Hey everyone, Dan here the community manager for Horticular, with what is hopefully a nice and juicy development update! What will we be talking about?

• New Trailer
• New Key Art
• Next Fest Recap
• Road To Release
• Creator Highlight
• Community Garden Spotlight

So let's get right into it!

New Trailer

Since Horticular's debut trailer a lot has changed in the game, from UI to whole mechanics, so we thought it was about time for a brand new trailer. [previewyoutube=g3UZiQZ2yms;full][/previewyoutube] We actually worked with YouTuber KatherineOfSky to debut the new trailer, so massive thanks to her for agreeing to do that! My hope with this new trailer is that if anything changes again in the future it will be easy to drop in new footage of the game and keep the general flow showing off the various elements that make up Horticular!

New Key Art

Alongside the new trailer we commissioned two new pieces of key art, which we have shown off previously, but we love it so much we thought we'd share it again below in case this is the first time seeing it properly. We got a nice warm feeling one, and a more bright colourful version done. We love them both and we are currently swapping them in and out on the store page to see which people are more drawn too. Which do you prefer?

Next Fest Recap

We decided to enter the October Edition of Next Fest with a new demo update that brought a lot of quality of life fixes to the demo. The reception was amazing, whilst we didn't hit the top of any of the big front page charts, we got wayyyyy more wishlists than we thought we had planned for, driven by a lot of passionate new fans over on the Horticular X/Twitter account. The patch notes for the demo felt more like those you'd see on an early access game update haha. [previewyoutube=-38oHfHM5kw;full][/previewyoutube]

Road To Release

For this section, I will hand you over to Robert, Horticular's (only) developer! -- As were barrelling towards the winter break, Im currently wrapping up the big-ticket features and tech for Horticular. The goal is to become feature complete, taking the game into an internal Beta to spend the remaining time on polishing the experience and fleshing out content. The list of remaining work for this isnt too big, but it contains some crucial items that I thought Id share with you!

Habitat Tool

Starting on the gameplay side, Ill be diving into habitats yet again. While Im happy with their overall reception and generally being like small puzzles, habitats still dont fully feel like a first-class feature. For example, important information is hidden away in various UI elements and there is no direct player interaction. Ive also heard feedback that habitats may spawn in unfortunate places, messing up garden planning. Now, the general premise will stay the same, but Im leaning towards introducing another tool for the player: the habitat tool. While it needs some experimentation, the idea is to give the player easier access to plan habitats, while keeping the challenge and mastery of species. For instance, one option is to allow the player to mark areas as planned habitats to show planning details. This tool would also mean that I can move the hacky logic of the animal overlay (tracking a creature changes its behavior) into the dedicated tool. And since tools are all interactive, it could perhaps be used to nudge or move existing habitats for people who want more control over their garden.

Hortic Day Overhaul

While not a primary game mechanic, the Hortic Day needs some love. Truth be told, the current implementation almost hasnt changed since the initial gameplay prototype of Horticular. So Im looking forward to both introducing some quality of life (skippable pages perhaps?) and fleshing out some of its features.

Steam Deck UI

You may already have tried Horticular on the Steam Deck and found that it works pretty well. However, there are some text elements that are illegible, which needs to be sorted out before the game is launched. I dont know exactly what that means in practice and I need to try some things out. It could be enough to revamp some of the UI elements, but I could also introduce an additional UI size intended for small or distant screens. Regardless, it is work that will help us launch the game on further platforms, so it will be a welcome change.

Steam Integration

Speaking of Steam, I need to get it integrated into Horticular! This basically means getting achievements and stats up and running. Fortunately, I have already prototyped it and I hope it will be a rather quick integration.

Modding

Which leads us into modding. While Horticular is pretty easy to mod as is, I intend to fully support mods before launch. That means that it should not only be easy to make them but it should be even easier to install them, for example via the Steam workshop. For this I need to make some backend changes to how files are loaded as well as creating additional tools to make and upload mod packages. In particular, this needs to play nicely with any official post-release content, and it needs to be simple enough so that any non-technical player can just download some new animals and have them show up without fiddling with configs. I cant wait to wrap up the above so I can focus fully on the gameplay in the time leading up to Horticulars launch in 2024. ---

Creator Highlight

With the excitement around Next Fest we got some new coverage on YouTube that I'd love to highlight so you can see the game in action and support those who have supported the game by giving them a watch and a like! First on the list is Yogscast(!?!) in August this year we were selected to be in Tiny Teams 2023, and Loli, Rythian and Briony played the demo on stream! [previewyoutube=L_KHsSUGUDU;full][/previewyoutube] The Pillow Fort [previewyoutube=ECmUdKJQ3Js;full][/previewyoutube] 2DKiri [previewyoutube=pULZn5s9ifI;full][/previewyoutube] ToastBurn [previewyoutube=W1JfVPk_poY;full][/previewyoutube]

Community Garden Spotlight

Over the Horticular Discord we have a channel to showcase community gardens that people have shared and below are just a couple of our favourites! First up we have CoffeeBean:
Here with have Cryp's heart-shaped swamp:
And finally here is cdev's neatly organised garden:

Thank you

That's it for this development update, thanks so much for reading and supporting Horticular! If you haven't already, please feel free to have a play of the demo and be sure to leave your feedback!

[ 2023-11-03 10:49:28 CET ] [ Original post ]