Harvest or Explode

Hello! My name is Jeremy, and this is my first game developed using Unity. I created it with the support of the Game Development courses at Gaming Campus. A big thank you to Morgan for classes, and to all my fellow students who helped me bring this project to life. I hope you enjoy playing this game as much as I enjoyed creating it!

The goal is simple: Harvest vegetables before it explodes and get the higher score possible.

To play this game with a controller, use the following inputs:

• Left Stick: Move
• A Button: Interact / Watering
• B Button: Dig
• Y Button: Plant
• X Button: Harvest
• Start Button: Open Menu

For keyboard controls, the mappings are:

• Arrows / WASD: Move
• F: Watering
• E: Digging
• R: Gathering
• O: Plant
• Space: Interact
• Escape: Open Menu

For this game, I developed a FarmManager system that tracks all tiles with a key-value dictionary:

• The key is the tile’s position.
• The value holds boolean states indicating if the tile has been dug, seeded, and watered.

The FarmManager manages the entire garden system. Additionally, a FarmZone GameObject controls if the player is inside the garden area, preventing any digging outside the designated zone.

I used ScriptableObjects for the vegetables. Each vegetable contains data such as score, number of growth stages, time between each stage, and initial growth delay. The vegetables mature over multiple stages, with an optimal harvest time to maximize score. Harvesting too late lowers the score due to overripe vegetables.

A Singleton GameManager handles the global score, the general gameplay timer, and scene transitions based on the player’s state.

For the UI, I employed UI Toolkit and structured shared styles using USS files and VisualTree assets to keep the interface consistent and maintainable.

My codebase is modularized: separate scripts manage character animations, player actions affecting the farm, and UI logic. I also dynamically generate a vegetable selection menu from the available crops, presenting buttons for seamless switching.

Character animations are handled with the Animator component and various animation states. I used Blend Trees to combine common animation motions efficiently.

To give player feedback during gameplay, a Dialog Manager displays messages, for example when digging the wrong tile or reminding to plant seeds before watering.

For ambiance, I added a Cloud Manager that spawns clouds drifting across the screen. Cloud spawn positions are randomized between screen edges, and each cloud scrolls at a random speed, creating a natural sky effect.

I also integrated the Input System, adding bindings for both keyboard and gamepad controls. There is a minor issue in the menu where the player usually has to click first to enable gamepad input, but alternatively, the entire menu can be navigated by keyboard. To handle this smoothly, I created multiple input contexts (Player and UI) with mappings for all keys and buttons.