My indie game is GROWING! | Devlog

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Music:
Outset Island from Wind Waker
Wifi Theme from Pokemon Black and White

[TSHolden]

A futureproofing suggestion: rather than saving a boolean for collected resources and then tracking the timers separately, track a "total game time" in seconds, and whenever a resource is collected, write that to the collected resources array. Then it's easy to flip around your respawn logic to compare the current game time to the collected value, and you don't need to actively manage the timers any more. That in turn means that it's easier to tweak respawn values as you iterate on different resources, because the save system doesn't need to change.

[Dragon_]

For another resource, maybe you could add some mushrooms, and if you give them to some mushroom mage, they'll give you a temporary boost like life-steal after an enemy dies.

[jovegraham]

Another resource idea could be monster parts. You get them from killing monsters, and you can store them in your inventory to later use them like mini weapons that break after a single use. For example, a monster bone used as a boomerang and a monster organ being used as a grenade or bomb.

[DyerDesigns]

I'm always a fan of resources found exclusively through exploration. Could be something obscure like golden feathers, but they're found in hard to reach or secluded spots. They could be consumed to boost your health, defence, attack or magic permanently.

Acts as a reward for players who plant the right vine, or pass under the right waterfall.

[DataPotato]

That climbing is truly an ingenious thing! You are a mastermind!

[noiadev]

Adding colored gems to weapons for elemental damage boosts has been a staple of RPGs for a while, it would probably fit right in.

[ramblingworrm]

Here's an idea:
When you defeat a boss it drops a resource that can be given to the Blacksmith who makes a special weapon out of it or it can be given to a Wizardy NPC that gives you a unique spell for it. The resource can only be used once so the player must make a choice for what they want, a weapon or a spell.

[niicespiice]

3:50 i love this so much. i don't have a massive repetoir of games so all this reminds me of is ocarina of time, which gave me a nostalgia flashback for the bean stalk stuff

[soulsian]

Some advice: make your game couch co-op on the consoles. I can't tell you how many indie games I've not purchased on PS5 because they aren't couch co-op. Many married couples enjoy playing indie games together, and you'll make a ton of sales.

[Srelon.]

You should add different types of fish. Each type of fish could have different magical buffs. For example, maybe a light blue fish gives increased movement speed for a short amount of time, or a red fish gives the fire boost for a short amount of time. This would add more value to the fishing aspect of the game and make for some interesting new strategies. Amazing game so far man, I'm looking forward to the full release.

[fishcraft]

You could add tea leaves as a resource. These, when given to the person that gives to tea, could give you temporary bonuses, such as increased damage, increased health, increased speed, or any of the jewelry effects. They would be found on tea bushes. Only one effect could be active at once. This would cause the player to choose which effect they want for certain sections.

[Griffinbob]

Not a new resource but I think that for seed patches there could be some more information on what they do. I'm not sure if there was something I missed but it seemed like you put seeds in and something happens, could be a tree growing or a shortcut. I think some more information could be given to the player, maybe the patch looks different or a symbol appears when nearby so they know what they are spending their seeds on.

[ironbuilderstudios]

I've seen this done in some other games before; maybe you could add artifacts as a resource, could be found in caves or buried in the ground, or collected from soil, and could be given to some sort of historian npc, in exchange for some lore/info on the game

[binguette]

This is just kind of a general idea, but I was thinking about a possible event - or just day/night - system. It could be like Terraria, where during the night, there are some different enemies and falling stars fall from the sky. It's a very rough idea, and if you like it, I'll leave it to you to perfect, but it would be interesting for certain resources to only obtainable at certain times, like terraria's falling stars. Also, nighttime in Moonshire would look really cool!

Here's some night-based content ideas:
A bug-net type weapon/item. It could be used to capture animals that could be useful to you - for example, a nighttime fox/raccoon that carries a "star dye" in a jar, or something like that - you could use it to make your character's cloak gain a starry purple color. I have some other ideas, but I'll leave you with that for now!

[irrelevantgaymer]

An idea from one of my games I’m working on, a currency in my game is voice recordings of other people who have explored the area. It works in my game because there’s limited inventory space and an audio log takes up a whole slot, so you’d have to make trips out to collect the audio log and bring it back. But the main idea is still there, using lore snippets (in your case it’d probably be text) as currency. I think it makes people pay more attention to what it’s saying because once you spend it, you don’t have access to it anymore.

[LethalChicken]

With lots of resources, the numbers ticking down could impact performance. I would save the system time when loading and leaving a game, and save the timestamp when a resource was collected. Then you can do the calculation only when loading the resources.

[drepple]

After a player loots a room's resources, it could happen that they return to the room while the cooldowns for certain resources have passed and others haven't, even if they looted everything within a relatively short timespan. It could potentially be confusing for players to find only some resources have respawned. Maybe it could be interesting to have the cooldown be for the entire room instead of for indifidual resources, or to have all resources respawn at once if their cooldowns started at roughly the same time.

[daveh]

These videos are so inspiring. I can't wait to play your game!

[juangutierrez]

Ideas for resources:

Monster pulp: Just a default drop from monsters you kill. Could be used for trading or weapon crafting if theres a blacksmith in town that would make monster versions of weapons. You could take this several layers deeper adding variety in monster drops (fur, claws, teeth, wings, bones, etc) but then you'd need to justify it.

Mushrooms: Sometimes found inside hollow tree logs or in caves and could be used to craft consumable potions to grant you stats like damage, speed, resistance, etc.

Magic beans: Very rare drop from flora that when planted on magical soil will have a random effect like growing a new resource, spawning monsters, treasure chests, weapons, etc.

Monster egg: Rare drop from monsters, it will spawn an egg that follows you but breaks upon taking damage. After a set amount of time the egg hatches and you gain a randon familiar (bat, rat, frog, crow, etc) that attacks and has a set amount of HP.

Enchanted fabric: Maybe found in chests or as a very rare drop from monsters and could be given to a merchant in town to upgrade your cloak to grant better stats. Maybe X amount of material lets you get a new cloak and you get to choose the effect it gains (speed, resistance, damage, etc)

[kendelstar]

You should have some different types of flowers, and be able to use them to get potions or dyes or something like that!