Making a Strange Incremental Game
Announcing the development of my game HARVEST MOVE
Jacob had become aware of a strange legend. It spoke of a field where crops made of gold, silver, and rare materials grew. Mysteriously appearing once a year, it remained for 30 nights before vanishing once again. While many sought to find it, few ever did, and even fewer returned alive.
However, suffering from economic hardship in a world controlled by a handful of wealthy elites, Jacob saw the field as his last chance to succeed.
After many sleepless nights, the field now stood before him. Alert, Jacob immediately searched for the foretold chest. It was said to contain a bag capable of holding a limitless amount of crops.
With the bag now in hand, he was ready, though wary of what was to come next. The more crops he accumulated, the mightier the beasts drawn to his wealth would become. Nevertheless, he was determined to leave the field alive and wealthy.
Gameplay
HARVEST MOVE is an incremental, run-based strategy game with grid-based movement focused on collecting as much wealth as possible by harvesting crops of varying value while avoiding deadly beasts. The game is played entirely with the mouse through clicking, giving it clicker feel.
The more wealth the player accumulates, the more beasts with increasingly complex movement patterns appear on the field. As tougher beasts emerge, more valuable crops begin to grow.
Therefore, your wealth ends up increasing faster over time, hence why it’s an incremental. (A single number going up + that number going up faster over the course of gameplay).
Every time you get hit, Jacob leaves his wealth in the chest and comes back the next night (because it’s told that the field also disappears if you take anything from it). The content of the field is procedurally generated (crop distribution + enemy types + enemy placement). You never play the exact same field. The game is all about mastering the movement patterns of the beasts and finding a way around them.
Crop collection
The way crops are collected is extremely important. Collecting multiple crops without stepping on an empty tile builds a combo multiplier. Additionally, collecting consecutive crops of the same type without stepping on an empty tile grants an extra multiplier on top of the existing combo.
Finally, at the top-right corner is a step counter. Every step you make increments it. Once it reaches 100, the next time you collect a crop, the final value collected will be multiplied by 10. The catch, if Jacob gets hit and therefore, needs to leave the field, the counter is set back to 0 on the next night.
What is The Gameplay Loop?
Once 30 nights of harvest have elapsed, the field will disappear for this year. The player will be presented with an option to pay an amount to increase the base value of all crops the following year by a given percentage. Then, they will be presented with Jacob’s financial goals.
The player will be able to purchase things for Jacob. Purchasing certain items, will unlock other goals the player can purchase. For example, buying Jacob a small house, will unlock the possibility of buying him a much bigger house.
This mechanic is somewhat like an upgrade tree seen in incrementals but they don’t affect the gameplay therefore, they should be more viewed as buying achievements. The plan is to tie those goals to real Steam achievements.
Finally, the money left unused will be given to charity (in the game’s lore). The player will be able to unlock achievements tied to the amount given in charity. For example, at some point, a player could give so much money to charity that they would unlock an achievement that says that “Jacob solved world hunger”, etc…
Then, the next year starts and Jacob needs to find the field again with $0 to his name. However, since the values of crops have increased, the player will likely be able to progress further because they will earn more, earn faster and finally, witness more later-game enemies and crops compared to their previous run.
The game ends when all Jacob’s financial goals are achieved.
Conclusion
The game is still in development, however, I have the core loop down, except for the last part about buying achievements which I haven’t implemented.
If what I have laid out here sounds like an interesting game to you. I recommend joining this mailing list by providing your email below (I’m referring to the subscribe button) to not miss out on future updates, when the Steam page goes live, when the demo releases, etc…
Thanks for reading!