A lot of positive feedback!

Sweden Game Arena

We were at our first live event in Sweden – the Sweden Game Conference (25 & 26th October). It was an event for developers to share experiences, network and get feedback. There we had the incredible opportunity to show Magical Harvest, pitch the game in front of publishers and receive feedback! And the feedback was overwhelming! On top of that - we were also a nominee for the indicator of the year!

Some facts and reviews from the event

• The most created species was the Drakys-Species (no one played a human or an elf)

• Valariel is more popular than Azriel (which surprised us)

• Magical Harvest was mostly compared to Stardew Valley, but MH feels more rewarding - especially in terms of farming (*happy *)

• Using magic is very, very satisfying

• The Unreal Engine 5 looks awesome and the switch from Unity to UE5 was worth it

• The cross breeding is a very hooking feature

• The Nomlings melt hearts! * Nom nom nom * We’ve been asked for plushies of them and more merchandise

Many people were interested, we made new contacts and are ready to continue to the next phase of development.

Unreal Engine 5 And based on this follows a deeper insight into the UE5-porting. Since we’ve been asked a lot about a demo, I’ll be focusing on that, while I re-implement the features. In the last 4 weeks I couldn’t do much programming, because the focus was on the Sweden Game Conference which meant creating a pitch, preparing flyers, roll-ups etc for the event and getting as many visuals in UE5 done as possible to have a small showcase version. First, I had to learn the basics of UE, because Unity and UE are of course not the same and I had to learn the “Unreal way” first.

Already implemented:

• The seasonal system with changing terrain and textures

• Day-night cycle

• The farm grid

• The basis for creating a farm ground, planting & harvesting crops

• The basis for removing grass, stones, and trees on the farm

• A system for switching between maps

• Basic UI-parts

• First part of inventory system

• Basic walk animation

So not much yet (because it’s mostly the basis and not fully implemented), but over the next weeks I’ll be focusing fully on UE5. The next steps include the most important basic parts:

• Implementing the Item-creator to get the hundreds of items back into the game

• Creating the “sensor” that is responsible for the multi-selection

• Inventory drag and drop system

The list of features that need to be implemented is very long, but I have to start at one point. I can’t wait to see more progress again! The switch to UE5 is also a chance, to improve everything and make the game even more user friendly. Best regards, Isa