Devlog Day 3: Life at Pixel Farm

Sprouting New Ideas and Growing Features 🌾

Hello fellow devs! 🌱 Day 3 of my GameDev.tv game jam entry, “Life at Pixel Farm”, has been a blast! If you’re not familiar with it, the game is a casual farming VR experience built with Unity, but with a twist - everything looks as 2D as possible!

Today I had the chance to do a live stream on my YouTube channel , and it was great to have some of you join me while I worked on the game. If you missed it, don’t worry, there’s always next time!

From Pixels to Crops 🌾

During the stream, I worked on creating sprites for the crops. I added Carrots, Corn, and Wheat to the garden, each with its own unique look. To make sure they were lifelike, I drew seeds for each crop, four growth stages that’ll change as they grow, harvested versions once they’re ready to be picked, and even dead plant versions in case things don’t go so well for the virtual farmer. The crops based are based on the amazing sprites from Kenney and Cup Nooble . I modified them to fit my color scheme and added some missing stages.

A Handy UI for Choosing Seeds 🖐️

After finishing up the sprites, I focused on implementing a user interface for selecting seeds. The idea was to have a menu attached to the left controller of the player so that they can easily choose which seeds to plant. The biggest challenge was getting the buttons to respond to interactions properly.

Luckily, Unity’s XR Interaction toolkit had my back! They provide a sample containing a button that perfectly suited my needs. After reusing that button in my UI, it was smooth sailing (or should I say planting?) from there.

Plant Seeds, Watch Them Grow 🌱➡️🌽

With the seed selection UI complete, it was time to add scripts that would allow players to interact with soil patches and plant their selected seeds. After working out some kinks and making sure everything functioned as intended, players can now successfully select seeds from their menu and plant them in their virtual garden.

Wrapping Up Day 3 🎮

Today was another productive day in bringing “Life at Pixel Farm” closer to completion! New crops were added, UI challenges were overcome, and planting mechanics were implemented. Join me tomorrow as I continue working on this fun VR farming experience that seamlessly blends 2D aesthetics and immersive gameplay.

Happy coding! 🚀