The game itself is fairly simple: after arriving at the home of an elderly woman and her grandson on the Japanese countryside, the player must find a few items around the area in order to help with tending to the fields. Exploring the world from the first person perspective, the player will gather items such as shovels, a wheelbarrow, seed packets, a radio, etc to help with the needs of the two other people on the farm.
The game itself takes place in the rural Japanese countryside, around the late 90s/early 2000s where old radios and televisions are a bit more relevant than they are today. I want to give the vibes of a rather old, worn out and self-sustained environment that is still bustling with life despite the obvious wear and tear in certain places.
The two main characters in this game (beyond the player character, who we do not see) are an older woman and her grandson who live on the farm. They have a small two room house – which I am still unsure whether or not I will let the player explore it – where they spend their days together. There will be no nearby houses, as everything is separated by swathes and swathes of rice fields, which the older women spends much of her time tending. The player themself can wade through the fields to find items.
I want to convey a feeling of “we don’t have a lot, but we care deeply about one another” with the grandmother and her grandson. I have tried my best to make their designs compliment one another despite obvious differences, as well as give them some literal ties to each other with matching bows on their hats.
The intended audience are people who enjoy feel-good, slower paced games, as I do want to incorporate a decent amount of dialogue for the player as they talk with the grandmother and her grandson.
A great deal of inspiration for the particular setting comes from My Neighbor Totoro, specifically the scene at the beginning where the father stops on the road and asks for directions from one of the people tending the rice fields there. The contrast with the countryside and the road there was exactly the sort of feeling to my game that I wanted to convey.
One of the first things I wanted to do was understand the needs of the two characters, and as a result, how the environment (namely the house) would look. I figured that as there were only two people there and they wouldn’t want for a lot, they would only need a place to live and a place to store farming equipment. I gave them a small concrete porch with a single chair, surrounded by boxes and concrete blocks, and a small alcove for storage. In addition, I gave them a small buggy car, rusted from disuse but still chugging if needed.
I kept the older lady’s design full of soft, round shapes, while the grandson I gave sharp sides and such in order to help the two play off of one another. I wanted to make them look different but as if they belonged with one another, as their relationship within the game is something I want to make very apparent and pure.
I’m so impressed by how much thought you put into the character designs! I think they will be really lovely and fun characters to interact with, not to mention correct to the setting. Will the player be able to use the items they collect? I think it could be fun for the player to be able to harvest rice as well as just pick up items, but I understand that requires a larger scope.
Thank you! Character writing and as a result, character design, is really important to me. I’ve been trying to get more into environmental design and storytelling especially with this project but in the end I cannot escape my roots and wanted these two to be the vocal point of the environment lol
I’m not sure if players will be able to use items yet; I might have something simple, like “use a key on a door”, or potentially being able to harvest rice with gloves, but I don’t think there’ll be a particular animation attached to it.
This is a really cute and very well-thought-out design! The vibe of this game reminds me of an upcoming farm sim called Sunny Side that has a similar relaxing, calm, and explorative nature. Where would the player find the items? Will they be in other buildings or found in the rice fields?
Oh I’ve never heard of that game before! I searched it up and it looked really cute, maybe I’ll check it out when it comes out 🙂 I plan on having players find items namely in the shed, but they’ll be scattered around the map as a whole. I’ll make sure that they have a hint as to where to find the items so as to not make it impossible (ie the older lady might say she lost gloves in the field so you’ll know to check there).
You clearly care a lot about this idea, and it shows in your concept. You should look into the movie ‘Wolf Children’- the setting there is also ghibli-esque and the environment you describe is a main area of the movie, it may help give you some more inspiration! (its also one of my favorite movies, its so cute <3) My one question is how exactly will the player collect these items? Will they have to bring them back to someone, or simply find and interact with them?
Ah yes, it’s been a good few years since I’ve seen Wolf Children but I loved it a lot! Definitely a really good movie I cried hard when watching it haha.
It depends on the item; they might need an item to access another area, like a key for a door, or perhaps they just need to fetch gloves for the older lady.
Hannah mentioned Wolf Children and I totally agree, also it really reminds me of Your Name especially in Mitsuha’s town. Will there be neighbor characters who come over to interact with the grandmother and son? I can really see this being Studio Ghibli the game.
I haven’t seen Your Name because someone spoiled me on the ending and I got really upset lol but I wanna see it sometime soon! I don’t plan for there to be neighbor characters as I think they’d all be too far away but I’ll think about it 🙂
I love the Studio Ghibli vibes of the game and how cute and adorable your designs are. I apologize for being repetetive, but I’m also curious about the finding, collecting, and use of the items in the game.
Thank you! I’m really glad you like them 🙂
I plan on having players find items namely in the shed, but they’ll be scattered around the map as a whole. I’ll make sure that they have a hint as to where to find the items so as to not make it impossible (ie the older lady might say she lost gloves in the field so you’ll know to check there).
Going for countryside as your location will really allow you to bring out vibrant colors that mix with the sunlight and expansive fields. After seeing your low-poly artwork I feel you can pull this off very well. You mentioned that the player will be moving through the fields to collect items. Will you look into implementing water physics as they move through the water and will the items be hidden in the water or float on top?
Thank you! I’m touched by your confidence in me 🙂 The water bit is something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit; I’m not sure if I want to have water bits that are inaccessible (having the player only walk around on the paths in between) or have some alternative form of transport. I don’t think I’ll have the objects float if I do put them in the water however, probably just have them stick out, I’m too lazy to figure out water physics lol
I’m really excited to see how you develop this, I’m a huge fan of cozy games, so this warmed my heart to see. Do you have an idea what the key items the player will have to interact with/collect? If you wanted to continue this project past this class, you could have the player actually go through the chore or task associated with the key item.
Thank you! I’ve been really into really cozy games this past year or so, so I was really excited to work on this as a project. Some of the items I have in mind are a shovel the old lady lost, some keys to get into the house, and some gloves for the player to put on in order to safely interact with other objects. Depending on how this project goes, I’d really like to continue it beyond this class and give it an extra layer of polish!