#snes mod

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Fall vibes. (Why yes, I am very proud of adding a new paint color for the house! Plus beehives. Because who doesn't love beehives?)

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Almost done with Year 1! Here's a little glimpse of the revamped Star Night Festival (where you can visit all the locations in a single night!)

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Me: Ooh, I could add a hothouse mechanic, wouldn't that be cool??

Also me to me: You're still working on getting the game functional, stay focused on that. You can always add a hothouse later on.

A couple of hours later...

...So I guess this game is getting a hothouse now. Oops.

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...and here we are in Year 2!

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I've made it to Fall Year 1 in my playtesting so here's another sneak peek ;)

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Harvest Moon: Rainbow

A new “mod” in development for Harvest Moon: SNES!

Featuring:

New crops and animals

New areas to explore

New options for player appearance and gender neutral play (no pronouns are used to describe the Farmer in dialogue)

New marriage candidates, with no gender restrictions on romance

Rival marriages, including LGBTQ pairings, and children

Spouses and children have schedules and can help out on the farm

Mining, cooking, and expanded fishing

New festivals

Other things I might think of to add?  (I’m also open to suggestions!)

Some background: Harvest Moon SNES was my very first Harvest Moon game, which I played obsessively until HM64 came out, and the rest became history.  I still have a ton of fondness for SNES, despite its shortcomings (wives completely losing their personalities after marriage, no fall crops, etc...) so I’m testing out my game-making abilities by creating a new version that basically makes it into my ideal (simple) Harvest Moon game.

Because I’m not really a modder, I’m actually rebuilding the game from the ground up (and learning about the ins and outs of game dev in the process), but it will function like a mod in being an expansion on the original game for fans to enjoy, not a totally new game.  

So far, I’ve built most of the game’s basic structure, and I’m currently working on some of the more complicated mechanics, plus creating new sprites and writing new dialogue and events.  I’ll update this blog with details about some of the things I’m changing and adding along the way, and I’ll post the “mod” itself here once it’s ready to go.

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Happy Pride from Harvest Moon Rainbow!

I hope everyone's enjoying the new edition of Harvest Moon SNES that's now out on the Switch! I'm still adding lots of fun new stuff to this mod, and I can't wait to share it whenever it's done :)

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All About Marriage!

We're officially in playtesting mode! As I mentioned before, this will probably take a while, so in the meantime I thought I'd provide a few different looks at the game mechanics for those who are curious.

Spoilers under the cut!

The original Harvest Moon SNES was pretty marriage-focused, as you might remember: sure, you COULD stay a bachelor, but you couldn't get the best ending that way. I wanted this game to be more inclusive, so you have a few different options for marriage:

Use the traditional Blue Feather to propose to one of the marriage candidates (all farmers can marry all marriage candidates, no gender restrictions). (Note that all marriage candidates have something you need to complete before they will agree to marry you, usually bulletin board requests, events, or carpenter expansions. Many of these cannot be completed until at least Spring Year 2, making marriage a later event than in the original game.) Once you get married, you can fill requests and view events that will eventually lead to the rest of the marriage candidates pairing up, too. If you don't want them to pair up, then don't fulfill their special requests on the bulletin board.

Don't propose to anyone. None of the other marriage candidates will pair up if you don't get married first.

OK, you can't marry the Harvest Goddess in this game (sorry!) but if you show her the Blue Feather, she will give you the option to never get married. If you agree, then you won't be able to get married anymore, but then you can pair off the other marriage candidates in the same way you could if you got married first.

Hopefully this will give folks some different options so you can choose what suits you best and not feel pressured into getting married or not. Next post will talk about children, if you're curious!