EVERGREEN VALLEY
OVERVIEW
Evergreen Valley; a quiet suburban neighbourhood in paradise! No cars, noise or fossil fuels here! Life is a dream and humans have progressed to perfect society with a unique and calming blend of the natural and technological. Your future has only just begun. Welcome to Evergreen Valley!
A CARD GAME
Evergreen Valley is played as a singleplayer sandbox card game, each card represents an aspect of your world.
-Time
-Vitals
-Satisfaction
-Skills
-Jobs
-Objects
-Life Tokens
And more to come!
EDIT: BASIC CARD DESIGN EVOLUTION. THE LAST TWO ARE ALMOST FINAL BUT STILL PROTOTYPE. ORIGINAL DESIGN WORK BEGAN MARCH 2017.
https://preview.ibb.co/cA6W98/836_BE762_3_B65_40_C8_AFF1_8_A0_AF7352_E14...
(Please note the game is handmade and will potentionally be distributed through print and play should enough interest be developed.)
TIME
The game is played through a series of turns, a time card manages this with 8 hours; 4 day, 4 night. Each hour corresponds to a turn.
VITALS
Similar to The Sims your character has needs and each day you are required to fulfill 3 mandatory vitals (Energy, Hunger & Bathroom) and 3 optional vitals. Non Vital fulfilling objects mostly required a certain level of vitals to be fulfilled in order to use. Vitals reset to 0 at 6am unless the last Vital fulfilled was energy.
SATISFACTION
A world with nothing but survival isn’t a little bland at best so your character wants to do satisfying activities and the more satisfied you are the more perks you unlock. Satisfaction goes up as a result of object card actions and automatically decrements by one each turn; it does NOT reset at night. At the higher levels you can gain vitals, life tokens and other perks.
SKILLS / JOBS
The prototype image above shows the Cooking skill in its early form. And next to it the Mining Job. Long story short you level up skills and occupations with Life Tokens. Each has 3 levels Bronze, Silver and Gold plus a base action.
Example: Mining by default gives 5 resource tokens as a result. If you level up however you gain the corresponding perk in addition each time you use that card. Mining on each level just gives you MORE resource tokens (the in game generic currency).
The same applies to skills which become more and more useful at the higher levels.
The current skills include:
-Cooking
-D.I.Y
-Cleaning
LIFE TOKENS
Life tokens are gained via a variety of actions, through skills and the higher levels of satisfaction. The tokens are used as a kind of progression currency and have no set use. Current implementations include leveling up skills and occupations etc. Future features will also utilise the tokens to give you sandbox gameplay.
OBJECTS
Last but not least we come to Objects. At the start of the game you are given a set number of resource tokens to spend on a little house and a few basics. Objects are pretty versatile and may have one or more action ‘Orbs’ which dictate effect such as increasing vitals, using skills, gaining life tokens etc. The Orb feature is used extensively to dictate gameplay and is incredibly versatile allowing for many combinations and of course entirely new orbs etc
FIMO CLAY MARKERS
All of the above doesn’t just work with cards and will be complimented with a variety of fimo clay markers (yet to be designed) which will be used to show progress and track various features of the game.
CONCLUSION
So there you have it, finally since starting to design the game concept back in March 2017 I’m very close to having a simple working prototype which is exciting! I will of course play test extensively myself and with friends but let me know what you think / further ideas! Going forward once I have the basic game finished I am intending to expand it adding features like weather, NPC’s and deeper skills.
Thanks,
Nytician.
P.S I do have images but I need to find a way to show them on a non bbcode board :P
Comments
Open World - Sandbox
There was a discussion here some time ago that discussed a number of open-world game concepts. I like your use of cards and tokens to indicate skills and events, and think that there can be some takeaways from this old forum topic for you:
https://www.bgdf.com/forum/game-creation/new-game-ideas/open-world-game-...
Generally speaking, these games rely on the player to develop their own objectives, and games have a tendency to be bogged-down with minutiae that are of no interest to the player. Providing direction can sometimes allay these issues, but of course at the expense of nuance and variety of options. You'll likely benefit from providing some definite direction for the player, but in the meantime it's worth exploring and experimenting with different mechanics.
Best of success to you and your project! :)
Hi thanks so much for taking
Hi thanks so much for taking the time to respond! :) When I get a moment I will take a deeper look at the thread you recommended! In short I like the idea of directed freedom, so the game isn’t like Lego where you make / do whatever it’s directed so you build skills, earn money, design a house etc but all within basic constraints. Long term I’m intending to add an achievements system too to allow further option for focussed goals.
Will see if it turns out any good haha :)
Regards,
Nyt.