Verdant Skies - Life Simulation, dating, farming, plant hybridization, and more!

Verdant Skies is a life simulation game born from a love for games like Harvest Moon and a desire create something unique with modern gameplay and deep storytelling. Lose yourself in the lovingly hand-painted alien world of Viridis Primus. Ensure the success of the colony as you make friends and pursue romance with a diverse cast of characters. Demonstrate your mastery of the farming system by creating the perfect crop hybrid using the genetic splicing machine - or spend your days painting and making pottery. The possibilities are endless!

Here are some of the core features you have to look forward to:

• Life simulation game similar to old favorites like Harvest Moon.
• True-to-life storytelling and dialog with complex and real characters.
• An accessible and open dating system.
• Character customization.
• Plant hybridization.
• Lots of upgrades to unlock.

http://verdantskies.com/blog/
http://twitter.com/verdant_skies
https://www.facebook.com/Verdant-Skies-874440432672830/


With many natural skin tone options and tons of unique hair styles and clothing choices you can easily craft your perfect avatar. Unlike many games in this genre, Verdant Skies doesn't ask you to choose a gender when you create your character. As you help to grow the colony, you will unlock additional datable residents.

Split your time wisely between activities as you help to build your colony. Gather resources, decorate your home, grow crops, go spear fishing, cook interesting meals, befriend your fellow colonists, and maybe even fall in love...

I'm excited to hear feedback from other Unity devs! Thanks!

 

We couldn't do all the cool graphical effects without Unity, so I wanted to share what we're doing for reflections:

I really wanted to make the world of Verdant Skies beautiful- and as a developer, I figured the best way I could contribute was with fancy graphical effects like these reflections.

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I wrote the reflection shader with the help of Scott (thanks Scott!). At first, it started as just a way to animate the water, so the first thing to add was the rippling pattern that occurs on the surface. I won't get too technical here, but if you're interested in details, the core idea is using a normal map to displace your UV texture lookup.

In order to actually generate the reflections, we select everything that is "reflect-able" and draw it separately. We also draw the background color, which represents the color of the sky that is reflected by the water:

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Then we composite that reflection map on top of the water that we're drawing.

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The animated reflections are looking pretty cool, but it doesn't really look like water.. kind of like a shimmery mirror. So we blend in a texture as the last step. Have you ever noticed that when you look across a big body of water and see a reflection, that moving doesn't really change what's reflected there? There's a pretty constant gradient because of how the sky is reflecting in the angle of the water.

(not in game art... it's a picture of a lake from Wikipedia)
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In the 2D world of verdant skies, we simulate that by blending in a hand-painted water texture. The final result gives you a nice subtle color and texture difference from top to bottom:

But this is what our water really looks like!​

In other Verdant Skies news: Beth has been hard at work doing the level design for the real map. I've got a huge list of mostly small usability bugs to fix. Lizzy has been working on the art for the player- there's a lot of art to make for our fully customizable characters! More to come about that in a later post...

 

This week we’ve been working on player appearance customization. Lizzy’s been hard at work creating clothing, hairstyles and facial features. Andy has successfully implemented skin tone selection and clothing color changes.

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Crafting options will play a role in which clothing items are initially available, but the player will be able to select their apparel from a limited selection right away.

Meanwhile, Beth continues to work on the game map design. The general layout of the settlement is finished, though it will need some finessing before it is finalized.

 

Making the Music of Verdant Skies

Our team is trying to establish a coherent mood for Verdant Skies and a big part of that comes from Troy’s music. To begin the project, he established a palette of instruments that coalesced around guitar, drums, bass, and organ. Those aren’t everything, but it has done a nice job to establish the frontier-like elements of the game–an untamed wild, expansive and uncharted.

The trailer needed to invite the audience in and preview the musical style. For that, Troy decided a piano would be fitting. He used the EastWest Steinway virtual instrument treated with Logic’s built-in Space Designer convolution reverb plugin. This lent a grounded yet otherworldly, shimmering sound. He applied a tape delay to the pedal tones as well.



To structure the music, Troy focused on the three main scenes: a woman walking along a lake, a man walking through a swamp on an autumn day, and two friends meeting near a grove of trees. Each offered a glimpse into the possibilities in store with the game, so the musical material needed to build as the world opened up. Troy built clusters of lightly articulated piano chords filled with dissonances that didn’t resolve–we don’t know where the next scene will take us, or what we’ll find on this strange world. As it grows in volume and the range increases, we peer through trees to see evidence of a new colony and the Verdant Skies logo as an F# chord plays in the strings.



The final four notes utilize the main motif of Verdant Skies: an ascending major 7th followed by a perfect fourth a minor 6th above (in this key, F#, E#, C# & F#–and don’t try to tell him it’s an F natural!).
There is lot of exciting audio happening in Verdant Skies, so be sure to check back to hear what Topher Pirkl is doing with sound design and adaptive audio implementation.

Listen to Troy’s track on the teaser trailer:

 

Andy and Beth will be at GDC for this entire week! GDC is a yearly game developers conference that's held in San Fransisco- and it's the big one.

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The best way to reach us is our twitter accounts:
https://twitter.com/kortham
https://twitter.com/bethkorth

We've even got cards!

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I've never played Harvest Moon, although I have heard it's a good game. This looks interesting so I'm following!

 

Yeah very nice I love the water effect.

 

Thanks for the kind words! GDC has been great so far.
@Whiteleaf: Another great game to check out is Stardew Valley- it just came out and it's definitely in the same genre.

We're really happy with the water effect and I'm sure we'll find more cool stuff to add like that.

 

We’ve been working on updating our player UI. Check out these new icons Lizzy made!

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These are just some of the basic tool icons you will see in the game. We plan on having upgrade options as play progresses. Each tool will become more powerful as you upgrade it.

She also made the correspondence icons for when you receive communications.

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Last but not least, romance indicators! As your fellow inhabitants fall for you, their level of attraction will be tracked with these gorgeous hearts.

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Thanks for following our progress!

 

One of the recent features I've been programming has been the crafting system! After a lot of consideration, I came up with a list of features that were important for my vision of how crafting could work:

• The player can make and place things like workbenches, watering tanks, etc. Making and placing these objects is both a way for the player to advance, and it allows customization and ownership of the world.
• Crafting can take time, so players have an incentive to plan and prioritize what they are making. If they're planning on making a lot of something, additional workbenches/ovens/etc will speed the process.
• Different crafting stations can be used to craft different things.
• Aid usability by limiting the number of craftable items in a single crafting station. (No huge lists that scroll forever)

So here's what we've got mocked up so far:

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The UI still needs some clearer labeling, but the bottom row is the output, products that have been made. The large item above that is the one that is currently being crafted. The items to the right are the queue of items that are in progress. It flows pretty well when you see it in motion.

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When you mouse over the item you want to craft, it shows a description of the item, and what it takes to make that item.

There are a few things I haven't figured out yet:

• Will there be a crafting mini-game? The mini-games in Fantasy Life were great and really well done. The better you did on the mini-game, the higher the quality of the item produced. One thought is that you only need to do the mini-game the first time you craft something. Or you can skip the minigame to craft at the highest quality level you've achieved so far.
• Do crafted items have a meaningful quality level? This goes hand-in-hand with the above question.

 

A lot of games in this genre have a fishing system based on waiting for a bobber to move, quickly hitting a key, and then some sort of button mashing to reel in the fish. Most of these mini-games are <em>sorta okay</em>, but they are never too interesting, involve a lot of waiting, and can be pretty inaccessible to people with lower manual dexterity.

Instead, Verdant Skies includes the more exciting: Spear Fishing!

A major inspiration for the spear fishing is the hunting system from old Oregon Trail games.

The fishing system isn't 100% finished yet. The size of the shadow of the fish and how far away it is from shore will play a role in determining what kind of fish you get. I'd also like to dress it up with some trail effects on the thrown spear. Also, the fish count has already been reduced to a more reasonable level since the video was taken.

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We've been working hard on getting Verdant Skies ready for 2DCon, but the forum posting fell behind a little bit. One big reason for that is because we got a new team member!

Check out this cute little guy!

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He's about 4 weeks old now, but this picture was taken in the first week or so. Things have calmed down and I've been back at work on Verdant Skies. There's been a lot of fixes to all sorts of areas, improving playability and getting things ready for our first public showing.

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We also just held our first private playtesting with three brave volunteers at Glitch HQ's Playtest event. The playtest went great, I was expecting about 5-20 minutes of content, but each person played between 25-30 minutes before I had to kick them off! I got about 8 pages of notes, so there will be a lot of usability improvements made by 2DCon.

 

Lots has happened since 2DCon! There's been 38 bug fixes or features added since the show. Another huge thank you to everyone who tested there, provided feedback, and gave us their ideas.

I'd like to highlight a few of the changes we made after 2DCon:

Added some of the new style house art that Lizzy made. It looks amazing, and even better- it's customizable. As developers, we can swap out the doors and windows for different styles, and arrange them differently depending on our needs.... and that means that when it comes to the player's house, there are lots of decorating options!


You can now cancel something that you are crafting at the workbench. You get back 100% of your materials!


Buy blueprints with the money that you've earned from selling your crops:



Fix up some problems and inconsistencies with the seed selector. It now has a close button, and your seeds no longer appear in the inventory- only in the seed chest.


Added some more masculine hair styles.
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And a bunch of important fixes:
* Prevent bugs from sleeping multiple times in a row
* Fix missing fishing icon
* Fix bugs with the timer bar on the crafting window.
* Fix Wyatt's portrait.
* Fix issues with the final quest not completing- add another quest to clarify what the player should be doing.
* Remove that annoying unclickable piece of scrap by Rosie's house.
* Fix some save/load issues that no one at 2DCon ran into :O

We also added more dialog to Wyatt, the third character you unlock early in the game.

 

More code and artwork for the customizable house system has been finished! We've got a visual tour of some of the different ways you can decorate your home as you expand it through the different levels.




Individual doors and windows can be changed, as with the color of the house. Each person living on the planet has a home that matches their individual tastes.


We have a huge collection of doors...


.. and windows.


And Lizzy is working on different roofs that can be swapped in and out.



And finally, I wanted to keep the amount of extra popup windows to a minimum, so you can edit the design of your house as you walk around outside it by using the arrows that pop up near each window, door, or at the base of each building.


Careful observers will notice the new map icon in the bottom of the screen. Details will be revealed in the next blog post!

 

A huge amount of work has been done on Verdant Skies since our last post. The first programming pass has been finished on the in-game map. As I watch new testers play the game, I find that the map makes a pretty big difference in how they interact with other people. Since they can find the characters more easily, they can get the dialog for each character every day, and they get a lot more of that person's story.

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When a character is inside a building, their icon appears above the building! The map wasn't very useful without that feature.

We've also been hard at work on content- like cooking! Lizzy has drawn a bunch of amazing cooked food items. We'll have a special blog post about her artwork soon. Cooking isn't required if you want to sell your food- it doesn't really increase the value of most items... but cooked items can be eaten to restore your energy. So if you really want to pack the most into each day, cooking will be an important part of that.

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One other bit of gameplay that has recently been reworked is the genetic system. Everything you plant has a genome. You can either choose to ignore this system, or carefully combine crops you've grown in order to unlock special traits. We haven't finished the tutorial that comes along with unlocking the genetic machine, but it's in-game:

In this image, the player is inspecting a Bristlegrain seed. It's genome is represented by the red and green bars at the top of the screen. This is a pretty good seed, as it has traits for extra yield and a faster growth rate. You can see how it's genome matches the requirements for the two traits shown.

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You can also browse the list of traits you've discovered in any seeds. For example, the regrowth trait will automatically replant a crop after it is harvested. The required genome is shown, so you can attempt to modify plants towards the desired characteristics.

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September Developer Update:
Since the last public showing at 2D Con, nearly every aspect of the game has been improved. New music has been composed, artwork has been repainted, game mechanics have been reprogrammed, and new events have been written! For more detailed updates, follow us on Twitter and check the blog.



Updated the water graphics- it reflects sunlight as it shimmers and the foamy shoreline moves in and out slowly.

Weather System


New weather system! Rain storms come through at random times during a day and water all your crops for you.

Art Updates
While our exterior environment was strong at 2D Con, many small adjustments were made to improve the cohesion of the world. The flora and fauna were redesigned, and an overhaul of the roads has really helped tie the world together visually. In addition to the exteriors, the interior placeholder art has been replaced with tastefully designed rooms and accents that the player can customize as they please. The NPC art has been updated again as Lizzy strives to find a cohesive rendering style for the characters. We now have four fully rendered characters in a consistent style and are working on additional emotion portraits to accentuate the dialog. Our recent closed playtests have provided a great perspective on what we've accomplished, and what still needs work.


The new interior art allows players to move, replace, and eventually recolor all these items of furniture!

More Character Events
Since 2D Con, the entire intro has been rewritten for clarity and to increase player involvement. Beth has also been hard at work creating more relationship events for the first four non-player characters. We also have new daily dialogs for them. The bios for the next two NPCs are in the works as well, and the visual descriptions have been sent to the artist. Hopefully by Gamer's Rhapsody we will have the friendship events and daily dialogs for the first six NPCs completed to allow for a more robust experience.


New character emotion portraits!

UI Rework
The UI is probably going to continue to change, but we've moved to a simpler and cleaner style for the interface.


No spoilers here!


Tool upgrades! Each standard tool now has three different upgrades. The upgraded versions are faster and use less energy, but they also can be used to access different areas, or farm in more difficult terrain. There are two secret tools you'll unlock as you progress through the beginning of the game.

 

Steam Greenlight Voting

We're now on Steam Greenlight, and we need your votes to get Verdant Skies listed on Steam! Please vote for us on our Greenlight page. Voting is free, you just need a steam account, and the more "yes" votes we get, the sooner Verdant Skies will be on Steam!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=778620941

Thanks!

New Gameplay Video

Our new video shows off all sorts of new things you can do in Verdant Skies. Check out the upgraded fishing system, the crafting systems, planting, watering, and harvesting crops.

Furniture Placement

Big advancements have been made to our furniture system. Now your paintings will automatically snap to walls, and certain small objects can be placed on top of tables. We've also updated the shop, so you can purchase decorative rugs and interior windows to make your house really feel like a home.

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This picturesque lake is just west of the town center. You can build the western town expansion from this area, which adds a roadway and new building sites for more colonists.

 

Thanks for your Greenlight Support!
Verdant Skies has been successfully Greenlit on Steam! We are deeply grateful for all of your votes and support; thanks to you, our game will be available on Steam when it is done.

New Clothing, Mechanics, Everything!

So much has changed in the last month, it's hard to make a list. We've got a new flexible clothing system that allows you to combine dozens of different shirts, pants, skirts, and accessories.

The map has expanded to include the eastern side of the river, which includes a new lake where you can harvest clay for your pottery. The color theme of the eastern bank gives the new area a pretty different feel, it transitions from the green grass on the west side towards a purple theme.

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New character art and new map areas!

Crafting Overhaul

The crafting system has been overhauled- many new items have been added, but we've also cleaned up which items get crafted at which station. The 3D Printer is used mainly for crafting objects that have a specific gameplay purpose or can be used to craft other things. The 3D Printer can queue 5 items at a time and things generally take the better part of a day to print.


Contrast that with the woodworking workbench, which is used mostly to make decorative items for your home. Items take a few hours to make at the workbench, but it actually consumes the your time to make these items.


If you find yourself with time left over at the end of the day, use your time at the workbench, artist easel, or in the kitchen! Without using energy you've reserved for chopping wood, you can make a tidy profit or restore some energy with a homecooked meal.

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One of the new craftable items is the alarm clock, which allows you to nap anytime you want and wake up at the time of your choosing.

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The pottery station provides 50+ decorative options for your home, plus the possibility of a steady daily income.

Interior Decorating

More and more interior items are being added. Once you invite Miles to the planet, you'll be able to buy flooring, wallpapers, windows, and recolorable rugs.

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Change the flooring and wallpapers of your home... with a fancy animation!

Gene Splicing

The genetic engineering UI has been reworked again in order to improve the usability. There isn't really anything else like this that I'm aware of, so it's taken a lot of redesign to make it easy to use. The big usability fixes in the latest changes to the genetic interface have focused on immediately showing the effect of your splice location.

There will still be a few important changes to come to this UI

• You'll be able to label/mark your seeds, so you can keep them sorted easily.
• The UI will probably go full-screen to better fit the resulting traits without needing to scroll.

The below picture shows the combination of two seeds with some positive and negative traits. Notice that one of the two genes that code for "Needs extra water" overlap with the quality trait. We could move our splice point to remove the last blue gene, but that would eliminate both the positive and negative trait. But we did get the necessary regrowth gene out of the bottom seed, and that's one of my favorite traits so far.

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The new Genetic Splicer is also red/green colorblind friendly by default.

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There are also a dozen events for the first four characters. Wyatt likes to request plant samples from new areas of the planet.

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New watering particle effects and new outfits!
Play Verdant Skies at Gamer's Rhapsody

If you're in Minnesota, stop by the Gamer's Rhapsody conference to play a preview build! The convention is this weekend, November 18th - 20th. We will have a booth at the Gamer's Rhapsody Indie Developer room. Also, you can use the coupon code "GR3" for a discount on admission. If you're a student, use "GRstudent" for even cheaper tickets!

 

Gamer's Rhapsody: Best Game of 2016!
At Gamer's Rhapsody we won 2016 Game of the Year and Best Story! And best of all, we had a lot of players who got to sit down with Verdant Skies and play through the beginning of the game. Since Gamer's Rhapsody is a relatively small convention, players were able to continue their saves on the second and third day of the convention, so half a dozen players were able to get 1-3 hours of gameplay! Thanks to our dedicated testers who got through the first 3 character events, picked and sold $500 worth of flowers, and got all the tool upgrades.

Thanks to Gamer's Rhapsody for an amazing con!​

Feedback from the testers filled several notebook pages and has been a huge help in balancing prices and the timing for the first dozen events.

Polishing Animations

A lot of polishing is happening throughout the game. One good example is this new animation when fields are watered.

Look at those fields!​

Fertilizer, Sprinklers, and Area Specific Crops

I've been working on some of the more advanced farming features. After watching some of the people who played a longer amount of time at Gamer's Rhapsody, I realized there was room for more advancement in farming. Once players have done a few rotations of crops in one or two fields, they are looking for some ways to make themselves more effective. Fertilizer increases the growth rate of a crop - and a certain genetic trait makes it a requirement. Sprinklers allow you to water a whole 2x2 field with a single touch.

Drag and drop to apply fertilizer​

I've also finally done the programming to unlock region specific crops. Rice, for example, grows only in the marsh. Cactus plants can only be cultivated in the mountains.

Controller Support

We've added controller support and the ability to rebind the keyboard keys. The game is still completely playable with just the mouse, but our goal is to make it playable with just a keyboard or just a controller as well. We're testing with XBox, PlayStation, and Steam controllers, but the system should work with just about any controller you can imagine. Worst case, you'll have to bind some buttons manually in the interface. </p>

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The biggest challenge with controller support is making sure all the menus can be navigated effectively with the controller. This has proven to be time consuming so far, but it's just a matter of sitting down and doing the work.

This is one of six new hairstyles.​

We're continuing to add new clothing and hairstyle options. I've developed an animation testing tool so it's easier to make sure all the clothing lines up properly.

Introducing Rosie

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Rosie Martinez is the colony’s talented mechanical engineer. Blind from birth, she never let her disability hinder her adventurous nature. She has a knack for fixing things and has many patents for her original designs. Respected by her peers on the home world, Rosie now uses her gifts to aid you in your colonization of Viridis Primus.

 

Yeah, technically it might be March now, but we've been so busy working on the game, posting about the news falls to the back burner. And honestly, making the game is more fun than writing blog posts anyway.

Cleanup, polish, improvements, and even a few new features have been the focus for the last month. Under the hood, there's been some big upgrades to the audio engine (upgrading WWise to a new version) and a major rework on how shadows and reflections are rendered. These changes allow for better performance and fix a few outstanding graphical glitches that we've mostly just avoided showing in screenshots. Shadows and reflections are now much more consistent. For example, when you see a flower waving in the wind, the reflection and the shadow now also wave.

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Insect Catching

Insect collecting is a new memory-matching style mechanic we've introduced. Alpha testers have loved the fishing mini-game, so we wanted to expand that to other resource gathering tasks. In order to successfully collect an insect, you need to find a matching pair of them out in the world. Once you've got a pair, the insects go into your inventory and can be sold (maybe even cooked), or given to a character who collects them in their terrarium.

Jade's Room​

New Interior Decorations

Lizzy has been hard at work making new interior decorations (in addition to new portraits for old and new characters). The extra wallpapers, floors, and new furniture allow for a lot more personalization in the interiors.

Rosie's Room​

Story and Dialogue

Two new characters now have their arrival events written, bringing the total of already unlockable in-game characters to six. We've got 6000 lines of dialog in the project so far, and we've fleshed out most of the first five friendship events for the first four characters. After the five friendship events, you unlock the next five romance events- somewhere towards the end of that group, you make the decision to exclusively date that person, which can lead you towards marriage.

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We've also done the programming work necessary to move the quests, mails, and event triggers out to a separate file. These are easy-to-edit json files, and it allows us to work on them without having to recompile the game. But more importantly, it allows for the possibility of users editing the files to add their own content!

The cave has also received some upgrades.​

Preorders Available

We've made pre-orders available via the Humble Bundle store! Once Verdant Skies is released, you can redeem a steam key for the game through the Humble Bundle site. If you'd like to support our development process, you can preorder on the Verdant Skies (http://verdantskies.com/#preorder) page. Pre-orders aren't for everyone- don't worry, we'll let you know when the game is released too!

Trees take a few days to regrow now, forcing players to explore a bit further if they are doing major lumber construction projects.​

Introducing Jade

The mastermind behind the colonization of Viridis Primus, the colony’s administrator Jade Worthington is a force to be reckoned with. Direct and driven, Jade enjoys the company of likeminded people. Laziness or ineptitude is sure to land you on her bad side. Her motives are a mystery but it is obvious that she is determined to make this endeavor succeed no matter the cost.​

 

New fog effects, audio, controller support!
March has been a busy month for us; we showed Verdant Skies at MinneBar, a Minnesota tech conference. We all worked really hard to make VS as polished as possible for the event. For me, that meant a lot of work into perfecting the controller support, since only XBox controllers were available at the event. We got a great team picture of myself, Beth, and Lizzy.



Marsh Fog
Scott ( @slembcke ) had some free time to help out on the project, and one of the awesome shaders he wrote adds fog to the marsh. Fog changes with the time of day and has a configurable height off the ground. It’s all drawn in the same pass as the sprites themselves, so it’s very fast. We’ve also got a nice night-time / morning fog that occurs in other areas.



Even More Interiors
Beth ( @bethkorth ) has been hard at work making interiors for the new characters. Without revealing too much about the new ones, here are a few sneak peeks.







New Sound Effects and Music
Our two audio masters have been hard at work! Troy ( @yellowchord ) has started writing adaptive music for Verdant Skies, so the outdoor music will flow and change with in-game events dynamically. Topher ( @PhantomFreq ) did a great pass through the sound effects in-game. There are a few special events like the house construction that feel much more satisfying with sound.

Improved Fishing
Spear fishing has been a big hit at testing, people say it’s a lot more exciting than waiting for a fish to bite. Topher added new sound effects to the fishing mini-game and I programmed different fish characteristics, so you can see which fish you’re going to catch.



Each region of the map has different fish. Being able to identify which fish are which is pretty handy. In this case, the little fish in the middle is a “Flying Trout”, and it’s a good one to target since it’s great for sushi- an easy to make early cooking recipe.
The fish that are easy to cook are great early-game energy boosters for players who want to get the most out of each day.



Since there are more regions, we needed more types of fish!

Meanwhile, work continues on character events, bug fixes, usability and UI improvements, and all the usual stuff.

Introducing Wyatt

Every space farming colony needs a reliable botanist, and Dr. Wyatt Jones is yours! Friendly albeit a little distant, Wyatt finds little use for small talk. However, he will be more than happy to speak at length regarding the sciences. Use his vast knowledge to aid you in your farming endeavors.

 

Spring has sprung!
Much like our world outside, there's many things blooming in the development of Verdant Skies! From crops to insects, we've added some great new art. Love is in the air as we continue to expand on the relationship system. Of course, what update is complete without some bug fixes!

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Working on Relationships
Lead Writer Beth ( @bethkorth ) finished the first draft of Rosie's entire character arc. From your first meeting all the way to the commitment ceremony, it's amazing to see it all come together! Andy ( @kortham ) worked on the programming required to flag relationships as exclusively dating or married. Different characters respond differently to you based on your relationship status, and each individual relationship moves at a unique pace. Some characters want exclusive status early in the relationship, and others don't care at all.
If you become good friends with someone, but decide not to date them, you move down a friendship path, and you'll get an extra friendship event in place of the dating ones. Next month, we'll give players a way to break up with someone they are dating. A similar interface can be used to start dating someone you previously turned down.

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Finalized Crop List
Crops are done! Lizzy ( @Pixilizi_Art ) has completed the artwork for all the growing stages of the 14 crops in the game. There are four crops native to each of the regions - plains, mountains, and marsh, and there are two extra crops found across the river. In testing, this is a pretty good sweet spot where you've got a lot of variety but you don't have crop-overload. Since the player can genetically modify each species they have, they can end up with a lot of seeds!





New Bug Art
Lizzy has also been busy working on art for the bugs that will be inhabiting Viridis Primus. Here's six in addition to the Angler Mite you'll see in the insect collection image below. These little guys are probably a lot cuter than the insects that may be invading your garden or home this spring. Check out that fuzzy coat on our adorable little Umbra Bee on the bottom right!



Lots and lots and lots of fixes
I skim through the changelog to remind myself what we did over the past month, and this month there were about 4 pages worth of fixes. A lot of these are too small to mention, but it includes many fixes to furniture, controller support fixes, improving the usability of various UIs. We made a concerted effort to go through all the clothing and fix minor layout problems with them. One playtester noticed that the crafting recipe for sawdust required that they already had some sawdust, so that was fixed. Some of the oldest art in the game, such as the shipping box and scrap pile was redone to match the improved standards we have now.



Play Verdant Skies at GlitchCon17!
Verdant Skies is honored to be included in this year's Minnecade! Come playtest at GlitchCon May 5-7th. We're hoping to get some really long playtests out of this convention in order to test some of the new content. Most people who play for 2 hours really only start to scratch the surface of what we've got finished... which is really encouraging!

 

No summer vacation for us!
With no May update you may have thought we were taking the summer off. Nothing could be further from the truth! While many are out enjoying the summer sun, we’ve been hard at work creating content for Verdant Skies.

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New Recipes, Award, and UI Art
Lizzy (@Pixilizi_Art) has been hard at work putting polish on much of the UI. She added some new vibrant colors to the old recipe icons, and created some new award icons that you may see popping up in the newly redesigned Achievements panel.

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We are still considering some different approaches for the new panels. Here are mock ups showing off a couple of the possibilities we are exploring. Works still in progress!

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The Science of Sound Design
The audio team for Verdant Skies presented the game at the Science Museum of Minnesota! Troy (@YellowChord) and Topher (@PhantomFreq) were asked to participate in an event called “Social Science: The Science of Pixar” and brought Verdant Skies to show attendees how sound can impact games and animation. They brought a variety of sound effects including footsteps, wood cracking, champagne bottles popping, and farts to demonstrate the effects that sound design can have on the play experience. It was easy to make switches in real time due to the software we’re using for Verdant Skies. Wwise is an audio middleware program that allows audio professionals to make detailed changes to the sound while reducing the work for the developer. Players were wowed not only by the sound and music, but the gorgeous hand-drawn art, diversity of characters, and spear fishing.

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New Character!
Along with revisions to some of the events for our already announced characters, Beth (@BethKorth) finished the first few relationship events for our newest character.

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Meet Skye Miller
Despite being paid by Planetary Pioneers, Skye takes seriously her ethical responsibility to produce an unbiased narrative of the colonization of Viridis Primus. Her desire for an honest representation sometimes puts her at odds with Jade who would prefer a more positive spin on the colony’s progress.

Programmer’s Corner
There’s tons of changes to report, as always! Over the last couple months, Andy (@kortham) has implemented dozens of changes. The most interesting change is that we now have cave fishing! He also improved controller support, and upgraded the AI for the NPCs so that they have more realistic wandering. To address a problem with NPC pathing, he made it so that the NPCs now favor walking on the paths, and the player will be unable to block the roads by constructing items.

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Busy as Bees!
The last few weeks we've been buzzing about preparing for several showings. First up is 2D Con from August 11th to 13th at the Doubletree in Minneapolis. We will also be at the Social Science event on August 16th at the Science Museum of Minnesota. We've also had some longer playtests that allowed us to test content beyond the tutorial.

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The Relationship Journal, Badges, & More!
Andy finished programming the journal, which is an important tool to manage your relationships with the other colonists. At first, the journal only shows your current relationship status.

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As your relationships mature, additional options unlock. The journal is used to breakup with someone you're dating, to ask them to marry you, or to move in together. If you've broken up with someone, the journal can be used to start your second chance to the relationship. As we've been discovering, there are a huge number of possible routes you can take through a relationship. Beth has been diligently working to ensure that all the possible events for relationship changes are covered.

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We have finalized a lot of technical details around how relationships will progress. We've decided which characters will require exclusivity, which ones don't, and what exactly that means when it comes time for the player to settle down. Here the player has had a baby with Rosie, so they have earned a special badge that shows up alongside the relationship hearts.

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Player's Log

You can track your tool upgrades and special items in the new player's log. Tools have three different levels. Better axes and hammers use less energy and work faster. The improved hoe allows farming in different areas. The fishing spear throws faster and affects a larger area, making it easier to get multiple fish with one spear.

Crops will also be tracked in the player's log. Certain crops can initially only be obtained and grown in specific biomes. As you progress, you may find the genetic trait that allows you to grow a crop in any biome.

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The log will also keep track of your progress as you collect fish and insects. Like crops, certain insects and fish are only found in one biome. You'll have to explore far and wide to make sure you catch them all!


Map Complete
The world has finally been completely filled in! We'll have minor tweaks and cleanup, but it's nice to have this big task finished. The world is roughly divided into a six different areas: the town, the plains, the marsh, the mountains, the forest, and across the east river. In our testing, most players get into the marsh first, and then build the bridge for the other side of the river, but sometimes people switch that around. Although some of the mountain is available from the start, getting to most of it requires some special equipment...

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More Late-game Content
Andy spent a few weeks adding end game content. One of the things that our testers really would have appreciated is a way to increase their storage size. Seed storage seemed to run out first, but having extra storage in each group will be very useful! Next up in this category will be to add some mysterious content to the world...

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Play Verdant Skies at 2D Con 2017!
Verdant Skies is honored to be included in this year's Indie Island at 2D Con! Come check us out August 11-13th and be some of our first beta testers!

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Verdant Skies Coming to PAX West!
It feels surreal to say that we are showing Verdant Skies at PAX West September 1-4 in Seattle, but we are! Our booth is # 7115, and we are very excited to be right across the aisle from Larian Studios on the 6th floor of the expo hall. (We’re really big fans!)

This is a huge step for us in our development process, and it is exciting as well as stressful! Depending on how our meetings go with publishers, we may finally be able to say we have a release date!

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Best Artwork at 2D Con 2017!
Even though most of the compliments we receive are about our very unique art style, it is always a pleasant surprise to be officially recognized. Congratulations and thanks to our very talented artist Lizzy on a much deserved win! There were a ton of awesome games at 2D Con this year, so we feel extra proud of our win for Best Artwork! Congratulations to the other winners: Pinbrawl (Best Multiplayer & Gameplay) and Newt One (Best Single Player, Soundtrack, Gameplay, and Game of the Show).

Game Development as a Science
The Verdant Skies team was back at the Science Museum of Minnesota for their Social Science: The Science of Pixar event on August 16th. Andy (@kortham), Beth (@BethKorth), Lizzy (@Pixilizi_Art), and Troy (@YellowChord) gathered some valuable feedback on our latest build. Despite a strong hesitancy to cut down any trees in game, everyone really enjoyed themselves, and a bunch of folks joined our mailing list.

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New Animals!
While Lizzy would love to create every art asset in game, it just isn’t possible with the sheer number of items we need illustrated. With that in mind, we reached out to local artist Deborah Garcia to bring the animals of Viridis Primus to life. We don’t know about you, but the team is absolutely in love with the little critters!

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New Avatar Creator with Mouths and Noses
We really want our players to be able to see themselves in Verdant Skies. One of the key features that makes that possible is the avatar creation interface. Though the original interface wasn’t terrible, we think this revamp will really help folks visualize their options.

A recurring criticism of our avatars has been that they look “creepy” without anything occupying the bottom half of the face. We played around with different combinations to address this issue, and are pretty happy with the direction we’re headed. They need a little polish, but we now have mouth and nose options!

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Genetic Splicer Tutorial!
Many of our playtesters have loved diving into the genetic splicer to create seeds with amazing traits. However, some folks have trouble figuring out how the slider works, and how to best utilize the machine. So Andy made this handy video tutorial to explain how to get the most out of modifying your crops.

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Combine two seeds of the same type to create a better hybrid!

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Play Verdant Skies at PAX West 2017!
We always love to meet our fans and get their feedback. If you, or someone you know is going to be at PAX, please stop by our booth and say hi!

 

October Development Update

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Featured in PCGamer!
We are very happy to have been featured on PC Gamer's website. Lauren Morton focused on one of the mechanics that makes Verdant Skies stand out in the farming life simulation genre - genetic splicing! If you haven't checked out the piece, you should. It's a great read!

http://www.pcgamer.com/verdant-skies-is-a-farming-sim-where-you-play-as-a-space-scientist/

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Exterior Excellence
One thing any homeowner can tell you is that painting your house is no easy task. Thankfully, Andy's made it a far more enjoyable experience to customize your home's exterior in Verdant Skies. You can now change the design and color of your door, windows, as well as the texture and color of your exterior and roof.

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Improved Beds
The exterior of the player's home isn't the only decorative feature that's received an overhaul! Our flat beds have been upgraded. The layers have been tweaked to give them a much more realistic depth. Check out the before (left) and after (right) below!

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Livestock Leashes!
Since adding animals to Verdant Skies our playtesters have had an overwhelming urge to treat their livestock like a pet. You asked, and we listened! Using the same awesome physics as the gardening hose, Andy created this little rope leash so that you can take your favorite friend out for a stroll.

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Meet Miles!
As a stipulation of his contract to sponsor the colony, Miles Kelly owns the only shop on Viridis Primus. Frugal and always on the lookout for a great investment opportunity, at times he seems more concerned with profits than people. However, Miles can make anyone feel like his most important customer once they enter his shop.

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Steam Page is Live!
Our Steam page ( http://store.steampowered.com/app/730050/Verdant_Skies/ ) is up! If you haven’t already, please visit and follow, favorite, or wishlist your copy of Verdant Skies today!

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Eclipse Season
There may be four seasons on Earth, but there’s only two on Viridis Primus – Summer and Eclipse. No crops grow during the Eclipse season, giving you a chance to catch up with the other colonists. But don’t worry! Unlike winters on Earth, Eclipse season only lasts 5 days.

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New Icons
Here’s a few of our new cooking and tools icons, courtesy of Sarah Seember Huisken ( https://www.movieshouting.com/ ). There will be more to come as we continue to expand our crafting systems.

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Customizable Furniture
Making your house feel like a home is hard work! Now you can change the color of the wood on your furniture to suit your style. Don’t worry about the high price tag! Once you purchase a stain color you may reuse it again and again.

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A Curious Cave…
No mining will be happening in this cave. It’s far too small for you to squeeze inside! But a voice from the depths implores you… “bring snacks…” Can you decipher the mystery of the tiny cave to unlock a special item?

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Introducing Skye Miller!
Despite being paid by Planetary Pioneers, Skye takes seriously her ethical responsibility to produce an unbiased narrative of the colonization of Viridis Primus. Her desire for an honest representation sometimes puts her at odds with Jade who would prefer a more positive spin on the colony’s progress.

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Winter Is Coming
As the cold weather moves into the Midwest, it’s the perfect time of year for game development. We’re definitely not going into hibernation over the holiday season! In fact, you can look forward to two developer updates in the month of December.

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Making New Friends
As you build your colony on Viridis Primus, you’ll also be building relationships with your fellow colonists. Today we’ll explore some of the technical and creative tricks we use to craft the immersive narrative in Verdant Skies. We’ll also give you an update on our Steam integration progress and reveal another NPC.



Steam Integration
Once you’ve got a Steam page set up, you need to integrate the Steam library into your game. We’re working on support for Steam achievements, cloud saves, and the steam workshop. Scott ( @slembcke ) is helping out with the integration, and so far we’ve got the game launching with the library activated and the Steam overlay showing up. Achievements are unlocking, so the rest of the Steam features should be wrapped up soon!



Relationship Progression
Like many games in the life simulation genre, Verdant Skies offers you an opportunity to befriend and romance a set of non-player characters (NPCs). There are 12 NPCs in your colony. Any player can date all of them… in one play through.

Your relationship progression is tracked with a bar and a set of 9 hearts which appear at the bottom of the NPC dialogue box. The bar fills as you complete collection events and speak to your potential mates. Answering their questions in a favorable way can award bonus points towards achieving the next heart event. However, answering in a negative manner can decrease your relationship points. So listen carefully to what people have to say to ensure you don’t offend them!

The first 6 events for all characters are available regardless of if you choose to date someone. Events 7-9 are accessible once you have elected to date that NPC. Some of the colonists require exclusive dating, while others are willing to let you explore relationships with multiple people at the same time before settling down.

Even if you decide to move in or take commitment vows with one NPC, the journal feature, which we discussed in our July newsletter, allows you to break up with your current significant other to pursue (or resume) a relationship with another.



Friendship, Move In, Committed, and Baby badges. These appear in place of the hearts in dialogue boxes when you reach these milestones with the colonists of Viridis Primus.

Branching Dialogues
Depending on your previous choices, NPCs will react differently to you. Some decisions (like in the example below) are flagged and triggered within the same event. However, other decisions can have lasting effects. You may not immediately feel the impact of your decisions, but there are always repercussions.

We’re up to 35,000 lines of dialogue, but we’re not finished yet! Along with their 9 relationship events, each NPC also has daily dialogues that correspond to each level of your relationship.



Variables
In order to make you feel like you’re a part of the colony, we use different variables to track player and NPC names. Depending on your level of friendship, each NPC also may call you by a different nickname or pet name. They’ll also know if you’re already dating another colonist and will refer to them by name.





Introducing Doctor Zaheen Patel
Colonists of Viridis Primus who fall ill will have the privilege of being treated by Doctor Zaheen Patel. Mindfully practicing medicine through a holistic approach, Zaheen is well liked by their patients. Zaheen’s presence in the colony is sure to help with morale due to their warm nature and conflict resolution skills.

 

Announcing Mod Support!
Customize artwork, dialogs, mails, items, crafting recipes and more using the Verdant Skies modding system! Since development started, we knew we wanted to support modding. We're allowing users to use the same methods we used to create the content for the game to create their own content.

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Load multiple mods at once, and sort them in priority order (if mods override the same content, the one on top takes precedence).

With the modding system, you can override just about any artwork in the game. We also provide an option to export the artwork of character you've created in the dressing room, to make it much easier to create new characters. You can add new items, and decide what is needed to craft those items:

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All of the character events were created using our dialog editor, which is fully available to mod authors. This scripting is easy to jump into, you don't need to know a programming language to make something really neat. You can add events to existing characters, replace events, or even add new characters. You can also create mails and quests. Each character's core info can be changed too - such as their schedule, where they wander, if they require exclusive dating, their pet names for the player, and the things that they collect.

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Right now, there are a few limitations. While all the quests in-game were created by this system, a few of them have special triggers in the code that you won't be able to replicate. These are mostly tutorial-type quests that trigger when you do something special, like grow your first crop in the marsh. At launch, you won't be able to create new houses for your new characters... fortunately, players can construct a visitor lodge with plenty of room for new NPCs. And finally, we're still working on a way to allow modders to specify their own waypoints when scripting events that include a lot of walking.

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New Tool Upgrades
Here's some more awesome icon work from Sarah Seember Huisken. Upgraded fishing spears throw faster and your catch radius increases - making it easier to get the elusive '3 fish with one spear' achievement.

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Meet Anthony Washington
Anthony Washington is Jade's younger brother. Rebellious by nature, Anthony refused to take part in their family's business and instead pursued a career in the military. However, after being injured in the line of duty, he has graciously accepted Jade's invitation to serve as the colony's security officer.

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Final Stretch!
We're grateful to all of you folks who have been patiently waiting for our release! We haven't nailed down an exact date yet, but we're in the final phase of testing and clean up, so you should expect to see us on Steam sometime later this month or in early February. Thanks for your patience and engagement throughout the development process. You are why we do what we do!

The current count of lines of dialog: 37,862!

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New Machines
Sarah Seember Huisken has been at it again! Check out these gorgeous additions. The animal genetic splicer will function similarly to the crop genetic splicer (left). Once you get your ideal DNA sample you can bring your new animal to life in the animal incubator (right).

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Marsh Crops
There are 14 different crops that grow in three different regions. It seems we haven't shared too many screenshots of them yet, so here are a few of the marsh crops!

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New NPC Animations
We've had the chance to work with a group of very talented local artists while making Verdant Skies. The most recent is Ethan Calabria who jumped in to finish the NPC sprite walking cycle animations.

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We're still making minor adjustments to the facial features, so these aren't exactly what you'll see in game. Once we've settled on the style of eyes, nose, and mouth that we wish to use, we'll give all the NPCs a more uniform appearance.

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UI Updates
Andy's been working hard to make sure that the in game user interface (UI) is uniform and streamlined. Here's a peek at the progress he's made on the achievement panel where players can track their achievement progress.

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Introducing Ramón Martínez
Space travel is not something Ramón Martínez would have ever considered if it weren't for his twin sister, Rosie. Though risk-averse, Ramón could not refuse her request to serve as the colony's nurse. Always the overprotective brother, Ramón spends most of his time watching over Rosie... Whether she likes it or not.

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Release Date Announcement!
It’s been a busy month, but we’re thrilled to announce our release date of February 12th. We were hoping to have everything finished by the end of January, but we needed a little more time to make sure we give you the best experience possible at release. The biggest time sink has been getting meaningful daily dialogs written for all of the characters, and that’s the main thing we’re still finishing up. Sorry to disappoint everyone with the slight delay, but it’ll be worth it!


If you’ve already purchased Verdant Skies through our Humble Bundle widget, thank you! Your key will arrive a few days before launch so you can pre-load the game on your computer. It will unlock when it’s live on Steam!

New Website and Wiki
We’ve upgraded our website with a cleaner look and more intuitive interactions. It’s one of those things you do when your game is about to be released! Thanks to the folks over at Gamepedia, we also have a wiki: https://verdantskies.gamepedia.com/ They’re already filling it in, so if you’re worried about spoilers, don’t browse too deeply!

We just started a discussion forum on Steam. If you’ve got questions or comments, that’s a great place to ask: http://steamcommunity.com/app/730050/discussions/

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Mountain Crops
The mountain crops are the most challenging to grow, since they require unlocking the mountain region and having the tier 3 tools. But the more difficult crops have a higher base price, and having access to all 14 crops will allow you to make the most complex recipes that restore the most energy.

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Pair Events and Other Romances
We’ve been writing events that occur between two characters once you’ve reached a certain friendship level with both of them. These have been a lot of fun to write, since the player gets to see their differing personality traits interact. Not all of these events are romantic, but if you’re not dating either of those characters, they might start expressing interest in eachother!

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Followup Dialog
To make the characters seem even more alive, certain events have followup dialog. Especially useful when an event didn’t include the player, the followups allow the NPC to confide with the player and share some extra details about the person they were just talking to.

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End Game Content
In addition to the blueprints you can unlock through the Planetary Pioneer blueprint system, there are some even more advanced blueprints to unlock through character events. They’re tough to make, but offer some nice boosts once you’ve established yourself in the colony.

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Finalized Sprites
In the last newsletter we showed you a few stills from our new NPC animations. Here’s the full lineup of colonists on Viridis Primus! You’ve met most of them, but there’s a few we just didn’t have time to introduce.

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Introducing Nessa Collins
Nessa Collins can be found flitting about her laboratory intensely studying samples from her menagerie. A talented zoologist with an interest in cloning, Nessa will help you improve the quality of your livestock products.

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Live on Steam!
The last few years have been full of ups and downs, but it was all worth it to be able to bring Verdant Skies to life. Thanks for accompanying us on the journey!

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Steam Community & Modding
We want to support our community, especially folks looking to create mods. Please join the discussion on our Steam Community Hub. We can't wait to see what you create!

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Wiki Help
As you play Verdant Skies, please consider helping populate the official wiki. The Gamepedia folks did a great job starting it off, but there's a lot more to fill in!

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Lou's Reviews
Thanks to Lou of Lou's Reviews for the excellent endorsement in his review! We hope we live up to his praise!

"Verdant Skies is destined to be an indie darling"

Humble Bundle Buyers
If you pre-ordered Verdant Skies via the Humble Bundle widget, thank you for supporting the development process! If you lost your email, you can use the key lookup here: https://www.humblebundle.com/resender

 

Verdant Skies is now at 1.4.0! This huge update has major new features for mod makers and mod enthusiasts. We’ve also reworked romance events for Sasha, Yuki, Rosie, Wyatt and Miles. You’ll now have new flirting options with these characters, and if you’re not hinting at a relationship, they won’t confess their love for you.

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Verdant Skies is on sale 65% off on Steam! Now’s the perfect time to gift it to a friend! We’re also on sale on our itch.io store, where you can get a DRM-free version.

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Have you played the new teenager update yet? Version 1.3 allows you to choose one of your children to grow up. Guide them through boarding school and interact with them once they return to the colony. A new set of Quantum Technology events tie into the growth of your child and provide high-priced end-game goodies! There’s even a new vocal music track in a special ending event!

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Major New Features in 1.4.0:

• The Mod Uploader tool is now built into the game, making it easier than ever to share your mod.
• Create and view waypoints for custom dialog events, schedules, and more.
• A large amount of documentation for modding has been added to the wiki!
• Rework character events for Sasha, Yuki, Rosie, Wyatt, and Miles. These characters have a few flirting questions, and won’t confess their love to you unless you hint pretty strongly that you’re interested. If you don’t hint to them, you’ll have the option to confess to them.

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New Changes:

• More changes to support stranger aspect ratios.
• Intro now has an animated starfield. This might help with a few people who got stuck on black screens on the intro.
• Redo the mod list to better show mod information.
• Modders can use the “talkTo” element when defining event triggers to specify which person’s friendship is checked with minFriendship.
• Better logging for potential audio engine issues.
• Minor typo fixes and text improvements, like telling you which inventory is full when you get seeds.
• Add a dropdown list to choose your resolution.
• Yuki fan art dialog added.
• Lots of new Yuki daily dialog if you’ve had a commitment ceremony with her.
• Clean up save file format- it’s now easier to browse and debug.
• Save files track which mods were used in their creation. It will warn you if you’ve loaded a save and might not have the correct mods.
• Ratchet up the compression quality on a few assets.

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Fixes:

• Items mounted on bookcases, etc sometimes would end up on the floor until you re-entered your house. This is fixed.
• Fix Miles’ shipping quest value calculation being off by one.
• Fix typo in Rosie’s marsh boots dialog and Jade’s 4th heart event.
• Mouseover icon could sometimes be incorrect if you’re the keyboard and mouse at the same time.
• Wyatt now gets a big bed, just like everyone else.
• Sometimes greyed out buttons wouldn’t highlight. This is fixed now.
• Some waypoints were incorrect in Wyatt’s 8th heart event.
• Prevent a weird case where you could move items during the shipping animation and lose them.
• Fix the JumpIfOutdoors modding command.
• Fix an issue where baby rename events might happen even if you don’t have a baby with that person (save migration issue prior to 1.3.0).

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This amazing fan art is by keicyanyanart, check her out on Twitter!