Playtest My Stardew Valley-Inspired Game!

It’s been another productive week bringing my Stardew Valley-like game to life, and I’m thrilled to announce that the first playtest version is ready! You can now explore the map and get a feel for the player movement. I’d be incredibly grateful for any feedback you can offer to help me improve the game.

Playtest 1

This Week’s Progress Report: Smoothing Out the Gameplay

This past week was all about refining the player’s interaction with the environment and making movement feel more natural.

First up, I tackled some crucial collision detection. The water and rock collision system is now fully functional, meaning our hero can no longer walk through them. This makes the world feel much more solid and believable. Along with that, I also refined the borders of these tiles to be more accurate, ensuring a smoother visual experience as the player navigates.

Next, I focused on bringing the character to life with animations. I implemented idle animations using Unity’s general animator, adding a nice touch of personality when the player is standing still. Walking animations were also a big focus. I’ve added walking animations for all four directions (up, down, right), and for the left direction, I’m simply mirroring the right-facing animation with a Y-flip. Currently, there’s a 20-second gap between animation parts, which I’m not entirely happy with for the walking animation. This is definitely something I’ll be tweaking in the future to make it feel more fluid.

Finally, I squashed an annoying bug related to object layering. Previously, the player could sometimes appear behind flowers or plants when their Y-coordinate was negative. This was due to the Y-Order script I use for situations where the player walks behind large objects like trees and houses. This bug has now been fixed, ensuring proper layering and a more visually consistent world.

You can also check my short video about how the game looks like

Conclusion

I’m really excited about this milestone and can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the playtest. Your feedback is invaluable as I continue to develop this game!

Thanks for following along with this devlog entry! I learned so much in Week 7, and I have a lot more to come. As usual, the latest game build is attached below!

Download latest version