Natsume Inc.
Producer/Director: Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories, Harvest Moon Skytree Village, Harvest Moon: Light of Hope
Taito Corporation
Planner: Cooking Mama (iOS), Bust-A-Move / Puzzle Bobble (iOS)
Harvest Moon: Light of Hope
General Game Design
The premise for Light of Hope differs substantially from other entries in the series. What inspired the shift to beginning with a character washing up on a storm-ravaged island?
Since this project started as the title to celebrate twenty years of Harvest Moon, going back to the roots (the very first SNES version) was the basic idea I had in my mind. Also, at the same time, I wanted to include something different, which became the idea of rebuilding the island.
The task of restoring the island’s lighthouse and other buildings serves as both a story quest and elaborate tutorial. How do you hope players balance the need to find the Stone Tablets with the open-ended farming gameplay?
Like you said, restoring the island serves as a tutorial and story quest, which sounds like it is separated from the farming gameplay aspect. However, you’ll realize that restoring the island requires a good amount of not only farming but mining, fishing, and foraging, which are the basics of Harvest Moon. We aimed for this balance where all of the aspects of the gameplay are connected.
The art style for Light of Hope stands out from previous console entries in the series. Can you discuss the shift in style?
Our aim for Light of Hope was “Retro-Plus,” which is the mixture of the classic gameplay feel and a bit of the modern way of game design. This resulted in the overhead-view gameplay and mixture of 2D background/3D character graphics.
The streamlined interface removes the need to manually swap between tools. What inspired this change in design?
To be simple and user-friendly was the key in coming up with this system. Harvest Moon is a farm/life-simulation game where what the player chooses to do results in something rewarding, and I didn’t want that to be ruined by pushing the “wrong button.”
One of the brilliant aspects of Harvest Moon is that it is traditionally as complex or simple as the user wants it to be. How does the development team strike this balance? Can you provide an example of a choice that may have shifted it too far one way or the other?
It is hard to express in text, but Harvest Moon has its own game balance. What we always try to do is keep this balance and, at the same time, experiment depending on the title. One example will be like terraforming in Lost Valley and Skytree Village. For Light of Hope, because our aim was getting back to the roots, my goal was to aim for the game balance/gameplay feel of the SNES version.
The music in Light of Hope is quite catchy. What was the inspiration for the seasonal songs? What does the composer aim for when creating music for night versus day?
We’ve been working with the same composer since Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, so the music-making process was pretty smooth. The only difference with Light of Hope was all the songs that I picked as samples/references were from ’90s game music. For the nighttime music, I wanted a different version of the daytime music (slow, mellow tempo with an ambient feel) so there will be a connection between day and night.
Unlike many other games, Light of Hope extends far beyond the credits. What should players aim for once Beacon Town is rebuilt?
It is all up to the player, but what I would suggest is to get to know more about the people in Beacon Town, and eventually find that special someone. Harvest Moon is a farm/life-simulation game, and ultimately, your goal is to have a happy life!
Farming Questions
Light of Hope contains nearly two hundred crop varieties. Did development begin with a set number in mind? If not, can you describe the process of adding crop varieties to the game?
Yes, we had a set number in our minds. From there, we first came up with the types of crops, and then settled on how many kinds of mutations each crop should have.
Can you discuss the decision process that went into allowing crops to be grown out of season?
We had many people—not only our customers, but internal staff too—complaining about crops dying when the season changed, so we had to think what we should do for Light of Hope.
After a long discussion, we came to the decision of allowing crops to grow out of season, but making it difficult, where they will die easily if they’re not taken good care of (watering and fertilizing). We also tied the mutation aspect as well to motivate the player with growing crops in different seasons.
Storms play an interesting role in the game. Can you discuss how the game decides which crops get destroyed?
Storms affects all crops in your fields. However, the amount affected is random.
By the way, a small tip for the Switch/PS4 version: if you use a special type of Fertilizer, you can prevent that crop from being affected by bad weather.
How important are crop-specific Fertilizers when trying to grow mutated varieties? Are they more important than planting pattern?
If those two were to be compared, crop-specific Fertilizer does have a higher chance of mutation.
Fishing Questions
Can you describe the process of deciding which fish species to include, where to place them, and what bait they’ll eat?
In Light of Hope, the player can fish in both rivers and the ocean, so we started out by deciding what river and ocean fish to include. From there, we narrowed it down to where and how fish can be caught based on the rarity.
Being able to catch two fish at once with upgraded Fishing Rods is great. Is it possible to catch different species simultaneously?
Unfortunately, no…
Townsfolk Questions
Beacon Town has many friendly residents who are new to the series. Are any of the characters influenced by characters from the prior games?
Not particularly. However, since Harvest Moon characters have always been friendly, some players might feel some kind of connection with characters in previous games.
Townsfolk requests play a large role in the unlocking progression. What inspired this design choice? Is there any one character’s quest tree that should be focused on before the others?
The requests were made to motivate players to gain a deeper understanding of the characters. My recommendation is the Harvest God and Bastian’s quests.
Sundays are days of rest in Beacon Town, and the shops are all closed. Can you speak to the motivation for this design choice?
To make Sundays feel different from other days was the aim behind this. As you might know, Sunday has a different time schedule for characters, as well as slightly different text. Basically, just like in real life, we sometimes need a day off!