How to Create a Monster Collector Game with Farming Elements
Alexander Walter explained how he created the game Bloomies, talking about the inspiration, what it is about, some of the elements in it, and how it works as a desktop game.
Introduction
My name is Alexander (nickname SilvanuZ). I'm 33 years old and a Software Developer from Germany. I live here with my wife and our two cats. My wife is very good at drawing, so she can sometimes draw things for my games. She has already drawn a few decorative items and hats for Bloomies, for example.
My main job is as team lead of a development team at Scopevisio AG, and my big hobbies are game development and my rock band, where I sing and play guitar. I've started a lot of prototypes and smaller game projects. However, none of them have ever been finished, except for a game jam.
Most game developers will be familiar with this problem. Most of the time, the projects were simply too ambitious. Last year, I played a cute little desktop game called Tiny Pasture, and I was hooked. My wife had a Tamagotchi at the time, and one thing led to another.
Tiny Pasture made me curious about how to technically implement such a game. A game that runs on the taskbar. So, out of curiosity, I started designing something like that myself. Curiosity turned into determination, and I decided that Bloomies would be the first project that I would actually finish.
Bloomies
As a player, you can expect Bloomies to be a desktop companion that brightens up your everyday PC experience. I've always had a soft spot for Pokémon and Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley, which is why I've wanted to make a game where you create monster eggs from plants and hatch them.
The core gameplay mechanics in Bloomies are very simple. You have to loosen the soil on the surface (or taskbar) with your hoe, plant seeds, and water them with a watering can. The seeds grow into eggs that you can then hatch, and just like that, a Bloomie is born.
The Bloomies have a rank that defines their strength. If you get an S+ (rarest rank) Bloomie, you even get the Bloomie itself as a hat. You also have a small chance of getting so-called Sparkle Bloomies. These look different in color from their original and have a guaranteed S rank.
So for players who like to collect the best of everything, the mechanics are very addictive. Over time, random shadow Bloomies will spawn and fight your Bloomies. The battles take place automatically, so you don't have to actively participate. This makes the Bloomies stronger. Some can even evolve further.
Features
To add progress to the game, I introduced world levels and world bosses. The world level determines which items you can buy in the shop, such as new seeds to hatch new Bloomies. You can increase the world level by defeating a world boss.
These are slightly more complex battles, but they also run automatically once you start them. The world bosses even drop seeds of themselves, so you can hatch them too. So the goal would be to defeat all world bosses in order to own all Bloomies!
Another great key feature would be decorating. In Bloomies, you can decorate your entire taskbar with items dropped by bosses and items from the shop. Players can create as many templates as they want and easily switch between their decorations depending on their mood or the season. This means you don't have to delete everything and rebuild it from scratch every time!
You can also put funny hats on Bloomies!
Of course, I also considered that players wouldn't want to constantly click around at the bottom of the screen. That's why I introduced skills, which can automate or improve certain things. For example, money can be collected automatically, or eggs can be hatched automatically.
Many different skills can be leveled up. I'm trying to offer lots of options in Bloomies (such as cozy mode, which temporarily disables combat) so that players can control their own experience. You can even move and resize the game all the way you want.
Inspiration for the Game
As I mentioned before, I love Pokémon and Harvest Moon. I've been carrying around the idea of getting monster eggs from plants for a long time. However, I always thought it would be too much work for me as a solo dev to create such a game. At least if it were like Stardew Valley.
Through Bloomies, I found a way to make my idea come true within a manageable scope. Since the game doesn't really have a story, I'm focusing more on the art style. As you can see, the game is in pixel art. However, it's very important to me that you think "Awwwww, it's cute" when you see almost every new bloomie. That's why I've imposed three rules on myself, which I follow as best I can
- Every bloomie always has two black eyes that are only 2 pixels high.
- If possible, each Bloomie has black legs that are only 1 pixel high.
- Each Bloomie has bright cheeks.
These three rules make almost every Bloomie cute. It sounds silly, but it really works.
I try to put a lot of love and detail into each animation because I draw every Bloomie myself. I don't use AI for this. When I design new Bloomies, I usually just Google animals or nature images at random. As soon as I come up with something funny, I pixelate a few drafts with Aseprite and eventually have the finished image.
Development Process
I roughly planned Bloomies in my head and wrote everything down in a Kanban board (I even use an integrated Kanban board via a plugin for Godot). I didn't write down everything in detail, things just came to me bit by bit. But in my opinion, having a rough direction and being able to check things off is essential for staying motivated.
As you can see in the image, the bar for completed bugs and tasks is quite large. But it really helped me to track everything. It was important to me that my system in Bloomies was flexible. That way, I wouldn't have to write new scripts for every new seed, every new egg, every new plant, or every new Bloomie.
I was able to achieve this in Godot using the custom resource system. If I wanted to create a new bloomie, for example, I would have to create the graphics for it, write a line of code (that would be the entry in my database), and create the resource for the bloomie. There, I can set a few things like name, evolution, etc.
And after that, the bloomie would already be integrated into the game. It works the same way for seeds, eggs, and plants. The game dynamically recognizes new things and adds them. For me, that was the main challenge in setting up this system.
Godot is the perfect engine for me. I've tried a lot of engines (Rpg Maker, GameMaker, Unity), but it wasn't until I tried Godot that it really clicked. Listing everything I like about Godot would probably be worth its own interview, so I'll keep it brief.
Godot has a so-called node system that is very easy to understand and makes it easy for programmers to structure their games. Thanks to the signal system, even beginners can quickly understand how to make objects communicate with each other.
It offers many out-of-the-box settings for 2D games. I also find GDScript super easy to understand and learn. In my opinion, Godot is the best engine for 2D games. Everyone should definitely check it out. It's also open source, which has many advantages. The Godot community is super helpful, and everyone is really nice. So if you read this, you can get Godot now!
Marketing
I didn't think beforehand about how well the game could be marketed or whether it would be a commercial success, because that's not the most important thing for me. I just want to create something that I enjoy and that brings people joy. Not something that has to make me rich. But I'm very ambitious when it comes to things like this, and I did my best to make the Steam page as professional as possible when it was released.
For example, I had the capsule art created by an artist. I also invested a lot of time in the trailer to make it as good as possible. But I was aware from the outset that my game serves a very niche market and would be difficult to market. But as I said, that doesn't bother me. I love the game, and I love working on it.
And I also know that there are people out there who will definitely enjoy it. That's the most important thing for me. There's probably one tip when it comes to marketing for every game developer out there. And that is: Check out howtomarketagame.com.
Conclusion
Most of the programming tasks have been completed. I am currently conducting closed playtests, and they are going really well. Of course, there are a few bugs here and there, but it's nothing major. So far, the feedback from the playtesters has been very good!
I have some who definitely want more bloomies, which shows me that my game strategy is working. I will soon be preparing the demo, and I now need to continue working on designing bloomies so that I can implement them.
What I definitely learned is how important it is to set yourself small tasks and tick them off. If you don't do that, you'll eventually get lost. I also learned a lot about Godot and programming. But I think that's the case with every project.
