Gamesmithing: Moondrop Mountain Re:Seed Update

In October of 2020, I started my own Seven Day Roguelike Challenge. I created a prototype for a "Roguelike Stardew Valley" that my wife christened Moondrop Mountain. (You can read a detailed writeup on those efforts, if'n you're interested.) I've continued to develop that prototype. Since October, I've added in a randomized alchemy system (where potions are unidentified until used) and a mountain trail to explore. The mountain trail has a mysterious shrine and paths that lead off to one of eight proc-gen puzzles. It's an interesting mix of life sim and roguelike.

With the v0.8 update in April 2021, the game was nearing completion. I had seven of the eight proc-gen puzzles implemented. When I first started development on this game, my original plan was to submit the game to Newgrounds (woo WebGL!) and hopefully gain a bit of a following. Now that I'm looking at a Seven Month Roguelike, I'm reevaluating.

I believe the game's mechanics are interesting enough to justify a commercial game, but it still needs some work to get there. Right now, I think the game is enjoyable for a few runs but lacks long-term replay value. If I'm going to be charging money for this game, I've gotta take a good hard look at what needs improving.

To get to where you're going, ya gotta know where ya're. A game in the current version of Moondrop lasts for sixteen two-minute days. In the morning, you tend to your crops, watering, planting, and harvesting as needed. In the afternoon, you head up to the mountain trail to do a puzzle before you have to head home and go to sleep. The puzzles are purposefully left unexplained - I've seen playtesters not even realize that they are puzzles at first. I'm happy with that - I think it adds a fun discovery process to the puzzles. More roguelike goodness. The puzzles are fun minigames, but on their own they aren't enough to keep the player coming back for more.

I think the most original mechanic in the game is that crops affect their neighbors. In the current version, they increase or decrease a neighbor's harvest value according to their elemental type (sunny, shady, dry, and damp). For example, a plant might send out sunny arrows to its neighbors, which will increase the value of sunny-type neighbors and decrease the value of shady-type neighbors.

There is some good fun in trying to optimally arrange the seeds you have, but there's a big pacing problem. Currently, you start off with six seeds, and it takes three to six days before those are ready for harvest. Since your primary revenue source is from selling vegetables, you might not have enough money to buy new seeds for six days. Furthermore, seeds planted in the last three to six days won't be ready for harvest by the end of the game. This means (depending on the mood of the RNG) that for between six to twelve days (out of sixteen total), you might not interact at all with that primary mechanic. Woof - that's 40 - 75% of the game where you can't do the most interesting thing on offer.

To help with the pacing, players will no longer need to purchase seeds. Instead, they'll have a daily seed income. This will start low and increase as the game progresses. That means that every day, the player will be able to plant seeds and interact with the "neighboring plant" mechanic. Additionally, I'm implementing a new growth system. In the current version, plants grow each day that they are watered. In the new version, the Re:Seed update, I’m changing how arrows work. Plants won't grow unless a neighbor's arrow correctly matches the plant's type. If there are multiple matching arrows, then the plant grows even quicker. Opposing arrows (like a sunny arrow heading to a shady plant) will "un-grow" the plant, so proper placement is vital.

On top of the pacing issue, the current type / neighbor system just gets too messy. The types come in opposing pairs, so dry and damp oppose each other just like sunny and shady. Each plant has a base type, but then it has four arrows affecting its neighbors. These arrows will be from the other type-pair - for instance, a sunny plant will send out two dry arrows and two damp arrows. It’s too many arrows. It gets confusing to keep track of and difficult to take advantage of. It's a great feeling when you get plants lined up just right, but things are so chaotic that it happens more due to coincidence rather than planning. Boo on that. To help solve the arrow mess, things are getting simplified. Plants still have a base type, but all of their arrows will be of a single type. By reducing the variety of arrows within each individual plant, it should be easier to plan out a tight-knit farm.

In general, the game doesn't have a lot of strong direction. Beyond chasing a high score, there aren't many long-term goals in the game. There's absolutely nothing that gets saved between play sessions (outside of the high score list). The crafting table offers some decent medium-term goals (like improved tools and the fan-favorite floaty boots), but there's not enough there to keep the player engaged throughout.

To solve these dual issues, I'm implementing a perk system and strengthening the crafting system. The player will be able to craft a larger number of useful items using the materials found in reward chests - items that increase seed income and such. Some of these items will be powerful (such as a statue that makes all Sunny crops grow more quickly) but those will take a good amount of effort to create. That will provide more long-term goals within games. To help with a feeling of progress between games, there will be a healthy number of unlockable perks and items that can be discovered within a single run. Once discovered, they will appear more often in following games.

Outside of the floaty boots mentioned above, the crafting table doesn't offer enough excitement. With the new perk system and an increased range of crafting materials and recipes, I'm going to try to add "builds" to the game, or ways for the player to specialize. Through perks and craftables, you should be able to play as a farmer, a miner, a rancher, an alchemist, and more. (Got a job you'd love to see? Leave it in the comments and I'll think it over.)

Finally, I'm going to be adding in more explicit meta-game goals. Instead of just chasing down a high score, you'll be working to pay down a debt (because capitalism). Every game that you play will help pay off the mortgage a little more, bringing benefits to your farm. Pay off the whole debt and you'll be able to upgrade from a house made of sticks and mud to a house made of stone. Between the unlockables and a more explicit meta-game goal, I'm hoping that there will be replay value beyond score-chasing.

Of course, these big changes will require a good bit of playtesting. To paraphrase Moltke, no game design plan survives first contact with the players. I’ll be releasing another update of the game on itch before submitting it to Newgrounds. I’m calling it the Re:Seed update. (Why the unnecessary colon? After playing so much the space 4X Stellaris with Bryan (podcast forthcoming), I am on a huge colonization kick.) I think the update has some great ideas, but I'll have to see how the playtesters interact with the new systems. Are they intuitive enough? Are they engaging enough? If that pans out, then that can justify expanding the scope and trying to commercialize the game. If not, well, then it's time to start prototyping again.

Moondrop Mountain can be played for free in your browser at https://joshuagalecki.itch.io/moondrop-mountain. This article is going out at the same time as the Re:Seed update. I’d be happy to hear what you think of it.