Agriculture Express was made for Ludum Dare 52 in January 2023. This post was written August 2024.

Summary

Agriculture Express is a cosy management game, set on a train.

Design

This was the first game design I worked on to completion. The design was both overly ambitious, and fundamentally flawed! Regardless, it was a great learning experience.

The design was a mix of farming sim and idle game, inspired by Loop Hero and Stardew Valley. The player would balance planting crops, rearing animals and expanding their ‘farm’, with the fuel required to continue down the tracks to the next town.

Programming

The majority of the code was written by our lead programmer, I filled in a programming support role, which included:

Implementing triggers for all sounds in the game
Implementing the title screen

Sound

All sounds were found, mixed, tweaked and implemented by me. I voiced some dialogue in the game: ‘Fuel Up!’.

Music was written and performed by our Lead Programmer. He did a brilliant job!

3D Modelling

This was my first time modelling in Blender, so the models were extremely messy.

I modelled the following,

Mountains
Railway tracks
Fuel station

While the models were messy, they fit into the style of the game pretty well.

Challenges & Learning

Lose condition

The Lose condition was not a good design choice.

If the player ran out of money, they couldn’t buy more fuel. Which meant at the start of the game, if the player bought the wrong crop, they would immediately lose!

Win Condition

As with all idle games, the more you play, the more exponentially your score will increase. After 30 minutes, the farmer would have millions to play with. Time to retire!

Consistent Player Engagement

Once crops were planted, the player had nothing to do but wait. This wait was especially gruelling in the early game.

The design had clickable ‘events’ popping up as you look down the track, where the player would be given choices leading to bonuses. This was overly ambitious, and de-scoped!

Conclusion

An early step in game design, programming, sound and working with a team.