Autonomica News

[h3]Hello farming engineers![/h3]

We’re excited to share with you our latest development upgrades for Farm Folks!

But - before you continue - you need to make sure you’re part of our awesome Discord community. Click here to join. We love sharing unique development content, engaging with our friends, and are planning to run some exciting contests where you can influence development AND win some amazing prizes. What are you waiting for?



[h3]PRE-ALPHA[/h3]

The Pre-Alpha is very close! We're aiming to let qualifying backers play it very, very soon. We will have a separate update sometime next week with more details, including actual dates, who will get access, and what you can expect to see in the game at the current development stage.

SIGN-UP TO GET NOTIFIED

As things are settling down, we’re becoming more and more active on social media and would like to invite you to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep an eye on our day-to-day updates. Leave us your likes and comments on new videos. This will help us grow our channel and unlock new YouTube perks which will allow us to share even more content with you. Subscribe here.

We’re also on TikTok and already have videos with over 100K views, crazy ha! Click here to check it out

Alright, enough with the social mambo jambo, let’s get to “business.”

[h3]WATCH THE DEVLOG #4 VIDEO SUMMARY[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]IN-GAME LIGHTING AND SEASONS
[/h3]

Farm Folks will have super duper awesome lighting systems that will allow us to have dynamic weather conditions along with breathtaking views - all of which are going to be very different from season to season. Expect very romantic experiences with NPCs like dinners that will take place at the hill cliffs during sunset.





Unlike in other farming life sim games, Farm Folks will have a continuous day/night system that will let you continue managing and/or building your farm - even at night. Your character will have the stamina that will allow them to continue their journey for several days at a time.



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]







Things like wind, rain, or snow can also start dynamically and will have different lengths based on the current season in-game. You’ll be able to check the weather forecast on your laptop or TV. We will talk more about the forecast system in our future updates. Make sure to sign up for our updates so you don’t miss it!

[h3]HAIRSTYLES AND CUSTOMIZATION[/h3]

In Farm Folks, we’re planning to have a great set of various hairstyles to choose from and, of course, you’ll be able to customize the color of the hair. We’re also planning to add a Hair Constructor to the game which will give you absolute freedom over the haircuts you would like your character to wear. You can unlock unique hairstyles in the saloons of the Portorovigo Town located on Softsholl Island. We will talk more about Local Shops in the future.













[h3]REAL-TIME HAIR PHYSICS[/h3]

In addition to beautiful, custom hairstyles, we’re also revising our animations to ensure your hair - and every other character detail - looks soft and organic. We’re adding real-time physics to your character’s hair which means it will bounce and sway based on environmental conditions like wind.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]FISHING[/h3]

What farming game is without fishing? The waters in Farm Folks are going to be filled with fish and other discoveries. Each fish will have a rarity level, ranging from Common, Rare, and Epic variants. You can cook, trade, or even farm caught fishes. Yeh you read it right, you’ll be able to have your own fish farm!









[h3]Sunset PufferFin[/h3]

Named by WoolyPie#5699 and discovered by Finlay.

We just named one of our fishes with the help of our FanClub members.





Legendairy and VIP members can participate in closed community voting where they can come up with original names for items, animals, etc. in the game. If you would like to become a member, check available tiers here

[h3]ISLAND AND CONSTRUCTION[/h3]

For the last few months, we were working on our first island. This initial island is designed to give us maximum information from the closed tests as it has a diverse landscape. Unlike in other farming games, our goal is to give you the ability to build your structures wherever you want - be it on open ground, hills, the beach, or even against mountain cliffs. We will talk about the construction process in our next update.














[h3]NEW NPC IS ON THE WAY[/h3]

A brand new and super dateable NPC is about to be revealed! We’re finalizing their story and will showcase them within the next few days. There is a high chance that if you’re a VIP or Legendairy FanClub member, you already saw this upcoming NPC (so please remain silent, or else :D)!



[h3]TEAM UPDATES[/h3]

We’re also happy to welcome new members of our dev team! Meet Adam, an insanely talented technical artist, and Bruno and Camila, a husband/wife team working on beautiful concept art and character development. In our next updates, we will showcase a new Local NPC from the game and a few more construction elements that you’ll have to work with.

[h3]OUR FAVORITE VIDEOS[/h3]

Watch DoctorDDub and SharkyGames videos featuring Farm Folks

Make sure to sign-up for our newsletter so that you don’t miss anything. And of course, join our Discord to participate in our contests with prizes and share your feedback with our lovely community.



Have a great day!

Crytivo Crew



And don't forget to follow and wishlist!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/895160/Farm_Folks/

Hello farming engineers!

And we’re back with another portion of exciting updates for you. Our team has been working incredibly hard setting up the environments for the game’s future technology. The Farm Folks world is evolving each and every day and we daresay it’s looking really, really great! We hope you’re as excited as we are about the future of Farm Folks and, as always, we invite you to leave us your thoughts and comments below. You can also join the conversation on our Discord.



To help us advance our development further, we recently introduced a Patreon-like fan support system that allows anyone who’s eager to be closer to development to donate a monthly contribution. This fan system allows supporters to be among the first to see content in development by our talented art and dev team. It’s been a great success and we received support from so many fans - both old and new - that have helped us to do more for Farm Folks by hiring remote artists, animators, illustrators, etc. You can read more about it here.

At the same time, we’ve been posting plenty of Legendairy and VIP updates which have allowed close fans to participate in the development of the game as we progress. Whether something needs adjustments, some TLC, or we find a lot of interest and love around a piece of the project, we pride ourselves on receiving feedback and aren’t afraid to have our decisions influenced for the better. YOU are helping us create Farm Folks so thank you to everyone for your contributions and support. Please consider becoming a supporter and check out the tiers below.



Alright, enough bragging! Here is what we’ve accomplished, what is in production, and what’s next. You all are probably fed up with the pillows, sofas, and lights anyway. Farm Folks, at its core, is a farming and life sim game and we have no plans to deviate from that direction. We’re working on the core elements first (technical implementation system) that will allow you to build, customize, and place objects in the world. The core system to support those functions is complete!

Let’s talk about Modularity in the game

Our goal is to give you the tools that will enable your creativity as a player. We’re working on an intuitive and familiar modular construction system to help spur this creativity and freedom. By selecting the right construction modules, you can build anything you want: a barn for cows, a chicken coop, your living room, or a stunning kitchen. You will be able to select from various modules like windows, doors, short wall, long wall, staircase, railing, etc. And you’re not only able to choose the material of the module (i.e. wood, brick, stone, or concrete), you will also be able to paint it however you’d like or even wrap it in a beautiful wallpaper. Don’t forget to invite your friends to help you design all of these projects since Farm Folks supports 4 players co-op.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As a side note, structures can have any amount of floors and rooms. There has never been a farming life sim game like this before. Your imagination is your limitation™



You also will have a place to create building presets and share them with other players online. This way, players that would love to build buildings at once can save a lot of time and grinding by placing packaged building blocks (this system will see the light a bit later in development).



FARMING

You can start farming anywhere you want! By selecting the hoe tool, you can start making plots and planting crops. We also designed modular planters that come with 3 height variations: low, medium, and high. These planters can be placed indoors or outdoors. When you place a single planter, it becomes a single flower pot. However, by merging a few planters together, you can build unique shapes and create beautiful green ferns or even a maze!


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Plants will have multiple growth states and personal statistics. It will be important to water them based on plant needs.



FERTILIZERS

Fertilization will play an important role in the plant’s growth and will give plants unique characteristics or advantages. You can read more about fertilizers in our previous post here. We’re planning to talk more about fertilizers down the road.



GENES

We’re planning to add a plant gene system that will allow new plants to inherit characteristics of previous generations. If you get lucky enough and get a tomato with a unique color, you’ll be able to save its seeds and mix them with other colors to yield a very unique and blended palette. You will be able to sell unique plants for a greater price in the city too!



THE WORLD

We decided not to chase realism too much and make the world of Farm Folks mysterious and unique. Everything takes place in a near-future where technology is evolving and helping people lead happier lives. The world will have familiar plants and animals but it will also have unique and never-before-seen species. There will be scary caves full of unknown and isolated islands where no human has ever gone before. We’ll certainly be talking more about these mysteries in the future so be sure to sign-up for our email updates, just in case. You don’t want to miss it!



We started putting together our ‘prototype island,’ as we call it. This island is quite small and allows us to test most of the systems while we continuously build bigger worlds on either side. You will probably see changes to the geography as we release updates.



BACKPACKS

What engineer travels around without a backpack or suitcase? We’re designing various backpacks for you to carry on your adventures! Fill them with anything you need: crafting materials, crop supplies, or tools. Backpacks will have different capacities and can be found on the island in crates. You can also purchase backpacks in the city, win them as a reward during festivals, or receive them as a gift from your favorite NPC. Let us know in the comments which one is your favorite or if we should add one you have in mind.



WATERING

Nothing can live without water, right? Our plants in the game love water and they will require you to pay proper attention and water them regularly. Our goal with the watering system is to give you the ability to be efficient and carry water with you at any time. We invented Waterblee - a modern watering system that can be attached to your backpack! It comes with a replaceable water canister and watering handle. You can carry multiple canisters of water with you, as long as you have enough space in your backpack. Later on in the game, you’ll have automatic watering systems that can be installed and set up to water plants ‘automagically.’



OPTIMIZATION AND TECH

We’re spending a good amount of time considering low level systems as our goal is to create a beautiful world and, at the same time, allow as many people as possible to experience it by optimizing every step of this process. We started working on the foliage system and created our very first tree type. Chopping a tree will be a very satisfying process (of course, with every tree you chop you can plant two more in the world). A tree will chip out at the place where the axe meets the trunk and it will directionally fall based on the cut with real time physics. Branches will have animation bones, allowing branches to stay above the ground and not sink in - just like the real world.



We've also created a bunch of foliage that will be spread amongst the grass. We’re taking requests for what other flora you’d like to see in-game, so let us know what we should add next!



ANIMATIONS

The animations that you saw earlier are mostly placeholders and we are now starting to design the animations we actually need. Currently, we’re working on basic animations such as walking, jogging, running, etc. We’re working with our new animator on a character setup and, as a result, there’s multiple iterations and back and forth discussions as we adjust everything we need to have a cohesive project. It’s hard, but it’s shaping up pretty well. Here are some examples of animations (all still work in progress).



WHAT’S NEXT

We will continue working on farming elements, planting, watering, and growing plants. We’re also beginning the implementation of farm animals! We started with the turkey family and we will be adding chickens next. Additionally, some of our artists started to work on kitchen furniture. Kitchens will have a lot of functionality as you’ll be able to cook food on the stovetop, store food in the fridge or closets, wash dishes, serve dinner, etc. Food can spoil and affect the environment which can lead to sickness or unimpressed guests.



Thanks again for helping us develop Farm Folks! Our team is small, yet we’re producing 200% of awesomeness in a short time frame to ensure we deliver a great game for you. We know you would love to start playing it as soon as possible! Initially, we planned to let our Alpha backers play this month but we have to move closed tests to March or April. Please understand that we started developing the game just a few months ago and we’re working hard on reestablishing the fundamental systems that will support it. We don't want to give you anything that isn’t fun yet; we want to give you at least something to play with! Right now, there are 5 people working on the development and we think the results we’re delivering are at least very acceptable. So, please allow us some time to “cook” it longer for you.


Please make sure to sign-up for our updates and join our Discord. Leave us your comments and likes!

Also, make sure to add the game to your Wishlist if you still didn't do it ! =)






- Crytivo Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/895160/Farm_Folks/

[h2]Hello Farmers, Builders, and Ranchers![/h2]

We’re excited to introduce you to our Devlog #2. Our team was working hard last month on implementing and improving fundamental systems that will support future core systems in-game and things are shaping up well!

Before we dive into development details, we have great news to share with you first:



We’re extremely excited to let you know that we’re launching a membership program similar to Patreon on the Crytivo website here. This will allow us to interact more with eager fans who want to be more heavily involved in the development process of Farm Folks. Fans who sign-up for the membership will gain access to day-to-day updates, including - but not limited to - work in progress materials, exclusive internal development updates, and closed polls that will influence our development.

We’re going to start with the following 3 membership roles - Explorer, VIP, and Legendairy. Each role will offer access to the unique content as follows:

• Your name in the game credits
  
• Exclusive access to the closed Discord channel
  
• Access to developer/community polls
  

• Fans get access to more polished content only
  
• All rewards from previous tiers
  
• Access to confirmed and polished media content updates
  
• Your name in the game credits, listed under “VIP”
  
• Discord Role “VIP”
  
• Fans get access to closed Discord channels and access to developers polls
  

Fans get updates on almost a daily basis. These updates will include early sketches, prototyping videos, and more! You will also have open communication with the developers on Discord. This is the highest tier.

• All rewards from previous tiers
  
• Instant access to the production content and work-in-progress materials
  
• Your name in the game credits, listed under “Legendairy Supporter”
  
• Discord Role “Legendairy”
  

Since you’re reading this and have probably been around the project for a while, we would love to offer you a complimentary lifelong VIP Membership. All you need to do is request your role on our Discord Server here by December 10th by typing, “!getrole”



After December 10th, you’ll not be able to claim your membership if you didn’t back Farm Folks earlier. Make sure you claim your membership before that date and let your friends know as well!



And as a special thank you to all who have already backed the project via Kickstarter, Humble, or Crytivo, you’ll receive the highest current membership level, “Legendairy” for free, for evah! All you need to do is go to our Discord and tell our bot, Waffle, “!getrole” and the magic will happen!

We understand the frustrations you might’ve had waiting for updates on a game that you backed some time ago and, subsequently, felt let down by the previous team during their hardships. Our goal is to make all of the original backers feel special and reward them for their trust and support. We want to make you feel that backing Farm Folks was the best decision you ever made and, in response, we only ask for your kindness and continued support in development.

This membership program will help us scale our team up and hire more creatives to help us develop additional content for the game (if it works out, of course :D). We’re very committed to making Farm Folks an unforgettable experience and a little help will take us to where we need to be. Help us share this news with your friends and family! It will be fun to have your close ones around in our Discord to contribute and help us make a game that we all will love.


With all the improvements and enhancements Farm Folks has been going through, we think that it’s important to update to the main art that will reflect things that will be in the game:



Let us know in the comments what you think! There should be plenty of things to discover.



Our goal is to give you the ability to build the farm of your dreams. We would like to get our customization system in-game to the level of detail similar to Animal Crossing, Sims 4, and Paralives. Well, we can’t promise it’s not going to be even better.



As it stands right now, you’ll be able to customize the following things during the object placement or editing:

• Pattern Selection. We will have a rich library of patterns that can be applied to various objects such as sofas, beds, curtains, lamps, blankets, and much more.
  

• Colors of each pattern can be modified separately. Some patterns can have up to three customizable colors. You will be able to create color pallets and save them so you can apply them to other objects.
  

• Some objects can have options. For example, lighting poles can have different lantern options and floor lamps can have different lamp shades.
  

• You will be able to choose different trim materials like wood tonality, texture. or material of the object you’re customizing at the time.
  

Most of the objects will come in various sizes that can be adjusted through this panel as well. Additionally, you can mirror objects or easily make a copy of the same objects.





Lighting will play an important role in making things look natural and vibrant in Farm Folks. Last month, we spent some time developing a lighting system that will be used with indoor and outdoor objects.



We created a bunch of floor lamps that you’ll be able to place around your cozy home and customize them to your liking by choosing height, wood trim, and custom shade + pattern.



Translucent lamp shade fabric will cast tinted light that matches your chosen pattern colors in the environment.





Characters will have daily stamina that will deplete over time or by actions performed throughout the day. Without going to sleep on time, your character can pass out! To have a proper restful sleep, you’ll need to get into your cozy bed on time. Beds will have great customization options, including the ability to build bunk beds. Who’s going to sleep on top?







We added two types of tables (square and round) with additional sizing variations each. You can choose to place tablecloths, table runners, and customize them to your liking by choosing styles and patterns with custom colors. There are going to be plenty of cosmetic items that can be placed on even surfaces. Plates, glasses, napkins, etc. that will help you create cozy or festive environments at home.







Inspired by recent Animal Crossing updates, we decided to model some cute chairs for Farm Folks and yes! We included froggy chair!





Because why not?! We added a gazillion pillows as a part of the setup system that will allow players to place cosmetic items.









After modeling the main character, we were tasked to rig and skin our character properly to make animations work smoothly. This allowed us to finally have our base character in the game, however, we had some issues with the pants. As a result, our character is running around without pants for a while. Right now, the base character is using placeholder animations. We’re planning on reaching out to a motion capture studio that will record unique animations for us later on.



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The world of Farm Folks will be massive in scale (though we’re not fully ready to talk about it, just yet) and it’s important for us to have an optimized foliage system that will help us make things pretty. We’ve developed a grass system that allows us to combine multiple styles together like great density with support for weather conditions such as wind, rain, and snow.



Grass is folded by both the character and objects, creating a very satisfying feeling. It makes you not want to stop running around for days!



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We had to get back to our modular construction system since it’s been implemented in the form of a prototype for testing. You can really lose yourself building the farmhouse of your dreams. The construction system is very peaceful, intuitive, and satisfying. We’re quite happy with how it’s shaping up! We know some players prefer a non-granular construction system where they can place constructions as a whole without architecturing every bit and piece by themselves. Because of this, we’re planning to add a blueprint system down the road that will allow players to acquire whole construction pieces (i.e. rooms or even entire structures). We’re considering integrating all of these with Steam Workshop which would allow the community to share their creative buildings with each other.



In these upcoming months, we’re starting to work on a farming system that will allow us to create plots, plant crops, and more. Most of the things that we’re working on are carefully selected to allow us proper implementation of the systems into the game that will support scalability and offer creativity to our fans. In our next update, we will talk about animals and the products they produce, their needs, and social and environmental preference systems.





To help us keep our fans updated and engaged on Discord, we’re looking for a community manager to join us! We drafted a quick form with some requirements that you can fill out here if you’re interested.

We’ve been working hard to bring Farm Folks to life and we hope you’re equally excited about the game! Be sure to hit the like button and leave us your comment below.

-Your Crytivo Crew


Would like to get updates more frequently? BECOME A MEMBER



FOLLOW US ON TWITTER



https://store.steampowered.com/app/895160/Farm_Folks/

Hello Farmers,

Starting this month, we will be introducing the NPCs that will populate a diverse Farm Folks world. In Farm Folks, you’ll find yourself on islands isolated by the ocean. Though separated, these islands will connect the overarching world by bridges. The world we have in mind is pretty big, meaning that there will be plenty of points of interest scattered throughout areas such as forests, deserts, caves, and mountains. We will share more about the world of Farm Folks in our future updates. Make sure to sign up to our email newsletter here if you don’t want to miss it!






Ricardo is a former military airplane pilot who crashed on the island 17 years ago. He was saved by a local man named Mikkel who was hiking near the crash site when it happened. Nurse Hanna had to amputate Ricardo’s right leg as it was severely damaged during the crash. Years after the crash, Ricardo opened his own bread bakery in town. He works solo and always opens his store at 7 o’clock in the morning and closes it at 3 pm. Everyone in town not only enjoys fresh buttery bread but also the smell from the ovens that can be experienced miles away from the bakery.



(Initial Character Explorations)

Ricardo holds letters from his only daughter. His daughter decided to travel around the world after the death of her mother. She’s been traveling for a while and always sends Ricardo letters, describing her journeys, encounters, etc.



(The second concept iteration looked a bit too Lumberjack-ish, so we went back to the drawing board!)

Ricardo knows that his daughter is fine; she is smart, mature, and very creative. But Ricardo misses her and wants to recover letters that still might be in the abandoned airplane in the middle of the forest. He tried reaching the crash site on multiple occasions, but his prosthetic leg limits his mobility and he is too prideful to ask anyone for help.



(Now we're talking! He looks more like the Ricardo we'll come to know)

Ricardo has a best friend, Mr. Whistler, that he carries on his shoulder at all times. Mr. Whistler is a parrot that flew into Ricardo’s apartment one day. For some reason, the bird never left and stayed with Ricardo. It might be because Ricardo is entertaining, despite his shyness, or it could be the bread that he bakes.



Occupation: Local baker, former military pilot

Typical outfit: Jeans, boots, rolled up sleeves, apron, and a beanie with the hair poking out from underneath

Dream/Goals: See his daughter again and somehow retrieve her letters at the plane crash site

Gender: Male

Age: 42

Hair color: Dark brown, almost black depending on lighting

Eye color: Dark brown

Skin tone: Tan

Ethnic inspiration: Latino/Hispanic

Height: 6’3”

Body type: Strong and fit build. Broad shoulders + arms

This is just a little snippet about who Ricardo is. You’ll be able to learn more about Ricardo in the game, starting with retrieving his daughter’s letters from the crash site. A bit of advice: if you want to get to know Ricardo, it’s probably best that you become friends with Mr. Whistler first. That grumpy bird will actually change the color of his feathers based on his relationship with you. The happier he is, the brighter he will appear.

We hope you enjoyed this first NPC feature for Farm Folks! We hope you like Ricardo as much as we do and we can’t wait to share more stories for upcoming characters. We want to give you some insight into the NPCs, but we won’t spoil everything, of course.

We also want to add that most of the characters in-game are going to be romanceable with no particular gender preferences. We will allow you to create the relationships of your dreams and how they unfold is up to you. Please leave us a like and a comment and don’t forget to sign-up to our newsletter to receive updates about all upcoming features and events.

And of course, join our Discord!





Love,
The Crytivo Crew

This is our first official devlog for Farm Folks after acquiring the game’s IP from the previous dev team. Hearing this for the first time? Read the letter from our Crytivo CEO, Alex Koshelkov, here.

While our team is hard at work building the future systems for Farm Folks, we still wanted to take the time to share our initial progress with you.

We do want to preface our developer notes by explaining that, upon receiving the original files for Farm Folks, there was very little that possessed long-term functionality. Upon adopting this project, we had to make the difficult decision to scrap the faulty foundation of the game and build a stronger, more reliable one.



It’s not an easy task to adopt a game like Farm Folks. While mechanics and code can be fixed, we understand the hard reality that the original vision of the game can never be fully achieved. The Farm Folks that the original developers foresaw has become a part of its early history.

We see this as a good thing. We recognize the origin of the game and remain committed to bringing it to life, even if the roles have changed.

Our goal is to deliver a Farm Folks that has the essence of the early iteration - that celebrates the qualities it aimed to achieve and more - with the care, dedication, and love it deserves. We want to give you a beautiful game that offers flexibility in farm-building, management, NPC relationships, tool diversity, and character and props customization. Because of these ambitions, Farm Folks will have an emphasis on life sim mechanics and customization with all the flavor of a proper farming game.

We understand that some supporters may be saddened by the surprising journey the game has taken, but we ask for patience and understanding. A little support and encouragement goes a long way and we know that this community can be just that. We hope you’ll enjoy this journey with us ❤️

Alright! Onward to what we've been working on:

Planned Character Customizations

Our insanely talented 3D Artist, Natalie, is working on our first character! When she's not busy helping to guide the art direction for the game, she's been focused on making a customizable base model for your future Farm Folks character.



3 Tone Hair Color Customization

• Customize your character’s Base Hair Color, Root Color, Strand Color, and Tips. There will be no color limitation and you’ll be able to create and combine any colors you want.
  

2 Color Tones for Eyes

• Customize the Inner and Outer Iris
• You’ll have the ability to choose different hairstyles - some of which will be available from the beginning of the game. Other hairstyles will only be available in the City Center Hair Salons and Barber Shops. NPCs will notice your hairstyle changes and might even compliment you during conversations.
  
• Clothing and accessories will be interchangeable, meaning that you’ll be able to create your own clothing styles with combination and mix-and-match capability.
  

• All clothing will have adjustable color pallets and patterns. Similar to hair styles, some clothing can only be acquired by purchasing them in the City Center, receiving them as a gift from NPCs, finding them in the Crates scattered around the islands, etc.
  

Our new 3D Artist, Uliana, has been hard at work as well. She is helping us develop a flexible system that will allow the customization of indoor props/furniture. We know, we know, you guys are all about doors, but take a look at these super comfy looking sofas:

• On top of fabric and size variations, you also will be able to choose between materials such as untreated wood, brown wood, or dark wood.
  

Keep in mind that this is just one style, we can't stop making them. Somebody call cops!

• Furniture and Props are currently being designed and modeled in different shapes and styles.
  • Each unique style will have size variations. During building mode, you’ll be able to select your preferred sizing on the fly.
    

• Most in-game props will have color and pattern variations that you can select.
  
• Furniture and prop items can also be found, won, unlocked, or purchased in the City Centers
  
• Hats! Because who doesn’t want to wear a fancy hat?
  

Character body mass adjustment is one of the most requested features by our community and we’re currently performing tests to see if this is a viable option for customization. The base character that Natalie is working on will have all of the features listed above and will be the foundation for all character customizations and animations going forward.

Anastasia, who is also a wizard with 3D art, has been working on the first set of tools for your character. These include a Pickaxe, Axe, and Construction Hammer. You'll be able to upgrade tools to be more efficient and effective as time goes on. There will also be Automatization Tools that will help you mine certain valuable resources without spending too much time around glowy rocks. We'll talk more about those in our future blogs...



Anastasia is also busy with light poles! 💡 Some snazzy outdoor lanterns will make your farm stand out and, as you've probably seen, we love to provide you with as many tools as possible. That's why our outdoor lanterns will have loads of customization features. You'll be able to choose the height of the pole, wood material, lantern design, and even the color of light that will emanate from the lantern!



We also want to give a special shout out to our enchanting artist, Vlada. Vlada works predominantly on The Universim but has taken time from her already busy schedule to help guide the art team for Farm Folks.

Marius, our phenomenal Lead Programmer, is busy with the implementation of rudimentary systems. Careful, we don't want to give him too much credit or else he'll get a big head (we love you, Marius ❤️). Here's what Marius is working on:

Character Controller

Our character controller is more than just basic movement and camera control.

Our system tracks each foot of the character and places it correctly in the world. This means characters will move without sliding and will have independent elevation of each foot.

Subtle IK will bring your character to life as they turn their head with the camera or look toward a nearby item that can be collected.

Your character will also leave footprints on different surfaces. The depth of the footprint is defined by the surface your character is on. For example, footprints on a sandy surface will be more prominent compared to footprints on general ground. The same approach applies to surface sound effects. Each surface reacts realistically to footsteps in a way that really connects the character with the world.

And at the end of a long day, your character can walk up to a comfy sofa and sit down to relax. All of this being beautifully animated.



This system will allow us to have complex lighting throughout the world. We will have different ambient lighting for each season, day/night transitions, and weather conditions. For example, winter mornings will be cool and misty while autumn sunsets will be more vibrant and romantic.

The lighting system will also adjust to accurately simulate the environment around the player, making it more believable. When you enter a building, the lighting outside will dim to make way for the indoor lighting; essentially contrasting the two environments to add to the immersion.

World and Environment

Spanning multiple large islands, we want the world to feel truly epic in scale, but not so massive and sparse that it feels empty. We’ve been doing a lot of experimental development and recently arrived at a world size and layout that seems to strike the perfect balance.

Standing on the beach, looking across the water to another mysterious island just visible through the fog, instills a sense of exploration.

We will talk more in the future about the weather, world, and environmental effects.



We would like to keep things clean and minimalistic when it comes to User Interface. Our goal is to keep your screen space tidy, but informative. Check out the UI WIP of the main menu down below! Keep in mind that some features are missing and are subject to change.





In Farm Folks, we want you to have maximum flexibility and freedom. Build your dream farm, personalized home, cozy barn for your animals, etc. The sky's the limit! You should be able to love your home and you may even impress some of the locals with your eye for design.

Please keep in mind that the screenshots of the house are from our early construction prototype and don't represent final quality. It's placed in a prototype environment and it works really well and we can't wait to let you try it out:



With full customization, we’re beyond excited to see what you will be able to create. We’ll talk more about this system in the future, so stay tuned!



Oh yes, you read that right. Everything listed above is going to be available not only to you but also to three of your friends that’ll join and share your journey in Farm Folks. Up to 4 players co-op will allow every player to contribute and build the ultimate farm full of diverse animals, crops, and structures.

We hope these updates excite you as much as they excite us. From the moment we rolled up our sleeves to get to work, our team sincerely fell in love with the project. While we aim to deliver on the promises of the previous developer, we want to go the extra mile for our community to make the best Farm Life Sim ever made.

SOUNDTRACK

We also want to share some of the early music for Farm Folks with you. We want the soundtrack to be uplifting, playful, and calming. We hope you enjoy it!





With skills, passion, and vision in our toolbox, we’re thrilled for the future. With that said, our tentative plan is to launch the pre-Alpha in February 2022. We will initially invite Alpha Backers to play the game and, shortly thereafter, Beta backers will be able to join.

We’re also thinking about launching a Farm Folks Patreon that can potentially help us fund additional features for the game and help us make Farm Folks an unforgettable experience for you guys. There is a lot of financial heavy lifting with this adopted project and any additional funding will help us make things bigger and brighter. OF COURSE, for the Kickstarter backers, they will not need to contribute extra donations as they will automatically qualify for the highest Patreon tiers, regardless of how much you contributed initially.



The Kickstarter funding was fully absorbed by the original development team, but we’re committed to fulfilling all rewards for Kickstarter backers. The Patreon page is simply an opportunity for fans - old and new - to contribute to the game if they choose.

And if you guys haven't had enough sofas and couches in this Devblog, here is the bug that spawned hundreds of them on the map for us. Agh sofarustrating 🤦



To end this devlog, we want to thank our most active Discord members who have offered some fantastic feedback, ideas, and contributed to a positive and uplifting environment:

Kirara Lala#0666 Poet#4177 Aurelia#2018 Mage💜#0666 LetTheBodyFall#6374 PurpleDragon#5561 Rin#3530

If you would like to be featured in a future devlog, join our Discord and start a conversation! Keep in mind that positivity and encouragement are some of the most important aspects of our community!



Thank you for your tremendous support. Be sure to leave a comment below, wishlist the game on Steam, and talk with you soon!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/895160/Farm_Folks/
With love,
The Crytivo Team