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Development Info Gamedec Dev Diary: Introducing Harvest Time

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Anshar Studios; Gamedec

Following another exclusive early reveal at PC Gamer yesterday, Anshar Studios have released the next dev diary for their upcoming cyberpunk virtual world detective RPG Gamedec. This time it's about Harvest Time, the exploitative Wild West F2P MMO which we saw in the Shacknews gameplay video back in September. Here's the dev diary and an excerpt from the accompanying press release:



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – February 7th, Katowice, Poland.

You’ve seen these games before – you wake up every day to water your crops, weed them out, fertilize them. They're pretty addictive, right? The more efficient and faster you are, the more money you make. But this can prove fatal when unhealthy competition, game addiction, and drugs or other stimulants come into play. And what if someone higher in the hierarchy is pulling the strings, exploiting gamers against their will? It's a job for you, a game detective. Leave the harsh but real Warsaw City and enter the virtual, western world of Harvest Time.


Watch Gamedec’s Harvest Time Development Diary HERE and investigate the case before it's too late.

If you like what you see, you can add the game to your Steam Wishlist. Don’t miss any updates! (https://store.steampowered.com/app/917720/Gamedec/)

Are you heading to PAX East in Boston this year? If yes, you’ll be able to meet the developers and try a hands-on demo of Gamedec. The game will be available at the Indie Games Polska (Indie Games Poland Foundation) stand, booth 24071.

Harvest Time is a free-to-play western farming game. In the Gamedecverse as much as our own, there’s a unique appeal to farming games – growing and caring for plants is magical, and a real treat for garden lovers. Gardens in the Gamedecverse exist only for the wealthiest citizens. The Wild West environment and cheerful atmosphere are what players love, or so it seems.

At first glance, Harvest Time is an idyllic game, perfect for people who want to relax after a long and industrious day. And it is – unless you approach it too seriously, or take advantage of the game’s mechanisms to make money. People react to hierarchies automatically, always trying to improve one’s position – and the game designers exploit this. You start grinding, without always knowing why. And if there’s any chance of earning real money, players will take advantage of it, too.

Now that we've been properly introduced to both of the locations seen in that September gameplay video, they'll have to show us something new next time. Perhaps that'll happen at PAX East at the end of the month.
 

Mark Richard

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Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Advertising a MMO game set within the main Gamedec game leaves codexers confused.
Quite right. This Farmville world is merely supposed to be part of Gamedec's setting. However... there's a danger the devs could end up embracing the f2p design while under the mistaken impression that a pinch of self-awareness is bold and subversive, kind of like how an RPG character will kill rats while pointing out how cliche it is to kill rats. In the video they're talking like they've reconstructed a Farmville game in its entirety and expect players to interact with it like a Farmville game, doing chores for in-game currency (what do you call the currency of a game within a game, in-game-in-game currency?).
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Advertising a MMO game set within the main Gamedec game leaves codexers confused.
Quite right. This Farmville world is merely supposed to be part of Gamedec's setting. However... there's a danger the devs could end up embracing the f2p design while under the mistaken impression that a pinch of self-awareness is bold and subversive, kind of like how an RPG character will kill rats while pointing out how cliche it is to kill rats. In the video they're talking like they've reconstructed a Farmville game in its entirety and expect players to interact with it like a Farmville game, doing chores for in-game currency (what do you call the currency of a game within a game, in-game-in-game currency?).

Let's ask Matt [Anshar Studios] about that.
 

KeighnMcDeath

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Farmville? At first, in the vid, I thought they were going to go all WESTWORLD; which would be ok. What do I see instead, dude goes to play cyber-farmville.
 

Viata

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Ok. But why is this on front page? How much have they paid you for that, infi? That is the only reason for a non crpg game to be on front page.
 

Urthor

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Hilarious minigames inside roleplaying games is part of the, yknow, roleplaying? And has a long and storied tradition?

"if it's not a blobber it's not a RPG" crowd out in full force today
 

Urthor

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Also can someone actually just release a good RPG instead of pumping out an early access Kickstarter extraordinaire that I don't want to touch until it's actually finish soon holy shit.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
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If it was a new inception game you'd keep going deeper and deeper from mini game to rpg to mini mini mini rpg etc... (wait that seems like it was done before).
 

The_Mask

Just like Yves, I chase tales.
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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
So this is like a game where you want to get ahead in an MMO that is inside the game you're already playing, by exploiting people's addiction(s) and need to feel the void in their lives.

So you're basically roleplaying as a Blizzard/Clash of Clans exec? That either has the potential to be really REALLY boring, or super-fun, in a sort-of lawful evil kind-of way... ?

I guess... ? (<- it's one of those high pitched sentences, where you're almost apologizing for your train of thought)



One thing's for sure: there's not much in terms for combat here. That alienates more than half the Codex right there. So this might be an unique/fun gimmick, but this will never fly to more than mediocre.


EDIT: Wait... they say you're a detective. So is this a who-done-it?!? What? I'm confused now.
 

jac8awol

Arbiter
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Feb 2, 2018
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408
If you weed through the bullshit, it seems that the job of a GameDick is to investigate an evil farmville/westworld game that is ruining people's lives.

Much like badly written press releases will ruin the chances of people caring about this game.
 

KeighnMcDeath

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So you're a backdoor spy on facebook trying to get to zuckerberg via peoples addictions via facebook-like games?
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
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The previous vid via the link given at least showed more of the cybercity. Even in it harvesttime seems to be shoved down your throat. Its looking more choo-choo than free world. More close ups of the nude dancers and interactivity.

SHAKEM' BABY!
 
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