Crops out of Space

The player plays as a farmer Arum who tries to save his sister from illness by planting and selling crops. Within limited turns, the player makes decisions upon planting and selling cheap but ordinary crops, or expensive but evil crops that may bring negative consequences.

Different combination of decisions can trigger different endings based on the decisions made throughout the game. Players are encouraged to play through multiple times to discover new contents.

Role:
System Designer

Team size: 12

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System

The main gameplay of this game is to plant and sell crops to earn money while maintaining the character's sanity above a certain level. Based on the core gameplay, the simple economy has 3 types of resources for the players to manage: number of turns (date), money (speks), and sanity.

All the above resources have been numerically adjusted to balance the gameplay and provide reasonable outcomes.

Turns (date)

Within each turn, players can perform actions until goes to bed to end the turn. Unlimited actions can be performed as long as the other resources allow.

Players can check on Arum's sister's status, check diary, check mirror, buy seeds, plant crops, and sell crops within each turn. Once manually end the turn, turn number will increase and the crops will grow. Diary content will also unlock base on the current sanity and the amount of money owned.

Players are asked to collect certain amount of money before the 20th turn to save Arum's sister. After the 20th turn, the scene will change according to the amount of money the player has.

Farm (to plant crops)

Money (Speks)

Speks, the currency in this game, can be used for purchasing seeds and can be obtained by selling crops. Collecting a certain amount of Speks before is also the main goal of the game if the player intends to play this way.

Mentioned above, players can save Arum's sister if a certain amount of money has been saved by turn 20, else Arum's sister will be gone due to illness.

Players can earn money very fast by planting eldritch crops which cuts down lots of sanity, or can earn money slowly by planting ordinary crops which increase players' sanity. Players will manage their own game progress to find the best combination to reach their desired ending.

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Sanity

The constraining factor sanity adds more playability to the game, by increases the complexity of the economy system. When players make decision to the money making aspect, they also need to consider the sanity dimension to decide more carefully.

With sanity below a certain amount, disregarding the turn number, Arum's sister will also pass away. Players will need to compromise the money earned by selling crops to avoid losing too much sanity during the early game.