Elhora Davis Game Design

Design Pillars

• Items help create or preserve tempo.
• They have differing tiers of value according to the level of effort to acquire them.

The Purpose of Items

• Items will allow players to create space for Marigold.
• They are primarily resources for Poppy stay healthy as Marigold can heal to full at any time.
  • Marigold’s health is more flexible than Poppy’s, and its value is in dealing damage.
  • Poppy’s health acts as a barrier to Marigold’s.

This page’s outlines The Harvest‘s handling of items, with specific regard to equipment and progression.

Equipment

I intentionally decided there would be no traditional RPG equipment in The Harvest. With a small project as this, I didn’t think that it would be an impactful return on effort invested. With roughly an hour of playtime, I decided there would be a more palpable feeling of getting stronger by obtaining new skills.

However, equipment can add flavor and depth outside of changing attributes. After considering what a player might find motivating aside from a pure power increase, I decided to include an optional side dungeon that rewards a high value passive for Poppy to keep that discovery and reward meta journey. In a full version of The Harvest, there would be more rewards like this.

Progression

Additionally, I decided against obtaining XP in The Harvest. “Progression” in the game is expressed through skill & money acquisition.

Without Experience, skill acquisition could not be tied to level up. This gave me precise control over when and how to introduce skills, and I could tie them to gameplay mechanics. Additionally, I could thread story beats into acquisition and add emotional depth.

If The Harvest had a longer runtime – ex. in a 5-8 hour range – I would consider alternatives (ex. Skill progression through X number of uses, enabling skills to behave differently by equipping Y modifier, tying leveling up & power increases to specific beats, or perhaps even using XP and more traditional equipment!).

Items

Like-items use the same icon with the exception of the Berry to denote it as a naturally occurring item. I don’t love this presentation since I think it could be easy to accidentally use one item over another when their icons are the same. However, I think it largely does the job.

In future, depending on cost & time, I’d prefer to either:

• Give every item their own icon
  • OR
• Have an icon for each type of item (Ex. healing, TP restoration, resurrection) and use different colors on the icons to signify tiers

Dropped Loot

• Buy and large, a player wants to know what an item does and make decisions about it (Is this useful? What do I do with it? Can I use it here? Etc.).
• For sellable loot, I decided to use all the same icon & include a note on each item indicating it can be sold to make the calculus of “what is this for” easier.

Name	Source	Description	Sell Value
Bat Wing	Bat	The flexible wing of a large bat. Can be sold for money.	50
Rat Tail	Rat	A dismembered tail with surprising thickness. Can be sold for money.	50
Thin Ooze	Corrupted Body – Red	A jar of thin, red fluid. Can be sold for money.	100
Thick Ooze	Corrupted Body – Yellow	A jar of viscous fluid. Can be sold for money.	125
Forager’s Badge	Forager	A tattered insignia representing the village Foragers. You will be compensated for turning it into a merchant.	200
Broken Horn	Behemoth	The shattered horn of a large beast. Can be sold for money.	200
Intact Horn	Behemoth Prime	An intact horn owing to its owner’s tremendous vitality. Can be sold for money.	500
Royal Rat Tail	Rat Couple	A dismembered tail worn with the scratches of many battles. Can be sold for money.	500

Examples of Finding Rewards

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