Crops in Space by mrjoshuamclean
The crew of the only farming ship in the galaxy must find their way back to Earth... or die trying.
| Grow crops in space |
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| Meet the crew of the PJ-1019 | Visit planets for supplies |
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A pseudo-real-time visual novel farming simulator in space that may or may not have a handful of Stargate references because Stargate is awesome.
Programming, Audio, Story: Joshua McLean
Art: Kate Goebel
Note on the Audio
The game credits the Soniss GDC sound pack, but this was only used as a basis for constructing sound effects. The game's soundtrack is original compositions, and the sound effects were mostly modified. :)
Joshua is a professional composer. Check out the game's OST and more of his audio work.
PLEASE NOTE: KNOWN BUGS
The following can cause issues or show an error. You can usually select "Ignore" on the error screens and continue without any issue.
You can't sell seeds on planets because they have no fertile land to plant them. If you select the option "Why can't we sell seeds?" the game will crash. Avoid choosing this option! If you do, select "Ignore" and the game will be fine.
Sometimes if you pass a planet it'll track the planet as a negative distance and still let you land there. :(
Sometimes if you talk to a crew member, the game will throw an exception when you say "Nevermind." Should be safe to ignore this and continue the game.
When you run out of fuel, the engine might stay at its current level. In this state, it might be possible to take actions that put the fuel below zero.
Install Instructions
- Download the zip file
- Windows: Download "pc" version, extract, run joshua-mclean_of-crops-in-space.exe
- Linux: Download "pc" version, extract, run joshua-mclean_of-crops-in-space.sh
- Mac: Download "mac" version, extract, run the app
Tools
- Ren'Py (Python)
- FL Studio
- Krita
Thank you for playing!
Please be sure to rate and comment. :)
Ratings
| Overall | 820th | 3.216⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 984th | 2.819⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 882th | 2.986⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 804th | 3.292⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 874th | 2.972⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 497th | 3.125⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 733th | 3.1⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 90🗳️ | 12🗨️ |
One thing that I think might be a bug, though: when I chose not to land on a planet at all, it just kept counting negative distance once I was past it and never disappeared, even when it was over -100 LY away.
Overall, its really nice. I think the story, art and UI could be improved a bit
One thing to note, when I started the game up first, the scrolling background was made me a little bit dizzy and nauseous.
Also, I got an exception when trying to talk to Klaara? or the other person. Can't remember.
I didn't play too long, but it would have been nice to see some more interactions with the crew/ character development. In fact this game kind of reminds me of Sunrider Academy.
I was able to continue playing after that, but eventually got stranded in a situation where there was no way for me to continue, so I didn't make it to the end. I like the tradeoffs involved in the mechanics, but it's a bit overwhelming to have everything dropped on you right at the beginning in such a numbers-heavy game.
In fact, as it currently stands, the game was pretty easy once I figured out that you could convert food to all other kinds of resources: it means that landing on planets is not really necessary, and because you can use 18 fuel to escape any enemy, it becomes pretty straightforward to just click the "wait 10 hours" button and the "plant seeds" and "convert" buttons and win.
@ZaneDD Another tester also pointed out that bug. Hopefully we'll get it patched in the next version. :)
@Flameo326 We'll look into ways to make the scrolling background less nauseating. Sometimes if you talk to an officer and say "Nevermind" it throws an exception. This is one of those hard-to-pin down bugs that I'll try to squash soon. As for more crew interactions, that was the last thing on the table when we ran out of time. We'll start to flesh out the "novel" part of the VN experience in future versions.
@Yirggzmb Shields recharge faster and crops grow faster if the stations are manned, and the engine can get to Level 3 only if the station is manned. It's definitely subtle. We'll try to make it more apparent in the next version, or at the very least include a guide!
@notnullnotvoid Great idea on ramping up the complexity. We'll try to make it build step by step in a future version to avoid confusion.
@TheMonsterFromTheDeep We were tweaking the balance to the very end, so there will definitely be changes to fix up this gaping hole in the design soon. XD
@Rocktavious Hey, you caught onto my inspiration! The initial concept was "FTL as VN meets Harvest Moon." :D
What I saw, I enjoyed, though. Nice art, music was good, and the gameplay was interesting and enjoyable. Nice one! :smile:
Also haha it's not a big deal, but it always bothers me when games ask for my name then make me a boy ('Sir'). At least warn me I should put in a fake name, you know?
I really liked the gameplay and the mood! The strategy becomes quite straightforward after a while, though.
There was Alpha Centauri at about 4LY just before Earth, so I wonder, if all other systems and distances were real-life too? (I failed to pay attention, as was not familiar with those names)
Nice job!
@Articulated9 I love Red Dwarf! Smegging brilliant show. It'll definitely be an inspiration going forward... maybe there will be a toaster on board? :P
@Autumnotopia D'oh! That's totally my bad. We did a practice game beforehand and I copied over the code for naming, but forgot to copy over the prompt text that specified you're of the male variety. Will definitely make that more obvious in future versions. Or better yet, allow you to select your gender!
@Shivur Agreed. That was a feature we had to cut for time, but you will definitely have the option to hire (and possibly re-hire) crew in a future version.
@ndry That is indeed an issue. They both show up in the "tutorial" bit and the ending regardless of who's left on the ship. Thanks for pointing out the oversight. Also, Alpha Centauri is the only real one - the rest of them were made up. Just thought the familiar name would be a good way to say "Hey, you're almost home!" ;D
@theamazingb Great idea! We absolutely need to flesh out the crops side of things, and we have plans to do so soon. And I'll do my best to play, rate, and comment on all the games from people who give feedback!
@bentglasstube Thanks for the feedback! We'll definitely look into ways to rebalance the combat. The other choices (waiting for help and negotiating) aren't currently implemented, so having those actually working should help provide more options. :)
I ran into a bug when asking about selling seeds, here's [the error message](https://pastebin.com/AJHLMLw9) if that helps. Fortunately I could ignore it and keep playing
Good job, after avoiding a couple of gangs and visiting a couple of planets leaves the feel that it's an infinite game (probably it is)!