Hello Farmers,

This is our first official devlog for Farm Folks after acquiring the game’s IP from the previous dev team. Hearing this for the first time? Read the letter from our Crytivo CEO, Alex Koshelkov, here.

While our team is hard at work building the future systems for Farm Folks, we still wanted to take the time to share our initial progress with you.

We do want to preface our developer notes by explaining that, upon receiving the original files for Farm Folks, there was very little that possessed long-term functionality. Upon adopting this project, we had to make the difficult decision to scrap the faulty foundation of the game and build a stronger, more reliable one. 

It’s not an easy task to adopt a game like Farm Folks. While mechanics and code can be fixed, we understand the hard reality that the original vision of the game can never be fully achieved. The Farm Folks that the original developers foresaw has become a part of its early history. 

We see this as a good thing. We recognize the origin of the game and remain committed to bringing it to life, even if the roles have changed.

Our goal is to deliver a Farm Folks that has the essence of the early iteration - that celebrates the qualities it aimed to achieve and more - with the care, dedication, and love it deserves. We want to give you a beautiful game that offers flexibility in farm-building, management, NPC relationships, tool diversity, and character and props customization. Because of these ambitions, Farm Folks will have an emphasis on life sim mechanics and customization with all the flavor of a proper farming game.

We understand that some supporters may be saddened by the surprising journey the game has taken, but we ask for patience and understanding. A little support and encouragement goes a long way and we know that this community can be just that. We hope you’ll enjoy this journey with us ❤️

Alright! Onward to what we've been working on:

Planned Character Customizations

Our insanely talented 3D Artist, Natalie, is working on our first character! When she's not busy helping to guide the art direction for the game, she's been focused on making a customizable base model for your future Farm Folks character.

4 Tone Hair Color Customization 

• Customize your character’s Base Hair Color, Root Color, Strand Color, and Tips. There will be no color limitation and you’ll be able to create and combine any colors you want.

2 Color Tones for Eyes

• Customize the Inner and Outer Iris
• You’ll have the ability to choose different hairstyles - some of which will be available from the beginning of the game. Other hairstyles will only be available in the City Center Hair Salons and Barber Shops. NPCs will notice your hairstyle changes and might even compliment you during conversations.
• Clothing and accessories will be interchangeable, meaning that you’ll be able to create your own clothing styles with combination and mix-and-match capability.

• All clothing will have adjustable color pallets and patterns. Similar to hair styles, some clothing can only be acquired by purchasing them in the City Center, receiving them as a gift from NPCs, finding them in the Crates scattered around the islands, etc.

Our new 3D Artist, Uliana, has been hard at work as well. She is helping us develop a flexible system that will allow the customization of indoor props/furniture. We know, we know, you guys are all about doors, but take a look at these super comfy looking sofas:

• On top of fabric and size variations, you also will be able to choose between materials such as untreated wood, brown wood, or dark wood.

Keep in mind that this is just one style, we can't stop making them. Somebody call the cops!

• Furniture and Props are currently being designed and modeled in different shapes and styles. 
• Each unique style will have size variations. During building mode, you’ll be able to select your preferred sizing on the fly. 

• Most in-game props will have color and pattern variations that you can select.
• Furniture and prop items can also be found, won, unlocked, or purchased in the City Centers
• Hats! Because who doesn’t want to wear a fancy hat?

Character body mass adjustment is one of the most requested features by our community and we’re currently performing tests to see if this is a viable option for customization. The base character that Natalie is working on will have all of the features listed above and will be the foundation for all character customizations and animations going forward.

Anastasia, who is also a wizard with 3D art, has been working on the first set of tools for your character. These include a Pickaxe, Axe, and Construction Hammer. You'll be able to upgrade tools to be more efficient and effective as time goes on. There will also be Automatization Tools that will help you mine certain valuable resources without spending too much time around glowy rocks. We'll talk more about those in our future blogs...

Anastasia is also busy with light poles! 💡 Some snazzy outdoor lanterns will make your farm stand out and, as you've probably seen, we love to provide you with as many tools as possible. That's why our outdoor lanterns will have loads of customization features. You'll be able to choose the height of the pole, wood material, lantern design, and even the color of light that will emanate from the lantern!

We also want to give a special shout out to our enchanting artist, Vlada. Vlada works predominantly on The Universim but has taken time from her already busy schedule to help guide the art team for Farm Folks.

Marius, our phenomenal Lead Programmer, is busy with the implementation of rudimentary systems. Careful, we don't want to give him too much credit or else he'll get a big head (we love you, Marius ❤️). Here's what Marius is working on:

Character Controller

Our character controller is more than just basic movement and camera control.

Our system tracks each foot of the character and places it correctly in the world. This means characters will move without sliding and will have independent elevation of each foot.

Subtle IK will bring your character to life as they turn their head with the camera or look toward a nearby item that can be collected.

Your character will also leave footprints on different surfaces. The depth of the footprint is defined by the surface your character is on. For example, footprints on a sandy surface will be more prominent compared to footprints on general ground. The same approach applies to surface sound effects. Each surface reacts realistically to footsteps in a way that really connects the character with the world.

And at the end of a long day, your character can walk up to a comfy sofa and sit down to relax. All of this being beautifully animated.

Environmental Lighting

This system will allow us to have complex lighting throughout the world. We will have different ambient lighting for each season, day/night transitions, and weather conditions. For example, winter mornings will be cool and misty while autumn sunsets will be more vibrant and romantic.

The lighting system will also adjust to accurately simulate the environment around the player, making it more believable. When you enter a building, the lighting outside will dim to make way for the indoor lighting; essentially contrasting the two environments to add to the immersion.

World and Environment

Spanning multiple large islands, we want the world to feel truly epic in scale, but not so massive and sparse that it feels empty. We’ve been doing a lot of experimental development and recently arrived at a world size and layout that seems to strike the perfect balance.

Standing on the beach, looking across the water to another mysterious island just visible through the fog, instills a sense of exploration.

We will talk more in the future about the weather, world, and environmental effects.

User Interface

We would like to keep things clean and minimalistic when it comes to User Interface. Our goal is to keep your screen space tidy, but informative. Check out the UI WIP of the main menu down below! Keep in mind that some features are missing and are subject to change.

Construction

In Farm Folks, we want you to have maximum flexibility and freedom. Build your dream farm, personalized home, cozy barn for your animals, etc. The sky's the limit! You should be able to love your home and you may even impress some of the locals with your eye for design. 

Please keep in mind that the screenshots of the house are from our early construction prototype and don't represent final quality. It's placed in a prototype environment. We can't wait to let you try it out.

With full customization, we’re beyond excited to see what you will be able to create. We’ll talk more about this system in the future, so stay tuned!

CO-OP

Oh yes, you read that right. Everything listed above is going to be available not only to you but also to three of your friends that’ll join and share your journey in Farm Folks. Up to 4 players co-op will allow every player to contribute and build the ultimate farm full of diverse animals, crops, and structures.

We hope these updates excite you as much as they excite us. From the moment we rolled up our sleeves to get to work, our team sincerely fell in love with the project. While we aim to deliver on the promises of the previous developer, we want to go the extra mile for our community to make the best Farm Life Sim ever made. 

SOUNDTRACK

We also want to share some of the early music for Farm Folks with you. We want the soundtrack to be uplifting, playful, and calming. We hope you enjoy it!

More Big News!

ALPHA, BETA, and OMEGA!

With skills, passion, and vision in our toolbox, we’re thrilled for the future. With that said, our tentative plan is to launch the pre-Alpha in February 2022. We will initially invite Alpha Backers to play the game and, shortly thereafter, Beta backers will be able to join. 

In other news, we’re also thinking about launching a Farm Folks Patreon that can potentially help us fund additional features for the game and help us make Farm Folks an unforgettable experience for you guys. There is a lot of financial heavy lifting with this adopted project and any additional funding will help us make things bigger and brighter. OF COURSE, for the Kickstarter backers, they will not need to contribute extra donations as they will automatically qualify for the highest Patreon tiers, regardless of how much you contributed initially. 

The Kickstarter funding was fully absorbed by the original development team, but we’re committed to fulfilling all rewards for Kickstarter backers. The Patreon page is simply an opportunity for fans - old and new - to contribute to the game if they choose. 

And if you guys haven't had enough sofas and couches in this Devblog, here is the bug that spawned hundreds of them on the map for us. Agh sofarustrating 🤦

To end this devlog, we want to thank our most active Discord members who have offered some fantastic feedback, ideas, and contributed to a positive and uplifting environment: 

Kirara Lala#0666

Poet#4177

Aurelia#2018

Mage💜#0666

LetTheBodyFall#6374

PurpleDragon#5561

Rin#3530

If you would like to be featured in a future devlog, join our Discord and start a conversation! Keep in mind that positivity and encouragement are some of the most important aspects of our community!

Thank you for your tremendous support. Be sure to leave a comment below, wishlist the game on Steam, and talk with you soon!

With love,

The Crytivo Team