DevLog 1 - Concepts & Systems

Project Details and Introduction

Flour & Fortune is the first-ever procedural baking game. The player can bake some of the most popular recipes (with available ingredients in the game) and sell them to customers in the village. The first few months of game development (January through May 2024) were spent brainstorming ideas (concepts, character designs, code systems, and user interfaces).

During August and September 2024, the concepts were refined, and some game systems were created. The main areas covered during this time include baking categorisation and recording, a real-time day-night system (based on the player’s system time), character designs and vendor information.

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Method of Recording Baked Good Data

The ‘Baked Good Item Recorder System’ records discrete elements of the goods that the player bakes. This method allows for the precise recording of over 300 trillion baked good variations for long-term recording from play to play.

1. Baking Super Class (e.g. White Bread, Gingerbread)
2. Baking Sub Class (e.g. Tin Bread / Baguette, Person-shaped / Star / Circle)
3. Product Quality (with six ratings)
4. The 2 Ingredients that are Least like the Recipe (e.g. too much flour, too little sugar)
5. The Number of Baked Goods in the Batch
6. How Well the Item has been Cooked (with eleven ratings from raw to burnt)
7. Height and Width Multipliers (with eleven ratings from half size to double size)
8. The four added ingredients (i.e. not those in the recipe) that are most prominent

Figure 1: Baked Good Item Recorder System

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Day-Night Cycle

Each of the 24 characters comes into the bakery at different times of the day (e.g. Vigore visits the bakery between Night, Twilight, Afternoon, and Day). There are 5 times of the day in-game. The times of sunset and sunrise are dependent on the time of the year (i.e., later sunrise and earlier sunset during December)

1. Twilight (00:00 -> sunrise)
2. Morning (sunrise -> 12:00)
3. Afternoon (12:00 -> halfway until sunset)
4. Day (halfway until sunset -> sunset)
5. Night (sunset -> 23:59)

Figure 2: Sunset and Sunrise times for each of the 12 months

Figure 3: Sunset and Sunrise times are divided between the days each month to achieve gradual darkening and brightening throughout the year.

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Character Creation

Each of the 24 characters has unique attributes - including favourite recipes, ingredients they enjoy eating, how much they can spend (and buy from the player), and more.

Example Character Information:

Vigore (Jester & Bell Hitter | Monkey)                            

• Twilight, Afternoon, Day, Night
•  Favourite Ingredient: Banana
•  Favourite Recipe: Croissant
•  Gold per Shop Visit: 15 - 55 

Notable Character Info:

• Hobby: Cheats at Card Games (with Cyneburg, Fridumar, and Zwentibold)
• Friends: Quintius and Jette
• Enemies: N/A
• Aesthetic: Has a sock-puppet on his right arm, wears a belt like a sash with his name engraved on it, a red three-point hat (with bells), and a red pointed-webbed collar

Figure 4: Character Design Sheet: Vigore

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Vendor Information

The player can buy ingredients from the market daily - these items will be partly randomised and dependent on the player’s system date. 

Figure 5: Detailed Documentation of One of Five Designed In-Game Vendors

That’s all for now! The next devlog is coming on 10th November 2024.

- Stephen Rockett