All posts tagged in PC game
May 30, 2019
Planet Zoo is currently being developed by Frontier Developments. They probably need no introduction as they also are the ones behind Planet Coaster and Zoo Tycoon. The game is a management and simulation game about creating your very own zoo. The game is set to release sometime in the Fall of 2019 for PC. You can view the announcement trailer and some information about the game with us here.
Another Planet Zoo Developer Journal has been posted, where Programmer Megan Brown and Senior Designer David Bamber discuss animal behaviours. See below for the major details about their developer post and how you can better manage your zoo.
From left to right: Programmer Megan Brown and Senior Designer David Bamber Habitats and Socializing
There needs to be the correct types of terrain and environments for the animals. There also needs to be somewhere where they can take shelter if they dislike being out in certain weather conditions. Meaning, weather can impact your zoo and your animals’ welfare. For example, rain and snow will make a habitat colder which may have a positive or negative consequence on your animals. Timber Wolves especially would love a snow drift or two.
Of course we all know that keeping your animals happy is a very important part of being a good zookeeper. The animals require a habitat well suited to their needs and desires as well as ongoing care and attention. Habitats need to be spacious enough for the number of animals they contain. That might be a few, depending on the species, because some animals need to socialize more than others. Plain Zebras for that matter will get unhappy very quickly if it finds itself alone.
Shelters and Privacy
Shelters are vital because the animals need a space where they can hide when they are stressed. They can become stressed due to weather conditions or if too many guests are peering in at them. Animals need some peace and some privacy too! Some animals are shy so avoid making a path all around the enclosure. The developers suggest to put windows in the walls at strategic points or a one-way glass instead. Keep an eye on your animals’ behaviour when it seems that they are always hiding. Another example of behaviour is when they lie down in a manner that shows that they are sick.
Food Quality and Other Necessities
You’ll also need to take care of food, water, enrichment items, and the habitat cleanliness. Therefore, you’ll need to make sure you have plenty of zookeepers. Something you may find new is what the developers had to say about food: Food quality is another thing you’ll want to take into account, as it improves the nutritional welfare of your animals. You can research better quality foods for each species, but this will carry an increased cost, so it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it. Higher welfare animals have the potential to live longer, raise young more successfully, and be more appealing to guests.
Speaking of cleanliness, we felt the need to share the following quote from David, the Senior Designer: I don’t think we can talk about animal behaviour without talking about dung… it’s always a fun aspect to work on (my YouTube recommendations list is now very specific)! We’ve tried to pay special attention to the size, shape, number of ‘boli’ in a pile, and frequency compared to eating rates. We wanted to make sure this vital aspect of zookeeper work is properly represented, and some animals will need extra keepers simply to keep up with the volume of dung (I’m looking at you Elephants!). We know from our conversations with keepers that this less glamourous side of animal care is time consuming, but is absolutely vital to keeping them fit and healthy. By the way, every piece of dung is a physics object that rolls downhill!
Mating System
The mating system compared to Zoo Tycoon will be a little more detailed this time around. Specifically, who will mate with whom. In real life animals have hugely varied mating habits. This ranges from monogamy to polygamy and to seemingly no mating rules at all! This is a more realistic approach to real-life wildlife. To give some examples: with West African Lions, only the Alpha male will be allowed to mate with the females in his pride. Reticulated Giraffes however will mate with any member of the opposite sex.
You can even build habitats for pairs and juveniles, ‘bachelor’ groups of young males, or related family groups. Each species has a range of group sizes and gender mixes it is happy with. Therefore, dig into the Zoopedia to research and plan your populations. The developers go on to say: Maintaining a diverse gene pool is very important, especially if you want your population to remain healthy. Inbreeding between closely related animals will lead to reduced fertility rates and increased chances of catching nasty diseases, so to maintain a healthy group, you will need to make sure mating does not occur between related animals and may need to periodically introduce new individuals to maintain diversity.
Frontier Developments also mention the following: Another example of this is how West African Lions interact with each other as a group. If you put more than one adult male in with an adult female then those animals are going to fight for dominance, and the winner of that fight will become the Alpha of the lions in that habitat. This grants him the sole rights to mating with the females and producing offspring, so if you want specific creatures to breed you’ll need to keep this in mind.
More Annoucments
The developers have been posting different animals that they are confirming will be in the game via Twitter. Each week we get a new reveal along with #ZoopediaFacts about them. The most recent animal is this little cutie-pie below. In one of their Twitch videos, they mention that different species of animals, such as tortoises, will change depending on the island they are on.
Planet Zoo will be appearing at E3’s PC Gaming Show on June 10th, 2019 where they’ll be on stage to reveal the first gameplay trailer for Planet Zoo! We’ll finally get to see how enclosures are constructed and the movements of some animals! Stay tuned with us at myPotatoGames as we learn more about this game!
- May 28, 2019
Adventure on the high seas with a crew of fun, quirky characters!
In Critter Cove you can explore the world, trade cargo, do missions for others, decorate cabins, customize your character, collect exhibit items for the Museum, go treasure hunting, salvage shipwrecks, swim, dig up treasure, meet new NPCs and befriend them, and upgrade your ship to home more crew members.
This game is an open-world RPG set in a world of fantastical islands, crazy critters, and high sea adventures. After a massive storm you awaken on a tropical island inhabited by a cast of quirky characters who help get you back onto your feet. At the helm of a second-hand ship, crewed by your new friends, you set sail on a quest to become the greatest captain of all time.
Critter Cove is currently being developed by indie studio Gentleman Rat Studio, a team of three people. The game will initially be on the PC, however, the developers will eventually take it to as many platforms as possible including all current generation consoles. Although there is no release date as of yet, you can take a look at the official website here.
Key Features
- Discover and explore islands in an open world tropical setting.
- Trade goods between ports and help those ports grow.
- Upgrade and customize your ship.
- Recruit a unique crew of odd characters, each with their own personalities and special quests.
- Manage your crews needs to keep them happy or you just might have a mutiny on your hands.
- Master the skills that all great captains must know.
- Collect items from all over the world and donate them to the Royal Museum of Science, Nature and Stuff!
- Find treasure maps to embark on special treasure hunts.
- Make your cabin unique by decorating it with a wide variety of furnishings. Help your crew decorate theirs based on their tastes.
- Fishing, digging, swimming, resource gathering, crafting, and much, much more.
Photo Gallery
We here at myPotatoGames are so excited about this new and refreshing adventure game with the most adorable pirate crew you ever did “sea”! Similarly, if you love exploring beautiful tropical islands, check out our articles on Summer in Mara and Solo Islands Of The Heart.
- Discover and explore islands in an open world tropical setting.
- May 28, 2019
Garden Paws is a multiplayer RPG simulation game developed by indie team Bitten Toast Games. Grow plants, run your shop, tame animals, rebuild the town, go spelunking in the caves and more in this relaxing and unbearably cute game. The game was released early in 2018 on Steam here but is currently still in development. You can also play a shorter free demo here. The demo has a limited amount of quests that result in 2-4 hours of questing gameplay, but you can continue exploring the world and running your shop past that. Garden Paws will be set to officially launch in December 2019 on the Nintendo Switch and PC.
About Garden Paws
In Garden Paws you have inherited your grandparents farm as they set off to travel the world. Work with Frank at the local construction shop to finish off the final touches on your new home. Aid Frank and Mayor Wilson in building up the town so it can reach its full potential.
To build up the town you need coins, what better way to earn those then by running a shop! Explore the islands and its caves to collect everything from flowers to poop to sell in your shop. Over time and with each building built, new townsfolk sail to the island with new items for purchase and quests to complete.
Key Features
- Turn your small home and shop into a large farmland through upgrades and questing.
- Grow seeds into beautiful flowers and vegetables to sell in your shop.
- Raise and care for animals like chicks and chickens. With recent additions including calves, lambs, baby goats, baby alpaca, foals, and ducks.
- Build up the nearby town adding a Museum, Blacksmith, Inn and more!
- Overcome natural disasters with the help of the townsfolk!
- Upgrade your tools and weapons.
- Collect artifacts to sell or donate to the Museum for fame and rewards.
- Explore caves and dungeons for unique loot!
- Take a break and do some fishing!
- Invite up to 3 friends to play with you in your farm!
- Personalize your character with unique skins, accessories and more.
Photo Gallery
Recent Updates
- There’s now a horse mount and stable. You can also ride many of the larger farm animals!
- There’s an assistant! You can now hire an assistant to run your shop, for a % of the sales that is.
- More cooking has been added! You can now use the churn, the oven or the cooking station to make over 20 new recipes!
- Furniture Blueprint Merchant has been added, and can be upgraded in town through Frank.
- You can now nap for multiple hours at a time at the hammock. (Only available in Single Player.)
- New quests, new items, new skins, new collectibles.
What’s Next
- More Quests with Fast Travel
- Procedural Dungeon (optional combat)
- Creative Mode
- A HUGE new island to explore
- More Furniture Sets and Building Pieces
- Berry Bushes and Fruit Trees
- Legendary Animals
- More Animals to Tame and Raise (plus Beekeeping!)
- Bunny and Chicken Breeding
- More NPC’s and Quests
Legendary Giant Chicken Mount For more information on this game you can check out the official website here. If you love town-building and adorable animal villagers, check out our article on Rolling Hills.
- May 26, 2019
Scrap Story by @ScrapPaperDev is an adventure game where you have “to find all the fruit and become very happy!” The game has an early demo out now on itch.io with more updates on the way! An Xbox controller is highly recommended by the developer but the game will work with keyboard controls. Here is a link to the demo on PC which focuses on platforming and exploration. The creator hopes to be able to release the full version of the game sometime in 2021.
Current Developments
The next demo will feature all or most game mechanics including battles, leveling up, item collecting, more in-depth NPC interactions, more puzzles, a short spin-off story, polished platforming, and mini-games! The playthrough will be about the same length as one of the chapters from the main game and will be available this June.
Partners
In addition to the new battle system, partners can now join the team! Not only will they assist you in battle with their special skills but they will also keep you company on your journey. Sometimes you might need to use a Partner’s ability to solve certain puzzles. Also, Partners will stay with you for the entire game and often play a role in the story. When you are in the field, you can even talk to them and they will give you their thoughts on the current situation. If they are from the area, they will give you detailed information about the environment and the locals. The actual Partner characters are still a secret for now so only temporary “stand-ins” will be in the demo.
Guests
If you are friendly to the villagers, give them gifts, or help out with some task, they may give you their “Guest Card”. You can equip a Guest Card and that character will come to assist you in battle. Each Guest has their own unique ability and stats to help you out in battle. However, the villagers have a lot of personality. Meaning, some villagers might be a bit lazy and not show up to battle until a few turns in, or they could even be sleeping and not show up at all. Some may even demand money each time they show up to battle.
In other words, get to know the villagers well and find Guests that will work best for your battle strategies. Sometimes you will get a Guest Card simply from story events or Critters may drop them upon defeat. It is important to note that Guests only appear in battle, and will not follow you when traveling in the field. They have lives running a shop or a farm!
Combat and Stats
HP– Health Points, if you have ever played an RPG, this is pretty standard. When it drops to 0, the game is over.
RP – Rainbow Points. This is similar to what a lot of RPGs call Mana or Magic Points. By spending RP, you can use stronger abilities.
GP – Guard Points, At some point in the game you acquire the ability to guard. There are three major ways to Guard.
Quick Guard – By performing a timed button press (CTC) you can perform a quick guard and reduce the amount of damage you take from enemy attacks. This does not deplete GP.
Full Guard – A full guard will allow you to defend without fail for an entire turn and nullify all enemy damage, at the cost of GP. If GP drops to zero, you will no longer be able to guard for the remainder of battle, as well as taking a penalty (depending on the Guard abilities you have equipped). For example, most guard abilities will stun you for a turn if GP drops to 0. So use Full Guard wisely.
Passive Guard – Allows you to deploy a defensive mechanism in front of you and your partner, and will act as a full guard until you undeploy it or it breaks. This allows you to still make offensive options while keeping your guard up.
Other features to the battle system are: Abilities, Chance Time, Formation, Interactables and Obstacles, which you can read all about in detail with the creator’s May Devlog here. There is also an explanation on a Day/Night Cycle as well as weather conditions.
Interested in this particular art style? So are we! Read our article on Here Comes Niko for more of that much-needed dose of Paper Mario nostalgia and adorable/memorable characters.
- May 25, 2019
Medium Rare is couch co-op created by FlareWolf Games, a Canadian indie developer. Although their recent Kickstarter campaign was unsuccessful, they are very far along in development and will be able to release the game on Nintendo Switch by winter of 2019. Afterward, they intend to release the game on PC, with other major console platforms to follow. Since dragons are HOT right now, we at myPotatoGames recommend trying out their demo on PC here.
About Medium Rare
Two to four players chase each other around an arena aiming to set fire to each other. Then, once you’re cooked, you change into a tasty chicken (errr… dragon) leg! The winner is the dragon who scores the most points by eating as many chicken legs as possible! Furthermore, each round will take you only a couple of minutes, so the action is fast, easy to learn, and there are ample opportunities for both new players and experienced pros to have fun!
Game Modes
- Deathmatch mode (pick up and play with your casual and skilled gamer friends)
- Gauntlet mode (more challenging mode where you compete against your friends through an escalating gauntlet of map hazards!)
- Challenge mode… complete puzzle levels on your own or with a friend to unlock more characters!
- Speed mode… race together or on your own through deadly gauntlets relying on your wits, reflexes and fireballs to survive!
- Hoard mode… you alone or together with a friend blast fireballs at… well… skeletons and zombies, of course!
The Dragons
Vlad, Merlin, Rosa, and Mango are four dragon friends! Their playful behavior is typical for young dragons. They love to chase each other, shoot fireballs, and cook each other into chicken legs to eat! (They’re dragons, don’t judge.) At any rate, dragons are highly magical and therefore, after getting cooked, they quickly reappear in the world to rejoin the fun!
- Rosa: is a headstrong young dragon. You can literally describe her personality as “fiery!”
- Merlin: is Rosa’s big brother. He’s a friendly dragon and his very cool personality caused his skin to turn blue!
- Vlad: is the bad boy of this dragon bunch. For him, it’s fun chasing Rosa and Merlin around and showing the two younger dragons who’s in charge!
- Mango: is well… Mango. This kooky, carefree dragon joined up with Rosa, Merlin, and Vlad and very little is known about her or where she comes from… but we’re guessing she’s got a pretty interesting story that will be revealed in time.
If you can’t get enough of dragons right now like us, you can vote for your favorite one in this poll here. Want to play more party games? Mowin’ & Throwin’ will be available on Steam and also the Nintendo Switch next week!
- May 18, 2019
Pajama Llama Games is an indie game developer in Belgium currently working on Flotsam, a unique town-builder in a flooded post-apocalyptic world with a strong focus on survival. The game is releasing sometime in 2019 for PC and Mac.
You manage a floating village community as it moves around the ocean. You recycle garbage, scrap, driftwood, and flotsam to construct buildings and collect fish and drinkable water to keep your villagers alive. Moreover, food will consist of fish, seafood like mussels, lobsters or even seaweed. On your journey you will encounter dangerous sea animals, visitors with unknown intentions, and mysterious ruins and wreckage.
Key Features
- A constantly moving landscape while your town floats on the ocean currents.
- Construct and maintain a floating town.
- Give jobs, feed, and help your drifters to survive in a flooded world.
- Befriend sea creatures and defend yourself against the dangers of the open sea.
Photo Gallery
The developers are currently working on sounds for the villagers, which is a feature that just adds that much more to the charm and humor of Flotsam. See below for their latest Tweet.
Furthermore, you can wishlist the game on Steam here and check out the official website here. For another unique town-building game, you can check out our article on Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists.
- May 17, 2019
Billie Bust Up is a puzzle and 3D platforming game with two cute main characters: Billie the goat and Oscar the fox. Together you are on a mission to rediscover magic and uncover a thrilling mystery which involves your missing friends. Moreover, use both characters to explore and combine their unique skill-sets!
Billie Bust Up is created by a small indie studio called BlueprintGames and is still in early development thus there is no set release date. As fans of Yooka-Laylee, we at myPotatoGames will be keeping an eye on this one.
Key Features
- Single Player or Couch Co-operative play, we have two unique characters to pick from, play as Billie or Oscar! Both characters have their own move sets that set them apart, combine their skills to reach new heights.
- A large cast of interesting characters and levels, will you end up a prisoner of the cat pirates and their fearsome Queen? Or will you end up trapped inside a voodoo doll by an egotistical possessed puppet.
- Deep interesting backstory, layered with mystery. Just because the game is aimed at children doesn’t mean it can’t have depth, story-line and developed characters.
We also thought that everyone’s day will become that much brighter by taking a look at this adorable Tweet.
Become a Patreon here and give feedback by testing the game, view behind the scenes content, have access to exclusive merchandise and artwork, and access to their special Discord channels.
For other cooperative and fun games, check out our articles on Moving Out and Scout’s Honor.
- May 3, 2019
With a new month comes a new devlog update from Éloïse Laroche, the sole developer behind Alchemy Story, an adorable farming simulation game. If you missed our demo summary and gameplay footage of Alchemy Story last time, you can catch up with us right here. Now, let’s dive in to the new features added or changed as the developer continues to progress with the development of the game.
William Sharpleaf
A new character has been added to the game that will also need saving and help transforming back into a human. William is the town’s lumberjack. He will sell lumber, mushrooms, and better axes. The axes will help you to explore further into the forest as you need to cut down trees to find keys.
New character: William Sharpleaf Gnome Builders
Three adorable gnomes have been added as a reward for transmuting William. With their help, you’ll be able to build and upgrade different buildings around town. As of now, you’ll be able to build a hot air balloon and upgrade your barn and coop. The developer intends to later add more buildings that will be available for construction such as a market, fishing nets, and a house expansion.
Helpful, happy gnome builders Hot Air Balloon
The hot air balloon in our opinion will be a most valuable item to build as it will allow you to fast travel into the forest to previous levels you’ve already unlocked. No more having to restart at the beginning of the forest every time you enter.
Handy hot air balloon Coop & Barn Expansions
The barn and the coop both have three different sizes now. Both buildings start as small with about 3-4 spaces each and you’ll be able to upgrade them two more times. The expansions allow you to keep new types of animals or more of the same ones. It’s always great to have more animals.
More space, more animals! Feedback & Development
The creator has heard everyone’s comments and has made improvements based on the feedback she has received this past month. See below for all of the new changes!
- The groundhog is easier to find as she stays out of the ground until you talk to her and start managing your garden.
- Charlotte sends a letter to better explain how the garden works.
- After adopting your first animal, Noah will send you a letter to explain how to feed and take care of them.
- The main interface will notify you of which area you are in. I’m still working on a map, but this information will let you know quickly where you are.
- I’ve fixed collisions so it’s easier to interact with certain objects.
- The groundhog is easier to find as she stays out of the ground until you talk to her and start managing your garden.
