Cozy Farm Game Idea?
IDK if this is the right section to post this, my bad if not, there's so many sections it was kinda confusing. XD;
Hello very talented peoples! I am not a game-maker myself, I normally just write stories, but I've had an idea for a possible farm-type game that has been bugging me for a while. I figure there must be a reason I can't get it out of my head, but since I don't know the first thing about making games, I figured the best I could do for now would be to at least share my idea with those who can.
Of course I can see that many of you very talented and creative people have your own ideas and I don't wish to bother anyone who is busy. But if you happen to be searching for an idea for either now or in the future, I'd be grateful if anyone even just considered it.
The idea actually started out as kind of a joke in my head, but I kept thinking about more and more details. The idea originally came from a game I thought looked pretty silly, one about race horses being turned into anime girls, lmao. So I thought to myself, “Yanno it's probably only a matter of time until Sexy Turnip Wife and Sexy Potato Wife are a thing...” Aaaand then I fell down a rabbit hole of taking a plot like that seriously. XD
Now hold on, it's not as totally cheesy or pervy as it initially sounds. The idea that evolved is much more cute than that, IMO. In my head I imagine it as a cutesy anime-style game, I was most inspired by Rune Factory 4/SOS and Zelda: Minish Cap, but really if this inspired anyone with any kind of gaming experience or art skills, I would be most stoked. I am mostly a writer but I do have at least some small doodling skill, not pro level but enough to give you guys a basic idea of what some of the characters might look like at least.
As for the characters of the game, I imagined that the various 'Sexy Fruit n Veggie' Waifus are actually not your waifus. Marriage is a big part of the game, but it's not actually your protagonist that marries. I thought it would be interesting to see an elderly protag for once among all the baby-faces in gaming. That's when I started imagining a cute lil old lady or man, Hope Beacon is the default name for the lady and Beacon Hope is the name for the man, but of course the player can change the name and other little details to make it more like them, the only thing that has to be concrete is that they are an elder.
So like the classic fairy tale 'Thumbelina', which I took a lot of inspiration from too, Hope/Beacon is a lil old person who has always wanted to have children, but alas for whatever reason, as they find themselves in old age they are saddened to think it will never be. But thankfully, that's when the magical fairies start arriving to your garden!
The fairies, which in my head are cute anime/humanized versions of various Fruits and Veggies, need a new safe place to live, and they need someone to care for them to make them stronger. Hope/Beacon is eager to help these cute little fairies (I view most of them as female-looking but there would be a handful of cute Blueberry/Banana/Broccoli/Brussel sprout and Bok Choy Boys too for equality~ XDb) and because of how friendly and helpful they are to the fairies and how they open their home/gardens for them, the fairies quickly begin to view Hope/Beacon as a parental figure, and so the more they help the new fairy family, the more they in turn are happy to help and spread special blessings for them and the farm.
I see them earning “Parent Points” by doing nice things for the fairies that they need, watering and tending to them of course but also just chatting (plants grow better when you talk to them after all~) about fun plant facts, finding little quirks about each fairy child that makes each unique, and remembering their favorite gifts from time to time. Fruit fairies probably prefer sweet things and flowers, while most Veggie fairies might like herbs/spices better. I think it would be funny if Cucumber's favorite gifts are Dill and Vinegar, referencing to pickles lol~ My hope is that besides being amused, the player would feel a sort of parental pride in their fairies and their farm the more they take care of it.
Now I mentioned that marriage would still be part of the game despite it not being the elderly protagonist's role. Instead I imagine that once the plant Fairies grow up a certain amount, they graduate to Fae, and at that point in addition to growing their wings, they are able to marry other fully grown Fae. It is up to Hope/Beacon to choose who they will marry and reproduce with. You can't just marry any Fae though, like sorry I don't think you can marry the Peach and the Eggplant lmao (Admittedly I'm not a botanist but I don't THINK those two can mix...? Maybe I'm wrong tho... XD), each will have a handful of compatible plant Fae that they were thinking about marrying already, but they leave the final decision for their parent. You can use this marriage system to create new special hybrid types of faeries. For example, most Berry Fairies can only marry other Berry types, but if you marry the Strawberry Fae to the Blueberry Fae, there's a chance you can get special hybrids like the Blue Strawberry Fairy, or maybe Purple Strawberry if they marry Blackberry/Marionberry. Maybe marrying different colors of Corn Fae might produce a Maize Fairy, marrying Plum and Apricot makes the Pluot, Orange and Lemon make Yuzu while Orange and Peach make either a Pink Orange or maybe Mango, etc.
But also maybe throw a few strange pairings into the mix, like maybe you can marry the Potato or Turnip Fae to the Apple or Pear Faes to make a Jicama, or Orange and Grape to make Kumquat! I'd like to add a few fruits and veggies like these that people don't normally see in farm games, or even think about IRL, to get them curious about trying them. Also marriage and reproduction should be able to take place no matter if the pairing appears Same or Opposite 'sex.', as Fae reproduce with magic, not sex, lol. Also these hybrid plants are not just usually prettier, but also stronger than both parents, and they have special abilities to protect the farm.
Speaking of which, there are things you need to protect the farm and your lil fairy babies from too! Like the tale of 'Thumbelina', in this game there are occasional attempts by various pesky critters, from frogs/toads to mice/rats and moles and certain birds, etc, that try to kidnap your fairy children to either make them work for them or even to, yuck, 'marry' them. I imagine that's how the protag meets the first fairy and gains their trust at the start of the game, by saving them from some kind of critter trying to make them their bride. It's meant to add a little combat element to the game, but it's not meant to be too stressful, it's supposed to be a cute n cozy game overall. So it should be easy to save them unless the player wants a harder mode, don't want anyone to feel bad lol. There's probably a warning system in place, the fairies will look after each other too and tell you when there's danger, and there should be enough time to go help even if you find yourself in the middle of something as long as you hurry, but the faster you save them the more grateful they are and the more Parent Points you get for it. Kidnap attempts also shouldn't happen so often as to feel stressful/interrupt the farming all the time, only every few days or so, but maybe there are more attempts in Winter as animals are more desperate then and the fairies are weaker, maybe then it's more like every other day. This would hopefully make up for less things to plant in Winter.
Again, if anyone with any kind of skills or styles was inspired by this so far I'd be happy no matter what, but admittedly in my head I imagined the style being similar to the worlds of Rune Factory 4 and Zelda: Minish Cap, with a lil fairy town/village being surrounded by more exploration zones you can search/do mini games or solve puzzles for helpful items or foraging items, which you can also find around the bigger farm/surrounding woods you live in outside of the Fairy Town you build for the kids. I imagine you build the little fairy town/village yourself to keep your babies safer, since being older you already have a house for yourself, and with enough Parent Points/Fairy Magic you can eventually shrink down like Link from Minish Cap and visit the little fairy village yourself.
The fairy village would be added on a little at a time, house by house, but after all the houses are built you can also add fun things like a playground/nursery for the baby fairies to play in, and maybe eventually you can even build a castle and choose your top favorite Faes to be the King/Queen and Prince/Princesses. 2 spots for the King/Queen and maybe 4-6 for the lesser Prince/Princess spots. In addition to a nifty crown/tiara/circlet, Fae that are promoted to Royal Fae will also get a power boost like Hybrids, and they will help you protect against pests. Maybe as an endgame thing after you have built everything you can for the fairies, they might reward you by turning your plain, worn-down cottage into a cheerful and colorful new Fairy Cottage too~
There would be non-fairy/normal fruits and veggies the protag can eat and cook with too. I'd say every time you produce a Fairy, you also get 3-4 non-fairy versions of the fruit or veggie they represent, or maybe talking with and gifting to your Fairy Babies will result in them gifting a normal fruit or veggie back to you. There would be normal recipes at first, but maybe later with help from your kids you can make special cute Fairy Dishes together, too. Like Butterfly or Heart or Star-shaped sandwiches, cakes/pies/cookies/tarts or casseroles.
I think those are most of the gameplay details I've thought of so far, all that's left for now are the titles I had in mind. I have a few possible ideas and I'd be open to hearing more, it's really not set in stone yet. It could possibly be named “Hope Beacons”/”Hope Beacons Farm”/"Hope Beacons Fairy Farm" after the protagonists, but also I thought of “Legacy of the Valley”, like Lily of the Valley but instead Legacy bc the fairies are like your legacy. A less serious idea was “Baby Bloom”, like baby boom except you make your babies bloom, lol, or maybe just “Fairy Farm”, it's a lil plain but it gets the point across.
And as for Hope/Beacon, we could either leave their backstory more of a mystery than not, or we could reveal some details to the fairies as we grow to trust them. I imagine they had a spouse not long before the arrival, but they died, leading to a depression that caused Hope/Beacon not to eat much or take care of the farm since their passing, as they were too lonely. The fairy babies give them the will to do that again. Also I don't know if there would be much if any need for money in this game, maybe that could change, but for the most part I'd prefer for the focus to be more on just getting the things you need to get by/gifts for your kids, as once again, being an elder Hope/Beacon should already have all the farm tools you normally have to buy at the start of a game, and also because I would prefer that the focus of Hope/Beacon's quest is not gaining wealth, but establishing and providing for/protecting the family they always wanted. Money is usually useless by the end of a game anyways, and so is it to someone nearing the end of their lives.
Okay, I think that's mostly what's been on my mind~ If I think of anything I forgot I'll add it later. But yeah, hopefully someone else is as inspired by this as I have been lately! If so I'd be more than happy to share the idea with you, so please get in contact if so. I'd really like to be able to write some dialogue for the characters and help flesh them out even if I can't do anything too technical. Just please don't try to steal without crediting me at all in some way, if I find out anyone did this I will not take to it kindly, as by now the idea has kinda become my baby too lol. Otherwise I'd be more than happy to let the person/people who does the most work get the most credit, I'd just like to know I had a hand in it. :)b
So yeah, that's it for now, please let me know if this inspires you and shoot me a line if so, I'd be super excited just to talk about it even being a possibility, even though it's probably 90% likely to never get too far. I just love the farm game/cozy game genre and I think this would be something quite a lot of people would love to play, myself included of course, if it just actually existed lol...