Blending action gameplay and cozy farming, upcoming nature preservation gameFloraMancer: Seeds and Spellsbrings a unique crossbreed of genres to the crowded farming game space. The seed of this strange blend of gameplay ideas is, finally, ready for players to harvest.
In the game, the last FloraMancer takes to defending the last forest by growing spells as crops using thefamiliar gameplay mechanics of farming sims, before the player takes those spells out into the forest and engages in action combat against robots seeking to reduce the last gasps of nature to nothing more than raw resources. Game Rant recently spoke withFloraMancer’s developer, Joe Sullivan, ahead of the game’s March 5 release.
Forming the Seed of an Idea
During our interview, he explained how the idea grew from an initial seedling to the finished experience that invites gamers to defend nature through cultivation. The seed that would become the game, he said, was planted by his girlfriend Chloe Dougherty.
It was actually my girlfriend’s idea. It cameheavily inspired by the gameMoonlighter, which we had just finished playing. We both really love that game and the cyclical nature of going out and fighting, then doing something peaceful, and then fighting, and then doing something peaceful. I just started straight from there.
Dougherty has been one of the core playtesters since she planted that seed in Sullivan’s mind. She likes the finished product a lot, which is a good sign as far as Sullivan is concerned–he describes her as the game’s target audience.
The other piece integral to the early budding ofFloraMancerwas Sullivan’s love of nature. A self-described “forest kid,” Sullivan believes strongly in the idea thatthe natural world must be preserved. AsFloraMancergrew, so too did his view on the importance of its message, thanks in part to the way developing the game changed his social media experience.
“I think it’s important that we don’t lose [nature] for parking lots or industry or start selling tickets to it. … The way this game has affected my social media algorithm, I see every day a new pipeline being built in Alaska and how the Amazon is currently producing carbon instead of reducing it. Yeah, I think this is the most important time to be talking about it.”
Once the idea was planted and started to sprout, Sullivan had to carefully guide its growth. For that, it took a combination of playtesting and carefully pruning broad ideas into specific systems.
How FloraMancer Grew toward Release
Dougherty’s been with the game through iteration on ideas. Sullivan said the early days were actually the biggest challenges in all of the development, as he didn’t know what the final flower would look like. Mechanical questions like how powerful certain kinds of magic would be or how reflecting enemy attacks might work were some of the hardest to settle.
On top of that, he refused to create a map for the game until the later stages of development, expecting thatthings would need to change, necessitating constant edits to any world map he created. This also posed challenges to playtesters like Dougherty, who were prone to getting lost in the world, he said.
There was a lot of chiseling. A lot of playing the game and writing down 10 small changes and then going back and doing it again. So I’d say early on that was pretty difficult, but it became easier over time … Over the past six months, it’s got a lot of polishing and quality of life features to it. it’s got a map and objectives. It’s similar to what it was six months ago, but much cleaner than it was. I shaved off all the rough edges into something I’m extremely proud of.
One of the biggest features that he had to chisel away was the crossbreeding mechanic. An idea that would encapsulate the weaving together of tone and genre thatFloraMancerrepresents, the idea of crossbreeding spells won’t be in the game at launch, and the form it takes if it gets implemented in future content will be very different from what he initially envisioned.
Initially, players could crossbreed seeds to create complex procedurally-generated spells, reminiscent of thespellcrafting abilities found inThe Elder Scrolls. But playtesting showed this was actually less fun for players than Sullivan had initially thought. He didn’t give up on the idea, though. If the game is received well enough to get additional content in the future, he still hopes to bring a simplified version of the idea to players. The chiseled-down crossbreeding system would have hand-crafted spells that would result from a predetermined list of crossbreeding options.
For Sullivan, the process of getting the game ready for the public required a lot of farmers’ input. Playtesters like Dougherty were critical throughout development and will remain so after release. And in general, that process has been a positive one.
People say a lot of extremely nice things about the gameplay loop and the art and music. It’s been great. And most of the negative feedback has been something I’ve been able to fix quickly and update that same day. So I’m very excited for the launch … If people decide to tell me their ideas and their feedback directly, I think that could be something special.
And in a move that’sincreasingly common in indie games, those playtesters and early players will guide the wayFloraMancercontinues to bloom after it releases, says Sullivan.
FloraMancer: Seeds and Spellsreleases March 5 on Steam.
