Devlog 2: Learning Experience
[h2]Learning To Garden[/h2]
Palm Paradise Garden is relatively sophisticated and realistic in its simulation of gardening. Given that, ensuring players learn the game in a way that's both fun and fits their natural learning style has been a big recent focus of development.
[h2]Do It Yourself[/h2]
I personally am the sort of player who loves to jump in and experiment - learn by trial and error. In an ideal world, a game uses familiar cues from the real world, while giving enough feedback to what you're doing, that it's possible to learn by just trying stuff out and seeing what happens.
I've added in a lot of subtle features to the game, especially around planting, in order to give as many hints to the player as possible. Selected plants are now highlighted, the UI indicators for what location a plant prefers have both percentage numbers and human readable labels, and light up in red when there's a problem.
[h2]Characters and Personalities[/h2]
However, sometimes it's nice to have someone explain something to you. I've added in characters who are the knowledgeable about the different aspects of the game, such Harold the plant shop owner, and Lilly the expert on plant watering. Their help buttons are now always visible in the UIs relating to their respective areas, ready to give tips and hints.
Even though the plants are the real starts of the show in Palm Paradise Garden, I wanted to add more human faces to make the game more approachable and less abstract. I'm glad I've been able to use them for teaching the game, rather than just as decoration.
[h2]Jumping Through Hoops[/h2]
In some cases, people need a bit of guidance, especially in a game like Palm Paradise Garden where there's not always an explicit objective. So I have also implemented a jump-through-hoops style tutorial. My aim here is to not just hold players' hands, but explain why the things they're being asked to do are important.
This guided tutorial is still something I'm in the process of making, but progress has been slow owing to the fact I've up to now still been using placeholder plants and data to make and test the game.
[h2]A Real Jungle[/h2]
My Mum is a former gardening teacher and part of the inspiration for Palm Paradise Gardens came from visiting many botanical gardens with her when I was growing up.
She is helping me identify the real world plants to go in the game and finding all the data on their size and shape, lifespans, flowering and different needs. Thanks to her hard work, I now have data for the game's first 15 plants. I will be adding that data into the game, filling in any gaps and tweaking it to make the game fun and balanced over the next couple of weeks. This will help immensely with finishing the tutorial and making all the other fine tunings to the game going forward.
[h2]What's Next[/h2]
I had hoped to get a demo of Palm Paradise Garden made by the end of March, but work on another project of mine too more time than anticipated. The new deadline for the demo is now April 29th, though I aim to have the demo released a few days before just in case. This will be just in time for the Steam Farming Festival - Apparently gardening games are a sub-category of Farming in the world of video games? Who'd have thought? In any case, it will be a good opportunity to promote the game and get it into people's hands, so I can start getting feedback and you call start having fun making your own palmhouse gardens!
In the meantime, I will be posting updates on social media. And as always, if you have any questions or thoughts, please do say in the comments below!
Palm Paradise Garden is relatively sophisticated and realistic in its simulation of gardening. Given that, ensuring players learn the game in a way that's both fun and fits their natural learning style has been a big recent focus of development.
[h2]Do It Yourself[/h2]
I personally am the sort of player who loves to jump in and experiment - learn by trial and error. In an ideal world, a game uses familiar cues from the real world, while giving enough feedback to what you're doing, that it's possible to learn by just trying stuff out and seeing what happens.
I've added in a lot of subtle features to the game, especially around planting, in order to give as many hints to the player as possible. Selected plants are now highlighted, the UI indicators for what location a plant prefers have both percentage numbers and human readable labels, and light up in red when there's a problem.
[h2]Characters and Personalities[/h2]
However, sometimes it's nice to have someone explain something to you. I've added in characters who are the knowledgeable about the different aspects of the game, such Harold the plant shop owner, and Lilly the expert on plant watering. Their help buttons are now always visible in the UIs relating to their respective areas, ready to give tips and hints.
Even though the plants are the real starts of the show in Palm Paradise Garden, I wanted to add more human faces to make the game more approachable and less abstract. I'm glad I've been able to use them for teaching the game, rather than just as decoration.
[h2]Jumping Through Hoops[/h2]
In some cases, people need a bit of guidance, especially in a game like Palm Paradise Garden where there's not always an explicit objective. So I have also implemented a jump-through-hoops style tutorial. My aim here is to not just hold players' hands, but explain why the things they're being asked to do are important.
This guided tutorial is still something I'm in the process of making, but progress has been slow owing to the fact I've up to now still been using placeholder plants and data to make and test the game.
[h2]A Real Jungle[/h2]
My Mum is a former gardening teacher and part of the inspiration for Palm Paradise Gardens came from visiting many botanical gardens with her when I was growing up.
She is helping me identify the real world plants to go in the game and finding all the data on their size and shape, lifespans, flowering and different needs. Thanks to her hard work, I now have data for the game's first 15 plants. I will be adding that data into the game, filling in any gaps and tweaking it to make the game fun and balanced over the next couple of weeks. This will help immensely with finishing the tutorial and making all the other fine tunings to the game going forward.
[h2]What's Next[/h2]
I had hoped to get a demo of Palm Paradise Garden made by the end of March, but work on another project of mine too more time than anticipated. The new deadline for the demo is now April 29th, though I aim to have the demo released a few days before just in case. This will be just in time for the Steam Farming Festival - Apparently gardening games are a sub-category of Farming in the world of video games? Who'd have thought? In any case, it will be a good opportunity to promote the game and get it into people's hands, so I can start getting feedback and you call start having fun making your own palmhouse gardens!
In the meantime, I will be posting updates on social media. And as always, if you have any questions or thoughts, please do say in the comments below!