle-strategy game where you can build beautiful landscapes. A demo will be out soon — by January at the latest, with a full release planned around March/April.
[/p][p]It's a cozy puzzle-strategy game where you can build beautiful landscapes.[/p][p]https://store.steampowered.com/widget/3872220/

If you want to support me (and forgive me with Magical Harvest), feel free to wishlist it and keep an eye out for the demo - it would mean a lot to me.

[/p][h3]Why didn't I just continue with Magical Harvest instead? [/h3][p]Magical Harvest was made about ~95% by myself, and I underestimated just how many systems and features a farming game involves. My focus now is creating and releasing 2-3 smaller games to gain more experience and to build a stronger foundation for the future.

With that background, I hope to eventually find sponsors, publishers, or investors who can help bring Magical Harvest back to life one day.

Game development has become quite challenging financially in recent years, and that’s why my wife (who helped shape the Magical Harvest concept and some of its designs) and I can’t afford to pursue such a complex, long-term project right now.

[/p][h3]Magical Harvest-Demo[/h3][p]If there is interest, I can activate the demo again. There won't be fixes since the last time, but overall it is pretty stable to play.
Reminder: the demo is a pre-alpha demo with an alternate start, just to get a feeling for the world and the core of the game. It is not the planned end-product.

[/p][p]Thank you all so much for your patience, kindness, and understanding. I hope to return to Magical Harvest someday, when the time is right.

With gratitude,[/p][p]Isa
Moon Flame Games
[c] [/c][/p]

Hello Farmers!
It's been a while since our last update, and we have some exciting news and updates to share with you.

Concept-Tuesday & Fan-Friday
We are thrilled to introduce our new weekly events on X (Twitter) and Discord - starting next week! Every Tuesday, join us for Concept-Tuesday where we reveal new ideas and designs. On Fridays, it's all about you with Fan-Friday, showcasing fan art and community creations. We can't wait to see your contributions! You can send your Magical-Harvest related creations in Discord or tag us on X.


Demo
Our demo is still available over the summer, and we are grateful for all the wonderful feedback we've received. It's been amazing to see how much you all enjoy the game and your curiosity about what's coming next. We had a lot of people playing the demo for over 5 hours!
What we think was a bit sad, that a lot of players did forget about the runes very quickly and went back to “normal” farm work. The runes with their magic offer a fast way to clear the farm, harvest, water – and using them in the mine.
Also remember: this was a very early pre-alpha demo! It was meant to see if the system fits, if people like the concept, art style and the main idea - and what can we say? Yes! The feedback was really overwhelming for us! We thank here for all players, streamers and supporters!

New environment and seasons


Visual Enhancements
We are currently working on making the game environment even more beautiful. While this means the demo will soon be outdated in terms of visuals, we believe the improvements will be worth the time we put into right now. We're also addressing performance issues to ensure a smoother experience in the future.
This won’t be implemented in the demo.

New farm area


Farewell to Interns
We have to say goodbye to two incredible interns, Sassa and Veronika, who have done an outstanding job over the past few months. Thank you both for your hard work – the game wouldn't be where it is without you!


Concept: House direction for Sidus-District

Development Progress
Behind the scenes, we're continuing our search for funding and publishers. It's a challenging time in the game development market, but we're committed to pushing forward.
If you want to help us in any way: feel free to have a look at our Patreon page https://www.patreon.com/moonflamegames

We had a fantastic time at the Nordic Game Conference at the end of May! It was wonderful to see people enjoying the demo and being drawn to our art style.
Also, we are close to 8000 wishlists! So, the first big goal about 7000 is reached!

Next Steps
Looking ahead, we are focusing on creating the farm, magical forest, and forest area. After that, we'll be improving some base systems, with a major focus on implementing the AI of the animals – and interactions with them.

Thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm. Stay tuned for more updates, and don't forget to join our Discord.

Best wishes,
Isa

A small update:

- Player is not falling anymore after switching scenes
- Bug fixed: crash error at first start of the application fixed
- Bug fixed: sometimes items were not merged together even if they were the same
- Bug fixed: sowing seeds with the mouse was sometimes not working on the mouse-targeted farm ground

We have a new small patch for you!
The wished feature that you can hold the toolbar key for continuous interaction is there!
And German translation - next to smaller things.

Vers. 0.1.69

• Added German translation
  
• You can now hold the tool button for continuous actions with the tools
  
• The multi area can now be triggered with Shift
  
• Changed tutorial popup with controls
  
• A chest is craft-able now
  
• Small bug fixes
  

More improvements will follow over time!
On the side, we are working on the Character Customizer, but this will take a while till it's ready to be in the game. With this, the animations will be a bit updated in the game (we know about the weird watering animation).

Don't forget to join our Discord and share your thoughts and opinions with us! We would also love to see your decorated farm!

Another couple of smaller updates to improve the quality of the demo:

Vers.0.1.67
- Information in the start screen that Controller support is not the right choice at the moment
- Dialogues: you can left click to skip text (before it was just pressing E)
- Advanced Crafting: you can click on the recipes now to see the needed items (hover shows the name now), even if you can’t craft them yet
- Reversed the scroll wheel for the tool bar
- Added a second (shorter) path to the mine (in the final game, the maps will be smaller)
- Improved the fishing cast with mouse click
- Decoration mode: some chests are now available (when starting a new game & finishing the tutorial)
- Bug fixed: you could not put farm ground on a place where you recently destroyed grass, stone or a tree

Next smaller planned implementations:
- The portal from the Farm to the Mine
- Mini map for the decoration mode

The current focus is on the Character Customizer-functionality.

We have a lot more things planned, but the focus is currently on getting more base features done.