The Lettuce Village Lowdown (Devlog) — August 2023

Welcome to The Lettuce Village Lowdown! The Lettuce Village Lowdown is the name of a newspaper run by a [i]very[/i] passionate character who you’ll meet in Garage Sale, and we’re now also adopting the name for our new series of monthly devlogs. As we hone in on wrapping our game (and settling on a release date), we want to share more of our process with everybody. Here’s what we’ve been up to during August! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43879870/ef5da8ac52673955fe34a11aabdb26ec2141a64f.jpg[/img] [h2]Adding Quests[/h2] We finally wrapped Garage Sale’s environment design in July! Since then, we’ve been focusing on filling that environment with characters and quests, which means we get to finally explore Lettuce Village the way it was intended to be explored for the first time (exciting!). Rishu, our lead programmer, has been implementing last-minute changes to the quest system to allow each quest to take on its own structure, while our writing team has been hard at work on tying loose ends together. A few of our favorite quests we’ve added so far allow Juniper to step into different roles — she can become a reporter, a baker, and even a doctor! We’ve been spending quite a lot of time adding little features to make each quest feel like it significantly impacts the town in some way, too, although we won’t spoil these details. We only have a few quests left to complete and should have these done in early September! [h2]Tinkering With Our UI[/h2] Our programming team is also getting close with quite a bit of UI work, including our settings menu, our options for saving and loading game files, and a new animated title screen. Take a look at a few of these new additions below! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43879870/5c90d67dd236c5034ba8029db0d54310c2916302.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43879870/1e27876a4ba360d14831d40a78ec21c94cfd9e08.png[/img] [h2]What’s Next?[/h2] While quests are nearly done, we still have a bit of interactivity to add to the world of Lettuce Village. Currently, you’re able to walk almost anywhere in most rooms, which is fun for now, but, unfortunately, we, uhh, kind of need collisions. We’ve also been working on hiding coins in every nook and cranny to fund Juniper’s Garage Sale day shopping extravaganza. Finally, we’ve been attaching shorter bits of dialogue to things so interacting with almost anything will bring up a bit of dialogue — everything in this town has a story! After we wrap up interactivity and the last few quests, the last big step is adding the game’s ending. We don’t want to give anything big away, but Garage Sale’s ending has quite a few variations, so it’ll require a handful of programming and writing. Other things we’re working on before we’re able to do a little beta test: - Achievements (!!!) - Music - UI and environment sound design Unfortunately, Garage Sale is a team of (mostly) students, and September brings the start of a new semester. We won’t be able to dedicate quite as much time as we have been this summer, but don’t fret! We’re still working on our little game with all the free time we can find, and we’ll update everybody on our release date in our next devlog. If you want to support us on our Garage Sale journey, please wishlist our game right here on Steam! Even if you don’t plan on buying it, every wishlist helps us out. See you in Lettuce Village soon! And please reach out to us via email (garagesalegame at gmail dot com) if you have any questions, suggestions, or just to say hi. — Amelia + the Garage Sale team! :~)