Magical Harvest cover
Magical Harvest screenshot
Steam
Genre: Simulator, Adventure, Indie

Magical Harvest

Demo-Update!
Finally! The demo update!
We have decided to end the revision of the demo at this point! The creation and improvement of the demo has brought us a lot further. We were able to identify the main problems (e.g. performance) and were able to implement and improve many things that will save us a lot of rework for further development.

A big point that comes next is to create a more suitable environment. In the demo there are still some placeholder assets in use and we also need to adjust a few things for performance. First of all the trees. This means a complete overhaul of the environment and the first test runs are very promising.

Unfortunately, thanks to Corona, we were still a bit stuck in the progress, so we'll refrain from making any more improvements to the demo. Otherwise we'll probably never really get any further :D.

Currently, we are also trying to write more information on our Patreon page. A lot of it will be more "behind the scenes", the story around the characters and hyldena and also a bit more personal.

Here are the patch notes for the demo:


Settings:
  • added German localization
  • renamed settings to "System Settings" and added a "Game Settings" menu
  • System settings: - added Language-dropdown for selecting language (currently English & German)
  • Game settings: - added header font dropdown to change the header font
    - added font dropdown to change the base font
    - added a text speed selection
    - added a toggle for metric or imperial measuring system
    - added a toggle for time format selection
    - added a toggle to toggle on/off the additionally Magical-level icons
UI-Adjustments:
  • reworked all UI visuals with a much cleaner style
  • Item icons: a small roman number in the bottom left shows the magic level of this item additionally to the coloured background. Can be turned on and off in the game settings
  • Items have two types of icons now: one outlined for the smaller displays and one "illustration"-type of icon for the bigger displays.
Other:
  • added controller support
  • added SteamDeck support
  • added Cloud-save
  • sensor for multiselection reworked
  • the helpers at the top middle part of the screen have been reworked
  • added some more input possibilities - Tool-usage: right-mouse-button or Space - Multiselection cancel: left-mouse-button or E - Interaction: left-mouse button or E
  • game fits in most screen ratios now (horizontal ratios above 4:3 resolution)
  • bugfixes

Best regards,
Your Magical Harvest Team
Isa & Marie

Next Bachelor: Zarek
Hello together!

We've had a lot to do in the last two weeks!
The UI has been redesigned and there is definitely a difference in quality. We are still implementing controller support, which is a bit more nerve-wracking than we first thought. Every UI window has to be adjusted and button helpers have to be inserted and displayed correctly. But it's progressing well.



Crossbreeding test:
Last week, we participated in a GameJam to test the Magical Harvest breeding system.
(What is a GameJam? It is an attempt to create a finished game within a certain period of time. These are, for shorter Jams, usually smaller games of a few minutes playing time. The duration of a jam varies from 24 hours to a few days. There are also longer, more challenging jams.)

The GameJam lasted 5 days and in this time we created the small game "Monster Book of Monsters" where you can crossbreed monsters. The mini-game included in it is the precursor to the breeding system between different species in Magical Harvest. The game was well received and therefore passed the "user test".
You can play the game (for free) here: Itch io - Monster Book of Monsters
As we worked under time pressure, we couldn't come up with high quality 3D models and animations.

Next Bachelor: Zarek
In addition, the illustration of the next bachelor is finished: Zarek.
Zarek is a Nereid and fisherman, but he prefers to fish with his spear than with a fishing rod. He is very self-confident and has a dream which he is trying to fulfil. Would you like to help him?
More information about Zarek will follow soon!
Artist: Ulfenheim



What's next?
We will continue to work on the demo. Unfortunately, we also have trips abroad coming up, so that will set us back a bit more in terms of time. But we'll do our best to have an update available at least in November, which will significantly increase the quality of the game.

Best regards,
Your Magical Harvest Team
Isa & Marie

The journey continues! - First Character
What exciting days!
You've been able to play the demo on Steam and Itch.io for a few days now.
Now there is a lot for us to do! The first goal is to improve the pre-alpha demo, especially in the visual aspect, in order to continue the development of Magical Harvest.
Also

  • Implementing the localization options (German for now)
  • Controller support (and thus Steamdeck support)
  • Players can change the font in the options




Most of this is already done, but currently, the whole UI is being visually reworked. This will take more time, but it will make the UI much better and more fitting!

We have already received feedback regarding the demo and thank you for it! Every feedback helps us to know if we are going in the right direction (which is the case) and where we need to rework.
Things that have been noted and need to be improved (besides the graphical aspects):

  • The puzzles in the mine are too hard.
  • The old farm was not found/only found with difficulty.
  • The Steampage (will be adjusted after the graphical revision).


An update for the demo will follow as soon as the above things are done, which may take a good 3 weeks.

First character!


The illustration of Neria from the race Drakys was created by the talented hand of Ulfenheim . Based on this, the portraits are created with different facial expressions that will be used for the dialogues. We will introduce them in more detail later.
Currently, the merman Zarek is being worked on (Nereid race).


And now... back to work. The UI is waiting.

Play the demo now!

Hyldena is waiting for you!




You can play through the first spring, which takes around 5 hours, as often as you want.
Discover the first farming features, catch all types and colours of fish, ad explore the mine with its riddles.
Maybe you can find all the magical shards, but this might be not as easy as it seems in the beginning.

We appreciate every feedback! You can write it directly in the game and send it to us there to help us to improve the game.

Sadly, the donation-dlc is currently not working thanks to a miscommunication between Steam and us. If you want to support us otherwise, consider becoming a Patreon to gain some benefits or donate on itch.io.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/moonflamegames
Itch.io: https://isavii.itch.io/magical-harvest-demo

Thank you very much for playing the game!
We wish you a lot of fun in Hyldena!

Best regards,
Isa & Marie

Just 3 days!
Hello Farmers!
3 days left! On 04 October at 4pm CET you can play the 5-hour demo on Steam or Itch io!
We are very excited and excited ourselves!
In the last few days, we have hardly had to fix any bugs. In this context, not really bugs, but rather improvements. We are happy with the current state and ready to release the demo.
We have used the time to test the demo extensively. The main quest is achievable, but it might take more than one playthrough.
You can also, if you are not a fan of puzzles, join together in the Discord and help each other out!



Discord


We have a new Discord-Server! It offers more channels and more information about Magical Harvest and a. o. is linked to our Patreon.

Patreon


Our Patreon is now live! You can support us via Patreon and get some benefits. There you can also find work-in-progress updates or information about backgrounds for design decisions. Over time, more and more posts will be added there.
For example, you will also find concepts of the Bachelors of Magical Harvest!

Donation-DLC


Those who like to support us but don't like Patreon can also buy our Donation-DLC on Steam, which is also live now. The DLC is purely for donation and offers no additional content or benefits (unlike Patreon).


Bachelors


We are currently in the process of designing all the bachelors. So things are progressing in this area as well!
Initially, there will be one male and one female bachelor of each race. We are trying to diversify them in terms of appearance and character so that there is something for everyone. Later, we hope to have the time to add more. At least one elf or drakys is additionally planned.

Outlook


In the last news, we already wrote a lot about the longer term planning. Once the demo has been released, we will have a 2-week holiday (but we will still be there if there are any problems with the demo version!).
After that, the localisation to German will take place and at the same time the UI will be revised.

So…
Be there in 4 days when the demo is released! We are happy to receive feedback and bug reports - which you can also write in the demo itself.

Best regards,
Your Magical Harvest Team
Isa & Marie

Just a few days left!

Hello Farmers!


Where have the last 2 weeks gone? The countdown is running! 19 days left until the release of the demo version (04 October) on Steam and Itch.io.

We had open house on September 10 at Spelkollektivet, where we live. There we were able to show Magical Harvest to the public for the first time and were overwhelmed by the positive feedback! So we are very confident that our demo offers enough - maybe even a bit too much for a pre-alpha demo?
It was very interesting to watch players and make adjustments based on that. For example, we noticed that the demo tutorial was not yet intuitive enough, which was immediately fixed.



In the last two weeks, most of the bugs have been fixed and design adjustments have been made. The tutorial also explains now the keyboard controls (which were completely missing before) and gives a little more help for completing the tutorial tasks that explain the game.
A few stubborn bugs still lingered in the game until yesterday, but even those could now be solved. New features will not be added to avoid further bugs. Accordingly, the farm animals will be missing in the demo, but there are enough other things to do, so this is bearable. Also missing are the controller controls. This will be brought up to date in the process of the UI overhaul.

Homepage & Patreon
Besides the work on the game, the homepage has been updated and a Patreon page has been prepared. Maybe you already want to support us and get the game and extras via Patreon?
Homepage: https://magicalharvest.github.io/index.html

Trailer
In addition, a new trailer was created, which is centered on the gameplay. The trailer is therefore a bit longer and shows the gameplay elements of the demo version.

Outlook:


The next three weeks will only be used to make some more minor adjustments. For example, adjusting sound effects or adding some animation to breathe more life into Magical Harvest.



After the release there will be a break of 2 weeks. Of course, if there are any serious bugs, they will be fixed.

What is the plan after the demo?
We hope to receive constructive feedback so that we can make adjustments and integrate ideas into the development as early as possible. After our break, background work will be in the foreground.

  • At the top of the list is the revision of the UI. This includes the translation from English to German and the option to select fonts in the settings.
  • Controller-support
  • In addition, the game is currently only designed for a screen ratio of 16:9, which is of course unfavorable for wide-screen users. This will also be adjusted in the course of the UI revision.

After this revision, the demo will be updated and made available.
Afterwards the project itself will be cleaned up. We still have a lot of old placeholder objects in the project folder and therefore we will first tidy them up.

So there will be no big, visible progress for a while. From December at the latest, we will focus on the next features again.
That' s it for the longer plan.
In two weeks there will be the new update - until then: have a nice time!

Best regards,
Your Magical Harvest Team
Isa & Marie


Demo release date!

Hello Farmers!



Only 1.5 weeks until the first public test of the demo. The Steam version will follow on 04 October 2022!
The demo version offers about 5 hours of playtime. The complete spring can be played and the first 3 of 5 levels of the currently implemented spring plants can be discovered. The growth time of the plants is reduced for the demo and the development chance as well as some drop chances are increased.

The demo is currently in a playable state. Minor improvements still need to be made, but these will not hold up the release. In the last 15 days a lot was planned, not everything was implemented, but a lot was additionally worked on or implemented.



Planned and implemented were:


Further was implemented:




The first farm animals have not yet found their way into the demo version, as they are still very buggy. Depending on how well the further improvement of the game progresses in the next two weeks, the animals may or may not be available in the Steam version. However, it is our own wish that they are implemented in the game.

So, there are a lot of (minor) improvements coming up in the next 1.5 weeks to further improve the demo for our playtest at Spelkollektivet in Sweden.
The only element that is still missing is some kind of termination condition for the demo version, at the end of spring.

In addition, the creation of a trailer is still at the top of the list. We are very excited and looking forward to next week! We are also full of confidence that the game will be fun and that the players will like it so far (we do, anyway!).

Best regards,
Your Magical Harvest Team
Isa & Marie

Intro & Tutorial

Hello Farmers!


Still 3.5 weeks until the demo can be played publicly for the first time (Steam will follow in early October). So, time is running, still a lot to do, but it will.
The timing for the last 15 days has fit exactly. Everything planned could be implemented and will also be useful for the later development of the game.


What was completed:


The tutorial and the intro can be skipped. However, this is not recommended the first time you play.
The quest and dialog system are used for the tutorial in the demo version to introduce players to the game principles. Creating a tutorial is a lot of work (much more than expected), so this amounts to a minimum for the demo, but it is sufficient.

There are many things that need to be considered in a tutorial so that players don't mess up the game data or can already do things that are not intended. That's where a lot of limitations come from during tutorials in some games.

Also, the intro is just meant to be a small introduction. The later game will get a different intro.


Planning until September 1:


All the game components that will be in the demo are now in the game. Now we are faced with the task of further assembling and revising everything. For example, the stable animals and (demo) traders still need to be integrated effectively.

Accordingly, in the next few weeks, we will be adding improvements and connections in many areas of the game. We are also still working on a new trailer. Since the last trailer, the game has simply changed too much.
In detail:


As you can see, the topics here are spread throughout the game. On September 10th it will be officially tested for the first time (if you live in southern Sweden, you can drop by: Spelkollektivet - Open house).
After that, we have 2-3 weeks until the demo is released on Steam. These weeks will be used to further improve the demo based on the test game results.

We are very excited about it and hope that everything works smoothly!

What are your expectations for the demo version?
(Reminder: the demo is a pre-alpha version that does not include all game elements yet).

Best regards,
Your Magical Harvest Team
Isa & Marie

Forest and a lot of flowers!

Hello Farmer!


Again 15 days have passed and again a lot has been added to Magical Harvest! The game now has all the world areas that can be discovered in the demo version (however, this is also only a small part compared to the later game - in addition, the maps are adapted for the demo version and will not be in the form they are now in the game later.



What was done:




What's next?

Planning until August 15:


With all of the game areas important to the demo now implemented, only the tutorial remains as the main focus.
This includes implementing:


Especially the quest system will probably take a bit longer, so the focus in these 2 weeks is completely on the tutorial. If there is more time, other elements will be adjusted (still missing the product prices from the crafting, but this is not a high priority as long as the rest is not finished).

Actually, it was announced that we will release the demo during the Steam Next festival in October. This will not be the case - you will still get the demo in October! What we didn't know before is that you can only participate in the Steam-Next-Festival once and that should be close to the release. In our case, however, this will still take some time, so it doesn't make sense to participate now.

At this point, we would also like to emphasize again that the demo has a kind of pre-alpha status. It is only meant to give a foretaste of farm life. All the NPCs are missing after all and so is the whole dating part! Also, the character creation and decoration mode will not be included, as there simply aren't any assets for it yet (and it's not mature yet either).

Nevertheless, you will be offered something and awaken your desire for more!

If you want to support us, check us out on Facebook, Twitter or/and Instagram and follow us there. There you will also get more interim information and pictures.

Best regards,
Your Magical Harvest Team
Isa & Marie

Monthly Update: July Part 1
[h3Hello, magical farming friends!

The development for the demo version is going on and in the last two weeks a lot has happened!

We have a few more concepts for water creatures to fish e.g., jellyfish, eel or oyster. In the demo you should be able to fish at least 20 different water creatures in addition to their color variants. Fishing locations are the farm, the sea and the mine.

Cooking has been finished and some recipes have been added, but the price and quality of the products are still to be calculated. In addition, the products do not yet have any effects when eaten.



The big area Mine is 98% finished for the demo version. There are still a few puzzles missing, they will be adjusted at the end when the demo is playable. In the mine, 3 types of stone, 3 ores and 3 crystals can be mined, as well as 3 types of mushrooms can be found. The mine can be explored and expanded piece by piece to unlock new areas.
Every Monday, the collectible objects in the mine are reset. In between, however, the mine also recovers a little every day to provide a supply of mining products.
This can still change in the course of development.



Implementing light in the mine was a big part that took some time... There will definitely be a slider in the settings to manually adjust the brightness (for some, the mine might look a bit dark).



In addition to the mine, melting metals into ingots and cutting raw gemstones into jewels are now available.

New 3D objects have been added or revised:
Crystals T1-T3, kitchen (still without decoration), ore smelter, gem cutter, alchemical, workbench, bed, bookshelf, nightstand.
Our placeholder character has now clothes adapted to the graphic style.

In addition to these main areas, general background improvements have also been made for a better game flow.



Planning until July 15


The following areas are scheduled to be done by July 15:


These are partly rather small projects, so there might be time to implement more things.
Furthermore, is pending:


In two months, the demo version should be ready. Especially the tutorial will take a long time, so we have to invest a lot of time to make progress.

In the meantime, we wish you a nice summer!
Enjoy the weather and have fun!

Best regards,
Your Magical Harvest Team
Isa & Marie

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