Louis Durrant and Fern will draw cheesy valentine cards featuring the garden residents in a livestream taking place on December 12 at 10 AM EST / 3 PM GMT / 4 PM CET.
The winter weather settles in and 2023 draws to a close. Of course, this brings up the big question: Is The Garden Path still up for a 2023 release? As promised last month, we have an update to share with you to go over the ups and downs of the months past and months ahead.
When is the game releasing?
We are currently shaping the game to be the best it can be. The game's content is ready and waiting, however there are still some performance improvements to make before itās ready for a full release, especially on Nintendo Switch. The Garden Path, while still a game about small moments, has grown to be a more mature project than I had imagined when I first started working on it years ago, and I want to be sure it gets its best chance when stepping out into the world.
With hopefully just a little further to go, I need just a bit more time to polish the game before everyone can get their hands on it so that youāll be able to play The Garden Path in late Spring 2024. Thereās also a new trailer to show for it!
I wanted to take the time to look back on The Garden Paths' development by wiping the dust off the old development blog. If you'd like to read more of my thoughts on the delay (as well as read about the game's development since 2018), you can check out my blog.
Thanks to everyone whoās been supporting my project for all this time, itās wild to think how tall things have grown since the start.
And as always, here is your reminder that you can join our official Discord Community server here. Itās where you can chat with the team, meet fellow backers, and help me shape The Garden Path. And of course, itās a great place to share your real-life gardening adventures with fellow gardeners.
Can you believe we're in the last month of the year!? Where has time gone...
In the spirit of the holidays, Louis Durrant and Fern will draw ugly holiday couture for the garden's residents in a livestream taking place on December 12 at 10 AM EST / 3 PM GMT / 4 PM CET.
Fall Update - New visitors, key remapping and more š
Hello gardeners,
Long time no see! Weāve been working hard these past months, and have an update for our gardeners! Before jumping into the updates on features weāre working on, we want to answer your most frequently asked question:
When is the release date?
Finishing touches are still working their way into the game, so that time spent in the Garden is as enjoyable and as accessible as possible. But, while we're still polishing the game, you can expect more concrete news in the coming weeks! Growth can take time, and we really appreciate all of your support and patience during this process.
I have been hard at work on new features to help make The Garden Path a richer experience, like lost spirits who visit the Garden in need of help, and the highly-requested input remapping on keyboard. While we wait for the news later on this month, I thought I would take some time to go over a handful of these upcoming features to look forward to. Let's take a look!
Game Updates
As mentioned, there's a new kind of visitor now in the Garden. Spirits who have lost their way might be looking for harborage, but their worried thoughts will keep the Garden around them from growing, casting a dark shadow that surrounds them. By spending tones you can reassure the spirit and help send them on their way. You'll almost certainly want to head into the Garden and find the right herbs and botanicals to prepare for the encounter.
If you're having trouble finding the right plant, you can now track families of flora in your encyclopaedia, if you've recorded enough of that family. This way, when opening the map, you can see where hotspots of that plant are growing, and you'll know where to go when foraging.
The map itself has seen some love too, with new smaller pins that expand when highlighted, helping to make the map easier to read when objects are cluttered. The old information panel has been updated with new animations, and better groupings and explanations of what's going on in the Garden, to keep you in-the-know.
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A long-requested feature, input remapping, is now available for players playing with a keyboard. This is an early addition that will need more testing and ironing out, but I hope this sets things on the right track for control customization, especially for those who feel the default controls aren't intuitive or comfortable.
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A new algorithm determines what tasks a resident of the Garden might ask of you. By keeping a closer tally of what's growing in the Garden, and what you have on-hand, tasks that are delivered are no longer random. Instead, they are picked when the game believes the requirements of that task are within arms reach.
Resident errands are also no longer daily. Before, a random number of residents would opt to have an errand available, now available errands will come and go as you play in the Garden. If a new errand becomes available, it will appear in your Overview overlay, along with the character and where you can find them in the Garden to begin the task. Available errands will last a good while, but ignore them for too long and the resident might change their mind.
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A while ago I took the guesswork out from constellations by showing how the stars are connected from the beginning - as early player feedback suggested it wasn't fun guessing from all the stars which may or may not be connected.
But, more recently, playtesters felt they were missing the reveal of the constellation. Now, constellations will slowly form as you learn more about the stars. After observing a star, you'll also reveal what stars that star is connected to, hopefully piquing your interest for what you might unlock next.
And there's a bunch of new stars to unlock now too! A new type of star that glows green will help guide you through the content of the game when starting out. These stars are automatically tracked in your task tracker, filling up as you complete them, so you shouldn't miss out.
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Before, a large number of control options were either hidden, or dotted around inconsistent places of the UI, but a new global input guide will now follow the player and contextually list the actions you have available, whether you're running around the world, using your inventory, or whatever else.
The guide will also reposition and scale depending on what's open on screen, UI scaling for readability, and whoās playing, hopefully making the best use of screen real-estate.
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Finally, a push for optimization has been underway to help the game run and load faster on different systems. Thanks to a new way of grouping objects in the world, the game loads into the Garden twice as fast in testing, making The Garden Path even easier to hop-in for a minute or two, or maybe longer.
Hundreds of the game's textures have also been optimised to stream faster and be easier on RAM and GPU usage, which should be most notable on lower end systems.
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I really feel as though The Garden Path is maturing as a project and, from my time playing, these additions go a long way to make the game feel more consistent and readable, and that the Garden itself is more alive and wants to be explored. Iām excited to hear what new players think once they get their hands on it.
Usual reminders!
And as always, here is your reminder that you can join our official Discord Community server, which you can join here. Here you can chat with the team and help me shape The Garden Path. And of course, we encourage you to share your real-life gardening with your fellow gardening gamers!
Halloween Art Stream: Jack-o'-lanterns and everything pumpkin!! š
Dear gardeners,
Come join us for a cozy 'lil Halloween art stream. Louis Durrant and Fern will chat and draw everything pumpkin - including Jack-o'-lanterns.
We'll be streaming at 11 AM EDT / 3 PM GMT / 4 PM CET. You can catch us here or on Twitch!
Happy trick or treating! Louis, carrotcake
Join our Discord server Follow us on Twitter: @fromcarrotcake Check out our TikTok: @fromcarrotcake Find us on Instagram: @fromcarrotcake Keep up via Mastodon: @ldurrant
Tiny Teams Festival ~ Demo available to play! š
Hello gardeners,
With summer in full swing, Iām happy to share the news that The Garden Path will be part of the Tiny Teams Steam Festival! The event is live already and weāll be taking part throughout the week: store.steampowered.com/sale/tinyteamsfestival.
The Yogscastsā Tiny Teams festival is dedicated to highlighting smaller indie game developers like ourselves, and itās wonderful to be among so many great games. Do take the time to look through the festival page which is running from today until August 10th.
Oh, and did we mention that the demo of The Garden Path will be available during the festival? Itās the perfect chance to wander the garden and we hope you enjoy!
Your usual reminder!
And as always, here is your reminder that you can join our official Discord Community server, which you can join here. Here you can chat with the team, meet fellow backers, and help me shape The Garden Path. And of course, we encourage you to share your real-life gardening with your fellow gardening gamers.
We're thick into the summer months now, as myself and the team have been hunkering down, climbing ever-closer to The Garden Path's approaching release. While I'm usually excited to use this space to share a bundle of new changes and features, with release on the horizon most of my efforts have been focused on bug fixes and polishing up the game's existing content for a 1.0. As such, a slightly shorter update this time! Still, a few important bits to share - so let's head into it.
Game Updates
A great deal of progress has been made moving the game to Nintendo Switch, with full optimizations underway to ensure the full game and full Garden will be available to take with you on-the-go. Those with slower hardware or older computers should also benefit, with higher frame rates and smoothing loading across the board.
One of the heaviest calculations the game made was the player's lantern - lighting the Garden as you move through it. It never sat right with me that those who played the game at night might lose performance. The game's lighting has now been reworked to use no GPU lighting at all, instead layering sprites in a way to emulate sources of light.
Instead of lighting the darkness, the darkness is now moved away from the player, creating the appearance that the Garden is lit around them. With an excuse to spend some more time adjusting the lighting for the new system, I personally think midnights, mornings and dusks have never looked better, with a more filmic appearance that suits the game's style, instead of relying on the engine's provided lighting.
A common piece of feedback from testing arose from those familiar with the game and choosing to skip the tutorial - 'why am I still seeing tutorials!'. While it was possible to skip over the starting zone, later tutorials would still appear. As triggering tutorials is required to collect guide stones, it was necessary to have these still appear so the player could progress.
Now a new method of collecting guide stones is available for those skipping the tutorial. Small shrines appear throughout the Garden, which you can break apart to collect the stone fragments. You'll need to explore your new Garden to find them all, but there'll always be a surplus, so you aren't tearing your hair out trying to find that last one.
I hope these small changes, along with all the fixes in the pipeline, make The Garden Path a richer experience. It's a great feeling tieing all the loose ends from the last five years, as the project continues to mature.
Any thoughts?
Since we are inching closer to the release of The Garden Path, weāre going to be asking for general calls for feedback from those who have early access. Is there a mechanic in the game you felt needed a tutorial that didn't appear? Is there anything you found yourself having trouble understanding? Are there any elements you wish were present?
Jump into the Discord here and let us know. All your thoughts and feelings about the game are more than appreciated.
Your usual reminder!
And as always, here is your reminder that you can join our official Discord Community server, which you can join here. Here you can chat with the team, meet fellow backers, and help me shape The Garden Path. And of course, we encourage you to share your real-life gardening with your fellow gardening gamers.
I hope youāre all well and have been enjoying the glimpses of sunshine that have been passing through, at least here in the UK. Work has been going well on The Garden Path, with translations well underway along with the usual upkeep. Letās pay a wave to May then by taking a closer look at what Iāve been working on recently.
Multiplayer Trailer
A garden needs a gardenerā¦why not two? Last week we shared a new trailer for The Garden Path, showcasing the gameās local multiplayer mode with some brand-new footage. This feature was previously announced during our Kickstarter campaign and will let you experience all the little pleasures of the garden with a friend, whether on PC (including Remote Play Together via Steam) or Nintendo Switch.
With this trailer comes a new release window, as The Garden Path will now be blooming in Summer 2023 (More info on that below)! Take a look at the trailer below to see what the garden will look like with a companionā¦
Game Updates
It's never fun moving a missed target, but, as with any project, there are often surprises and curveballs along the way. Sometimes a fix or a new feature surprises you with how quickly it can be implemented, and sometimes it takes a day or a week longer than hoped (and, as all we know, it's often the latter).
Since our first demo in 2021, almost every aspect of the game has been reshaped in some way to make the game feel better to play. I'm proud of all these changes, and I think they've helped shape the game into more of-its-own. Early on in development, I took a lot of design decisions for granted because they were staples from other games - equipment menus, player stats, and so on. All the feedback has helped me step back and rethink these elements to better fit the kind of game The Garden Path is and should be.
I'm planning on putting together a retrospective of these changes together soon, but I hope you've enjoyed my updates each month covering that progress bit by bit. Sometimes itās hard to gauge how far things have come without going back to the start. But, without any more ado (!), here's what's new in the game this May.
Stars in The Garden Path are a way to track your progress and time in the Garden. They've been, for the most part, untouched since the game's first demo, but will be a focus of development as we lead up to release.
Animations and control for star navigation have been polished and made more responsive. The star UI now also supports different 'views', the default view shows the stars in the night sky, but stars are now able to be rearranged in a grid sorted by subject, to make them easier to find and move between.
A third view, allowing you to easily move between the different constellations, will be implemented in the near future, alongside many new stars that have been in the pipeline.
Lastly, a new animation adds a bit of game-feel when spending a star map to observe a star. A handy icon in the bottom left keeps track of how many star maps you have in your inventory while viewing the stars.
The encyclopedia now features a new 'Garden' page. While other tabs keep track of the folk you meet and items you collect, this Garden page is designed to be more changing.
When focusing on flora in the Garden, you'll have the option to 'Record' the flora, as well as harvest. The more of a certain family you record, the more information about that family of plants you'll have available to you, such as how many are in the Garden, what you can obtain from them, and the seasonality of the plant.
Eventually, with enough plants recorded, you will be able to track that family of plants, making it easier to find the plants you've spent the time studying.
Work on localisation is starting to fall into place, with the game readied up to support Spanish, French, and Japanese. There's still work to be done, especially where content in the game is generated, but I hope you'll enjoy these sneak peeks. I really think each language shows the game in a new light!
Any thoughts?
Since we are inching closer to the release of The Garden Path, weāre going to be asking for general calls for feedback from those who have early access. Is there a mechanic in the game you felt needed a tutorial that didn't appear? Is there anything you found yourself having trouble understanding? Are there any elements you wish were present?
Jump into the Discord here and let us know. All your thoughts and feelings about the game are more than appreciated.
Itās time to sign off on April ā another busy month thatās kept time feeling as short as ever. With characters being finished up, localisation entering its final stages, and 0.7 update preparation, it feels like thereās more and more to talk about each month that goes by. I hope youāll enjoy this look at what Iāve been working on in the welcome warmer weather.
Meeting Frederick, Sal, and Olen
For April Foolās this year our Community Manager, Alex, decided to give character design a go and created the unique fox accountant Frederick. Heās a bookkeeper, heās a little wonky, and he was made entirely via Paint - but he has a certain charm about him.
Who knows, maybe Frederick will make an appearance (he wonātā¦ unless?)
A handful of residents will soon be added to the game in the upcoming patch - this month we also introduced a new character to the garden: the peas Sal and Olen! As one of the rare (only?) two headed residents, Sal and Olen...
š« Always agree on which way to go š« Don't always have the same song stuck in their heads š« Are just two peas in a pod
What do you think of this pair of peas? Are you excited to meet them in your garden?
Game Updates
It's been a long time in the works, but I'm excited to introduce the long awaited replacement to the game's stat system. Welcome in: tones.
A mood, a season, an outlook - 'tones' are named as such to represent what your character is experiencing and how they approach their work in the Garden.
Tones are like a currency you use to harvest new items in the Garden. Not dissimilar to an energy system, tones are collected and spent to get what you want from the Garden.
Unlike 'energy', tones are divided by the seasons. The Garden is seasonal, and so are the things that grow in it, so players paying attention to the change in weather and seasonality of different plants will be rewarded.
Tones are designed to help guide your actions throughout the Garden and hopefully make gathering and collecting more meaningful, without being something to micro-manage.
Equipment in the game no longer has stats, but instead holds different ways to generate tones. Your coat might generate you a tone after catching a fish, or your hat might generate a tone as you walk through the rain.
To keep things balanced, once an item has generated a tone, it will take a little bit of time before a new one can be generated.
Generated tones are reliable, but can be slow. The best way to get more tones? Tea! Tea will help provide 'temporary' tones - they won't last forever, but a big teapot holds many cups of tea to keep you topped up throughout the day. Or, maybe you'd opt for a smaller teapot - less cups, but a stronger flavour.
Bunkās duties have been delegated to selling ready-prepared teas, but now youāll be able to brew up your own tea at any time from one of the campfires dotted around the map.
Anything that can be brewed into a tea will affect the tones each tea provides. Some items might enhance the tones another provides, or might change the tone entirely.
Clothing now has a warmth rating. Dress too warm or too cold, and your equipment will take a little longer to recharge. Nothing to stress about, just something that makes wrapping up in the cold weather worthwhile.
While temperature in the Garden changes throughout the day, your character's temperature is taken from an average of the day's temperature. You won't need to worry about the time of day you're playing, but should notice the warmth of late Spring, or the cooling in late Autumn.
Your harvesting tools (axe and secateurs) now have a yield rating. Tools with a higher rating will make for quick work, whereas lower ratings will afford greater care to the plant being harvested. Youāll want to make sure youāre picking the right tool for the job.
NPCs now carry a lot more stuff on the daily, and their shops now have tabs to keep things more organised. Certain, more crucial items will now always be in stock, so less is left to the roll of the dice. Shop tabs are organised by what the character stocks most of, so you can get a better feel for what each merchant is all about.
Inventory overflowing? One of the most common bits of feedback is that there's just too much in the inventory sometimes, especially after a harvesting session. There's a new way of managing items to help with that - your Collection!
Harvestables are now automatically sorted into this new section of your inventory. The best part? Your Collection is infinite, so you don't need to worry about carrying too many acorns or bracken.
The second best part - in multiplayer your collection will be shared between both players, helping to pool your hard work together.
This helps give more weight and focus to your more valuable pieces of furniture, trinkets or equipment, which remain in your inventory without diluting them with more common harvestables. To help keep things balanced, player inventories and bags are a little bit smaller across the board.
With the brunt of 0.7 now behind me, itās just finishing touches and balances before it makes its way to the beta.
